Tag Archives: pictures

How to Capture Amazing Light in Kauai

www.bartnikowski.com

www.bartnikowski.com

You have to get up early in the morning to get incredible light. There is a mystical quality before the sun rises into the sky. The magic happens before the sun shows up so that means you have to be there before too. Yes you can wait for sunset - but the quality of the light is different at that time and you may prefer it. Or you may prefer to have a cocktail in your hand which I often don’t because I’m usually photographing and since I started traveling I’m high on life. No shit sherlock. Traveling all the time is the best thing I’ve ever done besides having a fully formed human being and great spirit born from my own body. That’s the only thing that aces it. But back to light. There is a tiny amount of time when the morning light is sparkly and stunning. It’s elusive so you have to be fast. There are a few minutes or 30 seconds when everything goes pink and you can get it if you’re there and ready to shoot. www.bartnikowski.com Showing up before the magic happens is one of the secrets of my success with photography. www.bartnikowski.com Set your camera on manual and try this ISO – 400 Aperture 13 – 29 depending on how much light you have on hand Shutter 60 to 125, don’t drop your camera in all the excitement. Tell me how it goes with your own shooting. Don’t forget to check out my new photo course Amazing Photography Secrets here with a 50% discount on a very cool and easy platform. If you have questions, you have immediate access to me while taking the course. It’s a one-hour course with all my secrets from the last 27 years of pro-shooting. Check it out now. Use the code secretsofphotography to get the 50% discount.

Magical Timing, How to Get it in Your Photography

www.bartnikowski.com

www.bartnikowski.comIncredible portraits are caught like a 20 meter pass in football.  Yes you gotta be Fast!

 

Myth: the high-end camera gets the shots for you.

No this is not true. It is your ability to flow in the ethers of magical timing. That’s how you capture a split second of divine timing. And you can do it with a point and shoot if you have the flash turned off.

But it takes practice. And in this speedy world, people want it to happen yesterday.

Magical timing takes years to develop. Maybe it will take you less time.

It takes 10,000 hours to be an expert at anything. I’ve put my time in.

 And it’s a spiritual quest.

It requires:

Forgetting about yourself, problems, and issues.

Letting your thoughts float away.

You are in the moment so fiercely that there is nothing else. Stay there.

Connect with the exquisite person. Baby or elephant. Nothing else exists but you and the dragonfly. Then.

There is joy and also a raw tenderness that is so fragile it’s like a droplet of water trembling on a wet flower petal after a rainstorm – it’s just about to drop and you must catch it falling in the air.

It’s an exquisite slice of a second – this is what we are after.

Feel the being of this spirit in front of you. Let them tell you things that words can’t describe. It’s all in the vibrations of that person/rhino/or tiny tot. Let them speak to you.

This all happens in about 2 seconds sometimes less.

 It isn’t seize the moment – it’s seize the split second!

So you wait patiently, and then pounce.

You forget who you are, your name, and phone number.

You just are.

See what this does for you picture taking – you will be amazed and astonished how this changes things for you.

Write and tell me.

The above photo was caught in Peru on a windy mountaintop not far from Machu Picchu. I bought a water bottle carrier from her and then gestured to my film camera, her eyes said yes so I went to work.

Boom! Fast, Now, and In the Moment.

It has all the elements of magical timing: connect, shoot, be like the wind, FAST.