Advertisement
Advertisement
Read Next
Photo Of The Day By Linn Smith
Today’s Photo Of The Day is...Photo Of The Day By Robert Henderson
Today’s Photo Of The Day is...Photo Of The Day By Jody Partin
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Lolo...Photo Of The Day By David Shield
Today’s Photo Of The Day is “Black...Advertisement
Featured Articles
Read More
Visualize, Plan, Shoot!
How to use maps and apps to plan the images you imagine.
Read More
How To Plan A Milky Way Photo Shoot
Tips for choosing locations, timing and creative approaches to photographing the Milky Way above the landscape for incredible nighttime photos.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
Surf Photography: Catching The Wave
How to capture epic surf photography on land and in the water.
Read More
Pumas Of Patagonia
Private lands adjacent to Torres del Paine National Park in Chile, now opening to photographers, provide an unparalleled opportunity for observing wild puma behavior.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
Read More
Lenses For Wildlife Photography
When it comes to selecting lenses for wildlife photography, the first thing most photographers look for is focal length—a long lens that can reach out and cover great distances, bringing animals in for close-ups—but other features are also incredibly useful.
Read More
Look And See
In our rush to capture fleeting light and moments, it’s easy to just look, compose and shoot. “Seeing” requires that we slow down and shift into a different headspace.
To access this content, you must purchase Outdoor Photographer Membership.
The Art of the Self-Timer Photo
Self Portraits – Images by Jerry and Marcy Monkman
During the last decade or so of shooting projects for conservation groups in New England, I have changed from shooting primarily landscape photography to shooting a healthy mix of both nature and adventure images. The adventure images go a long way in connecting viewers of my photos to a place, and I feel that they are an integral part of any conservation photo project that I now take on. Due to scheduling difficulties and small budgets, I regularly end up shooting in places alone, which means there are no “models” available, so I often resort to the self-timer shot when I want to include a human element in my photos. The above slideshow features 12 such “self portraits.” I used to be reluctant to make these self-timer shots because they often looked contrived to me, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it – all of the photos in the slideshow have been published at some point in the last few years.
My Canon 5D Mark II, attached to a tree limb with a Manfrotto super clamp.
I greatly increased my chances at succeeding at these kind of images by purchasing an intervalometer for my Canon cameras. This is just a fancy cable release (officially called the TC-80N3 Timer Remote Controller) that lets me set up the camera to fire off a defined or unlimited number of images at a regular interval (you can choose any interval in hours, minutes, or seconds.) It also lets you set a self-timer delay of as long as you want, which is very helpful for certain shots that can take some time to get set up (like getting in a kayak.) All I do, is set up the camera on a tripod, pre-focus, set my exposure settings, and let it rip. I then hike, bike, paddle, or whatever in front of the camera and hope at least one of the shots looks half-way natural. I end up with a lot of silly shots, but I usually get a few that I can use and it’s much easier than just using the one-off self-timer feature on the camera. If it’s not practical to carry a tripod (I don’t carry one when mountain biking) I’ll bring along a Manfrotto super clamp with a small ball head, and attach it to whatever is handy, like the tree branch in the above shot.
Mountain Biking over a bridge in Vermont. My camera was attached to the bridge using a Manfrotto super clamp, and I used Canon's TC-80NC3 remote controller to fire off one shot per second as I rode across the bridge.
Self-timer shot of me mountain biking on a Vermont trail. The camera was resting on a pile of sticks.
The above biking images are a couple of self-timer shots I made this week on a shoot for the Trust for Public Land in northern Vermont. I had volunteer models lined up for some paddling shots later in the day, but I wanted to also include some mountain biking photos in the project. Since I was the only one around, I had to be the photographer and the model, and I wouldn’t have been able to make these without that remote controller.