Why Photographing Hats Can Improve Your Street People Photography

This wasn’t something that I consciously knew, maybe deep down we all tend to know these types of things, but something I discovered while undertaking a new photography project in San Miguel de Allende.

There are many, many ideas to photograph in San Miguel. Doors are a very common theme, I did one last year and one I am continuing this year. I was looking for something different and with the almost constant blue skies and bright sun, even stronger at 6,800 feet, most people if not all the gringos wear hats.

Everyday I walk around photographing almost anything and everything. Great fun and focusing on Hats gave me a new challenge.

I am reserved when it comes to photographing people out and about on the street. I feel reluctant to invade their privacy but deep down I love how people relate and engage the city streets. Here in Mexico, being such a tourist destination, the locals are even more wary of being photographed and many times hide there face or just look away. If a person is not comfortable with their photo being taken I won't take it.

A different type of sun covering

When I photographed street people I tended to hesitate too long (should I or not) with taking the shot and the impromptu moment was lost as they tended to now be aware of the camera.

This man is not praying but doing close-up photography of the cactus

I found out after the fact that when I was just focusing on people's hats I tended to think less of the person and more on the object of the hat. This allowed me to be quicker with the decision to shoot and also it allowed me to shoot more often.

Who wouldn't love this big Mexican hat

Because I was focusing on an object it even allowed me to approach people and ask then if I could photograph them with their hat as this was a project of mine. I think people felt more comfortable in letting me photograph them because I wasn't really just photographing them. It was an inanimate object and somehow that was OK.

A hatted man with lots of hats

I suggest you give yourself a try at this project and see if you don't now photograph more people.

Niels Henriksen

A Very Social Christmas and A Happy Connected New Year

I want to wish everyone, whether you celebrate Christmas or other seasonal festivities, a very happy holiday season and a great new year with many new opportunities for creative growth.

From the title you may guess that I am talking about social media, which I am, but more about how I try to fit within that world.

Taken in 1955 in Denmark at 4 years old and trying to be a grown-up

I believe that, like many people, I seem to have those social connections that you need to link with other people. This works fine if I need to talk or connect with someone but I’m not sure how my articles about photography and other art works all fit within the new worlds of social media. How do I remain fresh and new with all these social outlets competing for the same information.

I have My Camera World Blog this and there is a corresponding Facebook page

FaceBook My Camera World

There is also my art blog ' Niels Henriksen Artworks ' where I post articles about my artwork, whether a painting, fine art photography or other mediums. This is again is matched on Facebook with Facebook - Niels Henriksen Artworks 

Who says all self portraits have to be ugly. Well maybe they are.

There is also just plain old me on Facebook at Niels Henriksen. This Facebook page was initially just to connect with people I talk to regularly but I find I do post mostly about my photography and paintings.

I have also loaded some of my photographs on Niels Henriksen on Flickr

Please take the time to connect and I'll connect back so I can see some of your photographs.

My first studio work where I placed my model battle ships and tried to created a war scene. DOF and focus what's that.

Then there’s my Linkedin page which is only visible if you are on linkedin and we have connected.

Since we are heading back to San Miguel de Allende for 3 months in Jan I have contacted people about conducting walkabouts with some basic photography lessons included. More than 20 people have shown an interest. To help co-ordinate these walk-abouts and share photos I created a Facebook page ' San Miguel de Allende Photography Club '.

Even at 12 years of age I had penchant for the abstract. Honestly this was not an accidental shot, at least that's what I say now.

And just lately I've signed on to Goolge+ but as yet haven’t posted anything and that’s the dilemma. How do I remain somewhat fresh across all the media outlets? I just don't want to re-post the same material available on other sites. I don't mind using some of the same images if there is some contextual difference for the audience.

This year I want to get a better handle on the whole social media culture and ensure that on each site there is something new and relevant to the reader.

I sure would like to here how you are handling your multiple media streams with your content or any ideas about what would work.

Please feel free to connect with me on any or all these social sites as I'm happiest when I'm connected with you.

Niels Henriksen

Are All Photographs Works of Art?

The images in this article are from the Ottawa 2009 Lumiere festival which I will be describing in the next article, as I will have too many images to show, I will therefore focus in this article on the some of people who help make this festival such a joyous event.

On first reflection I was going to say “yes”. It seemed easy to state with how I thought about art. Art being that ‘thing’ when something unique is created by any person. You will note that in the title there is no adjective describing whether the work of art is either good or bad. Value is different as those who would prescribe a monetary amount in order to preserve the artefact define this.


It seemed to apply to photography since it requires a person to make a conscious decision to capture a moment in time from a unique perspective. The person may not know it at the time of taking the image that they were even creating a piece of art. But I believe that even then there was some creative process that urged or guided the person to decide that the image now composed in the viewfinder is the ‘one’. The original intention, either as a memory aid or used with others to help tell a story or convey emotions about a specific place and time, is not important.


Some of you might debate there should be more than just the snapping of a photo to create works of art. I don’t think that’s the case. I know my own biases creep in from time to time and I think that there needs to be an artist, a person driven to create, to show the world a new way of looking.

We call cave paintings works of art and I think that at the time these were meant more as sign posts to show events of locations for food. But these people did create a unique way of looking at the life that unfolded from their daily lives. I wonder what the others thought when gazing at these paintings, as there were so few around. I think almost mystical.


When I started to think about some photographs that had no human intervention, I wondered whether this type of image would also be applicable. In our society there are many forms of surveillance and these, as a unique image or sequence (movie), are not in my opinion, works of art. It doesn’t mean that some person later may not go through a large database of images and from that set create a perspective that is somehow unique.


I think even photographers who, without looking at their viewfinders and walk through a market and snap images from their hips, as still creating works of art. Now some may be poorly framed, wrong focus and ill-defined subjects. But somehow a person is trying to capture fleeting events and in that process creates works of art. The process can become part of the how the work of art is defined.

It will be up to others to really define a value. You can set a price, but the real value is defined by individuals who collectively determine its worth.


So even if you decide to set up a camera at a spot to take images randomly or on intervals while you are not around, I still think these are works of art. Will I buy one? I don’t know but you never know, as one image might just impress enough that I feel a need to have it.

So in summary, I now think that not all photographs are works of art. There are times when the capture of the image is for the most part only being captured mechanically and the human touch, however light, is just not present. Now if a person were to sift through all the pile of images and select some for the telling of a story, then at that point those images would form a part of works of art.


Niels Henriksen

Need a Live Model – Use Yourself

Special Note to Readers:
A thousand plus thanks to all the subscribers and any other reader of this photography blog. The other day Feedburner showed a max count of 1,004 subscribers at least for one day. As I mentioned previously I will be giving away 2 signed prints by random selection. This will happen during the month of September as I am waiting until then to ensure that all readers have a chance incase they are on holidays.


I have never used a live model. Even when our camera club provides sessions with models and studio lighting, I still don’t venture in that direction. I am not sure why but I can only guess that since I don’t do any commercial or for-hire work then there is not a real need for this type of staged event. It’s not that I mind studio work as I have setup flower shots, etc, but these are for artistic value and not stock photography. Maybe if I had an artistic idea that used people then I definitely would pursue it.

This was the case for some staged model shots and not wanting to bother using a friend or hiring someone, I decided to use myself in a setting. I hope its not like the lawyer thing were you have a fool for a client.

The outcome was not to have a great shot of myself but to have a reference image that I could use for oil paint as part of my learning process. I seem to be somewhat ok with landscapes but scenes with people really needs improvement.

The Process

I placed my camera on a tripod and pre-focused on the leading edge of the bottom edge of bench (to match plane of eyes) and then switched off autofocus. I set the aperture at f 10.0 for extra insurance for clear depth of focus and positioned the bench in the field of view for artistic merit.

The camera was then set (interval mode) to automatically take 10 images with duration of 10 sec between each shot. Then walk or run to the bench and pretend to look cool or some other silly pose.



What I learned

For static poses in a city type environment, a set of 10 with 10 sec between shots seems about right as random things do happen around you as the above image shows. Sometimes for the good but most times not that interesting.

If it were a dynamic scene, such as shooting hoops or jumping around, then I might try durations from 0.3 to 1 sec and a sequence of 30-40 images per session. Thank goodness for digital camera since development cost is only click and view.

Towards the end of this play time I noticed that the white pages of the book were reflecting brightly when angled a certain way and I used this to light the shadows of the face as in the first image.

Notice the comparison change in luminosity of red shirt and face by using book reflection in images below.

There is no reason that you could not also use a real reflector mounted on a stand for better light control.


The next few image shows a bunch of out-takes showing me running to bench, other people in scene, adjusting my hat and cars behind and a runner which works better in the second image in this article.


The image below is the early morning view from the bench looking across the Ottawa River. A nice spot even without a camera to just sit and think.


So if you are a novice like me with using live models then this method might work to get you some familiarity with posing, lighting and other techniques. Give it a try and share your experiences with the rest of us.

A few more images from around the bench with and without people.









Niels Henriksen

Creativity Article and Candid Portraits

This week I came across a good article on the topic of creativity. This is something I try to write on and then only in specific areas. As far as I know there are no perfect formulae that all of a sudden will make you creative.

Being creative is mainly about doing. Doing things that help the creative ideas flow and at the same time reduce the interruptions or burdens of everyday life that wants you to be robotic. There are many people whose daily job it is to be creative and even these people I know have to practice at making the creative juices flow.

This linked article may seem a bit long at 49 pages, but I found the writing style enjoyable and with the added bonus of his comical drawings on the back of business cards, it increases the extra entertainment factor. There are many good ideas contained within and where there is a slant towards the advertising industry, it is relevant to photographers and other artists. I would encourage you to read it and pass it along to any others that you think might enjoy it.


Update: I inadvertently included the wrong blog as the source for the link. The article was from Pixelatedimage blog as the link can be found here and Chris Brogan is still a good read.

Chris Brogan’s blog is one of my regular reads. His blog deals with social media and community mainly at the corporate level but it is easy to extract material for our business and personal levels. I think it is important that being a photographer or any artist, that we explore more about business, people and customers.

The article I had originally planned was to deal with shooting completely black objects so now I have an article ready for next week. Feels good to be ahead.

I love this photo on many levels. First and foremost the expression of sheer wonder is what grabs you. If you take the time for a closer look you will see that red is the dominant colour, The red glasses, red chair and the pink bathing straps as well as the dark red in the background all help to re-enforce colour dominance. This is complimented with the green hat and also with its analogous colour of cyan in some of the background and with the reflection of water in her face and the lettering on the lens strap.


To many of my regular readers you are probably aware that most of my images are either landscape or inanimate objects and people rarely are the primary focus. This week I decided to show some of my pure people images.

In this image the colours on the shirt are balanced out with same colours in the background. In this shot I had the lions head on the background wall line up with the boys’ own wild main.

I had noticed the boy and his parents early in one of the rings around the street performers and when they started to leave I asked him and his parents if I might take a few shots. They were pleased by my offer.

A street party or event and this case both since it was a Buskers festival becomes a photo-rick area for getting lots of people in interesting images

The main focal point of this image is clearly the interaction between the 2 women obviously enjoying a good laugh. I removed the lower portion of the dining table as its clutter only detracted from the focal point. I also converted to B&W, as I did not want any background colours to lend the eye away. B&W does a good job of removing extraneous detail and clutter, especially when they are colorful



There are strong focal points for eye movement from first the eyes and then mouth, finger over to flower and then up to highlight on the top of head. I decided to leave in the tiny highlight on top of his head to ensure that you take in his whole portrait and take away from those intense eyes.

When I gave him my images of the evening’s event, both he and his wife enjoyed my images more than the professional wedding photographer.

While there is a pleasing smile, I really enjoy the brown tones.



Addiction Hint:

You know when you’re either addicted to photography or seriously challenged when you take photos of your own wedding. This was the case for me. During the actual ceremony I handed my camera to my son, but I took the before & after ceremony shots plus some group shots. This was an outdoor civil ceremony in the gardens and a fine hotel that night.



Niels Henriksen