To paraphrase the wise words of our friends James, Leanne & Ron “Gear is just gear”. Which is true. Except you have to have it, in one form or another, and the really important part is you have to know how to use it. There be the rub when (a) you’re a bit of a hack and (b) you have to kit out with new gear and must hit the ground running.

Of course my focus with gear is the techie stuff, bing a recovering egghead and all. Jessica has a better list of all the bits in her post What to pack for five months in the field. In the days leading up to our departure we secured an 11″ MacBook Air so we didn’t have to lug our capable but brick-like MB Pros around the country, a Nikon D7000 with a new faster 35mm lens and our existing slow 18-200mm lens (the new body to allow us to take video and the new lens to take clear low-light photos) and Jessica marked her entry into a full-fledged and full-time freelance radio journalist by procuring a Marantz PMD661 to be able to capture professional-quality audio.

The original plan was to have and test all the gear before leaving Vancouver to be sure that we had the right equipment, and we were able to use it. Once it became obvious that that wasn’t going to happen, the next plan was to test it out in Seattle for the day and in New Orleans. Strike two. Other than a few shots around town, some photos and a bit of captured audio at the Mirliton festival, we didn’t have a chance to get up close and personal with our gear. So trial by fire it is then.

As we arrived in Haiti, I realized one of my biggest issues has nothing to do with the gear itself – I had to get over my natural inclination to take everything in through my eyes and ears rather than through a camera lens. As I mentioned in my last post, I completely missed our soaring entrance to PaP – we had beautiful views in soft sunset lighting, and not a single shot or video. One of the other non-technology issue I have, and one I’m not sure I’ll be able to get over, is my sense of personal privacy – I’m seriously uncomfortable taking photos of people without their permission. So far, I would starve to death if I had to make a living this way – you can’t sell what you don’t take.

The day after our arrival, our fixer Emmanuel of Haiti Fixers started showing us the ropes of PaP, as well as easing us into some of the stories he and Jessica had previously done research on. Still not being comfortable with the camera, never having done work of this sort before, and grappling with my tendencies above, I launched into my best efforts to capture images to go along with the stories. After about a half dozen interviews and stories, I’m (very) slowing getting the hang of it — I by no means am becoming proficient, but I think I’m finally starting to at least understand some of my many deficiencies. Some random observations in no particular order (list format stolen borrowed from Jessica & Amy):

0) To try to compensate with my lack of experience, and in an attempt to ensure I capture at least a few decent shots, I started taking a large number of photos, fine tuning exposure, framing and F-stop between shots. This has saved me a few times; even though I thought I had the shot I wanted, something had gone wrong. Probably not the best strategy, but until I become more experienced it seems to be a reasonable crutch.

1) Grappling with how to take photos of people with dark complexions with bright/white clothing or surroundings without under-exposing the person or over-exposing the surroundings – so far the most effective way I’ve found to do this is to use the flash for fill light, but that has some serious distance limitations in that it only works within the flash range, which isn’t very far. The other method for static subjects is the camera’s bracketing functionality and post process them to create an HDR photo, or just doing a straight post process on a single image, however I feel like the key to being efficient is to keep the post-processing down.

2) The camera isn’t an extensions of my arm yet… I need to get much faster at operating the camera efficiently to be able to capture more on-the-fly images. For posed photos, it is rather uncomfortable for everyone if it takes too long to setup the shot, which creates an awkward feeling both in front of and behind the picture, which shows in the photo.

3) If I’d had to money, I think I would have invested in a faster zoom lens – the tradeoff now in low light is either image quality with the 35mm or flexibility in framing the shot with the zoom. The good news is that the D7000 seems to have much less colour noise in low light conditions than the other Nikons I have used in the past.

4) When shooting video, the camera has to be in “Live View” mode which means the camera mirror is lifted, and the image is only visible through the LCD screen, not the viewfinder. It is pretty much impossible to determine if the subject is in focus that way. So far the two ways I’ve found around that are: (1) if the subject is stationary, setup the frame and focus before putting it into Live View mode, then start recording. The downside to this is it takes several seconds to enter that mode, which can be critical moments lost when trying to capture the scene; (2) Put the camera into Auto Focus (AF) mode, and partially press the shutter release button to focus on the subject. I need to become faster at changing the AF mode to ensure that I’m able to quickly and accurately focus on the subject I want when there are several around.

5) Digital cameras are great for breaking the tension/mistrust when shooting. When in Luly, the people were apprehensive and therefore reluctant to have their photos taken. By being able to show them the photo taken on the spot, the feeling changed immediately into a relaxed and excited mood, with more and more people wanting to have their photo taken.

6) For children, #5 is also true, only emotions and air of excitement are 100-fold.

7) Most people are tired of foreigners coming in, using them as subjects, profiting from it, and giving nothing back (which should be no big surprise). The Luly fishing village is a good example – the original mistrust was due to a number of german photographers coming in, taking their photos,  making a bunch of cash by publishing a book, and returning nothing to the community. My plan for the Luly trip is to have several shots printed and taken back to the community so they have an artifact of the trip as well. This type of thing can be done in many other ways as well, be it sharing of knowledge time or resources.

8) Port-au-Prince is an incredibly dusty place. I have no idea how to change the lens without getting a pile of dust into the camera body.

9) Disposition and attempts to learn the language go a long way. A smile and “Bon jou” go a long way to making friends.

10) It is incredibly difficult to (or more likely, I just suck at it) get a decent shot while ripping around town in the back seat of a car, dodging potholes, cars and pedestrians.

OK – enough with the words. Here’s a selection of the initial photography attempts.