Photo Breakdown #10 with Dave Wilson

Dave Wilson, who hails from Scotland but has now lived in Texas longer than the UK (despite what you may think from his accent), has been an avid photographer since his early teens. While he’ll point a camera at just about anything, his favorite subjects are landscapes, architecture, rodeo, and sport although portraiture is beginning to play a larger role in his photographic life these days. He writes software for a living but enjoys occasional photography commissions, shooting for the local newspapers, and licensing stock images to magazines. He is lucky enough to be credentialed photographer at Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin where he takes pictures of the University of Texas Longhorn Band while football goes on in the background.

In this episode, Dave shares the story and inspiration behind a stunning HDR Panorama of the Taipei Skyline.

• Find Dave at davewilsonphotography.com
• See the photo from this episode here.

Transcription was done by Descript or Rev’s automated transcription services which means it’s an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain spelling, grammar, and other errors, and is not a substitute for listening to the episode.

Dave Wilson: My name is Dave Wilson, and this is the photo breakdown.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Photo breakdown is a podcast where I talk with the photographer, sharing the story of a specific photograph technique or business. When I’m your host, Scott Wyden Kivowitz and this is the photo breakdown. Let’s break it down. Hello, my name is Scott wine.

Kivowitz your host of photo breakdown. And today I’m sitting down with, well, I’m going to say. Scott from another place, a different type of Scott. How should we, how should we call this? Well, so I’m talking to my friend, Dave Wilson. Who’s, doesn’t have the word, the name Scott in his name, but he is originally from Scotland.

So.

Dave Wilson: Interesting enough this year as a year, I’ve lived in the us longer than Scotland. So you could argue that I’m no more American than Scottish, but Hey,

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that is really cool. That is really cool. And man, I’ve, I’ve known you for a long time at this point for a long time.

Right, right. Just pretty close. So today we’re going to be talking about a really fun photo that not only took you a lot of work in camera, but definitely took you a lot of work in the editing process. So I’m really excited to dive into this. But before we do, I got two questions for you. Okay.

The first. If you could remove all physical, mental, and financial barriers and constraints, what project would you do in photography? Gosh, I like

Dave Wilson: easy ones. The one that comes to the top of my mind right now is to go to Antarctica and south Georgia. They are right at the top of my bucket list and it’s definitely a financial constraint.

Actually. It’s a time constraint as well at this, a minimum three week trip. I think that would be high on my list. If it’s something closer to home, I would like to do a whole lot more shooting of a small Turner. Audio is in Texas. I totally enjoy that. So one cheap one, one expensive one. How does that sound?

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Sounds good. Sounds good. So next question, who has been the biggest influence in your life?

Dave Wilson: In my life for my photographic

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: life, you can answer it

Dave Wilson: however you’d like. Let’s take a photography cause that’s easier. Lots of influences my wife and I wouldn’t want to pick him. He’s probably still alive. Biggest photographic influence, even that’s tricky.

Mind you. I’m a big fan. This is cliched. I know of ancillary items. I love black and white landscape work on his is obviously the tip of the crop. Another person I actually who’s still alive and who I wanted to meet someday has told me now. His books and we went to clicks was an enormously important book to me.

I learned so much from it and I would like to buy, enjoy a beer or something. You hear that

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Joe, I’ve got to make sure that he

Dave Wilson: hears this. I thought that in a workshop with him last year and he seemed to be every bit as nice in the workshop as he seems to be in his books and his online presence. So yeah.

Now I think awesome. I’m also extraordinarily jealous of his fabulous environmental portraiture. It’s just.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Yep. Yep. Plus, plus you and I are both Nikon Nikon nerd, so,

Dave Wilson: oh, you switched. I switched two years ago. I didn’t realize that, sorry, this is an icon picture tonight, but I switched to Olympus two years ago because my nightclub was just too heavy for my old bones to handle anymore.

Cutting. A couple of Nikon bodies and long telephoto was running. The racetrack for a day was killing me.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I remembered that you, I remember you were. Trying to Olympus at a rodeo. And that, I guess that was about two years ago. You probably got hooked. Yeah.

Dave Wilson: Yeah. I’ve switched it. I should still get some Nikon gear for sale here, but I know the M one mark, two person feeling has bodies in there and I love them and I keep being amazed at how good the image quality is.

I keep thinking I’ll be disappointed. I never am, except in super low light situations, but the quality of the pictures I’m getting out of these cameras is great.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. And, and you know what the photo that we’re gonna be looking at today Even if you were using a micro four thirds sensor the w the technique that you used. Yeah. Before we dive in this episode is sponsored by my lead generation course for photographers called more leads more clients. Yes.

If you would like to increase the leads you’re generating on your photography site, you can use the strategies I teach in my course. Access it at Scott widen.com/leads. Let’s break down the photo. Okay. Before you explain the photo first where was this photo?

Dave Wilson: Right. So this photograph was taken in Taipei and Taiwan specifically from a location called elephant mountain, which is a fairly well.

Tutus viewpoint of saying, I guess in the city, back in 2013 when I was shooting with a D 700 do you want me to give you some more background it or should I

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: leave? So, so let’s talk first. Let’s, let’s explain what we’re looking at here. We’re looking at a a beautiful land cityscape rather. I was going to say landscape, but cityscape and a lot of buildings that are obviously tall, but then one super tall building.

Almost smack in the middle, a little off center, which is great with beautiful colors all around and tones that go from bright to dark because those, the trees in the bottom dark. But you then you’ve got the bright lights in the, from the buildings and you’ve got this beautiful sky. The colors are gorgeous.

And so. I’m looking at the flicker one. Cause you’ve got on your website. You have no flicker. Yeah, the flicker one looks, it’s just, you make this thing, this sucker full, full screen and it just like pops. It pops off the screen. So, so yeah, let’s talk about first, how would you get there? Like what, why were you there?

How’d you get there? Was it a, what’s the story behind actually getting this?

Dave Wilson: This was back in 2013, I was working with a client. Taiwan. And I had to go and visit them through some support on the way it works. I am, I used to stay there for two weeks on the guy that was showing me around the guy who was my host was another photography buff.

So we would go to the client’s office during the day. And then the minute things, you know, the office called Bernadette, we would race out and he’d show me around the city and we’d go and take pictures and have a really awesome time exploring the streets of Taipei and these restaurants and things. And it was a glorious two weeks.

I actually spent a weekend there and got to tour some of the Northern end of the island with him as well. And it was citizen plastic. And this was one of the locations. The only location I’d actually researched before being over there, I’d seen pictures taken from here and thought, you know, I, I absolutely love blue, our skylines.

I went to see the shot. So I’d arranged with Charlie, my post to spend one evening climbing the mountain and trying to get this picture. It. Interesting evening, we’ve met at the base of Taipei 1 0 1, which is that huge building, just offset from central the picture. It used to be the world’s tallest building, but it’s not anymore, but it’s a fascinating structure is huge, as you can tell.

And he ended up being slightly late and we were trying to time it for sunset, obviously to get there and get set up before sunset and then shoot out of the summer green day when he ended up being late and he got stuck in traffic. He turns up on his moped. And we ended up racing through the streets of Taipei with me hanging on to the back of his moped, holding a camera bag and a stupidly heavy metal tray, but we survived.

And then we got to the base of this mountain and I guess you’re posting country pounder, kazillion stairs. It was like that. And the sun was going down as we got to the bottom at the race up 1200 stairs or something to this viewpoint. And when we arrived, There were like 200 photographers vying for places on this viewpoint.

That was probably 25 feet across. And I thought, oh gosh, after all the effort you’ve come 10,000 miles, miss the shot. I took a few, three gaps in heads, and eventually I asked Charlie nicely. If he would ask one of the guys in front of me to let me in for two minutes to shoot one pan around on someone, nicely moved out the way for a bit and let me in.

And I shot this one set of frames from the panel. Yes.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So it’s, it’s a Panorama, but it’s also to make your life even more complicated. It’s also an it’s an HDR. HDR.

Dave Wilson: Panorama. Yeah. So it’s five vertical. Breams each a bracket of five shorts. So there’s 25 individual exposures used to make up.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. So, so you’re like, let, let me squeeze in, let me squeeze in so I can get a Panorama, but I’m just going to make it more complicated and I’m going to bracket.

Yeah. And a section of this Panorama and to

Dave Wilson: see the longest exposure, I think it was probably suddenly 16 seconds, I think for each, for the long, you know, the brightest exposure. So it probably took me boat. I don’t know, three minutes, four minutes, perhaps, maybe less than that to shoot the whole contract.

Yeah. So

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you’ve, you’ve, you’ve talked a lot about HDR over the years. And I’m I’m, I think I know the answer to this, but in 2013 what was your go-to software for one for creating the. HDR’s and to stitching,

Dave Wilson: right? So the HDRs were created with photonics pro at that time. And I still use this today, actually for some of my work ponder Mystici.

I’m trying to remember whether this was before or after I started using PT, gooey, it was either be Photoshop or PTG. I used substation the Panorama. It was suddenly before the days that I use Lightroom to do it. Yeah, it must be a PST. Yeah. Must use Photoshop. The final result here, the PSD file.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So it says I’m looking at the exit on flicker.

If this is, if this is accurate, based on the metadata of the photo, it was F 6.7, which at first glance you would think 6.7, you know, the depth of field is still, might be a little blurry in the background. Oh, or like the different planes, but you got a lot of detail throughout. A lot of it is really, and focus is

Dave Wilson: 14 millimeters at 6.7.

Normally I would shoot with a smaller aperture than that, but I went to, to try and get my shutter speeds, you know, fairly low. So I wouldn’t take up too much time from the guy who had kindly given up his spot. But there was a 40 millimeters on nothing was particularly close. I mean, let’s see. I can’t remember which corrupt version of it.

Yeah, the Virgin flicker doesn’t have any foliage in the lifetime side. There’s actually a tree overhanging the left and it was slightly blast. It was moving actually. So it was ghosted. So I got rid of that, but there’s nothing really in the frame, any closer than probably a hundred feet away with the possible exception of maybe some leaves in the left.

And they’re pretty sharp too, but they were moving around. There was wind at a time. So most of the leaves close by or blurred by moving, by, moving from that. Yeah, have 6.7 40 millimeters, 200 feet to infinity or something you’ll be in focus. So yeah.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, it looks, it looks absolutely crisp throughout, which is amazing.

The colors are so vibrant. Are they

Dave Wilson: real cute? Didn’t cheat on the color. I mean, I may have slightly tweaked the contract that is saturation a bit, but I still didn’t add any color to this. That was pretty much.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, that’s fantastic. I mean, and the Nikon D 700 they’re using at the time, nothing has had, you know, that was ahead ahead of its game for color and

Dave Wilson: megapixel camera, but I showed it for years and I still like it.

I sold it a couple of years ago now, but it was a fantastic camera. And I got a lot of good pictures out of it. And this was taken actually with the 28 to 300 lens, which was one of use a lot for travel because I can carry one lens. Okay that and the 14th, 2,400 cover everything I wanted for travel.

And it was a super lanes, you know, forget for the price. There’s a manually sharp.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah. Yeah. That was, that was an incredible and yeah. Well, thank you so much for breaking down this photo with me. I have one other question for you and I’m gonna throw you off. What should I have asked you, but didn’t what should I have

Dave Wilson: asked you?

About this picture. Let me think. You asked me about for dramatics. You could ask me what ECR software I currently use or why I’m not engaged quite as often though, as they used to.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I’d like to hear that one because I know, I know my reasoning, but why don’t you do it?

Dave Wilson: Kind of sensors are a lot better now and I can get most of what I need in a single frame rather than having to bracket.

Now that said this kind of show, I would still be practicing today. And yeah, definitely. If I want to get the balance of the sky and also the highlights and the windows of the buildings, HDR is still the way I’d go here. Otherwise I get blown out, highlights

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: do that. It’s maybe you would still do it because of the micro four thirds sensor and it’s

Dave Wilson: has great dynamic range and it’s still shoot HDR for that kind of thing. Again, purely because of the building, the building sites will, will not be as well defined in a single. Based on my

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: experience too, to sort of circle back to the, what you, your other question that I didn’t ask you would you, would you use photometrics if you were to redo this again or do something else these days?

Dave Wilson: I still use quotes romantics, but also use Aurora HDR. I like Aurora for natural looking HDRs I far prefer epigenetics for the artistic stuff. So anything with a bunch of texture or grungy fuel, I definitely use for dramatics as a foreign nature job. Aurora, if I want something that doesn’t look like an HDR, I’ll use that typically.

Cause I’ve got some presets I’ve made there.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So it just depends on what you’re going for for this photo.

Dave Wilson: I shot a bunch of pictures in Fort Pickens in Florida, a couple of weeks back, and they were just screaming out for HD, for red, for Dimatix. Cause they were inside an old Fort with Moss and grunge on the walls and everything.

And the text. Gorgeous.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: And, you know, it’s one of those, like, I haven’t shot an HDR in so long. Sometimes I miss it. And sometimes I’m in a way, glad I’m not doing it anymore and trying other techniques, but you know, you look at a beautiful SDR and you’re just like, that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

Dave Wilson: You look at a beautiful HDR.

You shouldn’t necessarily be able to see us. Exactly. And I started doing STR and got to know each other in the first place. We were just practicing everything, which was ridiculous. Looking back on it, the techniques mature into a tool that you use when you need it, rather than some of you just do all the.

Yes.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yep. A hundred percent. Awesome. So Dave, where can our listeners connect with you online

Dave Wilson: Dave Wilson photography pretty much everywhere. I think Instagram is that David Wilson, photography, DaveWilsonhotography.com. The Wilson photography on flicker Davidson photography on Facebook. I think I’ve got it covered now.

Scott Wyden Kivowitz: And we’re going to be sh I’ll be sure to link to your website. And of course this photo on flicker on the link to both in the show notes. So thank you. Yeah, if you want to get the full, the full look at this full screen and everything, definitely check out the flicker, but be sure to check out Dave’s rest of Dave’s photos either by browsing his, his flicker gallery or by going to his website or both.

And if you are into rodeo, definitely check out Dave’s rodeo photos too, because they’re also quite fantastic. And I mentioned earlier, Dave is originally from Scotland, but he’s now in Texas. And you know, obviously. Well rodeo.

So thanks Dave for joining me tonight. I yes, we are recording this in a as evening for me. It’s a little after seven o’clock for me. Thank you so much for listening to photo breakdown for the show notes and to see the photo shared today. Visit photobreakdown.