[Mike McCarty]

All these little sayings regarding Belize are from the backs of my new T-shirts.

At Ms. Saper's suggestion, I have posted here one of the photos from my recent trip to Belize.

Since getting involved in these photo discussions, I have been giving more thought to just how I go about taking photos. No one ever asked before, so I didn't give it much thought. The thing that has surprised me a little is just how much I plan things out in my mind before I ever pick up the camera or approach the subject. I am constantly viewing the world with an opportunistic eye, not fully conscious that I am doing it until my eye latches onto that something.

In the case of this image, the thing that I latched onto was the color of the coconuts on the palm tree just off our front porch. I wanted that color and the abstraction of that image in the background of my subject. I began to formulate a plan for the photo immediately after that. Being more conscious of my thoughts, my mind composed that picture for 2 days before I suggested it to my friend. When she finally perched on the rail of the porch it was over in less than 5 minutes.

As you astutely point out, Chris, the challenge was the strong back lighting. But it was at midday that the sun would strike these coconuts and provide the glow that I liked. So I tried to use it to my advantage.

I use a film camera, a Nikon N90s. I try never to use a flash. This could have been a case for fill flash but I think you would have gotten a much different look. The film was ordinary Kodak 200 asa. The camera I use is not a new model, but it is a solid featured camera just under the professional grade. I think the body alone a few years ago was $750. Cameras today are half the price and just as well featured.

The feature which allowed me to get the detail in the face with strong back lighting was the "spot meter." Most all cameras have multiple metering systems. Mine has three. The first is a matrix system, which looks at the entire scene from top to bottom corner to corner and breaks down the frame into maybe 9 or a dozen independent sections. With the input you give the camera re: film speed, focus distance etc., its brain will go through a fairly complex calculus to try to make a well-balanced exposure. And it does a remarkable job, but had I used it, my subject would have been in darkness. The next metering option is called "center weighted metering" this forgets the edges and figures the exposure based on the center 1/4 (+-) of the viewfinder. Personally, my thinking is if I don't want the first option, I might as well go to the third which is the one that produced this picture "spot metering."

Spot metering allows you to create an "exposure" based only on the information in the center spot of the viewfinder. In my viewfinder, I place the center spot on that part of the subject that I want to expose for. I then lock in that exposure, recompose the scene and shoot. This most often will produce an over-exposed background situation. But you don't care, and in fact this can add to the illusion.

But technically speaking this is not tough duty. I place my camera in program portrait mode. By doing this I know the camera will select an open aperature, which will create the depth of field and the background that I want. I don't have to think about that anymore. I can make this adjustment to spot meter and back in one second. The trick, as you know Chris, is to recognize the problem in advance and plan for it.

And, as Vito Corleone said in The Godfather, "Someday, and that day may never come, I will learn to paint these images and then you guys can watch out." I think that's what he said.