[dramatic music]
- My name is Steve Winter,
and I've been a contributing photographer
with "National Geographic" for over 20 years.
Wired has challenged me
to take what I have learned about photographing
big cats in the wild [camera shutter clicking]
to photographing a domestic cat.
[camera shutter clicking]
[cat meows]
Today, I'm gonna show you my process
for going from 112 photos [counter ticking]
down to only one.
[rousing music]
For my first edit, I'm gonna edit for technical issues,
whether it's too dark to light, things like that.
So here we go. It just happens to be photo number one.
[image whooshes]
This image is under-exposed. [photo dings]
Bye-bye.
One thing you have to look for
when you're depending on the exposure in the background,
that a big cloud doesn't come over
and all of a sudden, you're two to three stops off.
So let's see. What would the next one be?
This one here is a little under.
I kinda like the movement in it, but it's under-exposed.
Light didn't go off. Under-exposed.
Under-exposed. Under-exposure on the cat's face.
Under-exposed. Another under-exposure.
Under-exposed. Under-exposed.
If we're coming on a situation in the field,
as we're speeding up to that location,
I will just take a out of focus shot, just to check it.
I'll set the camera the way I think it should be,
and then I'll do a test shot and adjust accordingly.
This one is over-exposed. [image whooshes]
[photo dings]
No good and over-exposed. [image whooshes]
Over-exposed. An over-exposure.
Over-exposed. Over-exposed in the bottom.
Over-exposed. Over-exposed.
That concludes the first edit. [counter ticking]
[rousing music]
Alright.
In the second edit, we're looking at issues
like cutting off parts of the animal because it moved,
and just uncomfortable positions that the cat was in.
From the beginning of my career at "Nat Geo",
it was like, don't cut off part of the animal.
Now, sometimes it's very difficult
when you have a big cat with a long tail.
But it makes you think in new compositional ways.
All right, let's see here.
Classic example.
A part of its tail is cut off. [image whooshes]
[photo dings]
Here, again, it's just [image whooshes]
cutting off part of the animal.
Same situation.
Cutting off parts of the animal. It's gone.
And one of the things that you would use
is the rule of thirds.
It's so easy, because you can cut a horizontal frame
into thirds and then a vertical one with two lines.
So it makes points in the frame
where you could put your subject.
This is purely because there's toys in the way of its face.
Hand coming in with the toy. The toy.
The person, they're in it. The feather's in it.
The feather. Feather's in it.
Feather. The feather's in it.
And there's nothing to catch your eye.
You have to see the eyes.
This is all about emotion. All art is about emotion.
And so, right away, you're identifying with that animal
by looking right in its eye.
If the face, the eye you're looking at isn't in focus,
then you don't have that same connection.
I don't like motion blur
where you don't have part of the animal that is sharp.
And the eye is so incredibly important
in most of these images.
So, as long as the eye's sharp, then it works.
The angle of its eyes,
the tilt of its head's down a little bit.
It looks like it's looking at a mouse
that it's getting ready to kill.
And I don't like the look on its face. It's kinda evil.
It may work for a Hallmark card
about being bummed out or something,
but it doesn't work here.
This is a tough one to take down,
but you have to make tough choices.
We have to get to that point
in our whittle down session here.
So it's not good enough.
That concludes edit two.
We have a lot more to do, [counter ticking]
and most of them have come
from the second half of the shoot.
[rousing music]
Composition is so very important.
And I was taught that at a very young age.
As soon as an image feels clunky, you're gonna know it.
You just have this clunky composition
that works for part of you,
as your eye moves through the frame,
[hands clap] and then it stops.
You can crop it.
I started with film, where there really was no cropping.
I try to compose within the frame of the camera.
And I think if you do that,
you'll become a better photographer.
So let's see what does not work.
One thing you need to look for
is how tight you are on your subject.
Do you have enough of the city
to tell the story that you'd like to tell?
Some of these buildings
are, architecturally, very interesting.
We need to see that, the up and down, the graphic effect.
And you can see the air duct here, which adds nothing.
And so you're learning that as you're shooting.
And just go, "I didn't really like that.
I'm gonna backup a little bit."
And so that helped me here.
The same situation. Not good enough.
Not good. We've got a better one.
They're two very similar images.
I'm trying to place the cat
in kind of a negative space here.
But you have these modern buildings, the older one here,
and whether it clashes with the cat.
And the angle. The angle is very important in the end.
Because you don't really want to look down on an animal,
except when I was trying to get a compositional effect,
'cause it takes away their power.
When you're trying to tell [camera shutter clicking]
a story about a big city cat
sitting in the window, [camera shutter clicking]
you want to get down a little bit
so you're at the same level
as the window sill, [camera shutter clicking]
'cause the window sill's
not important. [camera shutter clicking]
A lot of times when I do my remote cameras,
I will have them at eye level or below.
And it really changes your psychological perspective
of how you view that cat.
[cat meows] [camera shutter clicking]
That concludes edit three.
[counter ticking] We have 28 images
left on the board.
[rousing music]
For edit four, we're gonna start looking
at the story of this cat and its home.
You'll look at a complex painting,
and your eye is moving around the whole canvas.
In a well composed photograph,
you want your eye to move around the canvas,
and in one single image, to tell a story.
So here we go.
This one is interesting,
'cause it actually shows some greenery outside the window.
But at the end, it's a very confined image
and doesn't really tell us very much.
Another one, the same thing.
Just too tight on the cat.
[dramatic music]
We're starting to see that we're not getting the same feel
about the story of the cat looking out the window
when it's sitting looking into the room.
So those are gone.
And all art is about emotion.
And so, right away, you're identifying with that animal
by looking right in its eye.
Or at least being able to see it.
Another one, the same thing.
Some people might go,
"Wow, these are really nice."
And they're not bad. They show the cityscape.
But they're all similar.
And there's not enough of the element of the cat's home.
Same thing.
Here we go, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
Bye-bye.
I wanted to get that movement picture.
So here's the cat's paw up there.
Again, just too tight on the cat,
and we're not telling enough of the story.
I kinda like the graphics of this
and the background, and the wall,
and the three wooden blocks that the cat is sitting on.
But there's one I like better.
Too similar to another image.
This is a toughie, but there's other ones
that are gonna have the same kind of graphics.
We have other ones that are similar,
so we have to make smart choices.
So I think we're actually getting down
[counter ticking] to the final images.
[rousing music]
For edit five, what I'm looking for is behavior
in moments that I may capture something unexpected.
I think in many instances,
you may have a preconceived notion in your mind
of what you remember, and what image
you think is gonna be the one that's going to be the best.
But as you go through them,
there'll be things that surprise you.
Especially if there's action involved.
You may not even know that you got something you did.
Graphically, it all fits.
You see the wooden block,
just perfect with the shadow back here.
And I think works.
And it's the cat kind of reaching for something,
so it's got a little bit of behavior to it.
But it's not going to be the number one or two
best images from the shoots.
Bye-bye.
These are really tough.
I just saw one we took out that I wanna put back in.
The reason I like this one, in a way,
is because it's like the person playing with the cat
is trying to teach it how to be a conductor. [laughs]
And so there's certain elements I like, but it doesn't work.
The reason that I probably like this
is because I work with big cats,
and seeing it walk down is, to me,
totally reminiscent of like a lion, or a tiger, or a leopard
walking down a hill, a rock, or something.
Does it tell me a little bit more
about the life of this cat?
And it doesn't. So it's gone.
This, I liked the fact,
and this is important photographically and compositionally,
to take a scene that you're shooting one way
and shoot it completely different.
Which is, shoot straight down on it.
So it's just something to always remember,
that you do have knees, you can lay on your stomach,
you can step on a chair or a ladder
and shoot things differently.
These are very graphic images that I kind of liked
as showing this cat in its element.
Very spare, and showing shadows in the background.
I kind of liked this, 'cause I liked the way it was turned.
Its tail is coming down this way.
And boy, you talk about something being subjective.
There'll be people that's like,
"You picked the wrong one."
Keep this one, and put this one aside.
All right.
I wanna say here that I am torn between
these two pictures here.
In this one, I kind of like the fact
that this older architectural building is here.
I love the fact that you can see the park here.
I consciously, after photographing the cat
with the buildings there, made this very simple.
It's not as complex. It doesn't tell as deep of a story.
But of right now, photographically,
I like this one better than this.
Now we are down
[counter ticking] to our final two images
and our final decision.
[rousing music]
This is tough, because we have two similar views of the cat.
[camera shutter clicking] Extremely similar.
It's sitting there looking off,
[camera shutter clicking] kind of aloof.
I really love the design of this spare home,
white walls, beautiful shadow.
But I also am really taken by the image of the cat
with the buildings in the background.
For my final decision,
the image that I am gonna choose, 1 out of 112.
[drum rolls]
I love it. It tells a story.
It's ripping my heart to leave that there.
But photographically, this is my favorite image.
I love the graphics of it.
That beautiful, almost flower-like design on the wall,
and the cat sitting there, looking out.
We don't know what it's doing, where it's at.
But it's a beautiful design image that spoke to me today.
[rousing music] So every day is a school day.
And as we edit, we learn what we can do next time.
And that's what's very important.
We're becoming more visually literate all the time.
Shoot and learn from the photographs that you like
and the ones that you dislike,
because tomorrow you'll be a better photographer.