Tips from a Pro

Architectural photographer Connie Zhou is used to big assignments in more ways than one. Her latest work has made her the first photographer officially allowed into Google's massive data centers.  The resulting images turn warehouses full of electronic equipment into beautiful graphic photographs. We talked to Connie about what it was like to work on such a massive project.Can you tell us a little bit of your photographic background?

Getty Images photographer Streeter Lecka puts it best: “The Olympics are unlike anything you will ever shoot in sports,” he says. “For professional shooters, it’s our Super Bowl. The competitive spirit that the athletes feel, we feel. We’re all going for that iconic picture that will forever go down in Olympic history. We’re there to capture it in real time, under nerve-racking pressure, because in competitive sports shooting, there’s never a ‘do over’.” Preach it, brother.

Living on the island of Maui in Hawaii, commercial and portrait photographer Eric Rolph (rolphphoto.com) has the rare luxury of choosing sea-swept sunrises or sunsets to use as backdrops. As you might imagine, he’s perfected the somewhat tricky art of balancing fore- and background lighting, where, without the aid of a little artificial fill light, his subjects would typically be much darker than the bright sun beyond.His suggestions for how you can best strike this balance: