Shooting

The ability to work fast is the mark of a great location lighter. And nowhere is this need for speed more acute than for shooters of skateboarding. “Skateboard photography is guerrilla-esque,” says Los Angeles-based Sam Muller, who specializes in it.“There’s almost no preproduction,” he explains. “The skater picks the location, and you have to set up and break down your lights really fast. You never know when cops or security guards are going to show up.” 

Want to enliven your action shots? Blur is the key.For simple blur: Drop the shutter speed one or two notches below action-freezing speed to blur the hands and feet of runners, the spokes and pedals of bicycles, etc.Add flash for ghosting: With flash on relatively close subjects, you can lower the shutter speed even further. Use second-curtain sync to get a ghost trail behind the subject.Pan with the motion: Use very slow shutter speeds to blur the background into a streak.

After giving birth, a lioness shelters her newborns in a den, raising them completely alone; the rest of the pride—including their father—doesn’t see them. Wildlife photographer Suzi Eszterhas had stumbled across such a mother and her two-week-old litter while shooting at the Masai Mara Reserve in Kenya, and knew instinctively that these young lions offered a golden opportunity.