David duChemin: 3 Sticks Changed My Photography

I have reluctantly hauled a tripod around the world with me for the last 5 years. Without exception if I have travelled on assignment – either for myself or a client – one of my tripods has been a constant companion. That’s not to say we get along easily, nor that I wouldn’t hurl its beautiful carbon fibre body into the sea some days, but we’ve learned to get along, and for my part I’ve grown to love my little three-legged companion.

I know I’m not alone. I know there are thousands of photographers who share an uneasy relationship with their tripod. You’re the ones who roll your eyes when landscape photographers insist you need a 30lb set of sticks and a 5lb head to get a sharp image at 1/100s. I know you’re out there because I am one of you. Or I was.

And then my tripod began to change my photography. So on behalf of that set of sticks sitting neglected in the corner of your closet, let me make a plea for reconciliation.

Your tripod can allow you to shoot at times of day when the light is unlike any other. If you want to shoot at twilight, once the sun goes down, and you don’t want to do it at ridiculously high ISOs, then a tripod is your only other option. Sure, you could shoot that scene before the sun goes down, even at sunset, but once the blue hour comes you need those longer exposures, and a tripod to accomplish it. Light is everything, don’t miss some of the best light of the day because you didn’t want to carry a tripod.

Your tripod can allow you to create an aesthetic through time exposures that you can’t create through other means. If you want the really long exposures that will smooth water into an ethereal blur, or draw out clouds into a ghostly ribbon across the sky, you need a tripod. Look at some of the best landscape work out there – sometimes the difference is simply a seasoned use of ND filters, long exposures, and a tripod. You won’t get this look through other means and it’s the difference between wow and mundane.

Your tripod can allow you to lock off a shot and concentrate on making the other elements really work within the frame. It doesn’t work for all situations but when you can frame the shot and then wait for the action to happen, you can concentrate on capturing that great moment when it does and not on holding the camera, framing the shot, or getting the horizon straight. I’ve used it in commercial shoots in the middle of Bangladesh to take multiple frames that I could then composite together later – leaving the tripod at home would have meant missing a shot that was important to the client, but I had know way of knowing we do it then, or in that way.

Your tripod is a third and fourth arm when yours are already busy. I’ve used mine in an embarrassing array of positions, covered in clamps and duct tape, to hold flashes and diffusers, and even just to set my camera onto when my hands are full of other things, like the animals or children I often photograph for my international NGO clients.

I’ve used my tripod in trucks and boats, on Venetian gondolas, and in countries from Mongolia to Ecuador to Nepal and the Congo. It has been instrumental in creating images I could not have achieved otherwise. I was recently in Italy for a month of workshops. I wanted to go light and nearly didn’t bring my tripod. In the end I found room for it. It’s not large, it’s a Gitzo Ocean Traveler and it doesn’t take up much space, but in the end some of my best images from this trip would never have happened if I’d traveled 3lbs lighter without it.

I shot this in Vernazza, Italy on the Ligurian coast with a Canon 5D Mk II and a lens at 30mm. The exposure was 15 seconds at f/22 and ISO 50, shot through the Singh Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizer and a 2 Stop ND grad as well. I shot these boats for a couple hours as the light changed, and it was only as the exposures got to between 15 and 30 seconds that I began to get the look I wanted. If this image was the only one I captured it would have been worth hauling my tripod around Italy the whole month. You want convenience in a hobby, collect postage stamps or play the harmonica instead.

Camogli, Italy. Canon 5D Mk II, 32mm, 6.0s @ f/22, ISO 50

Longer exposures mean a change in the aesthetic, in this case my tripod allowed me both an increased depth of field and the ghosting of the water. While the waves on the shore get all the glory, it’s important to remember that longer exposures allow the surface of the water itself to soften. Freed from the contrasts caused by ripples and waves on the surface, the colour on the water is allowed to take prominence without distraction. Shot through the Singh-Ray Gold-N-Blue Polarizer and a 2-Stop ND graduated filter.

Venice, Italy. Canon 5D Mk II, 23mm, 1.6s @ f/22, ISO 400

I hazarded a guess that if I securely mounted my tripod on the floor of the gondola that I’d be able to keep the details of the boat itself sharp, while blurring the alley walls and the motion of the gondolier. Turned out just the way I wanted it and as the light dimmed further I got longer exposures than this one, allowing me to manually fire a flash and freeze the gondolier at the end of the exposure enough to give a rear-curtain sync effect. No tripod and this would have been another boring series of gondola shots and the longest boat ride of my life.

By David duChemin