GoPro Creative Tips

Want to shoot like the pros? Look no further. The following tips apply to all GoPro users, whether you want to capture photos, video, or both. Review these tips before your next adventure, and you’ll have everything you need to compete with the world’s best GoPro creators.

KEEP YOUR LENS CLEAN.
Believe it or not, snow, your fingerprint or even a water drop can ruin a golden moment. When filming in water, lick the lens and wait for it to dry, then dunk it in the water. Repeat as necessary. This simple trick works wonders. You can also use Rain-X if you have it. That works too.

CHOOSE THE BEST LIGHTING.
There are two ideal times to shoot: early in the morning or late in the afternoon. When the sun is low in the sky, harsh shadows are reduced. This makes for more cinematic moments. And try to avoid cloudy days, as the lack of sun can make your photos and videos appear flat and uninspiring.

SHOOT WITH A STORY IN MIND.
This mainly applies to video, but the principles are universal. When you begin a project, think about the story you want to tell in terms of a beginning, middle and end. This will save you tons of time when you go to edit what you’ve shot. When a story is truly directed from the beginning it can be far more powerful.

First, introduce yourself, and talk about what you’re about to do. Then, capture the activity from multiple angles. Finally, show the result. One more thing: Plan for the unexpected. If you leave the camera running in between takes, you’ll capture those unplanned moments that set your story apart.

EXPERIMENT WITH DIFFERENT ANGLES.
Think of the best way or angle to capture what you’re doing. What’s the best mount to use? Does this angle help complete the story, or give the viewer a reference point? Will people be able to understand what you’re doing? For a real advantage, try using the GoPro App or LCD Touch BacPac to frame your shot.

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Benefits of Being a Dog Owner

The war between cat and dog people is vicious and will probably never end. Here’s some ammunition for the next time you are talking to one of those horrible cat lovers.

1. GET SICK LESS!

If our cleaning commercials are to be believed, humanity is in the midst of a war against germs—and we won’t stop until every single one is dead. In reality, the amount of disinfecting we do is making us sicker; since our bodies are exposed to fewer germs we can’t build up immunities to them. Fortunately, dogs are covered in germs! Having a dog in the house means more bacteria enters the home and gets inside the occupants (one study found “dog-related biodiversity” is especially high on pillowcases.) In turn, people with dogs seem to get ill less frequently and less severely than people with cats or no pets.

2. RESISTANCE TO ALLERGIES!

While dogs can be one of the worst triggers for people with allergies, growing up in a house with a dog makes children less likely to develop allergies over the course of their lives. Even if you were just a fetus when your mother lived with a dog, you are still less likely to be bothered by animal hair and dander, or to develop eczema as an adult.

3. BE HAPPIER!

Dog owners are less likely to suffer from depression than non-pet owners. Even for those people who do become clinically depressed, having a pet to take care of can help them out of a depressive episode, in some cases more effectively even than medication. Since taking care of a dog requires a routine and forces you to stay at least a little active, it is harder to stay inside feeling down all the time. The interaction with and love received from a dog can also help people stay positive. Even the mere act of looking at your pet increases the amount of Oxytocin, the “feel good” chemical, in the brain.

4. BETTER HEART HEALTH!

Everything about owning a dog seems to lend itself to better heart health. Just the act of petting a dog lowers heart rate and blood pressure. A Chinese study found that people who own dogs get better sleep at night and are sick less often. Other studies show pet owners have slightly lower cholesterol and are more likely to survive a heart attack.

5. MORE EXERCISE!

While other pets have positive effects on your health as well, dogs have the added benefit of needing to be walked and played with numerous times a day. This means most dog owners get the recommended minimum 30 minutes of exercise a day, lowering their risk of cardiovascular disease and keeping them in better overall shape than cat owners or people without pets.
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GoPro Photo Shooting Tips

Getting a good action photo has never been easier.  You’re guaranteed to capture any moment with an epic photo if you’ve got the right tools and remember a few key points.

When I’m taking ski photos I like to use the HSP Mount (Handlebar Seatpost Pole Mount) from GoPro (formerly known as “Ride HERO”).   It now comes with a rubber gasket that pops into the mount so it can be used on small diameter poles such as the end of a ski pole.  It’s the perfect mount to keep on my GoPro in my pocket while skiing.  If I want to take photos of myself I can twist it onto the end of my pole facing me, and if I need a quick follow-cam I can pop it on the end of the pole away from me.  When I’m done I just toss it back into my jacket pocket.

In this video I demonstrate using the GoPro remote to capture a 30 photo burst.  If you don’t have a remote on-hand I usually just use time-lapse mode on every .5 seconds – that’ll usually get you a couple good action shots per rail/jump if you nail it, whereas the 30 photo burst will get the perfect frame every time.   I had mine set on 30 photos in 3 seconds (vs 30 in 1 or 2 secs).  A full rail or jump is usually around 1-2 seconds but the extra second helps for padding incase you fire it too early.  It’s still plenty of photos to get the perfect shot.  Also be sure to test out the lag of burst mode – it’s usually about 1 second from shutter press to when the burst starts firing. On the tech side of things I always keep my photos in 12MP Wide – there aren’t any other photo settings beyond this! Easy!

I usually like to rotate my camera 90 degrees and take vertical photos when using it on the end of my pole.  I find myself enjoying vertical GoPro photos more and more.  Remember my key for the vertical photos – aim the center of the lens at your belly button to get you equal amounts of sky & ground.  People have a tendency to aim at their face making the upper half of the photo entirely sky.

Sun Direction – Camera Location – Facial Expression

To get visually interesting photos you’ll want to consciously think about a few key items – sun direction, camera location, and facial expression/body position.

Sun Direction
The first thing I do to decide which hand the camera is going in or where I’m going to aim, is look to where the sun is.  I love getting the classic sunburst shot so I aim the camera back at me with the sun behind me.  With a 30 photo burst you’ll definitely get a perfect frame where the sun is peaking out from behind your body if you get it in the right spot.

Camera Location
Next consciously decide where you want the camera to be in the shot – in front of you, behind you, above you, below you.  You’ll want to figure this out before you get into the air or get on the rail so you’re not making any last minute decisions when you need to be focused on skiing/riding.  Before I drop in I tell myself “I’m going to get the camera above me right away and hold it out”.  On jibs a good angle is out in front and really low against the rail.  Think about extending your arm and holding it in position for the entire duration of the trick.

Facial Expression/Body Position
As silly as it sounds, decide on a facial expression you want to have in your photo.  Same goes for body position – do you want to be low and steezy, standing upright, or giving a peace sign to the camera? These are all questions that should be decided prior to dropping in as well.  If we combine these with the previous sections I get a mental conversation that goes like this – “Sun is to my left, I’m going to hold the camera with my right hand, instantly get the camera up high above me, stand up tall, look at the camera with a full smile and stick my left arm up in the sky”.  This is where being comfortable on rails and jumps comes in really handy. If you have all this prepared it will come much more naturally.If you don’t think you’ve got what it takes to take action shots like these, think again! You can apply these same methods for the most basic of photos – even standing still with friends! You’ll find it doesn’t take much to get an epic photo. If you’re not skiing/riding try jumping off a rock with burst mode, or tossing the camera up in the air! Any way you spin it, you’ll end up with a totally unique photo that captures a sweet moment in time.

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How Do You Play with Your Dog?

Surely our mutual love of play is one of the reasons that dogs and people get along so well. As Karen London and I write in Play Together, Stay Together, “Play is powerful stuff. It influences so many things, including development, motivation, emotions, physiology, communication and behavior. Wow! That’s an impressive list.”

After years working as Applied Behaviorists, it was clear to Karen and I that play has the power to strengthen one’s relationship with a dog, or alternatively, to destroy it. You can use play to teach self control and good manners, or to inadvertently teach a lack of frustration tolerance and a lot of rude behavior that ends up getting a dog into trouble. You can use play to allow a dog to release tension, to learn a behavior incompatible with a problematic one, or to become wound up and hyper-reactive. The list goes on and on. Play is so important that one of my favorite seminars is one I did on play (Dog Play DVD), talking about both between dogs and between people and dogs.

So here’s the question, How do YOU play with your dog?

Willie and I have several different ways to play that have become incorporated into our daily routine. After the chores are done (dogs, cats, sheep and birds fed), Willie and I play with one of his favorite toys, usually an old plastic disc. Because of his shoulder we can’t play his favorite game of all, which is a classic run and fetch game (he’d love NOTHING more than to catch the frisbee in the air but those days are long over), so we’ve evolved into either 1) he runs around in silly circles with the frisbee in his mouth while I clap and encourage him, 2) I put him on a stay and throw it and then release him to go get it once it’s landed (but this only if there is a lot of snow on the ground, and only 3 to 4 times at most) or 3) he goes on a stay and then I hide his toy somewhere in the front yard. We always play some hide and seek games, because it gets him running around without stressing his shoulder.

Later in the day we play lots of object-related games in the house. Our favorite are tug games. It’s great exercise for him (and me) and we combine it with lots of exercises in self control like “get back” and “drop.” Then we’ll usually do a round of tricks, also in the evening. Usually earlier we’ll have been on a walk up the hill, and in better weather it might include working him on sheep, but that’s just not possible right now.

As I write this I realize that Willie loves two kinds of play: Object play with me (which he also plays by himself, tossing objects into the air and running around the house) and playing chase games with other dogs. Willie doesn’t like rough and tumble play or any kind of play with lots of contact with other dogs: he wants to run and run and run and run, and sometimes I think nothing in the world makes him happier. I wish I could run as fast as he. If I could, we’d dash around the pasture together like foals in springtime. Alas, I’m built like a sturdy hiker and not a runner, so that’s just never gonna’ happen.

I’m not the only one interested in how you play with your dog. There’s an interesting study ongoing at theThe Horowitz Dog Cognition Lab at Columbia University (Barnard College) about how people play with their dogs, and they (and I!) would love it if you would participate. The study, run by Alexandra Horowitz (author of The Inside of a Dog) and Julie Hecht (author of the fantastic blog, dogspies, will investigate interspecific play between people and dogs by collecting videos of people playing with their dogs for future analysis. You can learn more about it by going to a brief description of the study and what you have to do to participate.

I’m going to send in a video of me and Willie playing tug, because we both seem to enjoy it so much. It’s hard to choose though, because we do have so many different ways of playing. By the way, I’m focusing on Willie because Tootsie simply never plays with anything. At all. I don’t worry about it for a moment. She wants food and cuddles (in that order), and loves sniffing around outside now that she’s discovered she’s a spaniel (and eating cat poop now that she’s discovered she’s a dog). It would be lovely if she and Willie would play, but then, it would be lovely if I had arms like Angelina Jolie, and both of those have about equal chances of happening and both Tootsie and I are pretty happy anyway.

Edited by Patricia McConnell

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