HOT SHOTS

Tips from Zaio’s top photographers

Witold Skrypczak, one of Zaio’s longest serving professional photographers, is currently based in Orlando. Professional, motivated and committed to Zaio’s business model, he has found that when it comes to productivity, it pays to follow the sun. Skrypczak, with over 100,000 photos to his credit, writes:

I believe careful planning and flexibility are necessary if you want to be a high-number shooter, day after day, particularly on days when you can’t stay in the field for more than four or five hours. That’s what my limit was, here in Orlando, during the summer with its scorching heat, near 100% humidity and tropical thunderstorms rolling through the area almost daily. Yet I was able to score 500 or so shots on a typical day before noon.

How was I able to do that? I knew my area well and followed the sun as much as I could.  Every evening before shooting, I spent a few minutes studying my maps, selecting areas to shoot first and later on as the sun moved up. I would select my alternative areas, too.

In the past, when shooting in Denver’s temperate climate, I would schedule the east-west streets for early morning, moving to northwest and southeast streets in mid-morning, north-south streets around noon, leaving my northeast and southwest streets for an afternoon and the crooked streets for a cloudy day if possible. Since the Orlando summer limited me to shooting before noon, I had to make some changes. I tried to cover as many north-south streets before and around sunrise, shooting properties there until the sun moved above the roofs.

I learned to be flexible.  Once the clouds covered the sun, I would immediately change my shooting plan, sometimes moving to an area where the streets going every which way presented a very challenging situation on a sunny day, but were much easier to do on a cloudy day.

Also, I would always keep my eyes open for any new areas, checking them on my way back home, taking notes when necessary and preparing for the next day – or week – of shooting.

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