Barry Tanenbaum

About four years ago, Alvanas, a photographer, filmmaker, educator, digital artist, and postproduction retoucher, was attending a week-long advanced printing workshop at John Paul Caponigro’s studio. “The first day of portfolio review featured lots of prints of grand vistas from big film cameras—4x5s and 8x10s,” Alvanas says. “I showed on the second day, but I digitally projected my images.”

I got the idea for this how-to story from something the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly said to me: “Believe me, the challenge of photography is not going to France for the first time and photographing the Eiffel Tower. The challenge is really seeing and then photographing the stuff that’s familiar and ordinary, stuff we see all the time but never really observe or give much attention.”

The photography critic and historian A.D. Coleman once noted that the most common mistake many photographers make is thinking that what they’re experiencing while making a picture is what’s being captured by the camera.

BMX rider Daniel Coriz comes in at speed from the right side, launches himself up 10 feet, touches both tires, pulls the handlebars to pop a wheelie off the wall, then turns the bike for a clean exit. He lands a foot in front of adventure sports photographer Michael Clark, who’s been hand-holding his camera, tracking and firing to capture every turn and twist of the trick.