studio interlude

I just got one, used. Much, much better…
Gallery on this site coming, as well as more attention to my Flickr page. Posts are few, but progress is much. Be back…

I actually did a lot of shooting (for me) during the fall. Some was location stuff and some in my alleged “studio” here at home. I haven’t gotten permissions really, so I won’t post it all. Each time I shot, the results I got made it more painfully obvious that I needed lenses (and a better backdrop) to get the looks I wanted. My dear friends you see here allowed me to do my first expectant couple shoot, and this was one of the better pictures. You ain’t seeing no more unless I maybe put one in the upcoming gallery. So much trial and error! Go to school if you can, people - it might save you so much time.

But I’m not giving up!  I’m gonna stalk this thing until I get it. I want this, commercially or artistically, or both. I got a lot of studying to do, a lot of reading, moving shit around until it looks right, and of course, a lot of shooting. A lot of shooting. I gotta learn my gear, but more importantly I gotta learn how to make  pictures. Pictures that make you look again.

So yeah, I got that wide angle and that macro I’ve been talking about, but more importantly, I got some light controls, which will make a good picture even with a point-and-shoot. In fact, let’s get out the point-and-shoot to shoot the light controls.

This is also the reintroduction of this blog on WordPress. I think that it might be a little more customizable and fully featured-it certainly has a lot more themes available, and I fell for this one immediately. In the other capacities in which I operate, people are seeing the benefits of blogging and are asking to use them, and this is my way of learning the ins and outs. 

And as tough as these times are, I am about to do something most sane people would not do. But you only live once. When it happens, I’ll put it here first. I’ll be back with some macro and wide angle shots soon.

Sorry. I had stuff to do. 

But I did get in a few shoots, enough to know what my problems were in those instances and what I have to do to correct them. I shoot in a confined space, and there are issues with being able to get wide enough, and when I am wide, running out of backdrop material. And when it’s time to do a head shot, I find myself having to shove the lens in the subject’s face. Next month I’ll be getting a couple of lenses that will help me deal with this. I don’t want to get many more EF-S lenses, because there is a 5D Mk II with my name on it out there in the not too distant (I hope) future…

Lighting has been something else I have tried to rectify. The multiple remote flash thing still has me baffled at this point (not giving up by any means, though), and I still need to understand how to control the light I get in my space. Baffles, panels, gobos, grids, all that shit needs to be dealt with. And some lights with variable power would be really great. I’ll get there.

The photo I posted above was shot in ‘05, probably when I got my 50mm ƒ/1.8. It was shot in natural light, probably right at ƒ/1.8, which is why it falls out of focus very quickly. The shots weren’t used for their intended purpose, but I think it has a certain vibe to it…

Vowing to post every month and coming in just under the deadline, this post is about  one of the many things that takes away from shooting regularly. 

Being part of a small cult of finer food lovers, I will be involved in an endeavor to have a say in the whole modern day food movement- blogging about it, making films… and hopefully spreading news, selling products, and making a little cash, along with getting people to prepare and eat better food.

The “other” food network, that is blogging about it, photographing and posting on Flickr, underground restaurants, food parties, etc. is something that is growing every day. 

Once the specifics have been created, I will post the information here, and use this site to point to all the activities I’m involved in. This is not to say that other types of photography will be neglected-indeed, I need to get it together so that I can make a living/build a rep in this art form. Stay tuned…

Your author has been hard at work behind the scenes and hasn’t been able to shoot any new photos. When he’s not hard at work working, he’s hard at work socializing, which is a form of work in that socializing gets you in front of new people who may have a need for what you do. Sometimes, when socializing, you get to demonstrate your craft, which is what the accompanying photo is about. Other times, you have to use lots of sentences and hand gestures, even hand puppets to get your message across. Transitioning to freelance is something I couldn’t have done years ago, but since large companies have no idea what to do with oddly talented people, there is no choice but to bring it to those who need it yourself.

A second 580EX II is in my possession. The EF-S wide angle is in my sites, as is one of the Macro lenses. Of course  a telephoto zoom is needed as well, but it can (or rather will have to) wait. I’m going to make it a point to post at least once a week, and with a new photo as well. Stay tuned…

Yeah, I know I said no more Iris Gardens, but I was invited and thought it would make for a nice break, a good day out. And it did turn out that way. I didn’t want to shoot the same flowers in the same way as I did before, so I said, you know what? I’ll just bring one lens-the 50mm ƒ/1.8, shoot everything blurry, and see what happens…

So I did lots of that, used lots of blue in the white balance, and used the fastest shutter speeds to mute the effect of shooting in broad daylight in direct sunshine.

The effects were interesting, and immediately lent themselves to some collage work using two images-the results of which you see here. It’s very probable that you will see more of this in the future.

Accompanying me on this trip was my friend Rita, who suggested the trip in the first place. She owns a Pentax K1000 film camera, and completely manual film camera at that. On top of that, the lens was a 50mm ƒ/2, making for as “pure” of a shooting situation as imaginable. She was also limited to a maximum shutter speed of 1/1000, and had only 200 or 400 speed film. I still haven’t seen how her pictures came out, but we did use my camera’s auto metering to try some other options for her to set manually.

I still have a few rolls of film left, one of which is Fuji’s Velvia 50 ISO slide film (Ken’s favorite), that I want to give her to shoot (ideally really colorful stuff in broad daylight), then scan and post.

Finally, I also realized that there was more to do, more to learn about this flower thing before I abandon flowers for good (if I ever really do). One is that I should shoot them with one of the Canon 70-200mm  L zoom telephoto lenses (ideally the top one), which would give me way more flexibility with getting close ups of flowers from a distance that are hard to reach at the Gardens. And I also want to shoot with a macro lens, ideally this one right here! Will I get them in time for next spring? The following? Let’s see what happens…

In a previous life that ended just a few months ago, I spent many years in the advertising department of a major Northeastern U.S. supermarket chain. while my last position was that of a web/electronic media specialist, I also (ahem…) did time as a layout artist and creative man, amongst other positions. After my stint doing production photography for the print ads, I was often called upon to shoot store interiors and exteriors around the region, especially when there was a grand opening or reopening.

In the first panel above there is a shot of a video monitor that ran content when the on-staff chef was not in front of the cameras cooking. Some of that content included video billboards that acted as promos for each of the store’s departments. These were created by yours truly using Final Cut Express and Live Type. Nice resume builder, but nothing else much came of it because of the company’s rather conservative business outlook. Nothing spectacular here photo wise, but just a look into what kind of corporate experiences can be had if you can pull off the work…

This is something from the past I wanted to share. What a story! First, it was shot with a Nikon Coolpix 990. Digital camera nerds will remember the 900 series as those with the swiveling bodies, and able to use the SB series of flashes of the time with its sync terminal. Although the manual focus mode sucked (you had to dial in a measurement based on distance from subject!), it was a good tool to learn with. But at only 3 megapixels, it could shoot a .tif (remember?) image that saved to the card very slowly and still struggled to give me a 300ppi image big enough for a CD cover. And although “megapixels don’t matter”, when it comes to prepress, oh yes they do! This is a moot point today because you can’t buy a new camera with less than 6 MP, even in a point and shoot.

Barry was very patient with me, and he knows how he wants to look. But I had NO IDEA what I was doing! I didn’t want the built in flash to fire, but my lights were primitive and low powered. Anything without flash was shot at a slow shutter speed (as I was to find out later) that blurred the images, and many of the shots came out with white balances that were way blue, and I didn’t have a clue as to why (or what white balance really was). Luckily, the blue cast made for a vibe that carried over well to the design of the cover (and the website). Understanding of white balance and wide apertures for capturing low light images was to come later…

As I’ve said, I got into shooting more because my clients needed it than I would have if they didn’t. There are many more reasons why I do it now, but that was my entry. In several cases my shots wound up on websites and on CD jackets designed for a duplication run by Discmakers. Others too, but mostly them. I’ve been doing work that goes to them for more than 10 years. Their friendly service combined with my prepress experience has made for some great work and a trouble free production run each and every time. They’re not the only game in town, but I think their help to the independent film and music communities has been invaluable.  You can buy Barry’s CD here, and you can listen to the tracks there or at his website (which I built) and listen to clips from the tracks. He’s been working on a follow up and we’re really looking forward to it.

I think there’s no question that one of the funnest things about photography along with lighting and stuff is working with depth of field. It truly separates an SLR boy or girl from the point and shooters.

And I think most devotees of photography will admit to being lured by the beauty of seeing a subject pop from the background in such a dramatic way that they will probably at first go nuts and shoot everything at ƒ/2.8 and wider, even when it can be too much of a good thing. The photo of this lovely young subject was one of my earliest semi successes with a portrait featuring depth of field, but at ƒ/1.8, it made for such a narrow plane of focus that the hair closest to the camera was also a bit out of focus. I chose this one because it was the most attractive pose, and she would be most unhappy if I had posted one of the others instead, some of which have more colorful blurred backgrounds. But I think this illustrated the point just fine. Sure, shoot some at ƒ/2.8 and wider, but also do a few with a narrower aperture as well. Regardless, I’d still blow a couple grand on a nice ƒ/1.2 if I had the cash…

Okay, let’s get this over with. Are photography students required to shoot flowers at some point in their studies? It seems every amateur that posts online sure has. Well, here’s my contribution to that venerable institution. Ken says to stop shooting flowers-go find more interesting things to shoot. So you won’t be seeing any more flowers in my photos, unless I shoot a wedding or one just happens to be in a picture about some other subject. FYI-Irises shot at the Presby Memorial Iris Gardens in Montclair, NJ. Everybody brings their cameras there when these things bloom. They’re out now, but this shot was from 2007.