Alex Minkin

Promo Keys

2012-01-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

WInter is my time to kick start all my promo efforts fresh for the year. New mailing lists with better targeting of potential clients, new mailer promos, and now, a little add on that will get people's attention and keep it. Cards get pinned up on boards and eventually covered or forgotten, filed away under 'potential photographers' or worse, tossed right in the trash. But these 1 gig USB keys with my branding on them is something that people will want to use, and put my name in front of them every time they do.

I did a bit of research and found a whole bunch of companies that do customized USB drives, and settled on the key design for being unique and eye catching. Simple laser engraving of my name/logo and website on both sides reminds people where it came from, and each will be loaded with content from my site and portfolio. I'm really excited to have these to give out to potential clients, since it's much more memorable than a business card. A whole series of promos can be planned around these with some innovative packaging, much better than just a simple postcard.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Print Book

2012-01-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

A print book is still a necessity even in our standard digital age, if you ask many photographers and creative professionals. While it may not get viewed as much as your website, people still like to take a look at your work in print, especially if thats the ultimate output for what they want.

So it should come as no surprise that the internet is absolutely awash with portfolio advice. Or rather, portfolio opinion, as I noted when I embarked on a fairly long journey to make my own print books. I found dozens of articles on how to arrange a portfolio, hundreds of websites offering their idea of what a portfolio even is, but for the most part, people simply talking about their own portfolio without imparting any useful knowledge whatsoever.

That was until a friend of mine, Doug, a wildly successful photographer who really gets social media and networking, came out with a post on the down and dirty how that most people left out. His blog post So you Want to Make a Professional Looking Print Photography Portfolio actually had useful resources and some straightforward, easy to understand advice on actually assembling a book.

Doug offered up some links citing the resources he mentions, or uses himself in constructing his own book, including custom portfolio printer, Pushdot out in Portland. I talked with them a few times about getting a custom book printed by them, and they sent me some samples to check on the type of materials they suggest. So now here's the kicker: While I didn't end up using Pushdot, it was only because of the cost. The samples they sent were amazing, they were helpful, friendly, and when I'm pulling in the jobs I want, I will absolutely go to them.

I found that for significantly less, I was fully capable of assembling my own book at nearly the same quality. I have some resources that may not be readily available to everyone, but this doesn't mean it's out of reach for the average person. So here's one of the classes I think should have been absolutely mandatory when I was in school: How to print, score, punch and assemble a (variation of) complete portfolio.

First is the actual book. Determining size is the first step, I wanted a larger book, 11x17", but the cost of paper and carrying something that size made me go smaller. 8.5x11" may not be glamorous, but with full bleed pages, it looks great. I also went with landscape view because I felt my verticals could be more easily adapted to a horizontal book than vice versa.

My two books are made out of two different kinds of Pina Zangaro portfolios. The books are about $50 each, and I mixed and matched the frosted front cover with the snow white back. I went with the frosted front so that I could simply print out a new front page in the book and have it show through as my label, instead of locking myself into one type of cover that would have to be completely replaced if I change branding (again).

I chose the same paper that Pushdot sent me as a sample, Moab Entrada Bright 190. It's a matte paper that holds extremely fine detail unlike some other mattes I've used, doesn't get fingerprints all over it the second you touch it like some glossys, and most importantly, is double sided.

For printing, I happened to have a complete series of Epson printers available to me. I chose the R3000 for its front loading and 2 types of black ink, both glossy and matte without switching. There was a bit of trial and error in getting my uncalibrated laptop to output correctly, and then some more in getting the two features I really wanted in a print book- full bleeds and two page spreads. Pushdot had sent me a template that gave me an idea of how to set up a two page spread, but I still had to ruin a couple pages before I figured out how much to overlap each side of the picture, or make a no-border gutter.

Once the printer stopped printing 1/16" short of the top (changed my settings to 103% zoom) and I figured out the overlap (1/2" on the left, 1" on the right) I was churning out pages like a pro. Then I had to figure out how to get them into the book. The Pina books use a two post binding that seemingly isn't a standard whole punch setting. I considered getting a hand punch and doing each page individually, but I wanted consistency, and that meant a real hole punch. Or as real as staples can get, which meant I was still going to have to gaffer tape a part of the hole punch into position. And then punch each page upside down.

With the pages punched, they fit nicely into the book, but they still had to be scored so you could actually flip through it like a book. I saw from No Plastic Sleeves a video of a photographer making handmade books, much in the same method, using a plastic card of some sort to gently score the prints to allow them to bend. My first try, using a wacom pen tip, is not recommended since it rips the ink-saturated print. The curved wire of a binder clip gently run down the print using the hinge of the book as a guide is much better, but I'm still looking for a replacement.

So while this is only a fast and loose explanation on how to assemble a portfolio, it sure was a lot of info that I would have loved to have seen before I ruined a bunch of paper and bought a bunch of plastic sleeves (like the blog says, NO plastic sleeves), hinges, and other stuff that I ended up not using.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr

Level 26: Dark Revelations

2011-12-12T13:03:00.000-08:00

Level 26 just dropped the trailer for the final digi novel by Anthony Zuiker of the hit series CSI. The books have been a seriously good read and the interactivity is awesome when you view it on the iPad. It was a great set to shoot on for the stills, and I'll be posting more behind the scenes and finished pictures as we come up on the full release. Be sure to check out the entire series of books at Level 26and watch the trailer after the jump.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Sneak preview...

2011-10-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

Last week I had the opportunity to go out and shoot for Anthony Zuiker's Dark Revelations, the final book in his Level 26 series of murder mystery thriller novels. The book features cyber-bridges that the reader can watch online, adding a new dimension to interactive novels. It was awesome to fly out to LA and shoot with an extremely talented cast and crew, and the pictures are coming out awesome. I'm waiting on the go ahead to start posting them everywhere, but here are just the behind the scenes pictures that will have to do for now. Hit the full post to see them.

____________
Twitter | Facebook

Don Cortez-Histrionic Album Cover

2011-09-26T22:36:00.000-07:00

My buddy Don Cortez just dropped his Album 'Histrionic' today all the way from Japan, and a while back he asked me to design his album cover. We didn't have a whole lot of material to work with, so we settled on a cool, clean portrait we did a couple years back that we felt had the right vibe for his music.

You can download his Itunes-ready album, complete with cover art and lyrics HERE to check out his great work that's been a long time coming.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Shooting the H4D40

2011-09-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a great dayjob, I get to spend a lot of quality time hands-on with Hasselblad cameras. I've been in love with the cameras since before photo school, and the flames were fanned when I assisted Hasselblad Master Gregor Halenda and met another, Chase Jarvis. They're both stunningly amazing photographers that have shaped my career as I study their work to become a better photographer.

Getting access to a wide range of their digital lineup means that I get to learn everything about Hasselblad without the pressure of a weekend rental, or trying to figure it out on the job. I warmed up by doing a series of still lifes and a portrait session with the H4D40, and found it to be an extraordinarily versatile camera, and then pushed it to the limits by doing an all day shoot with a sportswear company (pictures coming soon).

I primarily shoot on my Canon 1DmkIV, and while the quality is great, it hardly compares to over twice the megapixels and a physically larger image sensor. Pictures on the H4D seem to pop off the screen with little to no post processing.

Shooting bottles has been one of my ongoing personal projects as I wade through the wide world of whiskeys, and I've been shooting most of them on H4D. The color rendering of liquor is extremely important to clients, and the H4D seems to capture the range necessary to accurately portray each shade. Newer lighting technique counts for a lot, but the colors and depth make the bottles sing.

This recent shot of the new Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey Whiskey was shot on white plexi lying down, with two 8' silks on either side with grid spots on Profoto 7a2400 packs. I find myself reversing my earlier lighting from small on products and large on people to the complete opposite. Glass bottles take well to massive modifiers, even if only used as a bounce, and I've experimented with using smaller, harsher light on certain subjects.

Hasselblad has their proprietary software, Phocus, which is used to tether to your computer. The software is intuitive, easy to manage and a great asset to have when checking focus and composition. The screen on the camera is limited the same as any other brand, so I have Phocus running on my laptop or cinema display whenever possible. Occasionally when I need to drop the cord, I feel confident enough to rely on the screen if I know that my lighting is already dialed in.

I worked with the H4D for an entire 10 hour session recently, and the camera body itself is easy to hold and even comfortable. The back was warm from being tethered non-stop all day, but it never shut down on me, unlike some other digital backs I've used that will lock you out without any obvious reason. I turned down a demo of a back made by another company because I couldn't afford to waste time rebooting the entire system, from my laptop to the back, body and lens.

More pictures from the most recent session are coming soon, as well as a video highlight of the shoot where you'll see some of the lighting setups used on a commercial shoot, and I'll also demo some of the camera's features and how I used them on this job.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Like Honey

2011-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

It's been busy here in NYC and the blog is being neglected, like my personal work at the same time. But new and exciting client work is coming up, as well as my review of the Hasselblad H4D40 that I've been using lately.

This shot of the tantalizingly delicious Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey Whiskey was shot on the H4D using two Profoto 7A packs and 3 heads. A beauty dish on the ground was shooting through the 1/4" white plexi for the light table, and then two 8' silks on either side had gridded heads shooting through them. I've been using giant silks and foamcores to shoot bottles instead of softboxes like I used to. Having that large of a light source evens out the highlights on the bottle to the point that they just blend in much nicer.

The honey was added after I had the bottle looking exactly how I wanted it. The coolest part is how you can see the highlights from the silks, shadows from the label, and the amazing color and tone of the honey by itself. The H4D really shines here in its color rendering and the sheer depth of the image, it almost looks 3d in the large version. The only post processing was to add a little shadow to the edge of the pool of honey, something that could also be done by placing black cards all the way around it.

Coming up in the next two weeks are a few shoots and posts on other current work, a full review of the H4D40 as I've been shooting with it, and some other surprises.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Yankee Air Museum

2011-05-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

It's a little late coming, but I wanted to do my regular recap of the awesome group shoot we had in mid April, at the Yankee Air Museum which is currently being housed at the Grosse Ile Airfield. If you've seen the other meetups, you'll notice that this is our second time at this location, with one small difference. Or four big ones.

Four WWII era planes, including the massive Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress pictured here, were available for our group to use as backdrops and more for this shoot. While some of the coolest shots were done outside of the planes, we were given the opportunity to shoot inside these working, flying pieces of history.

Sonny is one of our awesome returning models that I work with on a regular basis when we do these events. Dressed up in a semi-authentic jacket and aviators cap, he looks pretty close to the real deal. There were some logistics that made putting this whole thing on, but this one shot was worth it.

Because I was traveling super light, and we were a little pressed for time, my lighting setup was deceptively simple. There's just that one softbox, raised up high and feathered down on Sonny. No tricks, no gimmicks, one flash and a massive hangar door streaming in some mid afternoon light. I was also testing out my new Alien Bee's and White Lightning Vagabond Mini battery. I shot for four solid hours on a single AB800 without even running down the battery meter. I think this one would outlast my Vagabond 2's, and weighing in at 5 lbs, it's a lot easier to travel with.

This was a smaller meetup by necessity of the venue, but we still brought in over 20 people to hang out and shoot with. We took this group shot with the volunteers who were our guides and technical advisors, in front of the same B-17, the Yankee Lady.

The Yankee Air Museum was extremely generous in the access they provided us with to these planes which are becoming more in danger of literally running out of parts. And after an unfortunate hangar fire at their old location in Ypsilanti, we were glad to raise a $500 donation to provide support for their mission of keeping these incredible machines hangared and flying.

We're already looking forward to seeing them again in October, so be sure to check out the A2/DT Strobist page to see when we're scheduled to go down there for another group meetup, and to see the pictures from this one and those past.

I also wanted to give a shoutout to a long-time participant of the group, Luis, who took what is probably one of my favorite pictures to come out of the meetup. While I was distracted with packing up and wrangling the gear I had loaned out, Luis snuck this shot in at the last minute in front of the B-25 with one of our models, Connie.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Website

Consuming-Video Post

2011-03-31T00:19:00.000-07:00

I ran across this video on The Daily What and thought of a few things. First of all, the visuals are just stunning. The muted gray with shocks of black and white, how quiet the tonality is, how loud the subjects are, gorgeous. You could pick nearly any frame out of it and it would stand alone as a great picture.

Second, with the exceptions being studio space and resources, many still cameras are in fact turning into capable video cameras. While I'm sure this was shot on something a bit more sophisticated, my own camera is capable of 60fps at a moderate resolution, more than enough for some demos or web videos.

Since video has already become so prevalent as a skill needed by even still photographers, it's worth knowing the basics when the time comes to collaborate on a project. Even if you (or I) lack the technical know-how and the equipment, the ability to visualize and direct video can be extraordinarily similar to still photography. The job of the Director of Photography on a major motion picture set includes lighting, framing and technical aspects that are basically interchangeable with photography.

So if you're the kind of photographer that can look at a movie frame and see the light and compose an image, you may have a small stepping stone to working on video for a variety of projects. After all, photographers do in one frame what videographers have to do in 24.

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Guest Post for Douglas Sonders

2011-03-23T12:16:00.000-07:00

I recently wrote a guest post over at my friend Doug's site, and thought I'd re-post it here as well.

Hi, my name is Alex Minkin, I’m a 2010 graduate of the Hallmark Institute of Photography where I concentrated on advertising and cinematic photography. My work has been published in ads in my hometown of Detroit, Best of College Photography Contest, and in various blogs for industry leaders. I’ve sold work to companies like Adidas and ad agencies nation wide, and shot still unit photography for Anthony Zuiker, the executive producer of CSI in Los Angeles.

By the time I left Hallmark, several extraordinary stokes of luck had positioned me further ahead of what I had ever imagined possible. Profoto’s blog had done a write-up about me, Adidas wanted to purchase the rights to a picture I had done, and my website was lighting up like crazy from my first direct mailer campaign.

Then, I realized I was moving to New York but had sent my mailers to California. Adidas was taking its time with the paperwork, and I had stopped using my equipment so I could pack up and move into a tiny bedroom almost off the edge of Manhattan.

So, nearly a year after school, I’m not quite doing exactly what I want to be. I’m taking shoots that aren’t even remotely interesting. I have a side job for a fine art consulting company, but every hour of every day, I’m working for myself. It’s at the same time the most rewarding and frustrating thing I’ve ever done in my life.

The dedication that’s necessary to be even a moderate success story in this field can be intimidating. It can be hard to throw yourself into it, to go for broke and screw the consequences. I thought that I was putting in a lot of work before I finished school, but now I’m spending my entire day making new mass email promos, doing market research, scouting new things to shoot, and writing emails trying to squeeze my way into something nobody wants to pay me to shoot.

I learned not to get discouraged when things take forever to accomplish, or if they fail to happen at all. I’ve made a nuisance of myself for one company for nearly a year before they finally agreed to set something up, a year of back and forth for one shoot. I’ve overpriced, underpriced, gotten rejected and been ignored, but I also learned that there’s nearly no mistake I can’t step away from and make it a positive move towards what I want to be doing.

And even though it was hard for me to believe, and maybe it is for others as well, I learned that other photographers are going to be a more valuable resource than a client that pays well and pays on time. We’re such a strange group of people, and overwhelmingly, we seem to love it when our friends get ahead.

Sure I’m jealous that Doug is shooting F/A-18’s while I shoot some interiors, but he lets me ask all sorts of stupid questions that they never fully explained in school. Questions like ‘how the %#($ do you build up a mailing list of 10,000+ people?’ or ‘where do I get insurance so I can rent a real studio instead of working in my living room?’ The photographers and companies I have been working for have been the best resource imaginable.

So, if you’re still at school and reading this, I have a few things that might help you out in a small way. Spend every waking moment shooting. Shoot everything you want to do and make it fit an assignment. Ask questions, even if it seems like everyone else knows the answer. You’re already a professional photographer; now make the portfolio to prove it. School will give you everything you put into it and more, but you still have to do the work first. And lastly, call or email the photographers you admire. You might get yelled at, but you might end up guest blogging for someone else down the road.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Rebrand-Rebadge

2011-02-28T16:13:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a reinvention is as easy as a new font. Sometimes it's a new font, logo, design scheme, promo cards, business cards and marketing plan.

With the site undergoing construction, promo cards being designed and business cards on the way, I'm also stoked to be listed on PDN online's Photo Serve, which promotes photographers to creative art buyers and art directors all over the country.

____________

Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Alex Minkin Promo Video

2010-10-14T22:31:00.001-07:00

Alex Minkin Promo Video
Originally uploaded by Alex Minkin

Finally got a promo video up of some of my work from the past year

You've got to check this out

2010-09-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

This is the newly released trailer from the project I helped photograph over the summer, CSI's Anthony Zuiker delivers a huge action packed digi novel- Level 26: Dark Origins. The series of cyber-bridges was shot exclusively on the 5dmkII, the same camera I was using at the time to capture behind the scene stills and video to be used in the upcoming iPad app. Be sure to check it out and pre-order the book or catch it in stores.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Old Shots-Jen and Wojo

2010-08-24T03:38:00.000-07:00

This was a shot from back in school, and was one of my somewhat ridiculously large setups. Seven lights are in here, think you can spot them all? Check out how I did it after the jump.

thanks to flickr user j.cleveland I remembered to finally make the lighting diagram for this picture. It took me a minute to figure out my own lighting, but the in studio stuff can be predictable at times, so deconstructing it wasn't too bad. Then I remembered I posted the lights used on flickr. Typical.

Two softboxes on the background start off this high key image. Metered a generous 2 stops over my planned subject exposure (f/5.6 subject, f/8-11ish on the background). I chose a fairly wide aperture to get even more depth of field out of this picture. A long lens and compression can do the job for you, but only if you have the working space to do it. I was a little crammed in there, so wide open was easier than hitting the wall.

The two strips on either side of Jen are gobo'd off for flare control. If you can't see the light source, it can't make a flare even if its hitting your subject. Black cards don't bounce much light, so you're also not worrying about spill.

The beauty dish above Jen was one of my favorite lights all year. It has great falloff, and near softbox quality soft light. The last two lights are on either side of Jen's arm sticking through the Gobos, at about equal power. The top of the ball is being ever so slightly lit by the beauty dish, and the back of her hand and arm is all grid.

This is the rough lighting diagram, and what Jared may not know is that nearly the same setup was used the same day for another shot, this one:

I used the same setup for a couple reasons. Working without an assistant is tiring sometimes. And Wojo's shot was actually the test for Jen's, but since we had two completely different subjects, I felt that repeating a lighting pattern wouldn't be too egregious a sin.
____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Retro-Vintage-Old School

2010-08-09T01:31:00.000-07:00

Photographing in the style of another time period is a great exercise in nearly every area of photography. You're re-creating lighting, wardrobe, editing and, in some cases, the very media you're using.

And while pinup isn't exactly something that's lacking on the interwebs, going back around 70 years to an art style that fell out of common usage long ago is one of the coolest things I've done this summer.

I chose pinups because of the huge range of imagery possible-the different styles, mediums, and even purpose you can choose. I decided the logical place to start is with the classic pinups mostly inspired by Alberto Vargas. While I decided to go with girls wearing more clothing than he normally depicted, the pure white backgrounds, popping colors and an incredible sense of light are all true to his paintings. Part of the editing process even brought in a painterly feeling for that little disconnect from the modern digital photography that captured it.

Check out more pictures, the lighting setup and some processing after the jump.

Planning these shoots was fairly straight forward. My models were told to research Alberto Vargas, Bettie Page, and the pinup genre in general for clothing. Hair was simply curled and taken up for most of the shots, let down for others. The one absolute necessity to me was having the deep red lips. We took test shots before makeup, and you could tell something just didn't look right.

The lighting setup was one of the larger setups I've used for something that looks deceptively straight forward, and I still haven't perfected it yet. Total count-6 lights, or rather, every light I own right now.

Three lights on the background, two in softboxes on the side and one magic-armed to the ceiling with a bare reflector nuked the background to nearly pure white. I could have pathed out the model off of any background, but some of the flare from the background gave me part of the look I was looking for.

Two lights in grids were positioned behind the model at an angle. It was important that these two were never actually visible to the camera-way too much flare if they were. The background softboxes provided gobos, but light stands with poster boards attached would have worked if I needed to change the angles.

The main light was in an Alien Bee PLM system, which is really a glorified bounce umbrella. It's supposed to be more efficient, but I never had to test that since I shot relatively open at f/6.3-8, never straining my lights at all. Faster recycles, less eye strain on the model and a shallower depth of field are all bonuses.

Where I was lacking light was a fill which would have been positioned right next to me in front of the model. The PLM is huge, so it has to be pretty far to the side. The opposite side of the model would go dark pretty fast from the light falloff, so a fill would have given me slightly less of a ratio, but still be really nice, sculpted light.

With the background nearly pure white, the PLM was lighting my model and foreground. The tileboards I put down on the floor disappear into the curve of the 9' seamless paper, and the bottom half gets painted over in photoshop, as do any gaps or irregularities.

The light makes the picture look like it's straight off a page of watercolor paper, and then I enhance it even more in photoshop. First, stray bits of background are painted white, covering the bottom of the background, sides peaking around, and anything that shows up that isn't supposed to be there. Skin is retouched if required, and liquifying is done now, so we don't change masks later.

A layer of curves brightens the whole image, skin tones and background. If an area like a knee or an elbow is blown out, it will disappear so I mask those areas back in, and then brighten them individually with the dodge tool.

A second layer of curves pulled down, only affects the model, since our background is 100% white. This provides a punch of color, contrast, and usually, too much red. A hue/saturation layer with the red channel selected pulls down the reds just a little, and I mask in red clothing, accessories and lips.

Then I just go crazy with curves, using them to increase contrast or brightness in individual areas. Legs and eyes usually get brightened a little, hair gets added contrast, and the overall image is brought up to near the final look. Masks are on every individual part so I can fine-tune as much as I want. Dodging and burning is done on a 50% gray/softlight layer, usually on clothing to give it some pop and depth.

If the photoshop didn't scramble your brains a little bit, here's the finished product to finish the job for you.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?

2010-07-28T01:19:00.001-07:00

Actually, i'm just about the right height. Not that I'm considering a career change or anything, but being the goon in full armor is pretty cool. Figuratively at least, because plastic armor and a full body suit make for one sweaty photographer. But I've never had more fun on a shoot than with this. More after the jump.

Costume rentals are starting to be the dominating feature of my budget when it comes to doing my independent shoots. But wardrobe has always been a hard to find item, and is usually the one thing I've had to rely completely on my models to provide for themselves.

But rental shops can be hard to find sometimes. One that was very close to where I work went out of business years before I even picked up a camera. Now, my nearest reliable source is a 45 minute drive each way. Worthwhile for big concepts, but combined with the price (stormtrooper armor is $100 for up to a 3 day rental), it's something that needs to be planned out a bit more in advance.

But as you may have seen, I sometimes neglect to plan things entirely out. Like the fact I was lacking both a blaster and the right boots. I ended up wearing some Nike's (ironic since Adidas made licensed Star Wars shoes) and ski boot liners. Neither was a perfect match, but the ski liners ended up being acceptable. Improvisation is an important skill in photography, and I seem to inadvertently test myself rather frequently.

But mismatched shoes aside, there was one major issue in shooting this piece specifically. It's white. All white. And I wanted to shoot it on a white background. Holding the edges on the lit side proved exceedingly difficult, the thigh and calf nearly disappeared into the background.

I did get to try a light modifier I under-utilized at school and never had the chance to use at home. The PCB Parabolic, basically a giant 6' odd silver bounce umbrella with a giant diffusion panel. Huge, soft light close up look absolutely gorgeous, and nothing is bigger than this. It's super even since it's bouncing from the light to the back of the mod before it hits the diffusion, unlike a giant softbox which has a hotspot and quick falloff. This is definitely a great mod to use for full length shots.

My old modifier of choice was the PCB Giant softbox, which you could fit two or three people standing up inside. But with the aforementioned hotspots and falloff, it made full lengths difficult sometimes. Light would falloff at either the head or feet, and since an unlit head doesn't do a portrait photographer any good, legs and feet were usually neglected and shifted in color temperature. The new PCB Parabolic doesn't seem to have that problem as much.

I do still miss the Profotos a little bit, especially for commercial work, but now I'm finding that I'm also missing the C-Stands we kept in the commercial bays. They're ultra-sturdy, stable, and support a lot of weight. Even my heavy duty stands bend when they have a boom arm and a small softbox, and I've had two try to take a dive already. But no more new equipment till the big move to LA.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Level 26-Video on the 5DmkII

2010-07-19T19:22:00.000-07:00

If you're interested in shooting high quality video on your DSLR, check out this post from Anthony Zuiker's Level 26 blog where they discuss using the 5dmkII for filming, and give me a little shout out for my behind the scenes work.
____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Photoshop-How to

2010-06-18T11:18:00.001-07:00

Giving the video tutorial a try here, check out how I did some of the editing and arrangement on the mock poster I made for Joan of Arc.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

HOW TO: Make a movie poster

2010-06-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, inspiration (or a lack of laziness) hits right after you could really use it. It's never a bad thing to have it come, but if it had just been a little sooner, maybe you could have turned in a really cool, full blown movie poster for your final portfolio review.

My lack of laziness came two days ago, when I decided that two weeks without shooting and nearly a month without blogging was getting to be excessive. Sure I had things to do, packing up to move back to Michigan, looking for a job in California, but I go a little stir-crazy when I'm not shooting or editing something

And sometimes 'something' turns into a project a little bigger than you imagined. I had just rented a bunch of costumes (King Henry VIII, a chain mail jacket and hood and a full suit of plastic armor) when I decided a movie poster for the non-existant summer blockbuster release of "Joan of Arc" would be fun to make.

See the lighting diagram, photoshop hints and more after the jump.

Unfortunately, that's about as far as my planning went. I shot two models as potentials for Joan, a friend for King Henry, and myself as a knight in shining armor. The armor may have been plastic and not very shiny, but I can work around that.

The 'How To' portion of this starts with some advice on movie poster lighting. It can be any lighting, obviously, but consistency is going to be key. I shot myself and my friend Laure with two different light setups, making it look really weird initially. Keep the lighting the same when the situation (layout, theme, etc) calls for it.

Everyone was shot on a black background with the same lighting-beauty dish main, high up, no fill, and a striplight kicker on the back for some rim and separation light. It's very simple, dramatic lighting. The pattern on the face is Rembrandt-triangle of light under the eye, heavy shadows without fill. All the pictures were shot on a medium format Leaf digital back.

The next part was editing each individual picture in photoshop. I wanted dark, dramatic and a little grungy. Desaturated layers with different blending modes along with some high pass and just a touch of dodge and burn gave me the effect I wanted. It's almost simple enough to make an action and save myself some time doing it.

With each person shot on a black background (which may or may not have been a mistake) the next part was the arrangement and masking of each person. A bunch of different layouts were tried, changed, and altered as three more people were added into the shot to fill in some negative space. The masking was mostly done by pathing people out with the pen tool when edges permitted, with a little bit of a feather to soften their transitions.

Hair is the trickiest part about something like this. I relied on the background to cover up most of the places where I couldn't accurately mask out long hair, which is where the black background was a good choice. It was still difficult in masking out Laure on the bottom right, as her head is right over Lena's armor. That section took a little more tweaking to get it to flow correctly.

Once everyone was in position, text was chosen and blocked out. I'm lucky enough to have a teacher who specializes in typography and designing layouts, so with her assistance we spaced out letters, centered everything to the middle of the frame, and chose an appropriate design for the title. The title font is "northwood high' and the credit text is 'sf movie poster condensed', both of which are available at Dafont.

The shooting itself took only a few hours, with a re-shoot to match all the lighting patterns and fix some costume errors, and editing the pictures themselves was only ten minutes apiece. The layout tweaking and typography took the rest of the two days this poster took from start to finish.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Level 26

2010-05-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this from the set of Level 26 on the CBS lot in Hollywood, CA. I was brought on to do some behind the scenes stills and video for them, and it's been a blast so far. We're working on the actual sets they use for CSI NY, so it's pretty cool.

Anthony Zuiker is directing the cyber-bridges that get linked to from the accompanying books, and this one is due out in october. I got a chance to read book one after wrapping the first two days, and it's a really intense crime novel, definitely worth checking out. See some behind the scenes pics after the break.

Michael Ironsides as Tom Riggins

Daniel Buran as Steve Dark

Steve Dark's murdered foster family

The crime scene was one of the first we shot, and the makeup guys did an awesome job making everyone look appropriately dead.

We're shooting straight through till thursday, so there's going to be tons more pics to follow.
____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

LA-in brief

2010-05-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Pics are being sorted and edited from today, over 400 frames of behind the scenes from something I'm not sure I can talk too much about. Suffice to say it's probably the coolest thing I've ever worked on, and despite 7am calls and wraps at 10pm, I'm having a blast. Pics and info coming as soon as I make sure it's all cool. ____________ Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

More p-51's

2010-05-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

Just a few more edits of the P-51 I was shooting earlier last week, a special treat after the break. Just don't blame me if it breaks your browser. Would it make more sense to post a link to it? probably. 8 full frame medium format files stitched into one gigantic 13,000 px wide picture.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Wheels Up

2010-05-07T21:55:00.000-07:00

'Wheels up' seems to be the appropriate title for this latest set and for the mentality of Hallmark as we hit the three-weeks-till-portfolios-due mark. People are finalizing plans for after school, and shooting, editing or printing every day. When I was told by former students that they 'lived' at the school, I have to admit I didn't think they really meant it like this.

These two pictures took two full days to shoot, composite, and edit down. After the results I got from shooting the small-sized cars, I realized that there are lots of really cool models out there. This 4th fighter group P-51 Mustang model, courtesy of Len at p51mustangmodels.com is so realistic its crazy.

I had originally wanted to build a set to show off this plane in the hangar for a still life, but finding a suitable replacement for hangar doors and concrete floors led me to source images from an actual hangar and create a composite instead.

It took a lot of trial and error with scaling, faking depth of field using blur, and creating studio lighting to mimic the conditions the plane was actually shot under, but eventually it all came together. A vintage look completed this picture, something I don't normally do but it seemed to fit well with the feel of the whole image.

While about 8 hours of composite work and tweaking went into the hangar shot, the flying shot up top was much simpler. Matching the feel of a huge light source is as easy as putting a softbox over everything. I threw in a bare bulb camera right to give it a little edge, like sunlight coming through the clouds for just a second. I'm not sure I really got the propeller quite right yet, but I love the yellow circle from the cuffs.

While I'm not quite sure I want to shoot miniatures all the time, it's a nice substitute until I can get my foot in the door to shoot the real thing.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Built to Scale

2010-05-03T23:06:00.000-07:00

I'm a camera collector, and a bit of an everything else enthusiast. I like planes, fast cars, gadgets, you name it, and I probably have at least one piece of it. The one thing I never really got in to though was models. I suppose a model meant to me that I was never going to have the full size one, and since I strongly disagree with that, I've never made an effort.

But after our open house at school where a few of my friends brought in a hot rod and the necessary 40 foot scrims and thousands of watt seconds, I had a hankering to shoot a car. And while getting a cool car isn't difficult at times, getting those expensive scrims and the space to hang them is pretty hard. Check out how I managed to pull it off, after the jump.

Like I said, scrims costing $2,000 apiece and a car-sized studio aren't easy to come by. But a very elegant solution was presented when I stopped at home and remembered the wall full of scale model cars sitting there. I fit three of them in my carry on luggage, and shot them all in one day. I even learned about lighting large objects at the same time.

Now I know someone out there is going to be wondering how you learn about lighting a car from shooting a model smaller than a foot long. But the lighting principles are the same, no matter the size of the model. It was easy to see the mechanics at work, so now equipment aside, lighting a car is something I'd be comfortable doing for a client.

The first thing to remember about cars is that they're shiny. Really, really shiny. And rounded. They reflect *everything* they see, just like metal. And then they're big. Not in this case, but a real one is.

So when you have a big, shiny, round reflective item, you need a huge light source. Here's where you're learning on small scale for real life. A 10" model that represents a 14' car needs a similarly scaled light source. That 40' scrim suddenly shrinks to a 3x4 softbox, and it's a whole lot easier to move around.

The last thing to consider is the height of the softbox in relation to the model. Remember, that 10" is now 14', and we all know that the closer the light source, the better the light will look. Here's the real world scaling problem. The softbox needs to be about 4" away from the car. Closer if you can manage it, but my diffusion material was sagging in the middle.

Your camera, on the other hand, did not shrink with the car. So now you're jamming a full sized lens into a mini car studio. That front element is now 10' tall, comparatively, and unless it's really long, it's going to be like using a wide angle lens, which can distort the lines of the car.

I had a lot of extra material around all the cars I shot. You can see the softbox in the top, and even the tape holding down the gray seamless I was using. That led to some interesting editing choices, between cutting, stretching and blurring the floor to cover the bottom of the frame, and blacking out the top using the gradient tool.

I did two edits of three shots with each car, a fully revealed side, a concealed side, and a concealed 3/4 view. I like the concealed view because it just shows the lines of these gorgeous tiny cars, a la Ken Brown who was definitely the inspiration for these pics. He's got this down to a science, and I'm just playing with toys.

Still, working with something on a small scale and working up to the big league sounds like the way to go for me. And if you don't tell anyone it's a toy, I won't.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Back in Gear

2010-04-28T00:37:00.000-07:00

Being a photographer 24/7 sounds like a great job, and trust me, it is. But it's still easy to burn out when you're constantly shooting assignments without time to explore and create images for yourself. Having to follow a set of instructions from a client or instructor can really suck all the fun out of shooting, and even if you're happy with the end result, getting there just wasn't a great experience.

So thats why despite having a vague idea to re-shoot some material for school, I blew all that off, created pictures the way I wanted, edited the way I wanted, and came out feeling like a load of bricks was lifted off me creatively. I saw light on my subject clearer than I have in days, and I knew how each frame would turn out before I even saw it on the monitor.

More about funks, getting out of them, and this one cool kid after the jump.

Felixx Ray (myspace) is a Massachusetts based R&B artist that had his manager contacted me to shoot a few weeks ago. We came up with a date and promptly did no pre-production. I was supposed to give him a general idea of wardrobe, but when I talked with Felixx to confirm the booking, I guess it slipped my mind. Bright orange and blue shirts weren't at the top of my list, but then I realized.

I was shooting for myself.

And for a client, but a client who wanted me to do what I think I do best. Just make a cool picture. Not worrying about lighting ratios (not that I worried much to begin with) or separation lights (which are evidently there for a reason), I had an idea of how I wanted the light to be, and I ran with it. I wasn't going crazy and making something selfish, Felixx and I had some good dialogue on which pictures we liked, which poses worked, and he seemed to really like the raw pictures on the screen.

While editing them, I even fell into a few old comfortable habits that I had left behind when I came to school. But they were different, a little better, and still me. If you looked at my old work compared to my new, you can tell it's me, but a more refined me. And that was one of my major goals in taking this year off for school.

When I book musical talent, I usually don't listen to their music before we work together. I'm not sure if that's a good idea or not, but I like to hear about their career right from them. Felixx and I didn't even get around to talking about his music, which I finally turned on while editing. And he's good. Real good. Get this kid a record deal good. He only has two songs on his myspace right now, and they're both Grade A awesome.

Check out the music portfolio on my site for pics from the shoot, and sign up for the mailing list to see even more.

Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Deerfield Academy

2010-04-24T22:16:00.000-07:00

I spent today shooting with one of my friends, Laure at the Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts. They have an awesome sports program and an amazing track and field, so pulling off some portfolio-worthy shots was all on me, no backgrounds to blame this time.

I'm usually known for my lighting or photoshop, and these pictures lack both of those. All natural light, not even a speedlight to pop some fill in, and post was done almost exclusively in lightroom, except for removing some errant tree tops and the like. Check out some more after the break.

Sports photography relies on long, fast lenses, the most popular being the 70-200 f/2.8 IS, the quintessential lens for nearly any type of photography. While I did run into an enthusiastic parent with a 400 f/2.8 IS and a 1DMK4, the 70-200 covered most of my focal lengths. The 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS is also a great lens that I used early in the day, before switching to the 70-200 as the light fell off.

I'm of the opinion that sports photography, whether high school or pro, relies a lot on luck and good timing. The skill is in knowing where to be and when to be there, but if nothing is happening in front of you, all the equipment in the world can't save you. I spent a lot of time walking back and forth to events for practice runs, where I got my own practice in. This shot of the long jump is where all the luck came in. Getting to the end of the sand pit was no challenge, and getting that awesome spray of sand was pure luck, made slightly more difficult by the slow framerate of the 5DMKII.

The 5DMKII is a great portrait camera, but not necessarily good for sports. the 1D series (no S) is renowned for its speed, and users complain more of having too many good shots to choose from rather than a lack thereof. the 5DMKII shoots at less than half the speed of the 1D, so timing, even for multiple frames, is important, as many great shots can get lost in between one frame to the next.

Typically, the longer the lens in sports, the better. Unless you can get on the field. And unless you can get right next to the crash pad, so close in fact that you have to dodge the occasional pole vaulter landing. While I didn't go as wide as my camera bag allows me to, the 24-70 f/2.8 is an amazing lens, and is probably my most used. At 24mm there's a little distortion, but not bad at all, and the quality is tack sharp.

Shooting up into the sky has become a bit of my trademark, though I usually do it with a few hundred wattseconds of light hitting my subject. Putting the sun to my side with a still bright early afternoon sky in front gives me that look of balancing the ambient with flash, without having to worry about slow sync speeds. A speedlight would have been great to put a little fill into the bottom of the athlete, but I was traveling light for the day.

While I'm primarily an advertising photographer, being able to do the candids out on the field is a much better way to spend a day than in a studio. I'm starting to balance out my portfolio as school comes to an end, and there may be a few surprises left yet.

Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Sobe Lifewater-Composite

2010-04-21T11:04:00.000-07:00

Phase 4 is going smoothly for most of the students here as we go through mid-term reviews of our final portfolios. One of my images, this mock Sobe Lifewater ad is being submitted for my composite project, and I'll show you a little insight into how I made it.

One of the many golden rules of photography is that the more you can do in camera, the more realistic the results will be. I tend to treat this more like a rule of thumb, and I think I've successfully gotten around it this time. Read more after the break.

Not to say that this wasn't an exercise in how many times I could pound my head against the wall without it falling off. I had never shot water for composites before, so there was a fair amount of trial and error (and spilled soft drink) before I hit the right combinations needed.

From looking at this screenshot of my layers for this picture, it actually doesn't look too bad. But this is the finished version, with the 20+ splash layers condensed to save space and my sanity in trying to find each element.

Starting from the bottom with a blank layer as the background, we have the layer for the splashes behind the bottle, with its color layer, then the bottle, masked for some translucency at the bottom, then the splash in front with color, droplets with color, effects layer for dimensionality, and then the collapsed text group.

These layers are just the finished elements used to save the final image. The working file, at any given point in time, had upwards of 50 layers, some just experimental, others that were deleted, and many that were combined into the front and back splash layers.

How we got those individual layers is pretty interesting, so here's a screenshot of my lightroom catalog with the final images I shot of water droplets that were comped in.

Each of these water shots, similar to the pours that built up the base and the actual splash, were cut out, adjusted, and then colored after being placed in position in the final image. over 30 different pours, drops and splashes were used to construct the liquid elements, with a fair amount of warping, liquify and cloning to integrate them all together.

All the liquids were shot being poured from one container into another, and captured with a Toyo 4x5 and the Leaf Aptus 22. Probably not the best choice for speed, since the Toyo has to be re-cocked after every shot, but the image size and quality gave me more options when it came time to fill in gaps. The final image is just as large as if it were captured with one frame, no need to downsize to fit lower quality elements.

The bottle itself was the easiest piece to shoot, just three softboxes, one of either side and over overtop. It lacked a hard edge which I added in post, but having it too sharp would have ruined the illusion of movement. There's a fine line between physics and advertising, with each having to win in certain situations.

All told, it may be easier to shoot this in one frame, but to line everything up properly, while showing enough of the label to satisfy a client, and enough splash to make the consumer think it just might be real would be prohibitively time consuming. I prefer the total control I get while shooting the elements separately and combining them, tweaking them, and molding them to my needs.
____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Nifty Fifty and The Wild West

2010-03-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

Spring break was some well deserved time off from school, and despite our teacher's oddly specific instructions to *not* do photography, I did squeeze my stripped down 5dMKII and a single lens into my ski bag. That lens was the lightest, smallest and cheapest Canon lens in production, affectionately called 'The Nifty Fifty'. This all plastic, bare bones 50mm lens weighs next to nothing, has a low profile, and costs under $100, or under ¥10,000 in my case. See the incredible pictures this thing is capable of after the jump.

I've never been a big landscape photographer, and most of my natural outdoor work is quick snapshots while walking around. I'd like to say these were planned and prepared for, but I was either in a moving car shooting through glass, riding a chairlift to the top of a mountain, or hopping from one frozen bare foot to the other on the patio in the early morning.

The 50mm f/1.8 is not world renowned for its quality, but it's a total sleeper hit. Most of these were taken between wide open and f/8, and the full sizes have amazing detail. This one in particular was shot, through window glass, while moving, wide open, and still has fairly good detail in the distance. It wouldn't be my first choice in a lens to use for the rest of my life, but it sure wouldn't be my last.

So if you're a canon shooter and don't have this in your bag, give up your latte for the day (that's one big latte) and grab this lens. It's nearly cheap enough to be disposable, fun to play and experiment with, and gives remarkably stunning results.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

iPhone Madness

2010-03-28T12:08:00.000-07:00

I do a lot of cell phone photography, starting way back when the first camera phones came out and gave you mushy, crap pictures that you had no way of getting off your phone without an expensive data plan. The iPhone is several generations removed from that now, and I love the combo of camera/editing software available for download.

I use several programs and I wanted to highlight some of them and why I use them. The pic at the top was taken just a day or two ago on spring break, and it went through 3 programs to edit and upload. Read through the process after the break.

After taking the picture, the first step was Tiltshift, which emulates the narrow depth of field thats been popular recently. It doesn't have to be used to make a picture look like it was a miniature model, you can use it just as effectively for a background blur and some good basic controls that are easy to use.

Next is Camera Bag which is a really cool emulator app. Vintage looks including 70's and polaroid, film looks like 'helga' and infrared and some other one-step edits are great to use.

The app I've been using the most though doesn't necessarily have the best editing or controls over any other app, but has a great uploading and social network feature. Chase Jarvis' Best Camera does editing and uploading to flickr, twitter, facebook, email and its stand alone social site bestc.am, all in one step.

There's no reason to only use one app to edit your cell phone pics, and while you may not be able to sell a book with exclusively cell phone images in it, I've seen some great work done with a cell phone that might not have otherwise been possible.

____________
Follow Me on Twitter|Be a fan on Facebook|Tumblr|Ustream

Eat, Sleep, Breathe-Photography

2010-03-18T15:11:00.000-07:00

When you find yourself up late at night, trolling flickr for some cool stuff to look at, following every photographer you can find on twitter, and have a stack of photo magazines thicker than that other stack of other magazines, you're probably pretty into this stuff.

Welcome to the club.

I'm lucky enough to do photography all day, every day. I don't take vacations, I take trips with my camera. I don't call in sick for work, I do research in bed. And I certainly don't dread waking up every morning, unless it's really really early, and even then I manage to get pumped for the days shoot.

In other words, like many other people out there, I eat, sleep and breathe photography. If you're unsure if you have the symptoms, here's a quick diagnosis after the break.

EAT: Like consuming photography? Do you have bookcases full of how-to books, tech spec, gear pron and specialty magazines? Lists of contacts on flickr, following on twitter, fan of on facebook and every other social media site imaginable for you to check out their work? Are you subscribed to blogs like this one? Then you're a photo consumer, and an active one at that. Consuming photos is almost as important as taking them, it gives you ideas and direction, shows you things you may have never thought of on your own. Just don't forget to go out and try them too.

SLEEP: In addition to being at that age where pulling all-nighters is both necessary and possible, I'll spend more time thinking about photography before I go to sleep than any other time of the day-even when I'm working. Most artists I know keep a journal or notepad next to their bed, just in case inspiration strikes. Since my bed is currently 6 feet off the ground, I have to climb down and get on my computer, but you can use some looseleaf if you want to.

BREATHE: If I've learned one thing about photographers, it's that we love to talk. About photography. All day. While I was running the awesome Ann Arbor Strobist meetups, we talked about tools and techniques non-stop before, during and after our meetings. Even when the discussion drifted away from what we were doing, it would land right back down on another area of photography.

And that's why social media has found a huge amount of success in photography, or vice versa. We all love to share how we create images, what drives us to do it, and what's next on our list to conquer. The internet in general made it that much easier to do so, and moved the discussion out of the camera store and into the homes of photographers everywhere. Everyone from a first time shooter to a full time pro has something they want to share.

So, do you eat, sleep and breathe photography? If you're already here, I think we know the answer.

Phase 3, part 2

2010-03-18T12:39:00.000-07:00

My self portrait-mom just loves it.

At what we first thought was going to be the end of phase 3 here at Hallmark, we got a few more assignments or "additional personal submissions" to do before we leave on spring break. A chance to break free, dust off our creativity that we may have left neglected in the corner, and shoot whatever appealed to us, keeping our final portfolio in mind.

My combo sports/action and portrait kept me fairly busy, waiting for the weather to break, which it fortunately did, and scheduling in some people to play the sports I really wanted to photograph. While it's always interesting to go find people online that will follow directions (i.e. please have the equipment required for the sport you want to portray), I did manage to find some great shots, in and out of the studio.

Another big thanks goes to Bob at Bikes Unlimited for continuing to let me borrow equipment to shoot at school. Here's some of my favorites after the break.

This shot was a rehash of my first attempt at shooting a bike in the studio. Going in the opposite direction for the background and then throwing in some props to support it. The first bike was held in place with 20lbs fishing line, which mysteriously disappeared, only to be replaced by 4lbs line for this shot. A whole lot of fishing line was used to make this shot stand up straight, as well as hold the helmet and shoes in their individual shots.

With my career plan wildly adjusted at the last minute to consider job prospects in LA instead of NY, I figured movie posters and celebrity portraits would be a good idea to have in my portfolio. A decidely Max Payne feel to this portrait inspired some cool art and graphics for other shots, but this quietly insane portrait of my buddy Wojo was just right for what I wanted to turn in.

A not so quiet shot, or series to shoot, Mike Esposito got angry for this and had the chance to practice his evil eye. The lighting for this was super simple, just two profoto striplights on the side, and a grid on his face to bring him up a little. I've been trying to avoid doing all low-key shots, a habit of mine from working in areas with less than attractive backgrounds, but I wanted a villain shot to mix things up a little bit.

And since I wanted to show versatility in both indoors and outdoors photography, with and without lights and equipment, this au-natural picture from the Mountain Dew Tour is getting put into the mix. This was during a practice run, when the athletes were more concerned with hitting the spot right in front of us for some face time than getting huge air. This was taken on a borrowed Nikon D3 and a 70-200 f/2.8, the lighting was provided by the curve of the halfpipe reflecting the sun right behind him, giving me some blisteringly fast shutter speeds and perfect sandwich lighting.

The self portrait way at the top was shot with four lights, two striplights on the sides, gridded background light, and beauty dish high right. The $1.20 grape flavored cigar from the Exxon station was lit in photoshop, and the hammer and sickle pin added in as well in post. The love of Vodka was not added in photoshop.

Next is spring break for a week, where I'll be shooting some video in Aspen, CO. and then trying my hand at Final Cut Express to learn editing techniques for an upcoming promotional video I'll be shooting at school on the 5dMKII, so be sure to keep checking back for more posts on what's in the pipe.

Phase 3 Roundup

2010-02-28T21:09:00.000-08:00

Didn't manage to write much at all during our phase 3 at Hallmark, but it's been paying off to do nothing but photography all day, every day, with a little bit of sleep thrown in there. The 15 assignments were a mix of portraits, both on location and in studio, product photography and a bit of design thrown in for good measure.

The headliner here is a low-key portrait, done in studio. We're supposed to orient our portfolios to a certain field, and having to choose a direction helped more than I expected. While some students are still up in the air what they'll be doing after graduation, I managed to narrow mine down to sports and lifestyle oriented advertising. Just putting a name on it helped, even though I've been working towards it this whole time. See the highlights from my phase 3 portfolio and some personal work after the jump.

The last shot I did for phase 3 is one of my favorites. It came out almost exactly how I had envisioned it, and it looks like it should be blown up to 30x50 feet and slapped on a billboard. If they used billboards to advertise mountain bikes that is. The bike was shot as part of a design assignment, creating a brochure for a local business. Bikes-Unlimited's owner Bob was a great guy to chat with while I shot picture of him and his store to create their brochure, and even loaned me some equipment, including this bike to take back to school and shoot.

The other shot done for the inside spread of the brochure was again equipment on loan from Bob, and made me remember that I could really use some new ski boots, especially with some of the work I did this winter. If you want to shoot athletes on the mountain, you'd better be able to keep up with them.

But there's no way I'm keeping up with this guy, from the Mountain Dew Tour held up in Vermont at Mt. Snow. Freestyle skiing and snowboarding coupled with some fast cameras and front row seats makes some intense pictures.

A new friend that just happened to be from MSU back home and had made her way to Mass. ended up as a great replacement for some pictures I did a while ago when I was just starting out in sports advertising. The weather didn't want to cooperate, but that lead to a great tagline and some ideas for an entire campaign for me to shoot for practice.

And while our previous assignments did cover how to shoot glass in general, this picture, which ended up as my advertisement after being cut out was anything but simple. Turns out you have to drink the beer FIRST, otherwise the colors on the bottle go everywhere.

And of course, nothing goes better with that last picture than this still life, comprised of over a dozen shots. While food photography isn't on my top list of things to do, it's a lot of fun to eat while you're working. I like this one a lot better than my last food assignment, mostly because I actually don't eat the scallops or caviar featured in that.

Equipment wise, a lot of these were done with the Toyo 4x5's and leaf backs, including the bike, boot, beer and hamburger. The 5DmkII is getting it's fair share of time as well for the location portraits, and I even test drove a Nikon D3 for the freestyle skiing. That just cemented the need for me to be getting a 1 Series camera pretty soon, despite the Nikon being a great camera as well.

Portfolio review starts tomorrow for some students, along with a rumored 8 assignments to be shot in two weeks, this time of our choice. It's coming down to phase 4 and beyond pretty soon, and it's promising to be even more intense and demanding. New websites (including this one) are going up, contacts are being made, and careers are planned as the Hallmark class of '10 gets ready to break out.

Paul Mobley- Santa Fe Workshop

2010-01-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

Paul Mobley is a commercial advertising photographer I assisted over the summer back in Michigan, before I moved out to Massachusetts. He's a phenomenal portrait photographer as well, and his book 'American Farmer' is an amazing collection of images from all over the US.

And coming up in March, Paul is teaching a workshop in Santa Fe on the art of the portrait. It's something that I'm sorely regretting that I won't be able to get to do, but that doesn't mean you guys should miss out. It's a pretty nominal cost to hang out with a great photographer who's willing to teach how he works, and to hang out away from your presumably cold hometown, if you're from my neck of the woods.

So check it out, and be sure to sign up soon before the last remaining slots are taken.

Holmes, Sherlock Holmes

2010-01-16T21:06:00.000-08:00

Some of us just don't have the body type to be King Henry VIII, and I'd count myself lucky to be one of them. But with time running down on my art historical reference assignment, I was picking out a fat suit to go along with the outfit that was being assembled for me. A chance comment and a complete shift in directions later, I'm standing on Avenue A in Turners Falls, Massachusetts and trying very hard to pretend it was London, and I was the world's premiere detective, Sherlock Holmes.

I think all this would be too easy if I stuck to my original plan, and far less fun. King Henry as a photo subject would be stuffy, posed, and with the exception of a few wenches, likely to be uninteresting. Being able to switch gears as quickly as I did made the ideas come loose and fast, and let me leave a small mark on a literary great. Read more after the jump.

This picture was the one that will ultimately be submitted for the assignment, being based on a more modern day cover of 'The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes'. Location proved to be the only sticking point for this project. Making a small modern town look like 1800's London wasn't exactly easy. The street lamps were the main feature, and finding the right type wasn't going to happen in the short working radius I had around town.

Luckily, the buildings near a local tavern evoked a more retro feeling, with wrought iron fences, brick sidewalk and an appropriate replacement for the street lamps. While the artwork I was sampling from wasn't exactly a masterpiece, it did have good directional lighting, or at least I could imagine where the lighting should be placed. Those familiar with my other work will wonder how many lights, or how high they were turned up, but subtlety was much in play for this shot. A single profoto softbox, high up to give a sense of street lamp light was only at f/4 to make me stand out a little bit. The overall exposure was 1/25th at f/3.6. Shot on a Mamiya 645AFDII, iso 50 on the leaf 22 back.

The picture was toned in photoshop to match the colors on the cover, a little olive green. Curves darkened the sky slightly for that foggy London look, and that was it for post processing for this one.

The title picture on the other hand had serious retouching work to get exactly the right feel. A green filter on the sky knocked it down to the proper color, along with some burning to darken it even more for a much moodier feel.

Commercial Studio-Food

2010-01-10T19:40:00.000-08:00

Food photography is one of those things I really hadn't looked into much before I came to Hallmark. I had done a shoot for a restaurant back home, but that was done more by the seat of my pants than anything.

Shooting food in the studio with a 4x5 is a completely different animal, and so is having to do the food styling by yourself. For this assignment, I wanted to go a little high class, and caviar seemed the way to go. Unfortunately, I neither like caviar, nor know anything about it. This one was going to require a little research. More after the jump.

I've never had caviar in my life, if you don't count the little orange stuff that gets served on top of most sushi. Seafood just isn't my thing, but I knew I wanted to shoot it for this assignment as soon as they detailed how they wanted to see thought and planning put into making the food look as good as possible. Caviar itself doesn't take much to look good, so you just concentrate on what you're serving it on.

That was a weeklong project, searching all over for different recipes, serving instructions, and examples. It came down to deciding between a very traditional serving, blini with sour cream and garnish, something crazy like a martini with caviar, or something in between.

I went more towards traditional to put the focus on the caviar instead of on the props or another food that the caviar would only be a small part of. Pan seared sea scallops on baby spinach with a dollop of sour cream and a mountain of caviar on top. The commercial studio went from zero to five stars when that dish was put out.

The lighting was simple, if the construction of the actual food wasn't. A single giant softbox overhead gave me nice, even lighting across the white plate, with the green vegetables, seared scallop with sour cream, and black caviar standing out in a curved pattern three deep. Most of the successful images I had seen used the repeating pattern, fading off in the background.

Positioning the food was the biggest challenge. Every time we moved a piece, the plate had to be cleaned with q-tips or paper towel. The spinach needed to be fluffed, the caviar shaped, the scallops rotated, and the plate tilted. I had a feeling going into this project that we were learning as much about photography as learning when to hire a specialist, unless you happen to be a chef. I'm not saying that I'm talentless in the culinary arts, but I'm much better at eating than cooking.

Our teacher explained commercial studio as a game of inches, but when your subject is only inches itself, it comes down to centimeters. Poking and prodding with toothpicks slowed the shoot down to a crawl as we made adjustments, but shooting tethered to my laptop made the process much more enjoyable and successful than in the past. Leaf may not know how to explain what an "Error FB' is, but their software is straightforward and reliable.

Check back sometime soon for a video detailing another upcoming food shoot, from concept to post production.

B&J 8x10

2009-12-10T19:01:00.000-08:00

Getting the Burke and James 8x10 up and running was more of a disassembling process than a true restore. The aperture blades on the shutter started falling out when I decided to just go whole hog and yank out the aperture controls entirely, and shoot wide open with that huge piece of glass. While it has its disadvantages, it's still an amazing process. More info and some future plans after the break.

The process of shooting with this camera right now is somewhat involved. After loading the film (in a darkroom), the lights are set, the studio is blacked out, darkslide pulled, lights popped, darkslide replaced, and then lights on to reset for another shot. It can take upwards of 5 minutes to take a shot between composing and focusing, shutting all the modeling lights off on the strobes, and struggling in the darkness to find everything.

And then, because I'm like that, theres the developing process. No tidy tanks and reels like 35mm, or even medium format. Open trays of chemicals in a cramped bathroom pulling double duty as a darkroom (though thankfully ventilated). 13 minutes in darkness, constantly agitating trays sounds more like an OCD activity instead of a relaxing hobby.

Next up is doing contact prints and developing those in the same setup. First is doing a test strip on an ad-hoc setup. A softbox put right up against the paper, negative and a sheet of glass with cardboards to isolate areas while I check what power levels give what exposures. Barring a disaster in the developing, I should have a fairly reliable way to make prints without buying an expensive enlarger for 8x10's.

Betcha can't use just one, doc...

2009-11-23T20:47:00.000-08:00

Why use one beauty dish when you have an entire school's worth of equipment at your disposal? That seemed like sound logic to me as I ransacked the the portrait studio bays next to mine of their lights, stands and beauty dishes. I could have gotten even more, but I didn't want to appear greedy. Photographers wax poetic about how gorgeous a beauty dish can be, and how if one is good, two is better. I never did hear anyone say if two is better than three must be overkill, so I went for it.

See a lighting diagram and more info after the jump.

It started innocently enough, I booked a model to do a shoot at the request of my retoucher back in Michigan. He sent makeup concepts, we picked a girl, and we were good to go. While the original idea was to have a lip-gloss centric shoot, we thought we would expand the number of looks we could get by starting with just the basic face and eye makeup first, then adding the lips in afterwards.

In the course of doing our initial shots, I noticed that my model had exceedingly long hair. Since most of my work has been lacking a hair stylist (this time as well unfortunately), I thought we could use the hair to frame and accentuate her face. My makeup artist wrapped the hair around her neck and held it to her back while I took a few frames, but I felt that something was lacking in the lighting. We already had a fairly large setup going, but it was typical of my older work as well. I wanted to push things a little bit.

In just a few minutes, I had three beauty dishes on booms positioned within inches of the model. The lightmeter that I had initially dreaded using was telling me to shoot at f/32 at ISO 50. Thats a whole lot of light, and they weren't even turned up the whole way.

I was afraid that I was actually taking a huge step back in technique, and that I would simply be blasting my model with too much light for the sake of using too much light. But even on the cruddy screen of the Aptus back, I could tell I had finally left that behind. Turning down the power slightly on the right beauty dish gave a little shadow for some definition and depth, but the overall light is even and smooth all the way across her face.

This shot ended up being a very last-minute submission for the best of college contest after a nearly sleepless night of retouching. It still has a little ways to go before being a final, polished image though. Sometime soon-Retouching post.

120 Marathon

2009-11-15T20:36:00.000-08:00

Taking a huge step back in size, but a just a few steps forward in technology, I thought I'd show a few of the 120 film cameras that I've been playing around with since I started photography. Starting with the pictured 1967 Hasseblad 500c, it's a completely manual, utterly analog, electricity-less camera. And gorgeous to boot. Sure it may lack metering, precision shutter or film backs that are practically foolproof, but it's an absolutely amazing kit. It was previously owned by said portrait studio photographer that the 8x10 camera was obtained from, and it's in remarkable shape.

I'll admit that the Hasselblad has an allure about it, in part due to its lunar pedigree, and the current 50+ megapixel digital. And being primarily a Canon shooter, Carl Zeiss lenses are few and far between. This camera gave me the chance to use some vintage glass that promises to be even better than some modern day lenses. More toys, and a step in the other direction after the jump.

In complete and utter contrast to the Hasselblad's legendary mechanics and glass, we have my Holga CFN, which just decided to die sometime today. This was the first 120 film camera I ever owned, picked up between train stops from Hikone to Osaka, Japan. The 'dreamy', soft, messed up shots that emanated from this camera were more of a source of amusement for me than a real working camera, but weighing next to nothing made it easy to take along with me everywhere. While the shutter inside the lens is still working, the lack of a flash feature has doomed this camera to be disassembled, where its repair may be dubious.

My first twin lens reflex camera was this Rolleicord, a member of the Rolleiflex family. Slightly more compact than the Hasselblad, this came with a complete kit-leather case, meter, filters, lens adapters, and even one original magnesium-filled flashbulb. This was the first 120 camera that I would take outside to use as a normal point and shoot due to the surprisingly accurate analog light meter that bayonets onto the front. I also shot only black and white film, and used it to practice developing, with some help from my girlfriend.

But one of my favorite cameras is my RZ67, for several reasons. Not only did Annie Leibovitz use this type of camera for a huge amount of her studio work, I bought this while out in Seattle checking out Chase Jarvis' studio. I use this camera a lot of my own studio work, and it's so simple to use that I almost regretted getting my new Mamiya 645 for school. If I could have gotten my hands on the necessary adapter, I'd be using this camera instead. It has some of the best intuitive controls that I've seen on camera's like this, and the simplicity makes using it effortless. While it may be a bit of a beast in its weight class, I can comfortably handhold for an entire roll.

These are just my 120 MF film cameras, and while some may argue that it's even more irrelevant to have so many different ones when the only difference that matters is the film, I still feel that they're all appropriate for different situations, have different feels and even subject impact. The Rolleiflex gets stares and questions, the Mamiya makes people run the other way, and the Holga is ignored as if it were a cheap disposable camera.

Film may be dying out professionally, even as I start my career. But a surprising number of students still enjoy shooting film, and even some of them still develop in at-home darkrooms. Whether for nostalgia or for fun, film isn't going away quite yet. The people that still shoot film are the ones that will eventually be instrumental in saving it from extinction, just like in the impossible project's efforts to bring back Polaroid film to the huddled masses, but that's for another post.

It's Alive...

2009-11-12T20:09:00.000-08:00

If film is dead, I want to be Dr. Frankenstein. I've been on such a film kick for the past year, it's kind of crazy. I've lost track of how many film cameras I have now, but I just added two very nice retro jewels to my collection. Pictured here is a Burke and James 8x10 view camera. this thing is a beast, I don't even have a picture of the full setup with the rolling stand yet. The camera itself weighs about 20lbs, is solid wood, and has definitely seen better days. But luckily enough for me, it still operates, sort of, and only took $1.04 in parts to get it back together.

Ever since our guest speaker at Hallmark, Barbara Bordnick talked about doing portraits with Polaroid 8x10's, I've been a little obsessed with the idea. The images she showed us were hauntingly beautiful, and I think that film is undoubtedly a more sincere way of capturing a true portrait. Sure its easier with digital, and sure no one may be able to tell the difference, or care, but its an entirely personal thing to me. This is as close to my photography as I can get.

Finding a cheap, used 8x10 camera was easy in my mind, but it took a little bit of searching. It wasn't until a craigslist ad listing cheap hasselblad film bodies did I even stumble upon this one. And to sweeten the deal, the photographer selling this equipment knew my portrait teacher here at Hallmark, Rich Barnes. The whole deal turned into a steal for me, and I wasn't even expecting to get what I really wanted. It was almost in passing that a pack of polaroid 8x10's, a processor and a holder were thrown in.

A couple of wood screws and some fiddling later, the camera is temperamental, sticky, and still just as heavy, but I can see an image on the ground glass. An 8x10 film holder is definitely needed before I try out what may be one of the few remaining packs of 8x10 polaroid in the world. But now, all thats left to do is check to see if the packard shutter behind the lens will sync with some pocket wizards.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world. -Victor Frankenstein

Sustainable Red-Wine

2009-10-31T16:53:00.000-07:00

Phase one at Hallmark is winding down, and our final project is due in a week. One picture we have to shoot is a product with an appropriate background or location, and I just happened to pick up this cool bottle of wine from a local store. While driving back to the studio, I also passed a tree with some great red leaves that were falling. Some people driving past may have seen me picking leaves up off the ground and shoving them in a plastic baggie.

The cool thing about the commercial bays at school are that, right now at least, it's pretty empty after school. I get to use equipment from 2 or 3 bays instead of having to keep changing everything out when i start a new picture. Luckily, this was a fairly simple setup, but I think a few weeks of instruction and some lighting diagrams will do me good.

The setup, which I actually do have a picture of this time, was a little more complex than I've done in the past.

A softbox in the back through the infinity table, one in the front right for the bottle, and a third bare bulb underneath the table. No bounce cards, but I did have to black out the wall on the left side to get rid of some highlights. Post processing was cleaning up the bottle and re-arranging some of the leaves, curves, and some trade secrets.

It likely won't get used for class for one reason-they want us to be turn in lightroom edits only, and this shot, like most product shots, is a disaster till it gets polished. I'll definitely be holding onto this one for a while.

Keep coming back to check out new pics that will be getting posted, we're just getting started.

Hallmark in Motion- Weeks 3 & 4

2009-10-04T00:01:00.001-07:00

After watching most of the class get jump started from zero to 'pro' photographers, we hit the ground running, literally. Our assignment this week included techniques on capturing motion, and my experience as a 'sportraiture' photographer came in handy. Josh was willing enough to run endlessly through dirty puddles in the unusually wet Massachusetts weather so I could get a great shot like this one. More after the jump.

Without 'distractions' like things to do on the weekends, we have plenty of time to throw on a jacket and spend a few hours in the rain. Josh, Colin and I took the day to do our motion assignment, and ended up with some great shots. Nearly running over Josh just so that Colin could get his homework done was priceless.

Coming up in the next couple weeks we have a few field trips, including one to New York for PhotoExpo, and to some smaller locales around the Massachusetts area. Assignments should start falling out of the sky any day now, and I'll have something a bit more interesting to talk about than how I captured movement with a fast shutter speed.

____________

Follow Me on Twitter
Join the Mailing List

Best Camera

2009-09-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

I got on board with Chase Jarvis' "Best Camera" because I missed the way I used to take dozens of pictures on my cell phone before I even had a real camera. Having something that can grab the things you see every day in a split second is a great way to stay creative, take notes, and keep yourself occupied.

Having used the previous Jarvis approved camera app, I wasn't disappointed by the way the app handled, it had plenty of features and a lot more control than other iPhone apps. I miss some of the presets from Camera Bag, but the options in Best Camera aren't lacking, and the sharing feature that uploads to twitter, facebook, email and the Best Camera website is really cool, and I'm sure more features will be rolled out soon.

Overall, it's a great and ambitious foray into a web app and social site, and I've been going crazy editing a whole backlog of iPhone pics from the past year. Check it out on twitter or Facebook.

____________

Follow Me on Twitter
Join the Mailing List

Hallmark 2010- Weeks 1-2

2009-09-19T19:46:00.000-07:00

So as most of you know, I'm out in Turners Falls Massachusetts where I've just started Phase 1 of the most comprehensive photographic education anywhere in the US. Weeks one and two blew by pretty quickly, with guest speakers and equipment being handed out, and our first assignment shot in neighboring Historic Deerfield. We're getting to know our teachers and their backgrounds, and getting settled into the program thats as demanding as they come.

Our week one assignment, with one of my final images posted above, was really an eye opener for me. Working mostly with artificial lighting, I usually never had to worry about the quality of available light. Having to work exclusively with said natural light put me on the spot, especially when the weather turned sour, giving us nothing but even, diffuse light for the entire day.

Read more and see some other shots from the day after the jump.

Coming from a very strobist background, having to deal with the giant softbox in the sky wasn't exactly intuitive. I've never had to work with models in all natural light, so it threw me for a bit of a loop when we had to photograph three different sets of subjects using it. The weather that day wasn't exactly cooperating, and trying to find a shadow was next to impossible.

Luckily, I still remember how to work without cranking down my exposure and blasting something with light. The above shot of Claudia was shot with an 85mm F/1.2 @ F/2.8 in the middle of a corn field we walked past. The new 5D Mark II creates literally noiseless images at ISO 50, and the color comes out fantastic in Photoshop CS4. Claudia, the 'model' for the day is another student whom I spent some time working with for our people assignment.

Another all natural light subject was more of an exercise in manually focusing toy lenses than anything else. Our not-so-little Chinese Sharpei friend here was excited by all the paparazzi attention he was getting.

Class is moving along slowly while all the students are brought up to speed, so I get a chance to relax and stretch myself on assignments. Keep checking back for more info on my new work and the Hallmark class of 2010.

Hallmark 2010

2009-09-11T17:44:00.000-07:00

Finally, made it to Mass., and to the Hallmark Institute of Photography. Like I may have mentioned, this town (Turners Falls) is TINY. I mean, three stoplights and one main street tiny. From 1st to 7th street is less than half a mile.

But we made it through three days of orientation at the awesome school they have set up here. The equipment is all brand spankin' new, and the building is practically an oasis for photographers. Huge portrait and commercial bays, gigantic imaging and design labs, it's one heck of a place to do some work. I can see why some students 'lived' there all year. If they didn't have to kick me out every night, I'd just bring my bed and some PJ's. Read more about the school and our awesome guest speakers after the jump.

Orientation every day was ended with a lecture from a noted photographer, and while they're not exactly household names, they sure aren't obscure. First was Gregory Heisler, who's shot over SEVENTY Time Magazine covers, from Clinton and Arafat to Bruce Springsteen and Michael Phelps. He's also our 'Artist in Residence' for the year, meaning we get unfettered access to an extraordinarily accomplished photographer.

Next was fashion photographer Barbara Brodnick, one of the first major female fashion photographers. What I admired her the most for was these amazing 8x10 peel apart polaroid pictures of 'Women of Jazz'. It made me want to run out and get an 8x10 camera and beg Fuji to start producing film for me. She also had a collection of images for her three books on flowers, shot from perspectives that are so unique that she describes them more as landscapes than just pictures of plants.

Our final orientation week speaker was Clay Patrick McBride, who's shot a huge range of music talent including Metallica and Fifty Cent, along with NBA players and Japanese biker girls. He's also made the move to multimedia, delivering videos to his clients for 'online content', and was actually the photographer who inspired the well known stop motion music video of the girl walking on her bed. But his idea was much cooler, if not raunchier.

All three were amazing inspiration for a group of presumably nervous new photographers, many of whom haven't picked a direction to take their work in. For me, it was a great way to see the type of work that gets put on magazine covers, and to realize that I'm getting to that point. For the rest of the year, I'll be (trying) to blog about the whole experience here, to both document my progress personally, and to be a resource for new students who want to know more about the school.

My first impression? This is the place to be, hands down.

Now in Print

2009-08-16T20:56:00.000-07:00

Now available from www.printroom.com, prints of my work can be purchased in a variety of sizes and styles, from posters to museum quality canvas prints. A bunch of stuff has been posted there, and anyone interested in purchasing a print that isn't up there yet should just email me.

Meetup V-Mission Accomplished

2009-08-11T21:55:00.000-07:00

Despite 90+ degree weather and the distinct lack of an air-conditioned workspace, we had a blast at our final summer meetup. While we changed the name (Strobist A2/DT), the incredible time we had with everyone stayed the same. Our only regret was that we didn't do this sooner and more often. With a group this successful, monthly meetups would have been easy to accomplish. Read about our final (for me) meetup and our plans for the future after the jump.

Our location was a repeat from an earlier meetup because of our time constraints, but with everything moving around as quickly as it does in there, we still had plenty of new places to shoot. Like a forklift, or a solar collector, or in a spate of daredevil behavior, from the rafters. New photographers and models created incredible opportunities to stretch our creativity, rehash old ideas, and collaborate on new ones. We've formed such a tightly knit group and gotten into a rhythm that we already know what our next step is going to be.

While this was unfortunately the last meetup I'll be able to personally organize and come to, the group is definitely not going away. Several of our members have stepped forward to donate their time and effort to keeping the meetups on schedule. And while I'll be away in Massachusetts, it's easy enough to book models online and keep myself involved in the group that means so much to me. It's been a privilege to work with everyone that comes to our meetups, and created more opportunities than I ever imagined.

From here, the new content I promised will start coming in, starting with some new equipment reviews, techniques and other ideas I want to share with everyone. School starts in just a few weeks, and lighting lessons will be coming in frequently as I pass on information that anyone interested in Strobist type photography will enjoy.

Also, as soon as some good, royalty free, non RIAA controlled music is made available, the video from meetup V will be posted as well. For now, we have a slideshow with pictures from all our members that attended.

Grosse Ile Airfield Video

2009-07-21T21:51:00.001-07:00

Heres the long awaited (two days and change) video of our meetup! Check it out, and we'll see you at the next one.

Meetup IV success!

2009-07-20T19:21:00.000-07:00

Meetup IV at the Grosse Ile Airfield was an absolute and stunning success, and we had a blast hanging out with some great photographers and models in a one of a kind location. Planes, snakes (and snakes ON planes), motorcycles, and oddly enough a hearse and casket were just some of the attractions this time. See everything we did and a slideshow after the jump.

Getting nearly unlimited access to a decommissioned military hangar is a great way to bring out some unique shots, and as always, this group did not disappoint. Everyone outdid themselves in their new work, and we're impressed with the variety of work getting put into the pool. We even had a celebrity appearance, Paul Mobley.

We tried a few new elements for this meetup, and everything came out great. We've gotten this down to an art and science, and we're ready to get right back to planning the next meetup in late August. Also, look for a video of the meetup, coming soon.

Meetup July 2009

2009-07-13T00:26:00.000-07:00

We're looking forward to sunday with our hugely awesome meetup planned at the Grosse Ile Airfield. I'm immensely excited for some of things we have planned, this one is going to be beyond anything we've done yet. And don't worry, we're still looking at planning one more before the summer is over.

Apart from planning this meetup and getting ideas for the next one, It's been pretty busy with everything else going on. I'm in the process of packing up to move home, so I can pack up and move to Massachusetts at the end of August. I've had to put some of my personal work on hold to spend some time with my friends and family, so these meetups are really my only chance to work at all, apart from the occasional odd job that falls in my lap.

I'm also looking into producing a series of how-to videos for lighting, model interaction, and some cool DIY projects I've been working on. It was good getting the blog up and running, now we're going to kick it up a notch and make it even better.

Sneak peaks includes my latest project, a giant psuedo-softbox that I'll be using to shoot planes, cars and people this weekend, an editing how-to for photoshop, and our long awaited meetup video to make us look cool.

Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup IV

2009-06-28T21:43:00.000-07:00

Thats right, we've had so many meetups I've had to go to Roman numerals. And as you can see by the lovely picture to the left, we have something that most meetup organizers only dream of; A de-commissioned airbase with a hangar for us to enjoy. We're also hearing some rumors of some equipment that will be available for props, pun intended.

We've been trying to get one of these for a while, but sometimes what we need is hidden in plain view. In this case, a member who has been to nearly every meetup just happened to know someone who happened to work at said hangar. He just hadn't seen the posts on flickr where we begged people to help us find one that would be open for use. More after the jump

The success of the last meetup is going to be hard to follow. We had a great location despite the mishaps, weather and other forces of nature, and we had a really great set of models, in addition to the types of models without legs. Or warm blood. But I think with what we have planned for this, it's going to be completely off the charts.

Scott, our snake handler is going to bring his menagerie for us again, and that's just the beginning. His custom bike shop Ghost Werkz (myspace) is also home to some great bikes that he'll bring in to be shot, as well as a couple friends who do some stunt riding.

We're working on how much leeway we have around the airfield, there's a whole bunch of stuff we want to offer that we just need to make sure is kosher with everyone involved. If this location works out well, I'm sure we'll want to come back...immediately.

In the meantime, don't forget to sign up now. No limits on models or photographers, we just need to know how many people to expect.

Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup Tres

2009-06-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

The third Strobist Ann Arbor meetup was another great success. We had some great new models and photographers, and a returning group of people that we can count on to make things run as smoothly as they do. Our location, obtained last minute thanks to Steven, wasn't quite what we were expecting, but everyone made the best of it. Snakes, a band and a Kung-Fu master rounded out our attractions, making us fairly popular in the neighborhood for the day.

We've been doing these meetups for almost a year now, and after 3 full blown meetups and some smaller workshops, we feel pretty confident in our ability to plan these guys. We would like to have an easier time getting locations, but we're getting better at working our contacts to land us some cool spots.

Get some more info for next time, and see some more pics from the day after the jump.

All of our photographers have greatly improved since we saw them last, and we're seeing some really impressive work coming out of these meetups now. Working with new people is always a great way for everyone to learn and get new ideas, and sharing a setup with someone gives us opportunities we might otherwise miss out on. We have a core group of photographers that are really showing everyone what Strobist is all about, and these are some of the same people that are teaching at the AMP workshops as well.

We're already planning the next meetup for mid to late July, and we're penciling in plans for August as well. Getting locations is all we need to have confirmed before we start the signup process again. The more we do these, the better they get, and we're also pretty sure we're one of the most active Strobist group in the US right now. While most meetup threads on Strobist revolve around a lonely cry for someone to organize a shoot, ours is all about signing up for the next big event.

We've also started a dual mailing list for AMP and SAA, signup here for more news on meetups, workshops and other events being planned.

Strobist Boot Camp II

2009-06-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

Strobist is to blame for me being a photographer, among other things. And while I was one of the late early adopters, I did see the site evolve into more of a product-oriented commercialized blog instead of a discussion on technique. Of course this isn't unusual, nor could I begrudge David of making a living off of all the work he puts into it, but it was still with some excitement that I saw new lessons for us to follow and try out technique were being posted.

The new bootcamp assignment was little more than a warm up stretch for a lot of us, but since my approach to headshots has been a little disjointed, I thought that taking time to plan out a well done headshot would be good for me. Of course, all my intended planning went out the window when my subject just happened to be hanging around while I was teaching a private workshop.

More after the jump.

Don Castle, another photographer at the Russell Industrial Center was watching me teach about studio lighting when I figured now was as good a time as any to get the assignment done. My student had only worked with one model for the day, and I wanted him to see the difference in lighting modifiers. Thankfully, he was up for a quick sitting. This portrait was shot with two lights, both WL 1600's. The main light was a high right softbox, giving some nice, soft but directional light. It was positioned keeping in mind that Don would be wearing his glasses. I didn't want to spend all his time fiddling with the light get rid of the reflections. The fill and rim light was another softbox over his shoulder, filling in the left side of his face, and providing a nice little highlight on the side.

The only mistake I could see was that we really didn't have enough light in his eyes, partially because he was squinting a little while I caught him laughing, and also because the main softbox was coming in a little high. Lowering it would have fixed that, but I really liked the falloff top to bottom.

And with the exact same lights and setting, throw in someone with a little less character in the face, and that nice fill on the left side becomes a vampire-worth highlight. The eyes are much more visible, though perhaps not as wise. Also, what the heck is up with my hair?

So while I didn't really plan as much as I would have liked, I got a lot out of this basic exercise. A new 2 light setup instead of my usual 3, an interesting subject who's full story I have yet to hear, and the knowledge that I can pull this off without having to spend hours planning. I work better on impulse than careful planning in most cases.

Techno X Watches

2009-05-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

Not all that long ago David Hobby blogged about doing pro-bono work as a way to practice skills on subjects you might not otherwise get access to, and to help out your local community. I had the chance to shoot some menu items for a new restaurant across the street from me, and all I took in exchange was eating the food they wanted pictures of.

And that turned into this shoot, for Techno X Watches (site not fully up and running yet). Gorgeous diamond encrusted watches, and lots of them. If i hadn't done the shoot at the restaurant, he never would have found me, and a free job has turned into an ongoing opportunity.

Business practices aside, heres the full spread and how I did it after the jump.

I think I may have mentioned that I usually forget to take a setup picture when I do something cool. This time was unfortunately not an exception. A pair of sawhorses were supporting a sheet of glass that I had intended to use to make reflections, but ended up causing double images to appear, a big no-no.

A sheet of metal from my basement with a black paint job on one side saved the day. While it was dirty and scratched to hell, photoshop cleaned it up very nicely. Two white foamcores on either side provided some fill light from the small softbox directly above the watches. The light was being supported by a background stand, convenient, but just one way to do it. I would have preferred to be using my boom arm that was being borrowed.

The sawhorses and metal sheet were removed for the shot above, it was just the softbox and two cards on the sides. The position of the watches was the most important factor in composing this shot. We needed to show as much of the face as possible, on three watches facing different directions. And angling them wrong would cause the entire face to blow out because of the reflection.

This shot was done on the black reflective surface, with the cards and softbox remaining the same. Getting the right angle of the camera was the only hard part, while trying to make a compelling reflection that did more than just fall off.

In fact, the photography itself wasn't the hard part. The lighting setup remained somewhat static, usually only changing to fit in the swords vertically, or to bring in a second light for a little fill occasionally. The hard part, again, was the editing. For all the product photography I've done, theres been a certain amount of dust to deal with. And despite our best efforts, these guys were coated in it, even immediately after being wiped with a clean jewelry cloth.

Editing at 300% means you're covering an annoyingly tiny area, and each speck of dust has to be individually removed. Next time, I'm bringing canned air. The other challenge was a slight blue color cast on the inside of the faces, from the light going through the crystal and reflecting around off the interior of the watch. A brush set to saturation and on black removes all the color, but on diamonds and silver, you can't even tell. It makes the diamonds pop and look crisp and colorless like they should.

All of these pictures are (hopefully) going to be used in some promotional material for Techno X, so here's hoping that this is a tutorial for my first international campaign.

Follow Me on Twitter
Join the Mailing List

AMP Workshops

2009-05-25T23:58:00.000-07:00

After a bit of a gap where I had to concentrate on school and getting the next Strobist meetup going, it's time to get another AMP Workshop going. The last workshop was really great, with four of us instructing over 20 people on location and studio lighting, products, wedding, and general portrait photography. The next workshop will also feature a photoshop segment where we'll show different techniques for editing your shots from the day.

We really wanted to make this class exceptional, and to be a great value as well. Offering the day long class for $100 per participant is going to include a whole bunch of stuff that wasn't available at our first workshop, or even at the Strobist meetups. We're also limiting the size to 15 people so we can really get hands on with everyone and make sure we cover anything you ask for. More details after the jump.

While some workshops out there are really just expensive lectures, we wanted to make the whole experience as interactive as possible. Right from the start, everyone is using high grade equipment, so nothing besides a camera is necessary to bring. Making sure everyone is comfortable using their camera is covered during the workshop setup, so even if you're a complete beginner, we can help you get right on track and shooting along with everyone else.

The intermediate and semi-pro level shooters will be more interested in the freedom we give our participants in how and what they want to shoot. We always bring in a large selection of models and rotate them frequently, so everyone will have unique shots instead of the same one over and over. We encourage dynamic interaction and want to make sure everyone gets a chance to try something they wanted to personally develop.

The locations change nearly every time to give new backgrounds and creative influences to each workshop. Some will be held in studios, various buildings, homes, and others outside in local parks and city streets to ensure new material for everyone. The classes change as well, depending on the guest instructors and available materials for each workshop. Our main classes for the next workshop are portraiture, product, location, and wedding photography.

So if you really want to get into a workshop that will give you the best experience in lighting and photography, the AMP Workshop will not disappoint. Everyone from beginner to semi-pros will learn something new, and take away an amazing experience. Participants are limited to 15 per workshop, so be sure to sign up before all the slots are taken.

Sign up using the form below, or at alexminkin.com

Follow Me on Twitter
Join the Mailing List

Meetup numero tres

2009-05-23T01:04:00.000-07:00

Like the last quickie iPhone post says, we're up and running towards our next meetup on June 20th. Its being held at the Russell Industrial Center, which caters to the Detroit creative community, and it's one hell of a location. Tons of cool stuff is going to be at this meetup, you won't want to miss it. More after the jump.

Previous meetups have featured classic cars, motorcycles, ninjas and a over a dozen models for our photographers to work with. But this meetup is going to be even bigger and better, and some of the talent we're booking is out of this world. Not only are the models even better with some of our favorites coming back, but we're getting tons of non-traditional models to come as well. Suffices to say that its going to get a little hot in there.

We're not putting any limits on the number of people allowed to sign up like in the past, we're going all out to make this the best Strobist meetup ever. Its a long standing goal of mine to get our group featured on the front page of the real Strobist site, and this might just do the trick. We are still asking people to shout out and let us know who to expect, especially when planning food and how many regular models we'll need to keep everyone busy.

Details of the meetup like the time (10am to 8pm) and location (1600 Clay rd., Detroit) are available on the flickr page along with the sign up thread, which also covered a few FAQ's. More bits of info will get posted here and on flickr as we move closer to the date of the meetup. Keep checking back, and don't forget to sign up.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

June 20th meetup

2009-05-22T13:01:00.000-07:00

Quick post from the back seat of the car via iPhone. The next strobist meetup is being held in the Russell industrial center, June 20th 10am to 8pm. Signup is at the flickr page, and this one is going to be huge. More details to follow.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Assisting Paul

2009-05-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, I was fortunate enough to get my first real assisting job with a real, widely known photographer. Paul Mobley is a New York based portrait photographer, best known for his recent book American Farmer as well as his commercial work for the automotive and entertainment industries, among others. Paul was great to work for, and forgiving if nothing else when I made a mistake (like not getting the paper roll secured well enough).

Helping Paul gave me a lot of insight into how different people work as photographers. Usually I'm the one leading, or sharing with other skilled photographers. Paul was the first real pro commercial shooter that makes his living at photography that I got to see in action. It made me much more conscious of how I'll work in the future.
Paul was shooting material for his portfolio at the Michigan Basset Hound Rescue's event, where the main attraction was the dozens of floppy eared, belly dragging, sad eyed dogs. And their owners. While there was a fair amount of equipment there, it really came down to a lighting setup that I've used since my early days of strobist. Simple, easy to control, good looking light. Most call it 3 point, but we had 4 lights on this one to make life easier in post.

My job comprised mostly of keeping the paper backdrop intact (at which I somewhat failed, but we did keep enough to have the necessary background), helping lift the 60-85lbs dogs, hold them in awkward positions, hand out business cards, and help solve nagging little details like how to keep my monolights dry in a drizzle just wet enough to fry them.

In some of his shots, I'm actually right behind the subject, holding a dog in place. In a few others, I'm on the side waiting to be edited out later. For all the work we did on the backdrop, it ended up seeming like Paul was going to take care of it all in post anyways. A white foamcore behind any hair would probably have worked nearly as well in a pinch.

For my first real assisting job, it seemed very prosaic with very few wrinkles. It was fun, I learned a lot and finally remembered to ask some questions I had about his book, but towards the end when everything was worked out, all I had to do was run and ask people if we could borrow their dog.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Gucci Commercial

2009-05-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

Without the pressure of clients, art directors, talent directors, and assorted hanger-ons, it can be easy to make images that are more than ad-worthy. It's even easier when you don't think about making it to be an ad, but that's not the case for this one, at least.

Tara brought a few tear sheet ideas to our last shoot, and among them were a few higher end brands. The ones that are more likely to send DMCA takedown notices. I'll just tell them I'm a student, It's kinda true. More after the jump.

Gucci ads tend to run a little dark, which runs right in line with my style. Combined with a location that lesser photographers would die for, everything 'clicked' just right for this. And it was surprisingly easy to set up for. Try to take a guess.

A single softbox high left was all that was needed. It was in a fairly small space, no more than 5 or 6 feet wide, and that chair Tara is sitting on is tiny. Having her sit all the way on the edge involved her moving all of 3 inches forward. A little sneer and a necklace grab is all that was needed to say 'you can't afford to buy your girlfriend this dress'. I don't think the dress was Gucci.

The editing was also fairly standard. I don't give away my whole process because it's more fun for you to learn your own way, but also because at this point it's so hodgepodge that it hardly makes sense to me anymore. Suffice to say my favorite overlay modes are soft or hard light and overlay, and I frequently use high pass for two different reason.

In fact, this picture was so straight forward, it's entirely possible it took longer to find and shop the logo than it did to snap off the 10 frames I picked this one out of. Cutting it and stretching it out in photoshop, then adding a gradient was all that required.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Valentino Commercial

2009-05-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, the photography isn't the hard part. Finding a full bottle in an apartment shared by a college grad and a student can be a challenge sometimes. When all your booze bottles are half empty, it probably means its time to start shooting something else, or go grocery shopping.

Even this bottle of perfume is only 3/4 full, I rather like how it came out. The way the liquid is diffracting the light is just too cool. It wouldn't fly as a real commercial ad, solely because of that, but it was a bit more challenging than the Corona or Bombay bottles, because of its lack of color and size. More after the jump.

That bottle is tiny tiny tiny, and not only is it one giant highlight, but you can see straight through it, unlike the Bombay bottle. The Corona bottle was also completely clear, but was full of beer, whereas the perfume bottle was half full. I think you can actually see the sides of the table I was working on in the bottom corners of the bottle.

This one was also shot a little differently than the bottles, because of its size, and me getting sick of cleaning my sensor over and over again. But thats for another post. I actually positioned the first sofbox directly behind the bottle, thats now the background. The second softbox was then put in front and above of the bottle. I probably could have shot it with just the one sofbox behind, but then the front of the neck would have been dark, and I've been trying to shoot lighter colored objects.

Also, a technique used but not visible in the end result of the Corona shot that was used and evident in this shot is the reflection of the bottle in the foamcore. Foamcore is not particularly reflective, you can get a shadow, but not much distinguishable detail. I duplicate and inverse the entire object, erase a little bit of the bottom, and then line up the edges until it looks like it was shot on a highly mirrored surface. It may not work forever, but its fairly easy for straight on product shots.

One reason I've been sticking with simple product shots this week is due to space. My apartment isn't all that big, I do share it, and there's only one work surface. Of course, all my products do fit easily on this table, the problem is my lens of choice for products. A 180mm lens is not exactly practical, despite the stunningly sharp results. I'm backing off a full 6 or 7 feet to fit a bottle of beer inside the frame. Throw a 1.4 extender on it, ditch the autofocus, and I could stitch together a several hundred megapixel image with that thing. We're talking Times Square size posters.

One of the main complaints of any home studio is lack of space, but to be honest, I don't think I'll ever be happy with the space I have until I can fit a car inside my infinity wall and have to use walkie talkies to talk across the room.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Bombay Sapphire Commercial

2009-05-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

In yesterday's post, I mentioned the Bombay Sapphire Gin product shot that I had been working on at the same time as the Corona bottle. As you can see, its a 'dynamic' product shot (ooh, its moving) and is one I'm rather proud of.

You can see the multiple curve layers at work, on the label, the bottle, the glass, even on the background at work here. The glass was a little tricky, some color creeped in from somewhere, but luckily when shooting clear liquids and glass, the 'screen' layer mode will basically retain the image while making it translucent for all intents and purposes in photoshop. The 'gin' being poured in is actually technically in black and white, and the whole pour and glass are separate from the bottle and on completely different layers. More tips and tricks after the jump.

A lot of the same techniques used in the Corona bottle came in to play here. The setup (and lack of a picture of it) was two softboxes, angled downards from the front and back of the bottle get nice, even lighting and make the highlights on the bottle. this was originally shot horizontally, but I switched it to vertical to maintain a little differentiation from the shot I for all intents and purposes did rip off in order to practice this, and also because a client would likely want their viewer to not have to tilt their head to find out what the product was. Not that anyone could mistake this beautiful blue bottle for something else.

But once it was rotated, the asymmetry of the bottle was revealed. cloning over the entire left side while maintaining the label gives it a much stronger and professional impact than if it were noticeably different one side to the other. There are a few highlights in the bottle than I may put back to their original form, but I rather like it. Hyper symmetry is no good either.

One thing I did know going into this shot, and that I decided against incorporating for several reasons, is that alcohol pours and appears different than water. Most people won't notice the difference, but alcohol pours much smoother and appears more viscous than water. In real product shots, the real product, or something made to mimic the real product is the final touch to ensure the image is perfect.

And again, a 10 minute ( or even less, just moving the foamcore to the ground, moving the lights and adjusting the tripod to use a different lens) setup, 10 minutes of shooting (took so long to go refill the bottle and empty the glass after 3 frames), it was just about an hour in photoshop. All was going according to plan until that 90 degree CCW switch, which revealed the bottle to be ugly on the (now) right side. the duplication of the left occurred after, as well as some futzing with the glass and the masking getting lost somewhere.

But, by 5 am, I did have another colorful product shot that I'm only slightly less proud of for the fact that it was not originally my idea. Credit goes to Rob Dowsley and his array of very nice product shots that makes me get off my ass and work on my own.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Corona Commercial

2009-05-06T02:48:00.000-07:00

One of my bad photography habits is that I rarely post real setup shots. I can tell you how I took any number of my pictures, but for nearly all of them, I have no documentation. Normally this wouldn't even be an issue, but with photography the way it is nowadays, I like to share how I do my work, since thats how I learned to do it in the first place.

For example, this delicious looking shot of a bottle of Corona has no setup picture, but I can tell you it was taken with one frame, two softboxes on their sides, one on each side of the bottle. You need a large light source to make those nice lines in the bottle, because anything, and I mean anything remotely in view of that bottle will be reflected right back to you. More after the jump.

Bottles seem to be a popular litmus test for commercial photographers. The entire surface can become one giant specular highlight, and if not done right, you can tell. But once you figure it out, theres nothing easier. Until it comes to the post work.

That bottle took 10 minutes to setup for and shoot, and about an hour by itself in photoshop. And before you say that doesn't sound too bad, realize that where most people spend 3 or 4 hours in photoshop, I bang out my first copy in half an hour. I may go back later and fix what I don't like, but thats just how I work. Over an hour on any one photo? It goes to the trash at that point.

Most of the post work on products is spent cleaning up the actual product. First, removing dust from my dust-magnet of a sensor. Then actual dust on the product. Then any seams from shooting on two pieces of foamcore instead of one curved piece like a normal person, and then it gets really fun.

Theres about 4 curves layers in this Corona shot. I did another one with Bombay Sapphire Gin with twice as many. Two for the bottle, one for the label, another one or two for the glass, and a few for the background. Could I do it without using that many curves? To be honest, I don't know. By the time I have it looking the way I want it, condensing those layers would ruin it.

Then there's making everything symmetrical. For bottles, this is very important to me. Copy half the bottle back on to the other half, sometimes just a portion, like the neck in this one, or the entire bottle like I did for the Bombay after I rotated the entire picture. What looks good one way may not with just a simple rotation.

The Corona also required special attention for the foam in the neck of the bottle. 'Real' Corona ads feature a healthy amount of foam, and my bottle lacked it from sitting out for a while. Shaking the bottle would have put my prints all over it, as well as be hard to control. Having just a little bit was all i needed to clone-stamp and heal brush 3/4 of the foam visible in the picture. It's not quite as much as you would normally see, but it was much better than the original.

The lime took a quick touchup to remove some fibers, and some additional color put in. I sampled color off the rind, painted over the insides and put the layer to overlay to give it a little boost in color, backing it off in opacity. This of course gives me the option to come back and adjust it at any point.

After each individual part is fine-tuned, I promptly ruin it all by throwing one more curve layer on top to even everything out. the color background is added in with a 250px feathered oval selection, and a mix of straight fill and gradient. The color is sampled right from the center of the beer, so everything matches quite nicely.

Shooting products isn't nearly as glamorous as shooting models, but when its 4 AM and your girlfriend is sleeping, you don't really want to start moving furniture and inviting people over.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Beauty and the Soft

2009-04-14T22:13:00.000-07:00

I started using studio lights bare, but quickly moved in to collapsable softboxes made my my light manufacturer, Alien Bees and White Lightning. But shortly after, I grabbed a beauty dish, and then a second. I religiously used the beauty dishes whenever possible, trying to understand how they affected my light. Softboxes are easy to understand. Giant light sources with lots of output, and a great, soft light that falls off beautifully when applied correctly.

But beauty dishes completely threw me. I couldn't understand how to make them work for me, despite understanding the basic tenant of lower output, supposedly more wrapping light. I tried them in every situation, even when it may not have been the best choice of a modifier solely for the fact I wanted them to work. I needed them to work.

Keep reading after the jump.

But not matter what I did, I was unable to wring out anything exceptional with the beauty dishes. They did work great at the AMP workshop when I used them all day long without even having to think about it. But when it came to indoor studio work, I was stymied. I went back to my giant softbox and realized, despite its aggravation (this thing is nearly as tall as I am, and I'm not exactly short), the softbox was exactly what I needed, indoors and out.

I got the softboxes after using umbrellas for a while, first with hot tungsten lights, and then with my first set of Alien Bees. Umbrellas are great modifiers, and I'm learning to appreciate them again, but its a little hard for me to shake the feeling of being a mall photographer with the two umbrellas in backwards lights. Seeing Annie Leibovitz and Jill Greenberg using them made me feel much better, so two or three giant silver umbrellas are on my list now.

The reason I left umbrellas in the first place was the light spill in studio, which softboxes have very little of. I learned how to control the softboxes easily, they're very directional and give great even lighting. However, outside on location photography, umbrellas will light a huge area without any distracting dramatic falloff, if one should choose to avoid that. Softboxes are great for outdoor closeup portraits, but for environmental pictures, lots of harsh shadows can be caused by having light thats too directional.

But those #(@* beauty dishes drove me crazy. Hot spots, never able to get the correct exposure no matter what I adjusted. I almost threw them away, which would have been very bad. At the least I would have turned them into giant salsa and chip bowls.

I haven't yet accepted beauty dishes into my life again. I'm not ready for that commitment until I have a studio with an infinity wall and a mannequin to practice on. No model has the inhuman patience I expect this to take.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Workshop

2009-04-04T21:26:00.001-07:00

The first AMP Workshop was, as is the norm for this group, another amazing meetup. It looks like everyone enjoyed the variety of classes we offered with the hands on learning that some of those other workshops are lacking. Despite being a little sunburned by the end of the day, I had a great time teaching about lighting on location. Once again, the models were great, and everyone walked away with some portfolio-worthy stuff.

The next step for both AMP and the Strobist Ann Arbor is another general meetup in mid June, so keep checking back for when a date and signup is announced. More details after the jump, along with some general info.

Because of our highly involved and generous members, we've been able to offer some incredible opportunities for photographers of all skill levels to come and shoot with us. We've brought in dozens of models, classic cars and props to an awesome location donated by Jeff. I keep telling these guys that all I'm good for here is booking the models and printing a sign in sheet. So far, these meetups just can't go wrong. I'm very pleased, and a little proud of myself for bringing together such an awesome group of people.

I'm especially pleased and proud of the AMP workshop since I had the opportunity to build it nearly from the ground up. Splitting them apart this early also gave me the chance to define how it was run and who helped me do it, instead of getting stuck in a strictly Strobist format. Of course, the element that will never change is how we share this experience so we can all practice the hobby (or profession) that we're all a little too obsessed with.

We're already in the early planning stages of a huge meetup for mid June, and we're really pulling out the stops for this one. If you've seen Chase Jarvis' Seattle Strobist Meetup, thats sort of what we're going for. We really want to put Michigan on the map for photography, and if this next one doesn't do it, nothing will.

There are now three pages for you to check up on. Aside from this blog, there's the new AMP Flickr Page here and if you haven't joined the original Strobist Ann Arbor Page, its over here. If you don't have flickr, be sure to sign up as those two pages will get updated more frequently with info on the next event.

Until then, keep shooting.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Strobist Macro Pt. 1-Products

2009-04-01T18:48:00.001-07:00

Macro photography opens entirely new worlds for us to view. And luckily, the best thing about macro is that any subject, when enlarged several hundred times, becomes infinitely more interesting to view. With an entry level macro lens costing only a few hundred dollars, more and more people venture into it.

However, one of the harder aspects of learning macro is how to light it. High apertures are typically used to get good sharpness and depth of field to show tiny details, and to combat the razor-thin DOF. Luckily, if you're into Strobist type photography, all you need is the most basic setup to get started. Keep reading after the jump.

While it helps to have a ringflash or real macro light for doing serious macro work, your off camera flash will do just fine as well. In this setup, a single 430ex flash attached to a (now broken and in service) magic arm for easy positioning. When shooting macro, your light source can be as close as just 4 or 5 inches away from the subject. A modifier is generally a good idea, but if your subject is small enough, its not entirely necessary.

The next thing that I've found to be necessary is bounce cards, whether a sheet of foam core or an empty white cardboard box, a reflective surface opposite your light effectively doubles your coverage. Positioning this carefully will also take care of catchlights in reflective surfaces. This is a basic setup-one flash, one bounce, camera centered in between. But as uncomplicated as it is, it produces very and controllable results that anyone can do in minimal space.

This picture of my watch shows how you can simply light even highly reflective objects easily. You can see the direction of the light coming from the top right. The metal bezel is hardly lit, but the face is evenly lit, with a bit of shadow at the top creating a very dramatic product shot. Moving in more bounce cards would have more evenly lit the entire watch, or even better, a second light directly opposite the main light would have created symmetry from side to side. Such a small setup is easy to manipulate one light at a time.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

AMP Lighting Workshop-Beginners

2009-03-16T11:26:00.000-07:00

After the Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup, Jeff asked me run a lighting workshop so we could do smaller groups, more in-depth discussion, and really work on some techniques that are common in the Strobist world. We're still in the early planning stages, but with me being short on time due to a possible internship and graduation coming up, we have to move right along to squeeze in as much as we possibly can. Keep reading after the jump.

Right off the bat, we picked out some subjects to cover at the first AMP lighting workshop. Tabletop and product photography, on location lighting, small flash lighting, studio portraits, wedding photography, and big objects. We're also bringing in some of the advanced members that attended the meetups to teach their area of expertise.

An overall smaller group size broken into several classes that rotate will let us really answer everyone's questions and give everyone plenty of time to practice the techniques. It will also be shorter than the regular Strobist meetup, but we'll cover more material.

The best available date is looking like April 4th, a little short notice, but we'll make it work. Keep checking back for updates here and on the Ann Arbor page.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Meetup Success!

2009-03-15T23:46:00.001-07:00

Strobist Ann Arbor Meetup Redux went off with hardly a hitch at all, and the turnout was amazing. Over 40 people attended, and the pool is starting to flood with some awesome samples of the work that went on there. Keep reading after the jump

First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming, because obviously without all of you, it's just me in a warehouse. And of course a huge thanks to Jeff who donated the warehouse for us to use right when we were on the verge of scrapping the whole project. Without him, this never would have happened.

I've been poking through everyones flickr streams, and compared to the first meetup pictures, I'm very impressed. I saw huge improvements in a lot of people, whether they got new equipment or had been practicing, the results are great.

Everything went nearly as we had planned, though it fell apart a little towards the end as people had to leave. It was definitely a long meetup, and with as much cool stuff as there was to shoot, I'm just glad I had enough energy to drive home after. The guys in the back won the 'Last Strobist Standing' award, still shooting when I had to pack up and leave.

Keep checking back here, the main site, and the Ann Arbor page for details on the next workshop and meetups. As most of you have probably heard, I'll be moving to Massachusetts for a year at the end of the summer, but rest assured, I'll make sure everyone is well taken care of, and we'll see if we can't schedule a meetup to coincide with a weekend that I'll be home. A few of you have generously offered to help in the planning, and I'll be counting on you and others to make sure it goes great, whether I'm here or not.

I know it's not quite as cool as being posted on the main strobist page, but I'll be checking with people to use their pictures on the blog and for future promotional material. For now, you're stuck with just looking at my awesome models-Shira, Ryan, Darrin, Danielle and Dana.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

How to run a strobist meetup

2009-03-10T21:51:00.001-07:00

Step 1: Get a bunch of photographers to sign up, promising gorgeous models, free food, and an awesome location
Step 2: Convince models ranging from beginners to pros to sign up. charge for food. lose location, find another.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Profit! But not really, I'm running this thing at a loss just so I can hang out with some really talented people and develop a few ideas I had wanted to do.

I've learned a lot while organizing these two meetups. While our first one was pretty successful, it was a little slap-hazardish, in a 'that's good enough for college students' kind of way. Which really wasn't bad, considering it was put together by a couple college seniors with no experience in event planning. We might have missed a few details, but we had such a great turnout of people that gave us all sorts of help and advice, we dove straight into planning this one without a second thought. More after the jump.

It took a while because of location issues (they can't get our transcript audits right, why should they know who's scheduled to use the gym?) but we did have a member jump in and save us with an offering to use his warehouse (thanks again, Jeff), and it just exploded from there. I'm not sure what the actual date was that we opened up for RSVP's, but it sure went by fast.

This meetup exemplifies everything the Strobist movement is about-interaction. Not gear, but getting together a group of like-minded people and turning them loose. The effort put forth by almost everyone to bring together everything necessary to make a meetup of this size work has been incredible, to say the least. We might not have gotten front page on the Strobist blog yet, but I think we're pretty close to getting a nod from Mr. Hobby himself.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again (and meeting all the new people) at what is definitely the biggest free photographic event in Michigan.

until then, keep shooting

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress

Strobist Meetup

2009-03-09T13:19:00.001-07:00

It was suggested by one of our Strobist Ann Arbor members that I should start blogging about our group, the meetups we arrange, and other info relating to Strobist and my photography in general. I think that this time, I might actually have the site traffic to warrant the effort of typing this stuff up. More after the jump.

Our second meetup is this weekend (March 14th) and to say I'm excited is an understatement. It took a bit more effort to get this one off the ground than our first one, but the results look much more promising. Bigger, better, and with more models than you could shake a stick at, it's going to be incredible.

Some highlights of this meetup include a kickass warehouse to work in, full of industrial equipment, a couple cars, and a bunch of toys to play with. I'll be bringing a bunch of props for everyone to use, and doing workshops on lighting people, action, and big objects.

If you didn't make the sign-up for this meetup, fear not. We'll be having more in the future, and if I ever get an airplane hangar, space won't be restricted at all.

follow me on twitter
Join the SAA/AMP mailing list
Buy prints and more on CafePress