Wyoming

I just got back from a week of backpacking, hiking, biking, white-water rafting and other general adventuring in Wyoming, in the middle of a forest fire. The smoke was so bad on arrival, you couldn't see past the terminal glowing in the early evening light. However, it ended up being some of the best light of the trip as the smoke filling the valley provided some diffuse sunlight through a slightly later hour than normal, maximizing my 6:00am wakeup.


Having access to great models can be the difference between a learning experience and new portfolio work. Some contacts put me in touch with models that are being sponsored by some big outdoor brands; Marmot, North Face, Patagonia and more. Though it isn't fair to just call them models-they're athletes, and some really good ones too. It's hard to keep up with a professional runner when your commute is three blocks and a subway ride.

Luckily, some great locations at Jackon Hole's Apres Vous Mountain look good coming and going, so I got to stand relatively still and let the athletes do the work.

And since most of the brands we covered make both active wear and mountaineering equipment, we got to spend a night out camping in view of the Grand Tetons.

The moon was actually full the night after this shot was taken-we had to wait for moonset at about 4:00am to wake up and get the stars behind the tent. An obliging camper was also awake and illuminating their tent for me, while several running cars, presumably with the not so enthusiastic campers sleeping in them, provided some fill on the trees. 30 degree temperatures left a nice sheet of frost on all of the equipment cases left out.

Much coffee was needed after all the early morning calls, running back and forth in the smoke that slowly lifted from the valley, and dragging lighting gear up and down the mountain.
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Bell & Ross

While it was quite the long and productive summer, with new jobs and clients, a road trip, and other comings and goings, one of my favorite shots is brand new, though the parts have been over a year in the making. Pictured is a Bell & Ross BR 01-94 Watch in front of a HGU-55 helmet, with an Aces II ejection seat as the backdrop. Yes, a real ejection seat, pulled from either an A-7 Corsair, that has been turned into my office chair. It's not the most practical chair ever, but it certainly grabs your attention. It'll be the subject of its own shoot in the future. I typically go overboard with lighting on watches, but this one was only two lights through a roll of diffusion on the side. It wasn't easy lining up to get the reflection on the visor to play nice with the watch face, but it paid off in the end to do it in one frame. Some text was added to the seat for a little break in the otherwise monotone image, and color was added back to the lower window since the coating made it look washed out.
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Adventure Time!

Sometimes, you quit your dayjob and take your tiny hybrid cross country in an attempt to find yourself, find your work, and get lost. I took 10 days to drive cross country, Detroit to Los Angeles, to do some photography I've never done before, but always wanted to try. Read on and see more images after the jump. By the time I hit Las Vegas, it had been over 3,000 miles of empty highways, national parks, small towns you don't even notice, and the occasional buffalo to break the landscape. A couple nights spent in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, followed up by desert camping in Joshua Tree National Forest brought me back to summers spent at camp in Canada, and my inner Ansel Adams made an attempt (not developed yet) at serious landscapes with 4x5 film. I saw my first rodeo in Cody, Wyoming, in what was a daily event for them in the summer, bought a new cowboy hat that I really want to wear back in NYC, and probably won't. In California, I randomly picked a diner that just happened to be featured by Anthony Bourdain on 'No Reservations'-and it was the best breakfast food of my life. My camera lived under my legs in the car, I'd take nothing shots out the window while driving that never seemed to work out, but I'm glad I have them anyway. A few bottles of Jameson disappeared in the cold nights spent outside, and the slightly warmer night in Vegas took its toll as well. One of the challenges was learning how to use 4x5 film-between keeping track of exposed frames and how to store them in a box still half full of unexposed film. As well as the 8x10 that still has a bum lens that won't focus to infinity (hopefully to be replaced for the return trip). But having that much time in the car, you learn about yourself, others, and remember why you do what you do. It was one of the most liberating experiences of my life, if not also a little harrowing when you're not sure if you can make it to the next town and find a motel that's still open with vacancies.
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Pro Globe Followup

As brief followup to the last post on the creation of the Home Depot Pro Globe in comparison to the $600 official version, I put these two modifiers head to head in a completely (not) scientifically benchmarked test.

Using my Acute 1200 and each modifier, I rattled off ten shots with each of an Xrite color checker at a properly metered f/8 1/200 5600k, pulled them into photoshop, made two lines, and then checked the color temperature and shifts from one exposure to the next, for both types of globes.

The long and short of it is that the Home Depot version will put a few more points of magenta into your images-something to consider for work showing a lot of skin. You'll need to counteract with a couple points of green to even it out, and that could possibly change the overall look of anything not lit by this modifier. My highest registered value was -15 green to white balance the Home Depot globe, vs -10 green for the Pro Globe. not a huge difference to me, but pixel-peepers may not approve.

I doubt that the shift will be outrageously noticeable in real world applications, and the savings of over $500 for what amounts to a plastic globe and universal speedring wipes any doubt from my mind that this will be an extremely useful mod.
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The 'Pro' Globe

While its certainly true you can slap on a home depot acrylic globe onto your alien bees or white lightning balcar mounts, it lacks a certain elegance and versatility, not to mention the fact that your flash tube is pretty close to the plastic. While you may not ever melt it, I’m one to be over cautious of my equipment and the flammable materials it comes near.

When I actually got my hands on a pro-globe, I was unimpressed by the hardware in relation to its price tag- approximately $300 for the globe or speedring separately. The globe has some nice holes drilled in it, and I’m sure it’s a special blend to be daylight balanced, but that’s about it. The speedring uses tension clips to hold on to the lip of the globe, putting a nice venting gap between the globe and speedring for added cooling.

I was convinced I could do better, for a fraction of the cost. It may or may not be daylight balanced, but it works, and with a very nice upgrade as well.

The original pro-globe is Profoto only. The DIY community, with a mix of lighting equipment and a desire to keep within a budget, is not the primary target of this modifier, thus the influx of modifiers that be used on nearly any type of light. My mod was created for all three kinds of lights I typically use: Alienbees/White Lightning, and my new Profoto Acute 1200 kit. I had just switched out some of the rings on my Alienbees soft boxes to be able to use them on my Profotos, when lightning struck and I figured if I can switch speedrings on those, why not on anything else that uses one?

Using a 12”, no-neck globe found on Amazon and a universal speedring from Calumet, I was able to buy the Profoto speedring insert that was the same size as the balcar inserts from the soft boxes. There were a dozen ways to attach the ring to the globe, most probably better than the one I chose, but drilling four 1/8th inch holes into the globe and threading 100lbs picture hanging wire to hold the ring on was what I ended up doing.

I gave myself a little slack on the wire to create that gap between the ring and globe, and ended up pinching the wires together using those hooks for hanging pictures (you’ll figure out that’s about the only materials I had). This made it so that there was no slop in that gap, so even if the mod is pointing upwards, the gap remains.

Using a 5/8” paddle bit, I promptly ruined my first globe by spinning all the way up and trying to jam it through. On the next globe, I very slowly started the hole, slowed down even more when the paddles hit the acrylic, and then spun up slowly as it began to eat up material.

The mod works best with the Profoto lights, and is what I basically plan on using it for. The adjustable depth you can get with the Profoto design lets you put the light deeper into the globe than the shallow balcar mount, though both work. The balcar mount lines up the flash tube almost even with the gap, creating a brighter line wherever that hits, but if you use the pro globe as a fill or main light up high, it won’t affect it at all.
So if you want to super deluxe your pro globe, here’s the shopping list

12” globe with 5.25” opening
Universal speedring
Alienbee/White lightning insert
Profoto insert

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Mistress Paige

Sometime you get a really cool email. Like, 'I'm a professional dominatrix and I'd like you to shoot some pinup with me' kind of cool. How can you turn that down? And so, despite the job description, Mistress Paige is actually quite a nice girl, until you pay her not to be.

It was also a great chance to try out some new and upgraded equipment. I managed to snag 3 Broncolor Scoro packs that we had been demoing, along with a Hasselblad H4D60, the 40's bigger brother. I'm no stranger to Hasselblad equipment, but its always exciting to see files that come out to nearly 9,000 pixels long and 400+mb tiffs. I Immediately regretted not having a larger external drive to shoot to with me, but we managed to squeeze in over ten gigs of raw files in just about an hour of shooting.

Broncolor packs are known for two things-speed and color accuracy. I've been shooting Profoto for nearly everything up until this point, but the Broncolors blew me away. Dead accurate colors frame to frame is always nice to see, and saves me a lot of time in post work.

And while we didn't really have the subject matter to test out the speed, or flash duration of this particular pack, I did see how I could dial up insanely fast flashes with decent output for the other sports related work that I like to shoot. And the packs are crazy light, which was great since I had to set up and tear down pretty fast, without an assistant.

Mistress Paige, being a thorough professional, came with her hair and makeup already done. This being New York, she told me that she had just gotten off work a few hours ago, re-done her makeup, and come right to our mid-morning shoot. If she was as tired as I was, it didn't show, and she even humored me when I asked her to pose with the last Scoro pack, for posterity's sake of course.




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Promo Keys

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.

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Print Book

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.

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