Going home, giving a little back and the importance of reading the manual!

   Went home to New Orleans for Christmas. Decided to travel light, so I brought the bare minimum. One body, two lenses, a single speed light, spare batteries and cards. No computer. I would have just gone with a single lens and lived with nothing but the 24-70mm but I knew that I was going to want the 14-24mm while I was walking around the French Quarter.  I had a lot less time to wander around shooting than I planned on getting because the entire family came down with some sort of plague while we were there, but did get to shoot a little. Mostly I just got standard postcard FQ shots, nothing ground shaking.

Jackson Square and St. Louis Cathedral

Christmas, French Quarter Style

  My favorite series from the quarter happened at random. I took the family to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee, and had to make a trip to the restroom. There was quite a long line, so I just kept he camera up and shot while I waited. Wound up with a sort of behind the madness sort of series of shots that I really like.

   Also, as I mentioned on Facebook while I was there, I actually saw a guy walking around shooting with an honest to goodness Rolleiflex camera. I didn't know any of those were still actually in working condition, prior to this I had only seen them in old busted gear collections.  I thought at first that it was one of the newer digital era models, but no, it was the old school real deal. He wasn't even an annoying hipster- you never know what you will see in New Orleans.

   On the way home after our first trip out, my mom asked if we wanted to stop in at her church and see the Christmas Story performance put on by the kids group she works with. I have spent quite a few years trying to undo the damage that years of church brainwashing starting in my childhood did to me and I have no wish to inflict that same damage on my own child. But it was Christmas, how could I tell mom no? So we went. Her group takes care of some low income children a few afternoons a week when their parents can't get out of work in time to pick them up from school. This being a Thursday afternoon, those parents were still at work, so the audience for the kids' performance consisted of my family and the program personnel. That made me feel kind of bad that the kids would't get to show off for their parents, but I realized I had the means to fix that, at least a little bit. Ran back out to the car and grabbed the camera.

 Of course, since I hadn't planned on pulling any shots off the memory cards until I got home, I hadn't brought my computer with me. This meant I had to re-plan my workflow on the fly if my mom was going to be able to get the images to the kids before Christmas. No problem, I switched the primary card to CF since most places don't have XQD readers and set to shoot RAW + JPEG Fine. That way I figured I would be able to go anywhere locally, pull the JPEGs off the card to burn to a CD for mom, then do real editing on the RAW images when I got home. Since I was relying on the in camera conversions, I stuck with a fixed white balance so all the shots would be consistent.

  While this worked for most of the images, I must confess that I made a stupid mistake at the end. After the show, they wanted to get a few group shots, so I decided to drop the ISO down and slap a speed light on top for some fill. Can you guess what happened? Yup, forgot to switch the white balance from tungsten to flash, so the in camera JPEGs looked like I was shooting a group of ghosts. No bueno. Rookie mistake, something I could easily fix on the raw images at home, but that didn't help me with the JPEGs I needed to pull for mom. So, lesson one is: Pay attention to what you are doing. Since I failed to follow that advice this time, I needed a save. Luckily, I remembered lesson two, which is today's public service announcement:

READ THE MANUAL!

  Time for an aside for today's lesson. When you get a new piece of gear, read the manual! Seriously. Even if you have been a pro shooting for years, chances are there is some new feature you would never know about buried somewhere in a nest of menus on your new toy. The D4 is an amazing machine, it has more onboard processing power than most of the computers I have owned in the past-  it has its' own network server for crying out loud- seriously. So at least skim through the manual when you get a new toy. Look back at it frequently as you move into new techniques of shooting. When I first started messing with star trails and time lapses, searching the internet to read about techniques made me think I would need cable releases, intervalometers and all sorts of extra gadgetry.  Not so much. Luckily I read read the manual and found out all those bells and whistles are already built into the D4. So reading the manual can save you money as well as saving your ass.

   But in this case, for this shoot, it just saved my ass. Since I had skimmed the manual, I knew that the D4 was able to do a fair amount of in camera editing on images, but since I had never used any of that functionality, I had no idea how to even start. Rather than spending a frustrating hour of trial and error and possibly losing an image, I pulled out my handy manual and read the right sections.

  What? You don't carry your manual out into the field with you? Shame on you. I know, I said at the start I was traveling light. But it doesn't get any lighter than a PDF on my iPad. If you happen to have the Nikon/Ipad combo like me, it's ridiculously easy to carry your manuals with you. There is an App called "Nikon Manual Viewer" that you can use to download and store any manuals or setting guides Nikon publishes and have them with you anywhere, anytime. (The app also works on an iPhone, but it's wayyyyy easier to read the manuals on the larger iPad screen) Whether cannon has a similar setup or not, it is pretty easy to find pdf copies of manuals for any product out there and you can view them on almost any platform, so there really is no excuse for not having the reference on hand.

   Anyway, the manual saved the day and in about 30 seconds I had corrected the white balance on the group shots and was able to put everything on a CD for my mom to give images to the parents in time for Christmas.
 

Reading the manual saves Christmas- Can I get an Amen? Hallalujah?

   Anyway, I got some cute shots that I hope the parents will enjoy and it felt good to use the camera to give a little back. I know my mom appreciated it.

   So now I am home, recovering from the plague, still going through the rest of my images from the trip. There will be at least one more post coming from the New Orleans images, but since this is my Christmas post, I will end with the obligatory shot of a christmas tree, at least how one looks with one of my brother's blue pint glasses stuck over the end of my lens. What can I say, NyQuil leads to interesting creative efforts.

Old school instagram filters?

 Anyway, Happy Christmahanakwanzika and Merry New Year! See you in 2014!

A different sort of engagement shoot...

    I recently had the pleasure of doing my first engagement shoot for a couple of awesome friends of mine. I know the happy couple through Trapeze, the bride to be is one of the catchers at our rig, in addition to being an awesome flyer and one of my girlfriend's best girlfriends. The couple has actually known each other since junior high, but reconnected a while back and hit it off.
    We were all a bit nervous when they started dating, it seems like relationships between circus people and non circus people tend to not last that long. Luckily, he jumped right in and took to trapeze really well and is now a full fledged member of the troupe.
     Anyway, a couple of weekends ago we were all out for drinks, planning wedding and bachelor party / bridal shower festivities and the engagement shoot came up. I offered to do one, but we wanted to make it something unique to them. Of course, my first thought was trapeze, followed immediately by breaking into their old junior high and taking pics at some of the places they remembered from way back when. Apparently schools take security a lot more seriously these days, so that beer induced idea quickly went the way of the dodo bird. Luckily, one of their memories was of doing rings on the playground. Serendipitously we recently got a set of traveling rings built at our trapeze rig, so the next day it was game on.

   The shot I really wanted was the couple bridged (ie- holding a catch mid-air) one armed, camera aside arms opened and him putting the ring on her while in the air. We weren't quite able to pull that off, closest we got to that were these:

   But we did get some great shots on the traveling rings-

  When the bridge thing didn't work, the bride to be had the awesome idea to just hang out in the apron for some shots, wound up being some of the best of the set....

   Actually wound up passing the camera off and getting our family christmas card picture in the apron as well since these worked so well.

   Even though the one shot I wanted didn't pan out, I think overall the afternoon was a success. This was definitely a fun shoot and I look forward to shooting the wedding in the near future. In the meantime, you can see the whole shoot here and let me know what you think.

To Photoshop or not to Photoshop, what was the question again? (aka when is photoshop cheating?)

   Photoshop. Pictures altered, sometimes beyond recognition or reality, have become so prevalent that the noun has become a verb. There are some examples of amazing photo editing out there, but far more prevalent are examples of how easy it is for image editing to go hideously wrong. Photoshopped images are becoming controversial in mainstream media, even spawning an anti-photoshop movement. The question of what constitutes an authentic versus a "photoshopped" image has created a controversy in some photo competitions in the photojournalism world. So, is photoshop a useful tool, a necessary evil, the devil, or some combination thereof?

  As a photographer schooled on film and relatively new to the world of serious digital photography, this is an important question for me on many levels. Initially I was very resistant to the concept, holding a somewhat self righteous idea that photoshop was what people did when they couldn't take good pictures. Actually, turns out that after some self reflection, that was just a defense I put up to justify the fact that I was merely too lazy to invest the time, money and energy into learning my way around photoshop.

   There was no one key moment that triggered the introspection leading to that change in perspective, rather it was a slippery slope leading to a final plunge. It started with simple things, easy adjustments in Aperture, my catalogue software of choice. A little tweak to the exposure... then came the plug ins. A little noise reduction to make up for the high ISO I need to shoot most of my subject matter... maybe a quick plug in to smooth skin in portraits.... nothing fancy.... quite often I was left with the feeling that I could almost get the image to where I wanted, but not quite all the way. Then finally I did my first aerial studio shoot last month. It will be a few months yet before I have enough saved up to invest in some portable strobes, so I am shooting only with the two speed lights I have and a couple of umbrellas. So not enough really to light the aerialist and control the background. I was hoping it would be easy enough to fix the neutral grey back wall in aperture. Technically it was, but the only way I could find to do it was to crank the black point way up to make the background black, what you see in the image linked to above. But I had to do some exposure and other compensations to keep the aerialist decently lit after that and in a lot of the images I really didn't feel like I got them where I wanted. I was left finally with the inescapable conclusion that I needed to really learn my way around a digital darkroom.

   Aperture is an amazing and highly capable program. It is capable of far more technical editing than I know how to do right now. I am going to fix that and learn to max out its' abilities. But as I looked into what I wanted to be able to do, it became obvious that I really needed to acquire and learn photoshop. It's a massive investment, both in terms of time and money. Photoshop is neither cheap, nor easy and intuitive to learn. But I decided that once again, I had to go all in and invest in myself and what I want to do. I keep finding that each time I do that, the universe backs me up and rewards me, so what the hell. It was time to invest in photoshop. Creative Cloud is a cheaper option, but it doesn't work for me because a lot of times I am out on a ship with a crappy internet connection and stuck with the work computers to get to that, so I would lose contact with the adobe server and find my programs shut off. So dropped the coin for Photoshop CS6. And some manuals. As I mentioned earlier, it is not an intuitive interface, not easily learned or something to tackle on a weekend. I think most of the books I found were written in some other language or at least assumed a strong familiarity with prior versions of photoshop. But I spend the last two weeks out to sea trying to get my head around the basics. I now possess the rough equivalent of a kindergarten level of photoshop literacy and know enough to get into trouble. Thus, I present you, the faithful reader, with this- my first "photoshop'd" image:

The original image as shot

Aperture edited version

And my first photoshop attempt

    So there you have it. As you can see, I am by no means a photoshop ninja. But I was at least able to make a layer mask of my aerialist and replace the background, which is what I wanted to learn how to do. Now I can adjust her and the background independently without the annoyance of painting on adjustment brushes in Aperture stroke by stroke. This first effort has led me to a couple of quick conclusions- my next big ticket purchases need to be a larger external monitor and a pen tablet. Trying to trace out the layer masks on a 15in laptop monitor with a trackpad definitely left a lot to be desired, even with the fancy magic lasso tools. I have a long way to go. But I am at least off to a start.  Although it isn't a masterpiece, at least it isn't the frankenstein monster of a piece it seems far too tempting and easy to create, judging from the usual suspects on You are NOT a Photographer. I mean, why stop at merely adjusting for proper exposure and fixing a bad background when you can make wonderful photoshop "art" like this:

Yes, I know this is hideous and horrible- that's the point in this case. But since this model is a Trekkie I am betting it isn't her first time being a sexy green alien ;-)

    So, that version, which I hope that- should I ever lose my head and try to put out something like that as anything other than a horrible example of what NOT to do- my friends and readers would collectively slap me across the head and bring me to my senses. Just because you CAN do something in photoshop, it doesn't necessarily follow that you SHOULD. Which brings me to the next part of my dilemma, photoshop ethics. 

    Being too lazy to really think photoshop ethics through was another factor in my initial anti PS stance. Turns out that in addition to the need to learn all the technical skills necessary to manipulate images and an efficient workflow,  I also need to come up with a set of rules for when to photoshop, how much to photoshop and when not to photoshop. For starters, I will still be doing most of my work in Aperture, simply because it is faster. (yes, I know, I could switch to Lightroom, and I am playing with it to see how I like it's setup, but for now I am happy mostly with the way Aperture not only organizes things, but also how it integrates really well with a lot of external services I use as well as the fact that I would have to re-purchase a lot of plug ins I am used to. )

  So when is photoshop appropriate and to what extent? My initial answer was that photoshop would never be appropriate for a photojournalistic shot, something that is supposed to convey a piece of reality to a viewer. But I am forced to second guess that black and white opinion when I go a a little deeper. The reason for my initial position rests on the idea that a photojournalistic image should represent unedited reality and be a true representation of the fact or scene being portrayed. When I thought about it, I realized that NO photograph truly represents a completely unedited reality. When I choose what to shoot and what not to shoot, I am editing the portion of reality I choose to present. When I frame the shot I am editing that reality further. Adding a flash, or bouncing some light with a reflector- again I am editing reality to convey some message I want to pass on. When I crop, adjust exposure and white balance, and make other adjustments I am editing the boring RAW and making it look the way I think that chunk of reality should. So as an artist or photojournalist, you are always editing. So where is the line? I think any editing, whether it is photoshop or deliberate framing/cropping a shot, that changes  the image from what the subjects would reasonably expect to be a representation of reality is over the line. Thus, removing a fence pole that was badly positioned and appeared to be growing out of your subject's head while he gives a speech in a park- probably ok. But removing the Secretary of State from a picture of the President and his Advisors watching a critical military operation from the While House, just because women in positions of power frighten you- crossing the line, illegal use of photoshop. 

    So, images that are explicitly and obviously supposed to represent reality are in one category. What about images that are not explicitly supposed to be reality, but do play a key role in shaping reality in the minds of the public, both consciously and unconsciously? Yes, I am talking about magazines, advertising, etc. This area has gotten a lot of attention and debate recently, with some stars even going so far as to put out the unretouched versions of images of themselves in order to counter some of the insane body image issues caused by the constant presentation of idealized beauty media puts out by publishing images of men and women photoshopped into something more "perfect" than anyone could achieve in the real, unretouched world. Again, some edits are obviously over the top, but some small retouching is probably ok, so where to draw the line? I guess that has to be between the photographer and client, and will be different in every case. For me, a little skin smoothing is fine, but not to the point of plastic, and I don't see myself puppet warping someone to look 20lbs lighter. I guess my line in the sand is basically- if I could have gotten the same effect using makeup, it is probably ok to do in photoshop. If not, it isn't. And I think in general, most people are on the same page. We know what we look like, what we see in the mirror. If the final image is a very slightly improved but still realistic version of that, it will probably make the client happy. If it's over the top and takes the image into the obviously plastic territory, even if the client professes to like it, on some level I am sure they know it isn't real and feel the falsehood. 

  For me personally, when I am shooting your portrait, or shooting your performance, no matter who you are, in the moment you are in front of my lens I have to love you and think you are the most beautiful creature that I have ever seen. (ok- maybe third most- my son and his mom are always in the top two spots- that's why I have so many images of them) If I don't, I don't care what I do with it afterwards, the image won't work. If I did manage to get that moment of connection at the precise instant I pressed the shutter, then a little editing to try and make the final image show the same beauty I saw when I lifted the camera, it will be ok. Love implies trust, and taking the post production too far and making something look unreal is a violation of that trust and negates that emotion. I think part of the reason I now feel driven to learn photoshop technique for real is that the plug ins I have been playing with, while good, are blunt instruments. Even if they are able to be much better applied, I won't be able to do so until I understand the mechanics of what they are doing by learning to do it myself the hard way. Once I can do that, then whether I use photoshop or am better able to adjust the plug in function to fine tune it, I will be much better able to show people how they looked to me when I shot them. Whether that will ultimately be good or bad, who knows. But as long as the images feel honest to me when I am done with them, then the editing wasn't too much. 

    But what about images that are have no claim whatsoever to being a representation of reality? Images that are just art of the sake of art? In that case- game on. Since the advent of photography, people have found creative ways to process images and make images that bear little to no relation to reality. There are litanies of darkroom tricks to process images to shift colors, multiple exposures to combine images, I cannot even begin to describe or catalog them all. Black and white images have been hand colorized for ages. Photographers chose specific films and developing processes to capture things in certain ways. All photoshop and various digital darkroom techniques have done is make these methods more readily accessible to a wider public. To do it well still requires the same dedication, study and practice time. Without putting in the time, most likely your result will suck. But when it comes to art, rules are something to deviate from once you have mastered them. Where you can go is limited only by your imagination, budget and skill level. 

   So where does that leave me as I embark on my quest to learn my way around the digital darkroom the same way I once learned my way around the B&W film darkroom? Here are my entering principles:

  1) As much as possible, make my edits in camera, by what I choose to shoot and how I frame the image. 

  2) Get the image as close to perfect in camera as I can, regardless of what I am shooting and how I intend to use the image. 

  3) If I intend an image as a photojournalistic reflection of reality, use the minimal amount of post production necessary to make that image useable. Make sure the 

  4) Unless the image is specifically intended to be over the top and obviously unreal, I will minimize post processing as much as possible.

  5) If it's obviously over the top fake anyway- anything goes as long as it is well done, unlike the images in this post. 

   I am sure as I learn more, shoot more and play with photoshop more, I will adjust and crystalize my principles, but in the mean time, I will keep learning by trying new things and expanding my toolbox. I am sure that I will find 10,000 ways that don't work,  but that is ok, as long as I keep those failures to myself, instead of plaguing the internet with stuff like this:

  

  Ok. Now that I have that all out of my system, please feel free to call me out if I ever, from this moment on, post in an a non-ironic/intentional way, horrible examples of photoshop gone wrong. Please feel free to slap me about the head as required. I will listen and I will get better. As for the initial question of this post: No- photoshop is not the devil. It is a tool, and just like most tools out there, it can be used for creation or destruction, either to varying levels depending on the skill and intent of the craftsman wielding it. All photographs represent the editorial view of the photographer to some extent or another. As long as pictures have been taken, people have sought ways to alter them during the developing and printing process. A lot of the terms used for photoshop tools- burning, dodging, etc, some directly from these chemical darkroom methods. Photoshop is merely the newest and one of the best tools out there. It is up to me to learn how to use it both well and responsibly.

   Finally - to my friend and favorite model whose image I have totally massacred in this post, I hope you can forgive me, this articular shot just happened to be the one that made me realize I needed to take my skills to the next level. I will eventually get this down to an art form and stop the pain. Until then, here is my actual best effort so far with my limited skill set to end the post. You truly are beautiful, my skills don't yet do you justice. 

Behind the scenes at a photo shoot - an awesome model and the best photo assistant ever make for a great day!

  Quick post, more to follow later. I shot all weekend at YouTopia, the San Diego Burning Man regional, then today did my second full on aerial studio shoot ever. The first was thrown together for a friend who needed some images and video for a demo. The incredible model is a friend of mine, but I have to say I was somewhat intimidated getting ready for this, since she has a resume that is simply off the charts. Also was worried because there is already another photographer who is a friend of mine and shoots the aerialists at our studio, so I was worried about poaching and stepping on toes. Luckily, as you can see from the behind the scenes shot above, I had the best assistant ever. And I think the model has another fan for life judging from his expression. (and for the record, when the final shots come out from this- the chain was totally his idea....) and the fellow photographer I was worried about showed up to help out as well (I only exploited the child labor as much as he wanted to help)

   Final edits will take a while since I am swamped with shoots this week (luckily, I have a nice two week out to sea for work soon, so lots of time to edit) but I have to say this was an awesome learning experience. I am still processing, both images and head wise, but here is the cliff notes version of what I learned:

1) There is definitely a flow between the photographer, model and assistants. I have not yet developed this flow. There were times that I could see something, but couldn't translate what was in my head into something my team could execute.

2) I need to pay way more attention to small details. There were lots of images I thought were awesome  at the click, but turned out to be "almost" awesome when looked at on the big screen. Things that I should have noticed and- if I had- would have been easy to correct and made a major improvement to the shot.

3) Speedlights are handy, but don't quite cut the mustard for a long, involved, fast paced shoot. I knew this already and am budgeting for some lighting purchases in the near future. I looked at renting, but the deposit requirements were such that I may as well have bought, so made due with what I had.

4) Never under rate serendipity. Despite #3, a couple of the shots that may wind up being keepers after the initial look came from one speedlight or another not recharging fast enough and giving some accidental but awesome chiaroscuro.

5) No matter how critical I am of my work or what finally comes out of it in the wash (and I do think there will be a few awesome shots coming out of this in the end) Spending an afternoon with friends and family playing around and trying to create something is just a phenomenal way to spend the day. Today was just plain fun.

6) For future aerial shoots, bring a massage therapist for my poor, patient model, who will most likely be sore as hell tomorrow from holding painful poses "just a little longer... one more shot....."


 And finally, #7) My friends and family totally rock. All in all a good day and think some good images will be coming soon.

Plagiarism, Jasmine Star, Captain Kirk, Lance Armstrong and how they all relate to a photography blog...

(This image has nothing to do with the rest of this post, but this is a photography blog, after all, and I needed an image for my social media reposter to grab, so here is one I like of my family from tonight's sunset. Good golden hour light- I pretty much live in a photographer's paradise...)

   Now. On to tonight's topic. Since I am still working on finding a way to make photography pay enough to be a viable retirement supplement in a few years time and will at be shooting a friend's wedding in a couple of months, I at least have to consider wedding photography, so I have spent time reading up on the topic. I definitely remember coming across the site, blog and tutorials from Jasmine Star. I think I found her stuff as a result of an interview or something I came across in a photography magazine. Can't really remember, but I do remember thinking her work was good and she clearly was on top of the wedding photography game. Then a couple of days ago I came across this article. Apparently, she and another big name photographer have recently been outed as plagiarizers.   I find I am reacting to this on multiple levels. 

    Even though I started shooting decades ago, I don't have a long history of putting myself out there as a photographer, but in addition to photography I have been a performance artist since high school, first theatre and more recently circus arts. In the art world, is has been said that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," (if I could find the source of that, I would document it, but I am pretty sure no one would be silly enough to think I coined that phrase) This is true, but it is a different beast from plagiarism. You watch the artists you admire, you learn from them. You try to imitate their techniques, their forms, etc. But you do it respectfully, paying tribute to those you learn from, giving them credit as your inspiration and ultimately seeking to blend influences from those inspirations with your own individual contribution, ultimately breaking away and forging your own new path. As Isaac Newton put it, "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Even one of the fathers of modern science (and a reported egomaniac,) still gave credit to those who he had learned from. 

   
    I  hold  a Masters' in Social Science from Syracuse University. Earning this degree took five years of my life and a hell of a lot of writing, (not to mention an insane amount of wine, which seemed to help the writing process) all of which involved trying to synthesize the ideas of a lot of other authors and adding my own understanding, which being incredibly careful to cite anything and everything that could in any way be attributed to one of those sources. In this new age of students purchasing papers online and teachers using software and various algorithms to detect purchased essays,  it was very hard to make sure while I was writing that I was crediting everything appropriately. Sometimes, I had to go way back into my past, and see if I could remember where I had seen or heard a particular idea that led to a key insight on some topic or another, but ultimately I was able to say that, even if the ideas in my papers weren't all mine, the synthesis and analysis of those ideas was as much mine as it was possible for me to make it.

  In circus arts, we quite frequently see another performer do something we admire, especially in age of youtube. We take it back to the studio and try to deconstruct it. Or we learn something from an incredibly talented performer; in a class, at an open gym or skill share, and we add that to our vocabulary. But this is totally different from the wholesale copying of someone else's act. Whenever you do the move or show it to someone else, you mention where you learned it, who taught you, or even name the move after the person who came up with it (if you know the name). It is how the art grows.

   As a photographer, one of the most common pieces of advice you find is to study the works of the greats who came before. Find what you like and try to figure out how they did it. Learn from their style, their techniques, their visions. Try to imitate them as a way of learning technique, then add your own unique touch. I recently posted about my inability to come up with my own unique vision for a shoot, I am still in the imitation phase. But that is ok. I am sure there are some completely original wunderkinds out there, but most of us have to start with imitation of the greats before as a learning step before blazing new ground.

   So, what makes my blog different from Jasmine Star's? (other than the fact that she has millions of followers and sponsors, while I think I may be up to five regular readers...) I try to be honest. What you are getting is me, barely filtered. I am obviously new at this and am leaning heavily on the tripods of photographers before me who have been kind enough to try and teach others how to do what they do. If I have relied heavily on another blogger or tutorial prior to shooting something that winds up here, I will post links and definitely mention that person or site. Then I will try to make it clear how their advice worked in the particular instance that I am trying to show. Sometimes, the advice I am passing on is so generic that is is hard to find a single source to mention (things like- when shooting in low light, you need use a fast lens and high ISO). There are only so many ways to say certain things. So yes, a lot of blogs and how to posts will sound similar. Hell, even the bible says "there is nothing new under the sun, what has been will be again," (Ecclesiastes 1:9) So, I will try not only to share what I learn, but where I learned it, and from whom. If I ever get famous and popular enough to have ghost writers and a staff, or even an ego big enough to require such things, I hope that all of you original followers and friends will smack me upside the head and keep me honest.

    I think one of the best examples of how to take something and copy it while making it your own that I have seen recently is the newest Star Trek franchise movie, Into Darkness. If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading now because there may be some spoilers coming. Anyway, this film was JJ Abrams second reboot of the Star Trek universe. The first one had some nods to the original, but this second installment really took that to the next level. A decent film on its' own, this film was an amazing remake in a way of the second original Star Trek film, The Wrath of Kahn. At certain points of the film, I found myself laughing almost to the point of tears at the brilliant ways Abrams was able to almost completely recreate scenes from the older film, yet at the same time twisting them into something entirely new and unique. (which, I have to say, coming shortly after my rant about not being able to come up with my own ideas for shoots, has inspired me... more to come later on that).

  So- imitation is good, as a learning point. Crediting those you who have inspired you is mandatory. But imitation is not enough, you have to move on and make it your own. So, where does that leave Jasmine Star and company? For a lot of people she will be a fallen hero. While I did read a lot of her tutorials, I can't say she was a hero of mine. For me, the fallen hero icon of choice will always be Lance Armstrong. I read his books. I followed his tours. I must admit I had a bit of a man crush on him. He was pretty damn awesome. Then last year he finally admitted that he did use performance enhancing drugs. Something he had fervently denied in the past and I had believed. I am not really one to worship celebrity, or anything like that, but before that moment, if anyone had asked me who my heroes were, my answers were my grandfather and Lance Armstrong. I had a hard time dealing with his admission of guilt, I am still debating whether or not to delete his scene from DodgeBall from my motivational clips collection. But, as I was researching this post, I found this article on dealing with fallen heroes that says it better than I could.  Those heroes are human. Just like me, just like you. Even if Lance was taking PEDs, he still was working his ass off in order overcome a massive challenge. He won against a bunch of other people who were pretty much all taking the same measures he was. He still inspired millions and helped a lot of people beat cancer, and contributed a great deal to the betterment of humanity. Jasmine Star (or her ghost writers) copied from others, but she did take her own photos and build her business and name up to where it was. Even underneath the cheating, there is an actual wealth of talent in both cases.

   I like what the article linked above says. Take what you can learn from your gurus, but always remember that they are human, just like you and just like me. Learn from them; no only the good things, but also the bad. Try to learn not only from their successes, but also their failures. That is what I hope I can do here and I hope you can see me working through that. If I ever do make it to the status or a Jasmine Star or Lance Armstrong, I hope I can have the strength to learn from them and manage to keep myself honest and open, even when it isn't always pretty.  So that ends the rant on plagiarism. If you repost any of this, please just give me credit and a link ;-)

 

Kickin' it Old School... my first full on concert photography experience.

    So, despite its' general scariness and sketchiness, sometimes CraigsList pays off. Couple of weekends ago, I got a CL gig shooting the Magic 92.5 San Diego Old School Hip Hop Block Party.

    

    Like my first time shooting anything else, I spent lots of time looking through advice sites from people who do it well and whose work I admire. In this case mostly Todd Owyoung of IshootShows.com. If you are a long time reader, you will know this isn't the first time I have mentioned being a fan of his work and his site. Anyway, I did a lot of research. Seems like most of the shows out there will find a photographer fighting for a position in a crowded pit, and only able to shoot for the first 3-4 songs of a set. I guess I got broken in easily on this one. I had full access to everything. The pit, backstage, on stage, green and dressing rooms, even spend part of the day beforehand hanging out with the group that hired me for the shoot. 

   That was a funny story all on its' own. I wasn't really all that sure what to expect, this being a random thing from CL after all, could go anywhere from there. Met the crew at their hotel near the venue. They were looking for a pre-sound check bite to eat, we wound up at a cigar and wine bar close by. So it's me, the Hip Hop Crew, and a biker gang. (not pictured- but seriously, this crew were pretty much the extras from Sons of Anarchy, except the real thing) Anyway, at one point, I headed for the bathroom. Turns out there was only one unisex bathroom- not only was it occupied by one of the biker girls, but she had forgotten to lock the door. Ooops. Luckily she had a good sense of humor about it and the gang did not kill me. Crisis averted, it was back to the hotel to meet up with more of the crew and get ready for sound check. 

   So here I am shooting pics listening to Melle Mel  wax philosophical on the current state of hip hop, from Run DMC to  $.50. Then it was off to the sound check to get a few shots, survey the layout and get ready for the main event. 

    Quick dinner in the production room then it was game on. Turns out that not only did I have unlimited access and freedom to move around, I was also one of only four pros shooting the concert. There were two other still shooters and one videographer rolling in the pit. There were plenty of people with phones taking pics of course, and a lot of people running around with DSLRs using their popup flashes and kit lenses, but no real crowd of jostling lenses in the pit at all.That meant I got to have a lot of fun and play. I shot with all three of my big guns, shot at everything from 14mm to 200mm. At the distance I was at, I found myself defaulting to the 24-70mm for most of the show. Each lens had its' uses. 

    Overall, the closer in shots were the ones I liked the best. For these the 70-200 was the solution. 

    But often there was something I wanted to open up a bit for, and I am not good enough yet at following the action to stay completely in that close. That meant that for most of the show my go to choice was the 24-70mm. Got most of my favorite shots with that one. 

   I also brought the 14-24 out to play a little bit. I didn't really like shooting with it from the pit, because I was so low that the perspective got skewed and all the artists looked like they had enormous feet, miles of legs, and little heads. Interesting perspective maybe, but not exactly flattering shots. None that made the cut. Where the wide angle really was fun was shooting from backstage. I found that I really liked shooting from the stage perspective, lots of shots like these:

 Even shooting wide open at 2.8, the 14-24 really gave good depth of field and kept the audience from fading into a sea of bokeh.

  Since this is a technical-ish sort of blog, I guess I should mention how I shot these. I did play around with a lot of variety, but in general I was shooting shutter priority, 1/200-1/500 second, auto ISO capped at 12,800. Spot metering, cloudy white balance, -1/3EV exposure compensation. (seems to be my default on excalibur, if you didn't catch that from other posts). The only issues I had with these settings were when there was a combo of a dark skinned performer in a white suit, for those I had to switch over to center weight metering or switch to full manual, take a quick reading on the face and another on the costume, and split the difference. As incredible as the D4 is, even its' meter had trouble with shots like this one... 

 You can see how close the suit is to being blown out, I still had to do a lot of highlight recovery in post to get the detail back. The camera did have the dynamic range, but it took work. Really had to work to dial in a setup that let me recover both the shadow and the highlight details. 

  The one thing I found that even excalibur couldn't save, no matter how hard I tried, was the hat shadow. Lots of performers, especially in the hip hop world, like to wear hats. Baseball caps, fedoras, cop hats, pimp hats, etc.

   This really doesn't work so well when most of the lighting is coming down form above and the performers are mostly looking down at the audience. This leads to deep, unrecoverable shadows around the eyes of the performers unless they happen to be looking up when you hit the shutter. Took me a bit to learn to time my shots so you could actually see the eyes. Will have to see if I can find a way to deal with that in the future. 

   Overall, this was a great experience, I had a blast shooting. I learned a lot and got to play with all the toys. In parting, I will leave you with this advice, just because the focus is on stage, don't forget there there are lots of good stories happening in the audience as well, always look around for your shots. 

   

Lens Capped! (aka writer's block for photographers...)

    Ok. Stewing on this for a bit, been thinking about posting something on it, wasn't ready to, but events of the last couple of days and comments I have gotten from friends kinda made it mandatory. Writers and anyone who knows anything about them, or has even watched a movie or TV show about writers, knows what writer's block is. You sit down, all prepared to write the great american novel, your history thesis, that book report, whatever. But nothing comes out. The words just aren't there. Turns out (via a quick google search) that there are equivalent terms for other artistic fields. But strangely enough, for a bunch of creative fields, they are not very creative. "Creative block," or "photographer's block." Lame. I am going to call it "feeling Lens Capped." That sounds better and has a source. Come on, you all know you have done it, you life the camera to your eye to take a perfect shot, only to wonder why it's all black.... crap. You left the lens cap on again. This is why, like most photographers, I almost never use lens caps, just throw on a UV filter and call it done. But you get the concept. I want to shoot, but the shot just isn't there.

   I feel like I am getting pretty good at shooting things that are already happening. Fringe Festival shows, Roller Derby bouts, Circus performances and fire dancers. Festivals, all that fun stuff. I enjoy doing that. But when it comes to creating something on my own, I got nothing. I look around and see lots of amazing stuff out there. A lot of it coming from friends, a lot of it from established names out there, some of it just from browsing sites like 500px or Model Society. I see all this amazing, creative stuff, but when I try to plan out a shoot in my head, I get nothing. So I just sponge off other people. Go to meet ups with photographers and models, trying to get more experience under my belt, even if the shoot is far from artistic. This afternoon I went to a meet up shoot, but all three scheduled models flaked, which prompted a snarky post on my Facebook profile. (wow, a link to FB which will later link to this post.... can the internet get stuck in an infinite link loop?) In response to that post, I got offers from some amazing friends to model for me. Earlier this week, a couple of other friends, one of whom is a very experienced and rather incredible model, offered to shoot with me. So why am I not taking advantage of these offers? Quite simple. I don't believe I have a shoot worth your time and effort. I have a bunch of sort of half baked ideas that I feel like are just riffs off things I have seen that I want to try myself, but even those ideas I don't feel like I can articulate well enough to let a makeup artist or stylist know what I want, or a model to give me. So, I have access to an awesome studio, beautiful and incredible models and awesome makeup artists and stylists. But I can't imagine asking all those people to spend a day having conversations like this:

MUA: What look to you want?
ME: Oh, I don't know, something awesome. You know... dark but not so goth I can't see her face through all the blackness.... but still cute... you know... Cirque du Nine Inch Nails...... or something.
MUA: .... uhhhhh....

or

Model: What do you want me to do...
Me: Uhm... some of that cool model posey stuff... can you pretend you are a the bastard love child of a victoria's secret model and a suicide girl (no, nevermind the improbability of that... you got Trent Reznor to be the sperm donor or something) who is acting out a Steampunk opera written and directed by Baz Lurhman but really it's all part of a new Cirque show opening in Vegas, so I am going to need you to stand on one finger while tying your body into double loop figure eight knot.... in ballet stilletos. Got all that?
Model: ....uhhhhhh.....

    And don't even get me started on costuming. Or lack thereof. That's another issue. Nudity. Is it necessary? Can I be an artist celebrating the beauty of the human form, something like The Acrobat Sublime? But is the nudity necessary? That book is one of my favorite photo books of all time, but can you celebrate the beauty of the human form without nudity? A freaking awesome collection like this one of ballet dancers moving through the mundane world would say yes. Then there is the whole debate about where the line between pornography and art lies. I don't have a good answer for that, but for what it's worth even as a teen age ball or hormones, I always preferred Playboy to Penthouse.

    But I digress. Sorry for that detour into the nudity discussion, but since the shoot this afternoon where the models flaked was supposed to be a lingerie/nude shoot the I got into the discussion with my GF on the porn vs art debate then I got distracted by acrobats and photographers... I have had the Acrobat Sublime book for a while now, didn't know there were behind the scenes videos until just now finding the link to post above. Even more impressed with it now. But one of the acrobats from the subway handstand shot says, when referring to dealing with the nasty floors of the subway platform, "when you believe in someone and their work..." that's sort of my point. Regardless of the clothing state of my models, is the vision I have worth their time, effort, and trust? Right now I simply don't feel like I have any idea that are.

   I know on some level this is all whiney bullcrap. I mean, despite flirting with photography on and off for a couple of decades now, it has only been a year and change since I started really making a serious run at it. I shouldn't expect to be an awesome creative force of nature yet, I am comparing myself to people who have spend their entire lives doing this. I should be happy with the success I have had so far. I really am happy with most of what I am shooting. But I can't help seeing the gap between where i am and where I want to be. It's a recurring theme. I stop trying in my circus training because I can't throw a triple yet, or do a one arm handstand. Because there are people out there who are better than I ever will be. I don't get out into a fire circle and spin because there are so many spinners out there that are so much better than me. I don't try to set up shoots because I am not yet at the level of the photographers I admire. Even though I know those people throwing those triples, or doing the one arm handstands spend years working up to that. Those amazing spinners have been practicing for years. Hours a day, every day, to be able to do what they do. Until I have the training and experience I shouldn't expect to be able to do what they can. And although there are a few assholes out there, for the most part it's a safe space. Most of those people wouldn't judge or denigrate someone approaching their art with an honest desire to learn and get better. Most of them would stop what they were doing and help a beginner learn how to be better, because they know that helping others get better elevates the art as a whole. So, if the people I admire and want to emulate would encourage me and help me in my practice, in advancing my art, what stops me from taking those first hesitant steps? What stops me is FEAR. Plain and simple. I am afraid of looking stupid. I am afraid of not being good enough. I am afraid of a model thinking less of me because I wasted their time trying to do a shoot I didn't really know enough to be able to execute.

   I really admire my son. He is learning to walk, to climb, to eat, everything to be a human. He does get pissed when he can't do something he sees someone else do and knows he should be able to. But he doesn't quit trying. He just throws himself at it over and over again until he is able to climb that step, or whatever his particular challenge of the day is. And when he gets something new for the first time, he knows it's a milestone, you can see the huge smile as he realizes he just did something he has never done before, even it it is as simple as drinking from a straw without help. He's supposed to be learning from me, but I need to learn how to live a little from him, how to be fearless and not afraid to try something new, to fall on my ass over and over again and keep getting up and learning how to walk and run.

    I should expect some painful experiences while I learn what the hell I am doing. I should expect to find 999 ways to not invent the lightbulb before something finally shines. I need to start where I am... I don't need to be satisfied with where I am, but I do need to learn to cut myself some slack, and realize that other people probably aren't going to be be as hard on me as I am on myself. I need to just acknowledge that some of my first shoots are probably going to suck. But my friends will probably still talk to me afterwards, the experienced models will probably even tell me what worked and what didn't and how to make it better next time, take their paychecks and use me as an amusing anecdote later on. And who knows, maybe we'll get some great shots by accident.

   So, for all you wonderful, supportive friends who have put themselves out there to help me on this journey, the reason I haven't asked you to yet is that I have been a scaredy cat. I am going to come up with some ideas, even if they aren't the best ones out there. Gonna come up with something. I do have some ideas that I am going to try and get to a point where I can articulate them in some sort of understandable gibberish. Thank you all for your support and for forcing me to acknowledge my fears. I'll have some shoots for us to do soon, please remind me to take the damn lens cap off!



   

Photographing Roller Derby - the Second Jam...

     So, last weekend I finally was able to shoot another roller derby bout, this time with Excalibur and a full complement of pro glass to play with. This was a double header in the San Diego Derby Dolls new downtown home, the Doll House.

    The first bout was the SDDD Diego Rollers vs. the Orange County Roller Girls BlockWork Orange.

    The second bout was between two SD teams, the Swarm vs. the Hard Corps.

    The new venue was awesome, the only things Del Mar had over the current Doll House were beer and better lighting. I am not sure I could have shot much of anything with the 3200 in this location. Even with Excalibur the back corners were very dark due to some burned out lights. One of these days I will actually have to experiment with setting up strobes with remote triggers, which seemed to be the main technique for shooting derby when I did my initial research. Before I do that I would definitely want to talk to the girls, because I am worried about the strobes distracting them- and believe me, you don't want a group of pissed off Derby Dolls chasing you down. They are both fast and quite bad ass.

The Doll House- in Wide Angle

    For starters, I have to say, Excalibur rocked it. I was able to shoot the whole thing with ambient light, ISO 12,800 using anywhere from 1/320-1/500 second shutter and f2.8-f5.6 apertures. So able to freeze the motion easily and even get a little better than wide open on all three pro zooms. I played with shooting the 24-70mm, 70-200mm and even brought out the 14-24mm to play a bit. Have to say though, the sweet spot for Derby seems to be right in between the 24-70 and the 70-200. I wish someone made a 35-150 F2.8 or something close to that. The 24-70 was great in the near corners, but not quite enough reach when they were rounding the far corners. The 70-200 was awesome for the far corners but couldn't open up enough for the near corners. 

    Gear aside, I am getting a bit better at following the Jams and catching good moments. Learning to anticipate and lead the action a bit. There is a maxim I heard that keeps coming up- "if you see it through the viewfinder, you missed the shot. " Well, I am seeing less through the viewfinder. 

   Other things I try to remember no matter what I am shooting it to not get totally focused on the main event, there are also lots of great stories happening around the periphery. In Derby, the skaters are obviously the main event. But the Refs and Officials are also important participants in the event and worthy of shooting. 

   And where would the crowd be without the ever important announcers.....

   

It isn't always just about the hits....

There can be good shots to be had in the still moments between the Jams. 

  Who am I kidding? It's all about the hits.....

   So what did I learn from this second evening of shooting Derby? A couple of things. One- the 14-24 is an awesome lens, and I could get some neat perspectives with it, 

but really there was only a microsecond or two on each lap where they were close enough to really use it, and if I was close enough to take advantage of the wide angle fun there was a good chance that the lens (and photographer) would wind up getting clocked by a flying roller girl. I think overall that I got the most keepers using the 70-200mm. Even with the high ISO capabilities of the D4, shooting that high ISO at 16mp doesn't give the resolution room to crop in later on, have to be close from the get go, so on balance it was better to be too close in than too wide. 

    Things to try next time- maybe some remote strobes, and either a small ladder or maybe even wearing stilts, so I can shoot over the rail instead of being stuck shooting under it, change up the perspective a bit. Overall though I am happier with this set than my first outing, so hopefully I can keep shooting Derby and keep getting better. 

    Full Gallery is viewable on my newly redesigned web site.