Some times I feel like I've spent large parts of my life making white backgrounds for advertising photographs.

X

The Lazy, Digital Age way to light a white background depends on post production.

Here's the correct way to light for a white background:

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2012/01/mini-old-school-class-on-white.html

I go through white, seamless paper faster than you can believe. I think I'm in the roll a week club. Back in the heydays of film photography I was a master at lighting stuff against white. And I don't mean just the easy stuff like black audio components I mean white dresses with white pearls on a pale model on a white background. But man, it took time and careful lighting. And sometimes a little darkroom masking.

Today we did an easy one. It was emotive images of Jaston Williams (of the Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas fame) for an upcoming show at Zach Theatre. No white-on-white. Nothing tricky, just a white background the designers could easily drop out.

The image above shows the basic lighting for the background. I'm shooting a wide shot here from the final camera position but instead of a 24mm lens I used a much longer focal length for the actual shots.  It may be hard to see in this shot but there are 400 w/s lights on either side of the seamless paper. Each one is aimed at the opposite side of the paper to ensure and even wash of light and each one is gobo'd by a solid flag which you can see clamped to stands just inside the two background lights. The flags keep spill light off my portrait subject so I don't get unwanted highlights or weird shadows.

My main light is a 500 w/s mono-light   firing into a 24 by 36 inch soft box, up and to the left of the frame. You can see it up at the top. Not shown (because it is behind the camera position) is the 60 inch umbrella, used at low power, for just a hint of fill lighting. Very simple set up. But effective.

So, I'm sure that the theatre will choose different images and I'm sure they won't follow my desaturated, high sharpness post processing but I'm sure they'll find a number of images that will work well for them. Here are a few of the images that I really liked and spent a few minutes playing with:

It's fun to have a full plate. Shooting for clients every day makes me more and more relaxed because everything becomes so practiced and natural and there's a flow that moves shoots along. I've been pressing more and more flash back into service just to freeze motion and match daylight and, just like riding a bicycle, it only takes a few minutes to get back into the flash groove. But practice makes it almost transparent. Yesterday I shot with the Ranger RX pack. Today was all mono lights . 

I've also been vacillating between cameras. Some shoots I'm doing with 24 megapixel, full frame Sony cameras while on other shoots I'm choosing the G6 camera or the Sony RX 10. They all work so well. Especially with flash at ISO 125, 160 or 200. 

The thing I always forget when we have dry spells in the market or when I've been shooting with available light is just how much gear I like to have around when I do studio set-ups. I was pissed off today that I didn't pack the Westscott FastFlags because I wanted to totally control the background light and, in truth I would have like to have screen off the non-image forming light that was coming back into the camera from the background. 

But as it was I was packing seven light stands, a background stand set, a long roll of white seamless paper, five Elinchrom mono-lights, a bag full of umbrellas and soft boxes and enough heavy electrical cord to grab power from anywhere. The cameras? They were the least important of the load. I had my two cameras in my little moss green Tenba backpack. It was almost weightless. 

I love working with talent like Jaston. He is so expressive and so full of energy. He's also wonderfully fun to be around. I didn't even mind missing lunch...

Guess the camera? Just for fun?

Article supports VSL practice of lighting from the left with subject looking to their right. Read all about it.

Click this link to read the article where I found it, on F-Stoppers:
Visual Science Lab Portrait Lighting Style Gets Science.

Revisiting a classic lighting concept...

Revisiting the Panasonic G6. On stage (or near the edge of it...) at Zach Theatre.

Thing One from "The Cat In The Hat."

 I had all these great intentions to shoot this kid's play with the big ole Sony full frame cameras till I remembered how much better the Sony RX10 nailed the colors and the exposures last time I shot a dress rehearsal. I had almost made up my mind just to go with the RX10 and keep the big cameras in reserve when I literally tripped over the Panasonic G6 and 25mm Pana/Leica Summilux I'd left on the floor the day before. So I scooped it up and dropped it into the camera bag next to the Sony cams. 

When I got to the theatre I pulled out the RX10 and set up all the controls the way I like them.  I find that it's important to go through and make sure you set the stuff that's germane to the shoot at hand. The last time I used the camera was for video and I'd turned off stuff like IS and set the focus differently. Oh, yeah...and the ISO and the color balance....

I knew the theatre lighting in the smaller stage pretty well and I knew that the play would be a fast moving one so I set the ISO to 1600. That meant I could stop down to f4.5 (the absolute sharpest f-stop for the Zeiss zoom lens) and still get shutter speeds in the range of 1/200th for most of the well lit scenes.

Once I got my primary camera set  up I grabbed the little Panasonic and set it the same way. And in a daring break from my traditional theatre shooting practice I set both cameras to RAW. 

I knew I'd get good files from the Sony. At 100% there would be a pattern of monochromatic "digital grain" but at any size that the theatre might want to use the images the noise would be mostly invisible. I had previous experience shooting this camera at those settings and I knew we could pull it off. 

But I wasn't so sure about the Panasonic G6. Subconsciously I'm sure I'd bought into the anti-hype I'd read or stumbled across on the web. The take on that camera is that the sensor is one generation older and it is rumored, conjectured or believed to have less dynamic range and more noise than "modern" cameras. But I'm obstinate so I decided to look for myself. 

When I compared the raw files, head to head, in Lightroom (current version) I found that the "digital grain" more or less matched. The G6 was perfectly fine to shoot with. And while the color rendering was a little different between the two cameras I would be happy with either. 

I ran into one problem with both cameras. I ran into the buffer. I was shooting full raw files (there's no option for a c-raw or compressed raw...) and I found that after the first six or seven quickly shot files the cameras both slowed down. They process quickly so they recover quickly but it took me a while to get used to the cadence. When I shoot Jpegs I never seem to have an issue with either of the camera's slowing down. 

Both cameras were great at nailing the exposure and when I disagreed with the cameras I was forewarned by the miraculous technology of the EVF and I could easily tweak exposures with top mounted, direct, exposure compensation controls. The feedback loop, incorporating good EVFs made the shooting much more reliable than any set of cameras I have previously used, including the Sony a99. 

Above, I have included a hand-held (no image stabilization in the G6 with the Leica lens...) fast action shot from the play.  The aperture is nearly wide open. The shutter speed is nicely fast. The AF locked on like a badger.

The top shot is the full frame and the bottom shot is a 100% crop of the top shot. For ISO 1600 with moving objects in contaminated light I think the G6 is a rocking good camera. I'm currently waiting for those genii at Amazon.com to lower the price back down to the $495 at which I bought my first one so I can buy a back up. While I'm almost certain that a G7 is in the wings I'm happy enough with the performance of the current camera to not wait around betting on the future. 

The play was fun. The photography was fun. And just to shake things up, when I left the theatre and went to shoot my next job...a corporate job....I tossed the little cameras into the trunk of the car and used the Sony a850 for all my afternoon shots instead. All at ISO 160. All with fast primes. Oh my. My world is upside down...

But the cameras don't seem to mind. They seem not to be judgmental.

Portrait of a New York Photographer/Artist.

This fellow artist dropped by while I was model shooting in New York and I asked him to sit for a couple of minutes and have his portrait done. It's one of my favorite portraits from the week.

Amazing to me that he was able to shut out the hundreds of people swirling by and give me his full attention and collaboration.

Simple lighting. Simple camera work. Mutual cooperation.

today's schedule:

I'm off to shoot a children's play.  It's The Cat in The Hat. It's on the Kleberg Stage at Zach Theatre.  After the play I'll be heading over to a telecommunications company to make portraits of their CEO and some of the new company officers.

But as I was packing and double checking everything I had a thought just pop into my brain. I'd been reading about the slow food movement which is all about taking the time to do things right and the time to enjoy not only the consumption but also the process.

And I wondered if people might enjoy photography more if we slowed down a bit more and.....savored it. An example is the image above. It was shot back in October but I only really started mulling it over a few days ago. And I let it sink in before I did any (small amount) of post production and then posted it.

I think my interest in slow photography was initiated by three or four articles detailing how the sports photographers in Sochi at the Olympics are moving so fast to get literally millions of photos to the public in record time. And how soul robbing that must be to the photographers who must think of so many different parameters as they shoot. Lao Tzu said that when we concentrate on the future we bring anxiety into our lives. And when we concentrate on the past we bring depression into our lives. How can sports photographers savor the present moment when they must be overwhelmed with the process of getting the images off the cards and into the waiting eyes of web surfing sports fans everywhere?

Anyway, I haven't really thought it through yet but I'm going to let the idea of slow photography rattle around in my brain a bit and then figure out what I really want to say.

In the meantime I will be thankful that the work I shoot today isn't due until sometime tomorrow, at the earliest. And that after shooting the images I'll have time to chat and pack up at a leisurely pace. It's not glamorous like the Olympics but neither is my work a constant source of adrenaline poisoning... Something to ponder.

Slow Photography? Thoughts?

Two of my favorite people came together to make a video, start a Kickstarter campaign and champion some great music.

I think many of you will remember Rosie (Selena's) face from some of my LED portraits a few years back. Here's what she looked like back in 2011:

Well, Rosie is now the ultra-talented leader of a country band called, Rosie and the Ramblers, and they are doing their first full-on, high quality, studio album. To pay the studio and the musicians Rosie and the Ramblers is doing a Kickstarter campaign. They are hoping to raise $8,000 in the next 30 days and the list of perks for donors is very wild and fun. Donate $1,000 to the cause and Rosie will (permanently) tattoo your initials on her arm. For a bit more you can have the whole band come to your house and play a concert. But for those who are not high rollers there are other cool things.

As with most up and coming musicians independently making their first album these guys are happy with any level of giving people can muster.

Here's their promotional video for the campaign. Pay close attention to the production values....



My friend, Chris Archer, produced the video for Rosie. I helped a little bit. I brought along the microphone for our shooting session with Rosie on camera and created the cut away video of Rosie from either side. That's all I did. Chris shot, edited, art directed and basically did everything else.

I think the video is great and I think the band is great. Rosie is smart, focused and talented. Invest a few bucks if you possible. Always good to help out young artists.

Here's the Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/461033799/whatever-you-need-a-new-album-from-rosie-and-the-r

Glad I upgraded to the legendary 1956 model many years ago. The interface is perfect and the reliability is off the charts. Sometimes the vintage stuff is best.

B. Circa 1980.

Happy Birthday to my Best Friend.

Inadvertent exercise.

I guess the real definition of a creative person is to have a short attention span and a distaste for doing anything the same way twice. That, and always wanting to do something in a different way from everyone else.  At least that's the way I see it.

I bought some Panasonic cameras last year and to make the most of their  (nearly) square footage----available sensor resolution---I really should be shooting in the 4:3 format. Anything else crops out useful information. But that seems to dictatorial when it comes to creative composition. And it may explain why, after months of compulsory full format shooting with the those m4:3 rascals I've come to enjoy the 16:9 format. It defies logical good practice when it comes to maximizing image quality but it's weirdly dynamic. You lose the top and the bottom of the frame but then you have to use your brain to make things fit in and make the size and shape make sense.

Last Fall I was doing a demo and the camera I was using at the time was hooked up (wirelessly) to an HD television set. The technicians and I decided to set the camera to the 16:9 format to match the full screen of the television. I shot that way for two full days and now, when I look at the images I shot, I am happy to have cropped different. 

I guess it's also an active exercise in learning how to compose for videos and films. All of the cameras I'm using for those disciplines are locked into the 16:9 format. Since I'm traditionally a square shooter it's almost a necessary exercise to see in a new way and to break out of that mould.

Makes my brain hurt a little but it does change the way I see things in the finders. I like the variation.
But....this essay in no way creates of permanent contract for me to only shoot long and skinny. I'll be back to my fat and sassy 1:1 format soon enough.

I'll take a pass on getting excited about the new Fuji Camera. Or the new Sony Camera. Or the new..........

I'm feeling kind of flat about cameras right now. Maybe I've been through too many of them or maybe I've seen the way we've become in our constant and relentless thirst for the newest thing. It's almost scary. I have cameras I bought because I convinced myself there was some feature or another that I couldn't live without only to find that I could. And some of those cameras have the equivalent of one roll run through them before finding semi-eternal rest in drawer six of the red tool cabinet. That's the drawer that's set aside for cameras I have every intention of using but which somehow sit fallow until the batteries can no longer take a charge.

Why am I feeling this way today? A couple of reality checks. One client called to confirm a two day shoot next week and to talk about technical parameters. They'll be going up to poster sizes with some of the images and wanted to be sure that I'd be using a high res camera. Funny that last week my thoughts were about how good the m4:3 cameras have become and how a photographer could probably do a whole business with a Sony RX10 and yet here we are again spending the afternoon testing the sharpest apertures on the sharpest lenses I'll want to use on the Sony a99 or a850 at ISO 100 on a stout tripod with electronic flash lighting in a studio. You know, to wring the last drop of image quality out of them.

The big Sonys no longer seem sexy to me but I know that the 14 bit raw files from the Sony a99 have the best chance of fulfilling the client's expectations short of rushing out and getting a Nikon D800 or a Sony A7r (the shutter shock champion...). And I'd rather shoot with something familiar.

The other convergent event was finally getting around to opening up the folder of images I shot with an APS-C camera at the Photo Expo last Fall. To be honest I never liked the finder on the camera and I really could care less if my camera has Android Lollypop running inside but I think I figured out that what was really important was what I've been saying all along: Lighting and rapport. The cameras really are the team's second string. The varsity team is Lighting and rapport.

If we could make images that I really liked with a camera I found somewhat problematic to operate then why confuse the issue with yet another foray into the camera market and another search for the holy grail? I know, I know, I rushed out an bought a Sony RX10 but let me let you in on a little secret: That's a video camera, not really a still camera. And for what it does in video it's a freaking bargain/must have.

So, what cameras am I lusting after right now? Can't think of any and that's probably boring the hell out of the people who come here looking for product porn. I'm just not up to it this week. Not when I have so many pretty images to look at from cameras past. It just doesn't make sense. Or does it?

Every portrait photographer has stuff they need to work on.

Gloria. NYC 2013. Samsung Camera.

I'm working in putting more "air" around my subjects. I guess we got into the habit of cropping tight back in the days of skimpy sensors with low pixel counts. We wanted to make every micron of space count. But these days I feel like some of my images from that time and some that were offshoots of a style that became habituated at the time feel claustrophobic to me now. A little more space might be a  good thing. Next I'll work on adding context and stuff in the background. That should be a seismic change....

One note on the series I've been playing with today: I was using the Samsung Galaxy NX camera at the time I took this image and since then I have more or less ended my active participation in their Imagelogger program but when I examine the images I can't help but admit that Samsung got their flesh tones and gradations on human skin down to a good science. The files are very pleasing to me. While the camera's EVF bothered me and the connected side of the camera slowed down the interfacing process the actual imaging----the thing we mostly used to use cameras for --- is pretty darn good. Just thought I'd toss some credit where it is due. 

OMG!!!!!!! All of my books are back in stock at Amazon....

....Just in time for----------next Christmas season? Thanks a lot, Amherst.

As you know if you tried to order one of my captivating and remarkable lighting books to give to your most loved loved one over the recent holidays, three of my five books were out of stock at Amazon for nearly the entire month of December...

How nice that we have them back in stock just in time for the spendy tax season. Hmmm.

My Amazon Author's Page

After working alongside Nick Kelsh I've added a few medium sized soft boxes to my lighting inventory.

Gloria. NYC. For Samsung.

When I presented in New York at Photo Expo I tag teamed with an incredible photographer named, Nick Kelsh. I had originally spec'd a very large soft box for my lighting demos but the size of the booth made that potentially unwieldy and when I arrived I was confronted by a mid-sized box. Probably two by three feet. I was a little unsettled about it because, well....I am used to getting my own way, but then I watched Nick work the smaller box in very close to his model and get pretty spectacular results. 

When it was my turn I worked the light in closer than I usually do and, frankly, I like the results very much. So when I came home I looked through the stack of umbrellas and soft boxes looking for my little collection of mid-size modifiers. Sadly, these things don't last forever. Rods break and fabric deteriorates and rips. I had one or two very small boxes that I used for backgrounds but the 3x4 footers I used to have had all been destroyed and discarded over the years. 

Last night I ordered a new box from Amazon.com. It's an inexpensive Fotodiox branded box that measures 32 inches by 48 inches. It should be here Weds. in the late afternoon just not in time for my Weds. portrait session with a communications company. But that's okay, I've been practicing with umbrellas too. 

Here's the one I bought. It even comes with a speed ring for my Elinchrom flashes. If you have a different flash they sell with different rings.

Food? Food Photography!

I love food. I owe everything I know about food to my friend, Patricia Bauer-Slate. Patricia owned the best bakery in all of Texas for 32 years, introduced the real croissant to Austin and created a number of restaurants that people still talk about a decade after she exited the restaurant business.

I'd been going to her bakery, Sweetish Hill Bakery, for years to get bear claws and petit pain au chocolate and killer coffee before I actually met her and became a Bauer-Slate fine food disciple.

The change from customer to friend came from one of my earliest magazine assignments. I was assigned by one of the city magazines to go to her new restaurant, La Provence, and make photographs of the beautiful dining room, the chef and the front of house manager. I was working exclusively with 4x5 inch transparency film at the time and did my lighting with several Novatron power packs and flash heads firing into big white umbrellas.

I made (through sheer dumb luck) some of the best interior images I've ever been able to make and some very passable portraits. Patricia was so pleased that she asked to buy some of the images and, to sweeten the deal, she also invited me and my girlfriend at the time (now my wife) to come by and have a dinner ( we could never have afforded at the time) as her guests. Belinda still remembers the angel hair pasta with truffles and caviar as one of the best dishes she's ever had while I remember the entrecôte mirabeau (a perfect steak criss-crossed with anchovies) as the best steak I've ever eaten (sorry Morton's and Sullivan's). We shared a bottle of wine that had a little booklet tied around the neck which explained the provenance of the wine. We still have that booklet now 34 years later.

We spent years eating Patricia's cooking, devouring her bakery's chocolate cakes and whole wheat bread. She taught me how to perfectly poach an egg and to make a Hollandaise sauce that wouldn't separate. I've photographed hundreds of products and dishes in return.

I love photographing food almost as much as I love eating it. But the important thing in my education as a food photographer has been a thirty five year education in what makes good food good---taught to me by a master. The photography part is easy if you know why you are making a photograph.