Gone photographing. Back in a few days.

Paris Metro.

Kirk Tuck and the Visual Science Lab finally enter 21st Century with a fast internet connection.

We had all these cables running into the VSL headquarters just for 1.5 meg DSL. (kinda kidding). 

(from a studio assignment for 3M featuring heat shrink cable protection).

I'm not an early adopter in so many areas. I got my first car with Bluetooth in 2013. I'm still using an iPhone 4S. I don't order restaurant take out online. I'm not really sure why Twitter has value or if I am using it correctly. We have one television set. It's never been hooked up to cable. I only know about Pandora as she relates to Greek mythology. I think wi-if on a camera is the devil's work. And, most disturbingly, I've been using old AT&T business class DSL for the last 15 years. It got marginally faster a few years ago but only via the expense of a couple weeks of downtime and frustrating phone calls to help desks that repeated the same mantra over and over and over again: "Restart your modem."

But when we moved from Austin proper into the hills just west of Austin getting high speed connections was either impossible or required a King Midas/Goldman Sachs budget. Once I had a workable solution in the office I was loathe to change it. I made due with 3 mbs per second down and 1.5 mps up and I paid about $55 a month for the privilege. But recently Google came to Austin and even though they are only really interested in the low hanging fruit it has pushed their cable and other broadband competitors to change. A nice person from AT&T came by and showed me how switching our sloooow, home DSL and our sloow office DSL to their newer services would increase the speeds of our connections by a factor of ten while cutting our monthly bills in half. That's a nice value proposition, even for a lazy non-switcher like myself. 

Of course, now I'm kicking myself for not switching earlier but I still remember the hassles I had to deal with the last time I changed just the speed of my connection which resulted in more down time than most submarines. I'd gladly give up speed and a bit of cash not to disrupt my routine. But this time I didn't resist. They made it too easy for me. 

The technician came out this morning. He marveled at the bullet proof, weather proof, comet proof junction box at the back of the house like a Russian with steel fillings looking at a free gold crowns. About three hours later we'd switched from two old DSL accounts to one fiber account on a shared modem that delivers good signal strength everywhere. Just to test it Belinda and I watched two different movies in two locations, simultaneously. Nosferatu and some Meryl Streep movie on Netflix and nothing slowed down, coughed or hiccuped. (Now I sound like someone emerging from a time machine and talking about being able to read the newspaper on line!). 

It's like the time I traded in my bigass BMW on a four cylinder Honda and rediscovered good gas mileage (and reliability, and low maintenance costs, and cheaper operating costs, and a better air conditioner, and........). It's always a little startling to change things. 

But I miss things about the slower connection. Yesterday uploading two one megabyte images took about 20 second and it gave me time to think of a catchy headline for the blog I was writing. Today? One second and no downtime for the ole brain. No catchy headline. 

The most exiting part of all this? Now I can watch Kai at DigitalRevTV and Chris Niccolls from The CameraStore TV in full on HD and I don't even have to wait for my machine to buffer the signal. No stuttering, no stopping and no more jaggies. 

I'm pretty happy about the change, after the fact. My iPad streams news quicker and my laptop downloads new software like a geek box. But the biggest change is how quickly I can now upload enormous videos to Vimeo.com. Push a button and look away. By the time I hammer back a slug of cold coffee from the recesses of my desk the web has mysteriously sucked up a 600 MB video file and cracked the whip on the hamsters that process it at Vimeo ( a very nice service = thank you!).

I still think wi-fi in cameras is for children and other geeks and don't get me started on the stupid trend of putting GPS in a camera. I don't care what your rationale is, you and I both know you are wrong. But I'll come around in a few years. Once they've got it all perfected I'll give it a test drive. I just can't think of what in world I'd do with the coordinates. Maybe I'll give them to my phone and the robots will track me for the digital overlords. Could be fun. 

This is a cool ad for a Japanese tech firm that I worked on with my art director friend, Greg Barton over at Dandy Idea. Wafers, meditation and sunrises. Nice.

Absolutely the best camera evaluation video I have ever, ever seen on the world wide web. Thanks to Philip Bloom for tweeting it.

http://vimeo.com/116280524

Best. Ever.

Lighting, pose, gesture and content. The camera is the last thing on the list.

I like this photo because it shows off new technology for my client and the people in the shot look real and engaged. I was happy to have been able to light the entire scene with one overhead fluorescent fixture and four Fotodiox 312AS LED panels. I wanted the image to be "readable" and printable (no shadows blocking up, no highlights burned out) but I didn't want it to seem obviously lit.

In the shooting process my first consideration was to find the right angle to show off the machine and also be flattering for the models. The room we were shooting in is very small so the slim profile of the LED panels was a real plus. One panel that was behind me and to the left was used bounced against a wall and the space was so tight we couldn't get a stand in. I attached the light to a small table top tripod and balanced it on top of a small medical tray. Two lights, covered with diffusion material were used outside the door while the fourth was aimed at the equipment in the background so it didn't drop in tonal value. Everything was balanced in intensity to match the white curtained window at the back of the frame.

The use of a shorter than typical (for me) focal length helped to create a feeling of depth to the shot. My biggest challenge was to get enough light on the face of the technician on the left without blowing out too much highlight detail on the "patient's" white robe.

All of the above parameters were put into place first and then we stuck in the camera. I did a quick custom white balance from the robe and set a manual exposure on the camera. I was using the Sony a77 and the (nice) 16-50mm f2.8 kit lens. It's a bit noisier than my current cameras but light years better than earlier generations of cameras.

I am happy with the shot and in retrospect there are very few (if any) things that I would change.

There is the belief that the camera and lens are the vital parts of the process but by my reckoning they are a distant fourth place behind being able to visualize what you want to achieve, figuring out how to light it for depth and detail, getting the right poses, expressions and gestures from the talent and getting the shot styled the way you want. Once you've done those things just about any camera with the right focal length lens on the front will do the job.

The nicest thing for me about this job was having a client who understands the difference between a narrative style photo illustration and just another documentation of a machine. That's the best case scenario for working photographers.

I shot with a new "old" lens yesterday and it was good.

Dog and friend at the Graffiti Wall. D610+Cheapo lens

Model at the Graffiti Wall. 70-210mm at 210mm, f5.6

Editorial Note: I wrote a post yesterday about a lens and an experience at the Austin Graffiti Wall. It was too negative and angry. I decided that's not a direction I wanted to go in this year so I took the post down. This is what the original post should have been...

It's not hard to be a lens-aholic when shooting with the Nikon system, after all, they haven't changed the lens mount in just about forever and any Nikon lens made from about 1977 onward will mount and work (some with limitations) on even the newest Nikon bodies. When I look at lenses for that system (one of two systems that I am currently using for work and play...) I find myself drawn to older classics rather than the newest formulations and models. I've shot, on and off, with Nikon equipment since the late 1980's and I have a lot of experience with the lenses (and the bodies) through the ages. I've always loved the look and feel of the manual focus lenses and now I even like the prices. 

Recently, I borrowed the newest 70-200mm VR type 2 to compare with an older AF 80-200mm f2.8 D lens that I recently bought for a song. I wanted to make sure I wasn't deluding myself and compromising the overall system performance by choosing an older lens. I shouldn't have worried as the older lens is as sharp and low maintenance as I remember it. What am I giving up by using an older lens? Mostly just the VR but in the ways that I plan to use the lens it's not much of an issue. I plan to use the fast zoom lens mostly for theatrical performance documentation sitting on the front of a Nikon 610. I've tested it onsite and it works exactly as I wanted. 

But there is one issue I have with the 80-200mm f2.8 and that is the bulk and the weight of the unit. Don't get me wrong, for the applications I have in mind it's not an issue and there's really now way around a certain size and heft if you want optical performance and speed on a full frame camera. It's a trade off. But in the back of my mind I started thinking about the times when I might want to tote around a nice focal length range like the one on the 80-200mm during one of my "spells" when I also want to use a big Nikon camera. So I started looking for a cheap, smaller, lighter lens with the same basic focal range to use when tooling around outdoors, without my team of equipment hauling Sherpas. 

The search led me to a number of choices but the one that seemed to have the most promise, when reading other people's reviews, was the D version of the Nikon 70-210mm f4-5.6, push-pull zoom lens from the 1990's. It focuses pretty quickly; on par with the consumer AFS lenses. It''s noisier when focusing but not too bad. It's less than half the size and weight of the 2.8 lenses but it's mostly built with metal and feels very solid. I bought one for right around $100. I generally test lenses just as soon as I buy them but last week we had nasty weather. It was cold, gray, rainy and windy for four days in a row and I just didn't have the motivation to go out and shoot with much of anything.

The weather broke yesterday (resulting in a glorious and very well attended morning swim practice) and in the late afternoon I finished up all my chores and decided to go out for a bit of shooting. I put the lens on the D610 and headed for the Graffiti Wall. It was absolutely packed with people, including a mass fashion photo workshop. I stayed for a while and snapped some fun shots which I then brought back to the office to look over. The lens is fairly sharp wide open and the appearance of sharpness improves with a bit of post processing. When sharpening is done right the lens delivers fine detail along with a contrast that seems to be a balance between the lower levels of the older, manual Nikon lenses and the exaggerated contrast (and saturation) of the newest generation. I found myself liking the push and pull to zoom control. 

All in all the lens was a bargain for $100 and reminded me that some of the older stuff is still primo. 

I bought this lens for my particular uses and I'm not suggesting that you rush out and change camera systems or rush out to buy this lens. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that there's a lot of good, older stuff out there that's selling at bargain prices and rewards buyers who are patient, willing to test their own gear, and who buy from vendors who will allow you to return stuff that you might find lacking in performance to your standards. I like my big, heavy fast lens for a number of shooting opportunities and I like the more compact lens for daytime travel and street shooting. I'm lucky enough to be able to have both. 

Another editorial note: My book giveaway came to an end on Saturday morning and in the two days it was active we gave away over 6,000 Kindle versions of, The Lisbon Portfolio. I hope that we'll start to see a rash of (nice) reviews in the next few weeks at Amazon. I hope everyone enjoys the story and doesn't get too annoyed with any editing issues. I'm working on the second book and want to have it done by October of 2015. I continue to rely on your motivational support and encouragement. 

Thanks, Kirk

curiosity. What long telephoto zooms do you reach for when you go out to shoot and you know you want/need some reach? I'd be curious to know what my readers think the best fast tele zooms are for your systems. Comments?

I was putting together yet another presentation for yesterday afternoon and remembering how diverse a pitch might need to be.

Die on wafer.

Last week I got a call from an advertising agency here in central Texas. I'd been recommended to them by another advertising agency and that's always a nice introduction. The new agency and client are involved in creating a new high technology market around a breakthrough process, and the machinery and attendant software to do the process. I know a decent amount about this particular area of tech and while I'm not an expert I'm pretty certain this will be amazing stuff, and the client will make lots of money. But before I get invited to play I have to pitch. 

So today I'm going to talk about the pitching process as it relates to specialties. Most of the half million or so "professional" photographers working today are working with some variation of consumer cameras, using battery operated strobes or winging it with the convenient phrase: "I am an available light specialist." Most of the people who sell work in the general photography market came up through the ranks as wedding and family photographers. Almost zero percent have worked with film, cameras with movements, or specialty lenses and lights. Even fewer come from technical backgrounds and understand technology processes.  When I go to pitch commercial clients I try to leverage my strengths against those weaknesses.

The first thing one should do when pitching a potential client is head straight to their website and read up. The reading should include all the white papers and product information. The research should go on to include everything you can find on Google and LinkedIn about the people to whom you will be presenting. Go all the way back to their college stats if you can find them. See where they've been and what their credentials are. Then go and research their competitors, if you can find them. Once you've done that then figure out where you fit in. Define all the things you can offer them and figure out the areas where you clearly excel over your own competitors. Have these features and benefits clearly in mind when you walk through the client's door.

In this particular case the client's executive team all came from high technologies industries. Their company sells physical machines that create a new technology product. But the key staff are also pure researchers who are working with light, polymers, and lots and lots of stored electricity. I knew I should lead with some pure technology to show them what I've done for previous generations of innovators so I led with things like die photos, the cover of IEEE magazine for which I shot the very first multi-core wafer created by IBM, and the image of the historic, first PowerPC device, which I shot for Motorola. I led with a dozen pure technology shots including a few from inside a .25 micron cleanroom because I knew the images would lead into a conversation that would allow me to show off my early technical education, my grasp of underlying physics and chemistry concepts driving their innovation, and my efforts to stay topically current about key areas of technology over the ensuing years. 

We were also able to share in discussions about using oil bath techniques on chip dies to eliminate certain diffraction effects when focused under the oil layer. We discussed light piping and planar staging and a few other issues having to do with 1x-5x magnification, technical photography, and I think it cemented, in their minds, that I understood the imaging challenges we'd be facing with some of their process and products. 

The next step in the presentation was to show industrial products shot in various ways, from server racks to small details. I love the red front panels on the Salient Systems servers and showed them because we could discuss the fact that the server front panels are curved in several dimensions and this created various reflections that needed to be eliminated. Walking them through that lighting process will pay off when we produce bids because the client and agency will better understand why some things take time.

I included a handful of "ghosted" images like the receiver below so the client could see an application I thought would work well for them; the ability to show off the product as a whole while highlighting interior technology that is the point of their selling proposition. 

As we did a "walk through" of their facility I asked cogent questions about the process so I could get a handle on how we might handle organizing the photographic assignments as part of a narrative to tell their story. The walk through gave me a chance to see things that might make the story better for a lay person like a procurement officer or non-technical finance director of a potential customer company.

While I showed a good proportion of product and techie images I didn't neglect the fun portraits done for the arts, or the environmental portraits of executives in a range of companies, because I know that while the client generally loves to tell the "technical" story the agency understands that people work with people and that websites and collateral need to be a balance of tech and real people from the company. I'm selfish, I want both sides. 

Finally, I asked about their proposed use of video and asked if they were interested in seeing a video presentation we'd done for another local technology company. They did so we fired it up on a 15 inch MacBook Pro and, at the end, asked me all the right questions. "How did we shoot it?" "What is my process for video projects?" "How big (read: disruptive) was my crew?" And my favorite: "Who does your scriptwriting?'

I've pitched a lot of clients over the years and I have a good feeling about this one but the presentation is just the first step. The next step will be fleshing out budgets and time tables and making sure we get fairly compensated while the client gets exactly what they need and want. I have no idea who else they are talking to but I know the cohort of people still working in the field with deeper knowledge of technology imaging is small and shrinking. This is a smart client looking for a long term relationship. They are looking for experience and track record. They'll look to their agency for the creative overlay. 

On every pitch I've ever participated in I've learned new stuff. This time around I had to scramble to put together industrial work because it's not "sexy" like beautiful people shots and movie stars. It's not the kind of stuff we routinely share on the web or stuff into portfolios but if you are pursuing work with manufacturers and inventors it's pretty critical to have proof of performance in hand. 

The next time around I'll have a more locked down system for pulling up older work and consolidating the "heroes" from current work into centralized promotional catalogs that I can dip into quickly. The final point of photographic interest to me in this process was the wide variety of cameras and lenses that was represented within the material I showed. 

The video was shot with current GH4 cameras. The server racks with the same GH4's. The D2A receiver was shot in 2004 with a Kodak DCS 760. The PowerPC processor was shot with a bellows and 120 Makro Planar on a Hasselblad film camera, while the die image at the top of the article was done with a Canon 1DS mk2 with a 50mm Olympus macro lens on a bellows---camera and stage bolted to a custom modified copy stand. I showed a few main frame computers we'd shot with 4x5 inch view cameras and transparency film. And there were ample samples from DX frame Nikons and Canons as well as some full frame Sony stuff from the a99 and a850. Funny thing? They all look uniform in an on screen presentation.  Lighting and style trump gear?

The final steps in the presentation process are: follow up with "thank you" notes to the agency and client, and the delivery of a nice gift to the agency that (once again) recommended me. 

None of this has to do with the actual process of taking photographs but I thought I'd share my thinking about the process of actually getting the work. It's a bit tougher than just prancing in, showing a leather book filled with prints of various generic images and walking out with a purchase order. But really? It's always been this way.

Rack Mount Servers.

The very first PowerPC device from the Somerset Consortium. Hello RISC.

See through product shot. D2Audio.

Kinetic Photography. Young love. Boston.

A mirror free camera with a 50mm f1.8 lens. Boston, Mass.

Off to meet one of my long tenured friends for happy hour. Maybe she will have the secret of the universe. I'm pretty sure it has little to do with photography.


Resume following me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KirkTuck

Hanging out with the smart people.

The I.T. Center Lobby at the University of Texas at Austin.

 The reception area in the Student Services building at Brandeis University.

I like visiting colleges. I taught for a while at the University of Texas at Austin and I also hang out over at Austin Community College when I go see my buddy, Bill. He's the chair of the Photography Department there. Sometimes he invites me over to talk to the students.  The nicer colleges invest a lot of money for places to sit down and swill coffee. That appeals to me. Sitting, drinking coffee and reading. Nice work if you can get it...

If you work somewhere and the coffee is not good does it seem reasonable to talk to the people in H.R.? I'm thinking about starting a VSL H.R. department so I can complain to myself about my variable ability to make decent coffee. But I don't want to ruffle any feathers...


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Third in a series of Art Historians. Pose.

I hate what happens to black and white prints when I upload them to Blogger. They get grayed down. The surrounds go from 95% to about 74% and it makes me crazy. Oh well. This is the last image I'll show in the series of Art Historians and it is my personal favorite.

I'm not sure why other than that I like the tilt of the subject's head, the accessorizing of the scarf and neck chain as well as the tuft of hair right in the middle of this accomplished woman's forehead. No features, I am afraid, that would pass the test of modern portrait imaging as approved by the web at large. But then the audience for these images was an entirely different demographic...

It was 80 degrees in Austin today with bright sunshine. I bought a tank of gas today for $1.70 a gallon. The world has turned upside down.

I hope everyone who regularly reads VSL is happy, well and warm.


Resume following me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KirkTuck

Just a photograph of clouds and a tree.

I was having coffee with a friend yesterday afternoon. We were helping each other stay motivated with our respective projects. It's a great thing to have friends who will push you forward. Once you've discussed a project that you want to do it's almost as if you have more discipline simply because you don't want to let them down.

As artists we all need to know and socialize with other artists because they so rarely ask you things like: "Will that be cost effective?" "What's the R.O.I. on your creative venture?" "Won't that take time away from paying work?" And all the other helpful advice and suggestions that people who don't do their own art projects like to offer by way of constructive input.

We were sitting outside, enjoying the warm spell, and the sky began to change just before sunset. Neither of us said anything about the sky but we both glanced over as the light became more beautiful. I don't remember who stood up first but we walked over the edge of the sidewalk and shot a few images of the sky and the clouds and the trees. I can pretty much guarantee that we did it because we both felt that the sky in that moment was beautiful.

And I can pretty much guarantee that neither of us was thinking, "I wonder how much money I can get for that image as a stock photograph."

Find friends who are artists and hang out. Feed the fire. Turn the coals. Help them get their projects done. Let them help you to do the same.

When making a series of portraits continuity can be important. Art Historians, part 2.

Art Historian.

Few things bother me more when looking at a printed brochure or a website than being confronted with a page of photographic portraits that are not consistent in look and feel. I looked at a website for a law firm yesterday. Three years ago I had made portraits for them of all sixteen partners and all of them were on consistent backgrounds, with consistent color and head sizes. The feel of the lighting was carried through from photo to photo.

Over the last three years some of the partners retired or moved on while nine new people were added to the roster. Unfortunately, they must have decided not to spend the money on updating the website with new images of the newcomers because each new added photograph was strikingly different. Some were done with very hard light. Some where phone-cam snaps. Others were archaic styles from another time. It's not that any one image was horrible but that the mismatch of images stood out like a red wine stain on a white silk dress. The ensuing collage of mixed styles and varying level of production quality damaged the visual integrity of the page and degraded the marketing effect dramatically.

I try to make sure that we don't have that problem if I can help to avoid it. I keep a sketch or lighting diagram of the shoots I do so I can replicate them closely if there are additions after the initial shoot. If we are doing projects with teams here in Austin and counterparts in another state or country we set a style, shoot it and then create a detailed style guide for our counterpart photographers. The goal is to be able to seamlessly insert an image into a corporate website and have it look like it matches everything else on the site.

Continuity of style is part of a company's brand. You work with the marketing people not only to come up with the style but to preserve it over time. Yes, I did send a note to the marketing director at the law firm.  Yes we will probably reshoot everyone.

Continuity+Style=branding.

Portrait of an Art Historian.

I was commissioned to make a series of portraits of art history professors at the University of Texas at Austin. The client and I decided to go with black and white images as it seemed appropriate to the nature of their work.

To make the assignment most efficient it was decided that I would go to their location at the Fine Arts College and set up a temporary studio. I worked with medium format cameras and high powered electronic flash generators. The lighting was very simple. I used a 4x6 foot soft box as my main light, adding an extra layer of silk diffusion material to give me the look I wanted. I did not use any fill to the opposite side of the subjects' faces in order to add contrast and black intensity to the images.

I was able to select a room that had a good amount of distance from front to back and I set up my canvas background as far from the subjects as I could while keeping the subject framed correctly and without showing the edges of the background material. The background was lit by a small soft box powered by a second electronic flash generator. The background soft box was positioned directly behind the subject and just below the shoulder line.

For each subject I exposed two twelve exposure rolls of black and white film after testing the set up carefully with black and white Polaroid test materials.

After we wrapped up the shooting I returned to the studio where I processed the film and hung it up to dry. The next morning I went back into the darkroom to make contact sheets of all the rolls of film I'd shot. I made two sets. One for my use and to keep with the film in the filing cabinet, and a second to give to the client for selection purposes.

After the individual images were selected (days or weeks later) I went back into the darkroom and made 8x10 inch, double weight fiber prints of each person. Excluding test prints I made sets of prints "bracketing" exposures by small increments in order to get exactly the level of highlight detail I was looking for. The prints were marked with copyright and contact information on the backs with pencil and I asked that the prints be returned to me after the contracted use.

I came across the envelope this morning as I "thinned out" a drawer in one of the filing cabinets and pulled the prints out to take a look. These are quick copy shots of the printed material and certainly don't have the same impact,, as small images on the web, that they do when one is able to hold them in one's hands and really examine the subtly toned surfaces in good light. Maybe that is a reason why actual photographic prints seem overlooked these days; there is less exposure to the actual product and what is seen on the web is hurried and prone to bad electronic interpretation.

In my encounters with subjects I am rarely interested in in smiling images and much more interested in images that show the personality of the sitter as I have experienced them, even if our exposure to each other is limited. I like the compression I get with longer lenses and I like to fill the frame with the main subject so I can really go back and inspect the nuances of their faces.

The critical part of a portrait shoot is establishing a rapport with the sitter and providing an emotional space that makes it safe for the sitter to relax into the stasis that represents themselves at rest. Everything else is just showmanship...