Angles and Color.

These aren't the kind of images I make to generate money or business. I like them because they are quiet and fun for me to look at. It's easier for me to imagine them as art on the wall than portraits, which in most cases are too personal or two direct to be good, long term art for display.
I think portraits work best in book and magazine form. The exception is family portraits displayed in the context of the family home. But even there a portrait that is as much about art as it is about paying homage to the family member doesn't wear well. We can look past mediocre technique to the naive display of a cute expression and of happy moments but when we attempt to elevate the portrait of a family member to fine art the weight of the exercise seems to embue the presentation with a level of pretention that cripples the enjoyment of the representation.

In this regard I believe that we want our portraits to fall into a set of boundaries that includes lighting formulas and variations on basic poses. This allow the portrait created for posterity to gain a timelessness that attempting to overlay fashion or current editorial styles of portraiture rarely achieves.

While none of the work above passes muster to go up on the walls each of the images engages me for reasons having to do more with design, color and forced angles than timeless contextual value.  These are all things which we find engaging in and of themselves. Many of the images we take are never intended as fine art or even survivable art. Like a pianist or guitarist who practices scales we are practicing our own visual scales and doing our exercises in spatial and tonal problem solving under relaxed conditions. If we practice well we can bring the understanding of design and color to our more serious work.

I included the final image because the building somehow makes me nostalgia for a time in the past when buildings were built on a very human scale in Austin, in particular, and Texas in general. This building, which now houses an ad agency, represents the accessible style of the late 1950's and 1960's. Even the scale of the windows and offices seems more welcoming than the sterile and efficient architecture I see in so many of the newer buildings. That alone makes the image interesting to me.

Abstract Reality.

Walking downtown always looks different but the same. I like the neutral look of a 50mm lens on 35mm frame. It's not passionate or showy. It just....is.

The start of a new year always paralyzes me. I never know what to expect. Are we supposed to just do the same thing we did last year but with different dates? Do we jump into the river of change or sit on the banks and watch the people frolic as they get swept downstream?

I don't know how to get started. Eventually the phone will ring and the e-mail will chime and I'll get pushed along. There's something disquieting about being grown up and not knowing what it is you really want to do when you grow up. When you are young you have all the answers. As you progress through your life you have fewer and fewer answers but even more vague is any idea of what it is you really want.

The cameras are a fun distraction. The photography is a pleasant disconnection. The family anchors one to the here and now. Friends keep you from flying off the edges. But at some point is there a juncture at which you are supposed to say, "This is it. This is the thing I know I should be doing." ???

How do you do it? How do you continue to put on your pants, shave your face, brush your teeth, and go out for more of the stuff of which you've already had heady doses? Is there a lure of some treasure hidden in the near future that keeps you moving or is it just your monumental faith that all of this (life, work, love, death) is part of some great master plan that will reward you with purpose in some distant or alternate reality?

What is it that keeps you engaged? Not a rhetorical question. I really want to know...

The Shots Between Shots.

Taking a portrait is a process of trying and rejecting many things until you arrive at the recipe you had in mind but didn't know when you started. The shot above is not a final shot. It's part of the process. But erasing the building blocks means erasing the description of your process. And many times you will wish you were able to go back to the abandoned frames and look for the attributes that might have become clearer to you on your return to the image through the passage of time.

One of the crimes of the digital age is the cavalier way we toss away all but the "keepers." But what constitutes a "keeper" changes with our experiences, our evolving point of view and our changing perceptions. I like the fact that the out takes from my film days are still there. Still available for me.  I go back and find new things to like and new sources of inspiration.

What seemed like mistakes to me ten years ago seem like intended silence between frames now. I like the insouciance of an "in between" frame when I rediscover it. You might too.

It helps me to be mindful not to overshoot. But the act of rediscovery also helps me to be mindful about not throwing to much away. Not to edit too permanently, in the moment.

Photo Above: Renee Zellweger in the old studio. Camera: Pentax 645n. Lens: 150mm 3.5. Film: Tri-X.

It's not "what you took with you" it's "where you've been."

A ceiling detail from the Alexander Palace in Pushkin, Russia. 1995

Dead of winter. Blizzard conditions outside. The one thing Russia had plenty of in 1995 was petroleum and the one thing they shared all over the country was heat. I've never been  hotter than in a Russian public building in the dead of winter. I was part of a survey team from the World's Monuments Fund. We were analyzing the very last palace of the Czars. This is shot with a Hasselblad SWC/M.  It was a specialized, wide angle medium format camera that had a permanently attached 38mm Zeiss Biogon lens on the front, a bright-line optical viewfinder in the accessory shoe and an A-12 film back on the read end. There was also a bubble level on the camera.  The system was sharp and distortion free.

All we had back then was film and film cameras. All the camera info is in a little notebook that I kept while I was in the St. Petersburg area in February of 1995. I brought home so many better memories than of what was at the end of my camera strap. It was the people I met and the sights I saw that stick with me. Curators and guards, translators and professors. 

In the end it may be what you take with you on assignment, but I certainly am not referring to cameras and lenses and power packs. I am referring to all the experience and vision you have already packed in your head. Just a thought.  And actually, that's the most valuable commodity today-----just a thought.

Spa Shoot. Fun Shoot. More Like These, Please

Cured Greek Olives on Flaky Pastry Crust with Carmellized Onions and Herbs.

50mm 1.4 Sony. Handheld.

I tend to write about the big, exciting event shoots because I perceive that it's what you want to read about, but my favorite shoots are the kind where I drop into a business or a project and try to capture the essence of the people, the space and the products in a less frantic and more measured pace. So today I thought I'd write about one of my favorite shoots from the last quarter, my website project for the Spa at The Lake, here in Austin, Texas.

I did this job before I acquired the a99 and, in looking back I am almost surprised a what a proficient and transparent tool the a77 cameras have turned out to be. For this job I packed simply. A bag of cameras and a bag of small, LED panels that run off batteries. I packed two Sony a77's, the Sigma 10-20mm lens, the 16-50mm Sony lens, the 50mm 1.4 Sony lens and the 85mm 2.8 Sony lens. Three small Manfrotto micro light stands and my wooden, Berlebach tripod.

We worked on a cold Sunday. We choose that day as one on which the Spa was least busy.  I worked without an assistant but with a very bright art director. We did the whole shoot as a stream of conscious exercise. We knew we'd need a frame work of shots, the "must haves" but we kept our eyes constantly moving; looking for nuance and new angles.  Because in projects about beauty and brands every detail tells part of the story.

Cucumber Infused Mineral Water. 85mm 

A great example is something as simple as the jug of water above. I saw it and immediately cleared clutter out from behind it. The jug is lit solely by direct sun. No reflectors or diffusers. And it's one of my favorite shots. I like it even more since I tasted the water. The infusion of cucumber is subtle but so refreshing. I can taste it now whenever I see this image.

Dressing Rooms. 16-50mm

Part of the assignment was to document all of the facilities. Interior architecture with and without people. The dressing room shot is simple. I like the inclusion of the blue towels on the orange stool. We used all three of the LED panels to make the shot. The setup took just a few minutes because we could gauge light placement so quickly with the continuous light sources. The lights were the Fotodiox 312AS panels that I've written about so often.

Olive Pastry from the Artisanal Bistro. 50mm 1.4

The Spa at the Lake is located in a shopping center just off the entrance to the Lakeway community that sits next to Lake Travis. In the same shopping center is one of my favorite recent restaurant finds, The Artisanal Bistro (and bakery). The restaurant is run by and cooked for by a chef was professionally trained in France. The Spa's owner had our snacks and lunch catered by The Artisanal Bistro and it's probably the best food I've ever had in a shoot that wasn't directly engaged by a restaurant! I drove back out a few weeks later to have dinner there with Belinda and we are now officially addicted. Funny how the message of comfort and luxury ends up being reflected by all the little touches, like wonderful food or fresh flowers in all the treatment rooms.

Sony a77, 16-50mm 

When I work with locations that have good natural light coming through the windows or really good interior lighting design and implementation I try to use the LED panels just to fill and reinforce the intention of the existing light. My goal in most advertising shots is to show off the product or the person and to make the lighting look as though it's all natural; even when I have two or three fixtures on at once. Having lights with changeable color temperatures and infinitely adjustable output levels makes it easy to use your eyes to carefully supplement what is already there.

Bread, Dates, Preserves and Cheeses. Craft Service Snack.

Yes, they did serve a very nice red wine with our afternoon snack. As the day went on we photographed women getting manicures, couples getting massages, people having their hair done and a number of spa treatments. In all I delivered about 24 set ups with people in the spaces and about 10 nice details that we just grabbed as we went along during the day.

A Bit of Hair Craft Before the Final Photographs.

Massage.

The image above was done in one of the massage rooms and we were able to mix LED panels with the existing incandescent lights almost seamlessly. The image was shot at ISO 160 with the 16-50mm lens at f4. The shutter speed was down around and 1/8th of a second but it didn't matter, this was hardly and "action" shot.

A Post-Massage Glass of White Wine overlooking the Hill Country.

The Spa has a beautiful deck with a sweeping view of one of Austin's nicest golf courses so we wanted to include exterior shots as well. I built a small softbox from the three LED panels and balanced the color temperature in order to add a bit of fill even outdoors in open sun.  If we needed to control contrast even more I was ready to put up a large one stop diffuser between our model and the sunlight.

An Alternate Use for Cukes.

The Sony a77 gets a bad rap for having too much noise in high ISO situations. But it's not entirely true. The image just above, with the model and her cucumber eyes was shot at ISO 1600 but the LED panels, set at a color temperature of around 4400K seems to help keep noise out of the blue channel and decrease the overall appearance of chromatic noise. I wrote a blog many years ago talking about how little of the blue spectrum exists in incandescent light and how it causes cameras to over amplify the blue color channels to compensate for the deficiency. It's the amplification of the blue channel signals that causes the appearance of noise in digital files. That's why shooting a digital camera at high ISO's in bright daylight doesn't illicit the same noise effects as shooting in low light situations that are lit mostly by orangey-red light bulbs. In the old days we used to add corrective blue filters to our higher ISO shots. We'd lose a stop but gain back maybe two stops in noise control. When you did the math we were generally one stop better off than with an unfiltered light (82C).

Professional Photographers and Art Directors do break for lunch.

My most used tools in this project were the 16-50mm lens, the LED panels and the tripod. Everything else could have largely been interchanged with Canon or Nikon product and done just as well. But it wouldn't have been nearly as much fun. I just can't go back to the optical finders. Not enough feedback. Not enough information.

On another note my friend, Frank, met me for coffee yesterday and surprised me by pulling two really cool lenses out of his camera bag.  He shoots with Olympus OMD EM-5 cameras and has all the cool prime lenses. Well, now he also has the two, new Panasonic zoom lenses that I consider the first truly professional zooms for mirrorless cameras, the 12-35 2.8 and the 35-100mm 2.8. He was indulgent and let me play with them for a while. I can only say that I wish it were possible to use these on the Sony Nex cameras. They cover the 24-70 and the 70-200 focal lengths that are the standard gear for most working photographers. But they do it in a fraction of the size and far less than half the weight of their full size competitors.

These lenses, coupled with the soft thump of the OMD shutter have me sitting on the fence. We'll see how my will power holds out. And we'll see if Sony ramps up production on some useful, professional lenses for the system. I'll give it a little while.

Have fun out there and don't forget to stop for a nice lunch.

Business Portrait from December.

I had a photographic assignment late last year to make images of a spa out near Lake Travis. We spent a day photographing different services, with models,  as well as interiors and exteriors. It was fun and crazy and I got to work with a bright, young art director named Mary Beth Taylor from one of my favorite insanely creative ad agencies, Clutch Creative. When we wrapped up the main day of shooting we still had one image that we needed to do; the owner, Melissa.

She runs a very high energy business and I wanted to remove her from the day-to-day interruptions and make her portrait here at the studio. We scheduled her portrait for a different day. I set up my usual lighting design for portraits with a large, softlight on the left and a fill diffuser on the right. I used a light gray background. When we finished shooting my regularly planned shots I noticed that the exterior light, coming from my wall of northwest facing windows and gliding through the white diffuser I had been using for fill, was nicer and softer than the lights I'd been using. 

I turned off the big flash but I left on the modeling light for fill. I tried some poses that were out of my normal routine and, when she turned around in the shot above, I loved the feeling of motion and connection. I had Melissa do variations of this pose for a few more shots and then we moved on a tried a few more poses and experimented with looser crops. But this was the image I really wanted that I didn't know I wanted until I saw it. I have yet another resolution for this year: Be open to the available light instead of always lighting everything to death.

I shot this image on my Sony a99 camera attached to the 70-200mm 2.8 G lens. The camera was anchored on my wooden tripod. I shot in raw and processed the image in Lightroom 4.3. The image required me to color correct the side of her face away from the light. The tungsten modeling light made that side too warm. I used an adjustment brush to make my corrections.

I often pine for the 85mm 1.4 Zeiss/Sony lens but images like this serve to remind me that I'll need to end up shooting at more reasonable f-stops like f4 and f5.6 if I want to keep both of my subject's eyes in focus. I really like using the 70-200 on a tripod because it has a mount that takes the weight off the camera and balances out the system. Which the twist of a lock button I can go from horizontal to vertical very easily. The 70-200mm is good at f2.8, better at f4 and wildly excellent at 5.6. It's the right tool for the job, if your job is making portraits in the studio.

Nice to start the year with a portrait I really love. Kind of sets the bar for the year.

blog note: Thanks to all the people who signed up for Wyatt's workshop/road trip/BBQ fest. I predict you will have much fun. I further predict that I'll sneak up and meet everyone for lunch. I'm a sucker for great BBQ and anything photographic...

Also, keep the comments coming. The feedback loop is priceless.

"Tru" A One Man Play About Truman Capote.

a99 with 70-200mm

I photographed a dress rehearsal of Tru at Zachary Scott Theatre last night. Jaston Williams, of Greater Tuna fame, played Truman Capote. It's a role that Jaston did here in Austin eleven years ago. I took three cameras and three lenses to make photographs for marketing and public relations: the Sony Nex-6, Nex-7 and a99 cameras. The Nex-6 had the 50mm 1.8 OSS lens, the Nex-7 had the 18-55mm kit lens, and the a99 had the 70-200mm lens. The majority of the images were done with the a99 and the 70-200mm but I noticed when post processing the files this morning that I preferred the look of the Nex-6 files the best. 

Nex-6 with 50mm

All three cameras were set to ISO 1600 and in post the 6 just looked a bit better. A bit higher contrast, richer coloration and an overall bite that the other two systems didn't quite match. I have a few theories about this. The first is the difference in lenses. The 50mm 1.8 Sony lens for the Nex is a great performer, especially stopped down just a bit to f2.8. Since it's a prime lens with fewer elements and a simpler design it can be optimized to do its one thing very well. And it does.

The 70-200mm encourages me to use it at longer focal lengths and, even with good in body image stabilization there's almost certainly more shake. And what shake is there is magnified both by the longer focal lengths and the bigger sensor frame.  The Nex-7 relied on the kit lens and while it's good stopped down I was already wide open at the long end at f5.6, which meant about two shutter speeds slower than the 50mm lens and one and a third shutter speeds slower than the a99.

In truth the real differentiator for me is the way each of the cameras handled noise at 1600. At 100% you can see the effects of the noise reduction on both the a99 and the Nex-7 files. A furry-ness and a lack of snappy edge detail. You wouldn't see it in prints or in normal work but it's there.  And the newest generation of cameras (regardless of their DXO ratings) seem to have the same signature as you look to 100%. Even the D800 files I've pixel peeped look great at normal magnifications and then show the same furry-ness with diminished edge accutance.

The sensor in the Nex-6 holds on tighter to the "edge effect" that makes our brains think, "Sharp."

There's a case to be made for both engineering decisions but I seem to like the Nex-6 solution in these circumstances.

Nex-6 with 50mm.

Nex 6 with 50mm

 a99 with 70-200mm

All three of the cameras worked well, focused quickly and accurately and delivered images which the client will like and use. But my observations are still there. To my eye the ISO 1600 performance of the a99 and the Nex-6, when equalized for size differences, are for the most part equivalent. Does that mean the a99 is a "major fail"?  Or, does that mean the Nex-6 is a "major win"?

As I use all three cameras together and separately, on all kinds of jobs, I'm getting more and more set in my opinions about them.  To wit; the a99 is a very neutral camera. It does what it's supposed to do without idiosyncrasies and without any showboating. But what it gains in competency it loses in personality. While the finder is bright and detailed and the files easily malleable and very high quality. It's not an "exciting" camera. Where it shines is locking in focus quickly, showing accurate images in the evf for quicker work and in, well----overall competence.

Like the a77 before it, the a99 is a remarkably good low ISO camera. It loves ISO 100. Just loves the hell out of it. And it loves ISO 50. Shoot in controlled light, in the studio or wherever the natural light is thick and beautiful and you'll get stunningly detailed files with amazing color. But the camera more of less disappears from your consciousness. In theory that's a great thing. Less between you and your subject. But in reality I like to have a companion along with me in the form of a camera that's like-able and fun to be around.

That's the Nex-6. 

Both have their place in my inventory but each serves a much different function. The a99 is my insurance policy that let's me know I'll always be able to pull out a great image in just about any circumstances and that the files will pass the professional taste test. It's never the camera I choose first for my own personal work or for just walking around.

That honor is split between the 6 and the 7.  The 7 is the first choice for those days when I'm channelling my hard edges/lots of detail/rich color/low ISO personality while the Nex-6 is the one I go for when I get into my black and white/Tri-X/available light/scruffy artist/Okay, give me some color too kind of moods.

Next time I shoot a theater production like this one I'm planning to bring two Nex 6's, one with the 50mm and the other with the 70-200mm on an LAEA-1 adapter. I'll focus the big lens manually and rely on focus peaking. Should be a fun way to do a head to head comparison of just the lenses.

How was the play? It's great. I'm a Truman Capote fan and Jaston does a great job capturing the character and making the drama both funny and poignant. I wrote somewhere else that this is the perfect show to take your friends who are whimsically cynical. The Zach Scott presentation is done "in the round" which makes it challenging for me. I'm always seeing great expressions but always in the wrong spot to get the shot....

Since the Truman character was a heavy drinker the actor nearly always has a drink in his hand during the play. On the way home I had the biggest urge to make a mixed drink. Subliminal advertising at work...

blog note: Hey! Reader. Consider leaving a comment. I like the feedback. Thanks, Kirk

Portrait of an Actor.

 Mr. Brady Coleman.

We were searching around Netflix for a movie a few nights ago and we decided to watch a movie called, "Bernie." It's a dark comedy of a movie based on a real story that happened here in Texas. A mortician killed a wealthy woman who had bequeathed all of her money to him. The principal  actor is Jack Black (the assistant funeral director), Matthew McConaughey plays the district attorney and Brady Coleman (above) played the defense attorney. The director was Austinite, Richard Linklater.

Most of the movie was filmed in Bastrop, Texas but parts were also filmed in my son's high school. As soon as I saw Brady Coleman on the screen I remembered this photograph. It was done for a medical practice in central Texas.

The Wide Shot.

I was hired for the campaign for my portrait style. Particularly a style of shooting that I love in which the background is constructed in layers, further and further from the subject. I think that too many people try to shoot portraits in too small a space. I like to have forty or fifty feet of room depth in which to shoot. That way I can make constructions, like the drape on the left side of the frame, that occupy various distances from the subject so that different parts of the background go more out of focus.

The setup is straightforward. I used a four foot by six foot soft box over to the left of the frame, about 35 degrees off the center axis and slightly above Brady. I try to feather the main light by pointing it toward my subject's right shoulder or at an imaginary point a foot or two further to the right (assuming I am lighting from the left....) so that the light is even.

Once I've got the main light set I set up my camera and start to estimate just how far back I can put the final background and approximately where I can put intermediate elements. Each element is lit separately.  The drape (a muslin background) is lit with a small soft box powered by a Profoto monolight. The far background is a cloth drop lit by a Profoto monolight with a grid spot. 

The main light is powered by a Profoto Acute 1200 power pack and one head.

I shot at f5.6 with a 70-200mm lens on a Kodak DSC-SLR/n camera. I used the zoom to fine tune the composition and to control depth of field. At the time the Kodak full frame DSLR (no "AA" filter) was my camera of choice because it had a nicer range of tonalities than its competitors and at the same time a higher perception of sharpness and detail.

I processed this file to show the lighting effects but it's not the same file I provided to the client. I've boosted the contrast a bit because I like really deep, rich blacks and shadows. I did not retouch his face.

 Bernie is a fun film and done in an almost documentary style. It's even more fun to watch movies and see people you've done work with in real life.

blog note: Hey! Reader. Consider leaving a comment. I like the feedback. Thanks, Kirk

On a more serious note....

Yellow Holga.

I think it can be healthy to take a break from the idea that we somehow have complete control over the images we create. I put a Holga on my Christmas list because I thought it might be somehow fun to roam the city on a sunny day with the camera loaded up with ISO 100 black and white film and take the technical processes out of the mix and go out with the intention of a pure seeing adventure.  Freed up from thinking about focus and exposure (and to a certain extent, even composition) my mind might concentrate solely on finding subjects that it wants me to photograph. It may be that "no control" has attributes that are as valid as "total control", which itself is an illusion...

Besides, a medium format camera for $29? 

A New Camera For The Post Digital Art Age.

I thought I had it all figured out. I discovered that I really liked EVF cameras and I spent last year selling off the "dinosaur" technology cameras and buying up really nifty and break-through-y cameras like the full frame Sony a99, the half frame Sony a77s and 57s, and even a smattering of teensy-tiny cameras like the Nex 6 and Nex 7. I toyed with the littlest Sony RX100 and even played around with the RX1. I thought I had it wired. I'd spend 2013 happy as a pig in poop, playing with the metal-ly knobs and pushing the oh so sleek and demure direct buttons.  I was like a happy child, sitting on the floor grabbing handfuls of beautiful lenses and drawing them into my arms like teddy bears for toddlers. Then my whole gear oriented world fell apart under the two pronged attack of information chaos and gift giving.

You see, I watched David Hobby guest star on the DigitalRevTV with ultra kool Kai. The premise of the show was to hand David Hobby a crappy, toy Buzz LightYear (trademarked by Disney!!!! Please don't sue me for just writing down the words!!!) digital camera. Two megapixels of whopping image creation automation just waiting for a master's touch. David (with Kai along for the ride) used the camera on five different location shoots to prove once and for all that "it's not the course of the arrows it's the horses for Indians.." thing that everyone says. Which I guess I translate as meaning that some photographers are so good that they can point anything at a subject and come away with exciting art. Did David make the grade? That part is totally subjective. You'll have to see for yourself "if the glass is half full of everything looks like a nail..."  But the video sure got me thinking about my bourgeois fixation with using the best tools around with which to do my work. That's for sure.

I looked at the video and then I looked around the studio with the deflation that comes from watching the ease with which a master seems to work. And with the most basic of gear. I spent all Christmas Eve meditating on my photographic existence. My failings and the gear that had become my aesthetic crutches. I spent the rest of the night burning sage, chanting and beseeching the photo gods to show me the way. The path to exceptionalism.  How could I rise up and embrace the bad tool/great artist paradigm. How could I make the transformation from hay to needle so that I could be the veritable "needle in the haystack"? Defeated and exhausted I stumbled back into the house just as the rest of the family was getting up on Christmas Day. Feeling hollow and worthless I went through the polite motions of opening my gifts and nodding a thank you to the family. Leica S? Check. Vintage, restored Piper Cub? Check. Yet another Italian sports car? Check. The hoary and clichéd case of vintage Bollinger? Check. Another smattering of Leica M glass to put on the front of my Sony Nex? Check (but why even bother.....).

And then I came to the haphazardly wrapped gift that would change my career, my attitude----dare I say it? It would change my life. Inside the reindeer encrusted wrapping paper, under the tissue, beyond the sticky embrace of the linear feet of Scotch magic tape was a simple box that contained the instructions from the photo gods for the happy continuation of my career---the bright yellow Holga.  It seemed to say, "If you are truly an artist the tool will never matter. If you can use me well you will have arrived.."

The life changing tool, perched on a five series Gitzo.

For those of you unfamiliar with this powerful learning tool let me provide a brief description. It's a camera made totally out of plastic (not composite resin...) that has a simple, plastic one element lens. It is somewhat zone focus-able and it accepts 120 film. The breed is famous for their random and art enhancing light leaks, and it is a favorite tool of people who've learned too much and subsequently journeyed to a different mental space than the millions of photographers who are glued to the technical side of photography like bugs on flypaper. It is the ultimate "un-think" camera.

The game was now afoot. Me against my brain. Me against my training. And me against my heroin/nicotine/cellphone-like addiction to state of the art cameras. I had been challenged. The gauntlet thrown down with a spiky smack against the floor of my static reality. 

I grabbed the camera and put a Black Rapid Strap on it. But that seem liked cheating. All affectation and no innovation. I took it off and went through the box to find the plastic shoulder strap (not neoprene or some other weighty composite, just real, mortal, thin, tearable, flexible plastic). I loaded up some Tri-X 120 film, taped all the seams on the camera with black electrical tape and headed out into the new wilderness of subject matter that used to be my own boring existence made fresh by the intriguing mystery and unknowableness of this new machine.  I've yet to pull the roll out and develop it because I find that "ART" slows one down and makes one introspective and tentative. But I'm sure every frame will be a new masterpiece. I'm anxious to see if I am an "Not the arrow, it's the Indian" (and I'm not that fond of curry...) or a "Horses for courses" kind of photographer.

But I am committed. So much so that I dumped all the other cameras into the dumpster at the pool just before the backhoe operator dumped in the fragments of rebar and cinder blocks from the new bathhouse renovations on top. Crunch. Crackle. There's no turning back now. If I am really the kind of photographer that I've tried to pass myself off as here on the blog we should be seeing art ooze and jump and gush out of the camera with reckless abandon. 

Watch out, David and Kai. I'm nipping at your heels.

(to the humor impaired, a notice: This was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek, or humorous essay. It is not meant to demean or ridicule any individual person. I did not really throw out my existing cameras, or get a Piper Cub airplane or Leica S camera for Christmas. I did get a Holga camera but more as a joke or humorous reference to my almost lifelong career. While the gist of the article was inspired by the video with David Hobby and Kai from DigitalRev it is not meant to be disparaging or critical of those parties. I found the original video to be humorous and fun. The Visual Science Lab cannot be held responsible for fluctuations in interest rates, increases in UV radiation emitted in conjunction with or in spite of any action we have taken in the past or might take in the future. Our use of the super powerful laser to punch holes in the moon has no link to past or present religious affiliations. The payment of all invoices is still due in ten days, net. While we may or may not serve undercooked shell fish at our next Luau you are hereby warned that you consume all VSL provided shellfish at your own risk. While our writing is in English we cannot be held liable for dramatic readings by John Malcovich which are recorded and subsequently played backward and any satanic or even antiseptic meanings one may derive or interpret from the listening of such have no connection with hamsters living or dead. This string of caveats may not be applicable in certain areas of the Maldives or in coastal areas surrounding or adjacent to Oklahoma City. These interviews, though written by Kirk, may not reflect the opinions of Kirk or his assigns or heirs or even of himself. No donations to the VSL foundation are tax deductible and no worthwhile research will be done with such funds if you are impaired enough to send along said, unsolicited. Any mixed drinks you order and consume of the VSL in-house bar may be made partially with turkey gravy and may contain alcohol from various first aid kits liberated in the pursuit of photography by the studio, or not.

Not an actual frame from the yet unloaded Holga but a simulation of what we hope a representative frame may look like.

A Quick Project Done on Green Screen with LED lights.

I got an e-mail from Will Crockett today. Will and I met several years ago here in Austin and I've written a few articles for his Smartshooter.com website. Will was a Canon shooter when I met him and he lit all of his work with Elinchrom electronic flash units. He's a good teacher. But lately this long time pro has gone through a huge change in his gear preferences. He's abandoning all of the traditional DSLRs and flashes and embracing (whole-heartedly) two recent camera and lighting trends that we've been talking about here at the Visual Science Lab for the better part of three years.  He's discovered the transformative power of electronic viewfinder/mirrorless cameras and he's wedding the new camera technology with.......wait for it.......LED lighting systems. Really.  Ground breaking.  Mirrorless cameras (in his case, the new Panasonic GH3) and continuous, LED lighting fixtures. 

I had to smile though as his new site about these trends had an article today about his first foray into lighting portraits with LED's. I chuckled because I've been using LED lighting for portrait work and advertising work for over two years and I have been doing the same work with EVF cameras from Sony (and until recently, Panasonic and Olympus) for at least a year. In fact, the first definitive book about lighting with LEDs for photographers is mine: LED Lighting for Digital Photographers, (Amherst Media) published this past April.

The raw image before dropping out the background.

The timing was also funny. I got his e-mail talking about his first portrait tests with LED lights just as I was settling in to do some post production on this job for a local theater. I shot the images in this blog with my oldest set of LEDs. I used two 500 bulb fixtures on the background and two 1,000 bulb fixtures on the subject. Both of the fixtures used to directly light the subject were color corrected with 1/8th magenta filters and diffused with Rosco Tuff Frost diffusion material. I used a Lastolite Grey/White target disk and set a quick white balance on my camera of choice, a Sony a99 equipped with a Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 SP lens. 

Because of all the misinformation on the web I hasten to add that the background didn't turn green because of the LED lights but because it was dyed green for use as a green screen background, mostly for use in video. The correction set by the camera for WB was not that large.

The color temperature measured in at 5700K and the camera added 7 points of magenta to the mix. The whites are clean, the flesh tones are a good match and the exposures are good. I used the LEDs because we were photographing a shiny book cover as a prop and it's so easy to see when there are reflections on the cover when I use a continuous light source.

My basic exposure was ISO 800 (pretty easy stretch for the sensor in the a99....) 1/125th of a second f4 to f5.6. I shot mostly on a tripod but I did hand hold the close ups.

The session was quick and easy. I was able to pre-chimp every step of the way and the actor was happy not to be flashed in the face over and over again by electronic flash. I think the key to using LEDs for this kind of work (where flesh tones are important) is to be sure and pre-filter the lights to make up for the known dip in the color spectrum (a drop in magenta) and to make a good, initial custom white balance to work with. Especially in cases where you have large areas of rich color in the backgrounds which would surely throw off most auto white balance systems. 

The entire session was watched over by the Visual Science Lab Canine Security and Affection Officer who did a great job warding off weasels and badgers while providing positive encouragement and tail wagging for the studio guests.

I'm still amazed at how short sighted and fearful photographers are when it comes to adapting to new technologies, many of which make our jobs more efficient. I'm happy to see Will recommending the EVFs and LEDs to a mass audience and I'm encouraging any pros who also need to start providing basic video services to their clients to consider and play with LED lights.

It's really one area where the future is NOW. 

You might have to play around a bit to get perfect white balance with the cheapest units like the ones I've used here but I've had a chance to play with a set of Lowell Prime Lights and they have a very high CRI and a very neutral rendering. If you are willing to pay $1800 a panel you'll get a light that lasts a long time and can be used, without filtration, right out of the box.

If you are just getting your feet wet there are some good options on the market for under $200. I really like the Fotodiox 312AS lights which give me a control for intensity and a separate control for color temperature ( from 3200 to 5600K) for around $160. I've bought five of them over the last year and I haven't regretted those purchases for even a second.

On Weds. I'll be doing an assignment for a client that was one of the very first clients I ever did a job for with LED lights. It was almost two years ago and I had just put together my first LED system which consisted of three 500 bulb units and several smaller battery powered units. We shot a series of portraits on their location and several of them ended up as illustrations in my LED book. We did additional portraits for them a year ago and I've been invited back again to do ten or twelve more. I have more lights than I did on the first go around, and a camera that handles lower light output really well. I'm heading to GEAR in the morning to pick up some more correction gel but I'll be using that same, first generation LED technology because it still works well.

I'm happy to use the LEDs. It always leads to discussions like this with clients:  (Me): "...yes, we started to research and test LEDs a couple of years ago when we started getting more and more requests to do short videos for the web. Now we can do one basic set up for both stills and video."

(Client): "Oh, I didn't know you also do video. We've got a video project coming up that I'd like for you to bid on..."

The business is constantly changing. I've found that embracing change is a lot cheaper than fighting it. Remember all those photographers in the early part of this century who claimed that, "Digital Imaging is not ready for prime time yet."? Hmmmmmm. Learning curve.