Posts Tagged ‘photography’
Are you a God?
Gozer: [after Ray orders her to re-locate] Are you a God?
[Ray looks at Peter, who nods]
Dr Ray Stantz: No.
Gozer: Then… DIE!
[Lightning flies from her fingers, driving the Ghostbusters to the edge of the roof and almost off; people below scream]
Winston Zeddemore: Ray, when someone asks you if you’re a god, you say “YES”!
Ghostbusters
Inspiration strikes at the strangest times. No, I wasn’t watching Ghostbusters at the time, but I was staring at my big, beautiful 54″ DLP TV (that now has one lovely pixel that’s stuck in the on position). It’s a nice TV. Has a great picture, especially when the high def channels are running on it.
I was watching something on one of the Discovery channels when inspiration hit. I had been thinking about backgrounds because of the cookie setup I used for some recent portraits (written about in Boot to the head!). One of the things I look for now is an interesting background. Ok, maybe not interesting … different. Something I haven’t seen or done before.
So, this particular TV show has some very colorful moments in it when I realize that, if unfocused, would make some unique and easy backgrounds. I wouldn’t have to do much to make it work. But, what about a subject?
We have this statue in our living room. It’s a glorified candle holder. My wife says it’s some sort of Buddha-ish thing. It has quite a bit of detail in it. Bumps and curves and folds. 
Plus the candle, must not forget the pale green honeydew candle sitting upon it’s lap. In other words, something curious and attractive photographically.
Background. Check.
Subject. Check.
What’s next? The lighting! I’ve been playing with collapsing my umbrella to help control the light a bit more. I wanted something more directional than shooting through a white umbrella (which has WAY to much light, I’m finding). But, without access to a softbox right now, I make do with what I have on hand. So, collapsed umbrella with the flash bouncing into it, as opposed to through it. The light was certainly a bit crisper in the shadowline.
Toss in a flickering flame and you have something where the light is sculpted just enough to bring out the detail in the statue.
So, Background, check.
Subject, check.
Lighting, check.
Three simple things needed to make a good photo. In this particular case, I tossed the light to camera right and feathered it away from the subject. Pushing it so it was directly on and above put too much light and killed too much of the shadow for me. You can see it a bit better in the setup shot. The hanging edge of the collapsed umbrella is lined up so it would be just on the edge of the face.
One of the things I’m finding is that it’s worthwhile just trying something. Using the TV as a background was a stroke of chance (and man, timing the shot so the background was something useful was quite a pain in the ass). The two shots I have above were taken shortly apart from each other and you can see the big difference in style. I love the separation of the head and background made by the green sliver combined with the smoke trails vaporing off into nothing. I also love the fiery red background of the second combined with the single flick of orange flame. It works.
Oh, and the TV show? I think it was some documentary about the solar system, how it was formed, and how it would all come spiraling in to a despotic end, crushing our tiny little Earth. Makes for a cheery day, doesn’t it?
So remember: try it. It might work. It might not. And if it doesn’t, you’ve still learned something: how not to use a light, a background, or an idea in a particular way.
Panning for Gold
Photos from the meeting mentioned in the previous posting. It was fun, hilarious, contentious, thought provoking, maddening, and occasionally filled with “WTF?!”. This is the second time I’ve done this. It’s definitely interesting to listen to the plethora of opinions that come out from the papers we have to review for this conference.
Ian
Mario
Hoon
Andrew and Paul
Adam
Narayan
Nicole, Mark, and Paul
Narayan and Doug
Bill and Mark
Cory assaulting the food
McEniry Photobomb
Cory
John, Mario, Chris, me, Nicole
We have the POWAH!
Nicole
David
Oh foul weather, I am not impressed.
What a disturbingly long weekend. I had to make a trip up to Chicago on Friday. Why, you ask? Why, I had a day long meeting to attend on Saturday for a conference I’m helping to organize in November. The conference doesn’t matter here. What matters is my Gilligan’s Tale and my 12 hour winged boat trip, over hill and dale, passed an archway you couldn’t touch, and finally into a rain-swept city that’s famous for it’s pizza.
Friday started out fine. Austin, as usual, was blazingly sunny, creeping into a mild hotness that’s only seen on the outskirts of Hades during their flaming winter break. I took the day off so I could have a relaxed flight up there with some time to spare. 
Because I was only flying up for the weekend, I wouldn’t have much time to explore and some of the others en route were planning a trip to one of the museums. The plan … it was good and golden and smelled of sweetness.
Things began to go sour when I came close to missing my flight when Schlotsky’s employees at ABIA stepped up to a new level of dumbery that I’d not seen since … well, do you remember that I Love Lucy scene where they’re in the chocolate factory and the chocolate just keeps coming and coming and coming? No? Here’s a refresher.
Anyway, the sandwich makers were doing everything possible to screw up orders. The bread just kept coming, slamming into orders ahead like a bad pileup on IH-35. No one slowed down and everyone with a receipt just got closer and closer, rubbernecking with the best. When I finally got my food, they were one group away from closing off the door to the jetway and launching the plane. I boarded, found my seat with every intention to eat on the way to Chicago, and settled in for a short three hour flight.
We were all summarily booted from the plane 10 minutes later. O’Hare was closed thanks to Mother Nature. No problem, take off time reset to 3pm. I sit out in the waiting area munching on my food and chitchat with a female soldier on her way back from Iraq. She’d been over there for a 12 month tour. She’s ready to go home. She’s on her way to New Hampshire to pick up her kids, one of which she hasn’t seen since the kid was 15 months old. It was pretty heart wrenching listening to her talk though. You could tell she was done with flying.
So, 3pm comes and goes, we all board and … the O’Hare that had been opened had just been … closed. Again. This time we were booted from the plane only if we wanted to be booted. 
I stayed on the plane and read. The camera got pulled out to start documenting the hilarity that I knew would ensue.
5pm comes and everyone starts piling back into the plane. O’Hare is open! Mad rush to the seats. Mind you, we’re at groundstop number two and we haven’t left Austin yet. It’s now freaking hot in Austin. It’s also storming in Chicago so badly that they have tornadoes. Or warnings, at least. But, the pilot thinks the can time the flight so we land in between two of the larger feeder cells that are swamping Chicago with cats, dogs, and wicked witches with striped stockings.
We taxi out and … no, no ground stop. We actually make it off the runway. Now, every time I take off in a plane, I’m reminded of the scene in Firefly where they’re zooming through the planet and Wash is piloting the ship. He says, “I’m a leaf on the wind, see how I soar.” Well, I think about this line every time I fly. 
I don’t know why. Just a weird quirk. It’s not like I expect a wooden spear to slam through the fuselage of the plane and stab me in the chest. Hey, it could happen, but I’d prefer it didn’t.
So the flight is merrily cruising along. We’re singing Kum-ba-ya, Leavin’ on a Jetplane, and other campy things. Well, not really. But the image is cute. So, again, we’re cruising, we’re cruising, we’re cruising, we’re … why did the plane just slow down and begin descending? It’s only 6:20.
The captain comes on and says, “Uh, folks, I’m sorry to tell you this, but O’Hare is closed again. They just had a feeder cell close up our one projected opening. They’re not letting anyone in, so we’re being diverted to St. Louis.”
Groans throughout the plane.
I got to see the arch in St. Louis though. Well, from about 10 thousand feet up. We land at the airport and get parked out on the tarmac. People are pretty antsy by now, unsure if they were even getting to Chicago by Friday night. By this point, I texted a few folks to give them a heads up.
Ever play the game “Telephone”? You start it by telling something to someone, they tell it to someone else, and eventually it gets back to you? I was doing that with SMS. Found out that one of the other folks flying into O’Hare was also stranded in St. Louis, but he was off his plane and renting a car. We agreed to meet up if my plane didn’t make it off the ground again. As all of this is occurring, people are requesting to be let off the plane, so someone comes out to the area we’re parked in and hauls them back to the terminal. I decided to play the numbers and see if we’d take off again.
As time drags on, we’re all getting a little more restless and … one of the passengers coming from Austin pulls out this box of cupcakes from Hey, Cupcake! He proceeded to cut them up and pass them out with the help of the flight crew. That made everyone a bit happier. I’m not sure if he was a Hey Cupcake employee or not (he was wearing one of their shirts), but no matter what, it was a great thing to do.
8pm comes and the pilots come on the air. They’re negotiating with the tower and ATC to get us off the ground before the other planes in line because their reset time is quickly coming. If we didn’t make it off the ground by 8:15, we’d immediately go to the terminal. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. And then we’d have to wait even longer for a new crew to arrive. Damn legalities. I managed to get a beautiful picture of the sunset in St. Louis. I wish I had been on the left side of the plane when we took off again because the view was gorgeous.
So, we got off the ground a few minutes shy of the reset time. There was much rejoicing and cheering for the pilots. The remainder of the flight was uneventful. Off to the east, we could see the ginormous cloud fronts trailing off towards the east. We were traveling at 27 thousand feet. The cloud tops were easily up at 45 or 50 thousand if I had to guess.
We got to O’Hare and visibility was about five miles. Crystal-f’ing-clear. All that was left to do was land, get to my bus, and get over to the hotel before I collapsed.
The Sunday flight back was relatively uneventful. Thankfully. I saw the soldier again. By this point, she had managed to get up to New Hampshire and retrieve her kids. 
They were walking off to some other gate so I didn’t get a chance to say hi. She looked happy and more relaxed with her kids in tow.
Spent a few minutes at O’Hare on Sunday taking photos. Airports are an interesting place to capture the lives of people. Always in a rush. Or not. Always pissy. Or not. Just a daily grind, all compact and neat, shoved into a building surrounded by tankers of jet fuel and exhaust.
Holy Exploding Thermostats, Batman!
Yes, if Robin was my assistant on Saturday that’s the phrase that would have ripped from his mouth. By 10:30am, it was 85 degrees and I was dripping wet. I’d been talking to this new model for a few weeks hammering out what exactly we were going to do. The place was the Cathedral of Junk. The color was pink. Funny. I had that Aerosmith song playing on the stereo the night before and thought nothing of it.
We arrived at the Cathedral a few moments apart. There was a crew pulling up in a yellow box truck, delivering stage parts for a show from the look of it. I hadn’t thought much about it until after she stepped out of her car and they all just stopped and stared. She was decked out in a black and pink corset, pink fishnet gloves and, and black fishnet stockings with matching pink stripes. It all went together pretty well. But yeah, these guys stood there for a moment taking her in.
I walked over and introduced myself and we went into the backyard after I’d pulled my gear out of the car. She’d never been there before so we did a brief walk through so she could get a feel for the place.
Now, if you’ve never been to the Cathedral of Junk, let me describe it to you. First the Cathedral lives in a quiet south Austin neighborhood just off of South Congress. You pull up to the residence and … well, you don’t see it. It’s a nice little neighborhood. You have houses and flowers, trees and dogs, and the occasional white picket fence. But as you approach the gate, you catch your first glimpse of the Cathedral. The structure is ever growing. 
It lives and breathes as it’s owner, Vince, finds new ways to build upon it. There are bottle sculptures, junk walls, the inner throne, buttresses, stairways to heaven, and even a crows nest of sorts.
One of the photos I’d wanted to get was of her sitting on the throne in a distinctly magnanimous and noble way. The Cathedral is a fantasy and she just fit into it like a pink and gothic fairy. Unlike the cake, this is not a lie. We chatted a bit while I set up one light. With space tight within the inner workings of the Cathedral, I opted to ditch the umbrella and go with a hard light. It was sunny inside, so I just needed to offset the blast of light and try to overpower it a bit. One thing I realized is that I miss using my D40 for times like this. Extreme ambient control and still usable with the SB’s and the Pocket Wizards. 1/1600th of a second was sorely missed that day. But I made due with the D300 and some stopping down.
One thing new that I decided to try was CLS in TTL mode and just using the flash compensation settings. I’m mixed over this. Because there was such a large amount of ambient coming from the sun, I had problems with it picking the wrong exposure value to set on the flash. If I had to do it again I’d use it in manual and just dial everything in. But, it was hot, getting hotter and I wanted to move fast before I passed out from heat exhaustion. Glad I picked up a few bottles of water for us to partake in during the scene resets.
We ended up shooting in four areas: the throne, the bench, the alcove, and the archway. The throne was my favorite. I just love the way she looks there. The archway followed. I wanted some fill coming in from the sun bouncing off the ground and light coming in from the clear, blue sky. I really like the look of that northern light. It is delicate and different from flash. The slightly blue tinge to it just does it for me (and I really want to play more with it; just need to find a good place with a bunch of quality northern light coming into a large window).
By 11:15, I was packing up and calling it done. It was just too hot to be comfortable. I knew I’d gotten at least one good shot. We chatted for a few minutes and then parted ways. The Cathedral was definitely a worthy place to shoot. Even if the heat DID almost kill me. ;-)
The lovely lady in the photos above is Lacey Starr. I met her through Model Mayhem. She was definitely fun and easy to work with. I had her laughing shortly into the shoot. Once that happened, I knew I’d be shooting with her again. And as for the pink? Yeah, I can see how Aerosmith finds it an obsession.
Whoops! and Give in to Sin
Ok. Shame on me. It has been not quite a month since my last posting. I shall hang my head in shame. But fear not! I’ve been taking photos like nobody’s business. I promise I’ll be keeping it more steady and catch you up on what I’ve been doing.
Last week was Give in to Sin. This was a benefit for Sinsations in Austin. Their lease expires in less than two months and the owner of the property has decided not to renew it. Morgan wasn’t expecting it, so a bunch of people helped get this benefit together for her so she could have the funds to move. Morgan does quite a bit for the local community with the other benefits she puts on, so it was time to give back.
The show was at Red7. There were bands, burlesque, boobs, beer, art, and spankings. It was a pretty great show with lots of interesting folks walking around in not so much. Met some cool people too. Here’s some more of the evening.
The full set of photos can be found on my myspace page (mostly because I was lazy and didn’t want to use flickr).
The art:
The comedy:
The fun:
The burlesque:
The flames:
The bands:
White: The Prequel.
Not much of a blog update. I’ve been furiously working my way through photos from three photo shoots over the last week and a half, trying to get everything edited, uploaded, and distributed out to their respective models and clients.
And I’m bushed.
Donica and I had a shoot Wednesday two weeks ago. She wanted to do something different and I wanted to practice with my new white muslin. I think it worked out well. Especially when you realize that up until this point, I’d stuck to grays and blacks for backgrounds. This was something completely different. The work I did with Donica in understanding how to use this tool ended up being put to good use in the White: The New Experiment.
Overall, I’m fairly happy with how the high key photos turned out. We shot some low key things too. Mostly because I was getting bored with the white and wanting to try something different that evening. I’ve shown some of the high key photos around and gotten some good feedback. Mostly, I need to watch out for having the model wash right out into the background and get some tile board for the front part of the muslin ( the part nearest the camera) in order to help get rid of the cloth ripples I was experiencing (and about ready to bang my head through the studio wall because of it too).
In other news, there’s been someone of a heated discussion on the Strobist Austin discussion group regarding allowing the group to accept moderate photos in the pool. There are some decent reasons, both for and against for doing this. 
Tonight after considering the comments (of which, most came from moderators … I don’t know what that means … do we just care more because we have to work at keeping the pool clean?) In the end, I opened it up to see how well we deal with it. If it becomes a problem, I guess we’ll figure it out then. We’re all adults, I think we can handle this.
Anywhoo, without further ado … more Donica photos! Enjoy.
Austin Music Awards circa 2009
Whew! What a busy week. You may remember that I mentioned the 2009 Austin Music Awards a few weeks back. Well, the show has finally come and gone and it was definitely a blast! This year’s lineup included Bob Schneider and the Fireants, The Dicks, Augie Meyers, and many, many others.
The two differences from last year is that I was allowed access backstage during the show thanks to the work of my friend Scarlett and the graciousness of Margaret Moser. Since I wasn’t officially part of the staff crew, when I arrived, I had Scarlett walk me around backstage to introduce me to the key folks I’d be encountering. These were the people I wanted to make sure I paid attention to! If they told me to get the !@#$% out of the way, I wanted to get out of the way. 
Second, my friend Quentin loaned me his Nikon 80-200 f2.8 lens (practically insisted when I waffled on it). I must say, while that lens is heavy … it’s about 3lbs I think, not including the camera body … it was worth it; damn, is the bokeh on it creamy like butter. I was getting great separation of elements in my photos this time.
Thankfully, nothing happened. I went back several times throughout the show but didn’t camp out. The space was rather tight and people were moving too quickly to get good candid photos (I did get a few!) so I focused on staying frontstage.
About halfway through the show, I started walking around to find a different vantage point for the photos. That’s when I noticed that there were two balconies above the stage on either side. An adventure awaits! The first balcony I went to (stage right) I got politely rebuffed. They were partially using it as a dressing area for the women helping musicians and entertainers across the stage. My second attempt, which had me over on stage left balcony was fruitful. I walked up to the security guy, asked if I could get back there, flashed my staff badge, and voila! The Pearly Gates parted, harmonious music was playing, golden light … wait, that was from the set being played on stage. But, you know what I mean. 
I had an excellent view of the band looking into the crowd. The bad news: it was from the side (but that’s ok!). The good news: I had maneuvering room! By the time I got up here, The Dicks were playing and that’s when I noticed the mad rush of the crowd and fans towards frontstage despite security’s ability to do anything about it. I wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
But, again. That’s ok. I had a vantage point that no other photographer was going to get (thanks to Scarlett and Margaret)! I ended up there a few more times throughout the evening.
In all, I ended up with just shy of a thousand photos from the entire evening. I’ve whittled it down to 166 really good ones and uploaded them to flickr. 
Nothing as dramatic as the photo I got of The Judy’s lead singer throwing water into the crowd, but I got some extremely good ones of The Dicks lead interacting with the crowd and some good ones of Augie Meyers.
Feel free to check out the 2009 Austin Music Awards photo set on my flickr stream.
I hope you like ‘em as much as I do. I’m looking forward to shooting the Awards Show again. If you want, you can jump straight to the slideshow!
Oh, and before you ask, I don’t know who some of the musicians are. I have to work with Scarlett to make sure I get everything noted properly on the photo descriptions.
I won a gold Austin ADDYs award!
Well, ok, I helped win an ADDY to be more precise. A gold one, at that! A few months back, I got contacted by John Livingston via flickr. He’s art director for nFusion here in Austin. It’s a local advertising and marketing firm. John happened across a photo I took a year ago on a photowalk.
I didn’t think much about the photo at the time. It was a red bike with a sign on it discussing what it was worth to someone with AIDS. I sat down on the ground, framed, clicked, and moved on. Fast forward to December ’08. John contacts me, tells me about his involvement in the campaign and that he wants to use my photo as part of the submission to the 2009 Austin ADDYs Award.
Sure, why not? At worst, nothing came of it. At best, I get a bit of recognition out of it. For a photo that I didn’t expect much out of after taking it, what could I lose? So, after a bit of discussion, I licensed it to them for use in their submission.
Today I received this email.
Travis,
Hey this is John Livingston from nFusion. I thought you might like to know that the picture you contributed was part of a gold award-winning campaign at the 2009 Austin ADDY awards. I just wanted to thank you for allowing us to use your great photograph.
Here’s a link to the brochure they made with the winners. Look for your name on page 19 under the Red Bike Campaign:
http://www.austinaddys.com/2009austinADDYsWinnerBook.pdf
Unfortunately they didn’t feature your picture of the bikes in the book, but your image was used in our entry.So now you can say you won an Austin ADDY ward. Nice job!
-John
And, sure enough, I downloaded the PDF and found an attribution.
Woot! It’s not much, but what the heck. A bit of exposure for something I likely wouldn’t have done anything more than keep in my flickr stream. I think that’s a fair exchange for the amount of effort put into the photo.
So yeah, I’m happy claiming I helped win a gold Austin ADDYs Award.
Hooray Music!
Wow, awesome news! Last year, on a lark, I got invited to the Austin Music Awards by my good friend Scarlett. I asked if there was any chance I could bring my camera to the show. She poked around and got the OK from the show director. I ended up having quite a bit of fun and got some amazing photos of musicians like The Judy’s, Gary Clark Jr., Billy Gibbons, and many others. My photos apparently made the rounds of the event staff and were well received.
The other evening, Scarlet called me up after having just gotten out of the first volunteers meeting for the award show. I’m getting to come back to the show and take photos again! I’m so looking forward to this! And with luck, I’ll have my D300 by then so I’ll have even more fun.
You can see my photos from the 2008 Austin Music Awards on my Flickr stream.
25 things.
There’s a meme going around on various social websites where you tell 25 things about yourself that someone might not know. You’re supposed to tag 25 people who you want the same thing from but I really don’t care to go that deeply into the meme.
- My first camera was one of those a 110 film camera. I think it was from kodak, but I don’t remember. I recall it having one of those flash cartridges that had 4 or 8 uses on it.
- I quietly lust after new camera equipment. It’s not uncommon for me to sit with a B&H catalog for hours.
- I’ve shot digital cameras for the last few years but I want to get a Holga just so I can experience film and have fun with it.
- I have a hard time remembering that I’m supposed to talk to the people I’m photographing. I zone too easily and have to constantly remind myself to not do that.
- I know it’s been a good evening shooting in the studio when I have to lay down and pop my back. Sometimes you just have to lay there and relax.
- I get an adrenaline rush when I’m shooting for a long time.
- I love Ansel Adams and his photography, but I don’t think I could ever be a landscape photographer. I absolutely hated his autobiography. I thought it was dry.
- I don’t have any formal training in photography. Everything I’ve done has been self-taught and gleaned out of many mistakes.
- I find it funny that people are surprised when I tell them I’m only shooting with a Nikon D40. For a consumer-grade camera, you can really do a lot with it.
- I suck at photoshop.
- I understand the meaning of the word “deviant”. Unlike a few photographers I know. ;-)
- I’m not big on shooting models. I like photographing people I’ve met. I find they have more character, even if they may not be considered “pretty.”
- After working on Strobist techniques for the last year and a half, I can no longer look at porn because I spend more time figuring out the lighting setup than I do looking at what’s really in the photo. Sad, isn’t it?
- Photography has been the longest hobby that I’ve ever been able to consistently follow through on. This surprised my wife because I have a bad habit of getting bored with something in midstream.
- I prefer low key photography to high key. I like the moodiness and darkness of shadow.
- I have a long term goal of changing careers and becoming a full-time photographer. Another 6-8 years of hard work and I might have a shot at it.
- I like the look of leather and latex in photos. I don’t know why. I just like the shiny highlights.
- I plan on going back to school and getting a degree in photography. Or, at the very least, getting some college-level classes done. I think it will help out my abilities going forward.
- One of the best things that has happened to my photography is gaining access to a studio. I’ve had such an improvement in the last six months because of that. It’s been a great source of learning and practice.
- My next home will have a 20×30 studio. Mostly because I’m lazy and want to be within walking distance of it whenever I’m at the house.
- Joe McNally rocks my socks. He does things with light that I find positively amazing.
- Why, yes, I do look at women’s magazines for ideas. Why do you ask?
- While I shoot a lot, I have no earthly idea on how to print photos so they look good. Ironic.
- There’s a pair of hawks that lives on a road near my house. Every time I see them I think about taking a photo of them, but … it’s hard to do when you pass them doing 60mph. I think they sit there taunting me and laughing loudly in a shrill hawkish way. One of these days I will stop and get that photo.
- Getting bored with photography is my biggest fear and something I constantly struggle with. There have been times where I’ve gone a month without taking a photo and I have to kick myself in the ass to do something about it.
The young lady at the top of this post is Donica. This was from our first shoot in January. I love how this blue turned out in the light. Heck, I just love how all of the photos turned out.
Throw yourself off a cliff.
Throw yourself off a cliff. Figuratively speaking, I mean. Photography is a language. Think about what you want to use it to talk about. What are you interested in? What questions do you want to ask? Then, go for it, and throw yourself into talking about that topic, using photography. Make a body of work about that.
– Jonas Bendiksen
Wear Good Shoes: Advice to young photographers
I haven’t been working with the camera all that much this month. Traveling for work, attending a few conferences, the holidays. Life in general conspiring against me in odd and annoying moments, really. This has gotten me fairly introspective about what I’m trying to accomplish with my photos and … the best answer I can come up with is “I don’t know.” Since I haven’t been able to shoot, I’ve been spending my free time looking at other photographers bodies of work.
I was talking to a friend, Morgan, the other night about this (specifically about pin-up photography) and how I was having a hard time coming up with something unique and not rehash things that others have already done. Her response struck me. “But it’s already been done by many of the photographers in the 50′s.” And, well, I guess that’s kind of true. In a sense, photography has been around long enough to have the aggregate body of work cover nearly everything. But …
… then I read Bendiksen’s quote. “Throw yourself off a cliff. Figuratively speaking, I mean.” And it got me thinking. Does it really matter if we repeat themes through history? As each generation grabs a hold of an idea, they have the opportunity to put their own thematic twist on it. Take pin-up photography. It’s been around since the late 19th and early 20th cenury, yet it wasn’t really branded as “pin-up” until the 1940′s. As you look through the decades of work, the only constant, really, is the ravishing woman. Each decade brings a new style to it, a new photographic look. Today, we often see the tattooed woman prominently displayed in 1950′s style and attire. Sort of a mix of the prim and proper house wife with the gaining social acceptability of a prominently inked women that has arisen over the last few decades. It’s the modern touch on an age-old concept.
Each time a photographer engages the shutter, he makes a leap of faith trusting that his eye or imagination has rendered faithfully (or not) the physical beauty of the moment (or not). Sometimes a lucky mistake shines through. Sometimes a disastrous sequence of crap flows through the lens in a photographic replay of Robin Williams saying, “What my tongue doth say, my words, like feces, fall upon the ground.” Abrupt and worthless.
So where does this lead me? I don’t necessarily care if it has been done before or if it appears to rehash something yet again. I’ve been looking around for that photographic precipice to leap from.
I have a hard time coming up with ideas that I want to fulfill photographically. A lot of this comes from my normal in-the-moment stance on life, the universe, and everything. I tend to not plan a lot and just roll with things as the run me over. You know, that sounds worse than it really is. I like picking directions and see where I lead myself.
If I’m out and about, I look and shoot. This is both good and bad because I find that I’m picking out interesting things but I can’t explain why they images are interesting. Looking at what I’ve been doing, I’m starting to see that the missing ingredient is that I haven’t been asking questions of myself. Why is this interesting? What is really going on here? You know, things like that.
I haven’t been able to build that language bridge between what I’m doing, what I want, what I see, and what I experience. To say it’s a struggle would be an understatement. I need to put in my head and get it straight.
As Bill Cosby says, “If you’re not careful, you might learn something.”
The photo above is of the infamous Red and her wonderful cheesecake hotness. Hey, I figured if I was talking about pin-ups, I had to show off, right? Right. Glad you see it my way.
One in Three
Last Sunday, May 11th, was our big Dunvegan Keep Strobist meetup. It was the makeup day for being rained out on April 27th. Hindsight being 20/20, we probably shouldn’t have held it on Mother’s Day. The day just felt weird for me. Half of our team was unable to make it for one reason or another (really, it was Mother’s Day … that’s what I attribute it to).
Overall, the mood of the day was okay. The weather was outstanding, sunny and comfortable for most of the day. A little overcast would have helped. My team didn’t really shot much until around 2pm when our model showed up (I’m still processing pictures of Melissa, our scheduled model; more in a later post). But before that, we tried to set up a few shots and shoot a few of ourselves. I found that moderately frustrating. Not because we were shooting ourselves but because there were just so few of us in our group. We had a plan for about 7 people working together and providing certain equipment, but when push came to shove, we were down to mostly my gear. And really, with such a beautiful day, we didn’t really need to be shooting Strobist-style.
When 2pm came around, Melissa showed up and we were able to spend about 90 minutes with her before she had to leave. We got four different setups done. I can’t say I was really happy with all of them. Looking back, I think the shots we did outside were being hampered by the blazing sun. Shooting at 2pm just makes it difficult to try and come up with something decent. The ambient light is all flat and shadows are harsh so you have to try and find some way to block out the sun. Or you have to find some way to overpower it.
What I figured out though, is that even though you have strobes, you don’t necessarily need to use them to come away with a great photo. During the last half hour of the day, some of the other models were asked to jump into the pool at the Keep. Water shots are fun. There’s so much you can do with them. There’s the action shot of jumping in. There’s the slow and sensual shot you can get of the model slipping out of the pool, hair all slicked back and wet. There’s the calm intensity you can find when the model is just wicking away the water from her face as she’s surfaced. Honestly, just lots of ideas floating around there.
By around 3:30, the light was getting to a point where you could position yourself and get a decent, but hard, shadow out of it. Something that worked well in this case. Looking at the dozen or so photos around the pool, I wanted to treat them in different ways, come up with a different look and feel for each one. These three were my favorite. A mix of dark and unsaturated, super-saturated, and blown out. Three looks for the same person. I think they all worked well.
Three of the things I walked away with this day was that it really is difficult to work with the sun during the harshest points in the day. I just couldn’t find a way to make my shots with Melissa work “well” when having to deal with the sun. I need to practice with that. Second, no matter how much equipment you have or how hard you try to incorporate it, it’s ok to put it away and just find a shaded corner (or even an unshaded pool) and have fun with the photos. Remember, it’s a learning experience, it doesn’t have to always be a fruitful one for your portfolio. Third, I really need to get some reflectors. I found those to be some of the most useful things to have this day, mostly because of how much light from the sun there was. The strobes just couldn’t easily overpower it. Ok, make this four things. A big white sheet makes a great portable cloud. I’m glad I picked one up for this, it came in handle not only for me but for a few other groups who were trying to deal with some harsh mottled sun and shade.
The model pictured within this post is Stephanie. She lives here in the Central Texas area and has worked with us before. She’s fun to work with, has a great attitude, and seems to be willing to do anything reasonable if you ask.
If you ever get a chance to check out Dunvegan Keep, do go. It’s an interesting place and there’s certainly quite a few areas, aside from the pool, that would be great to photograph people in. I’m just said I couldn’t figure out a way to make the half-finished turret work in a photo. Next time, though, maybe next time.
CBS 42 contest update!
Just an update on a post I made a few weeks back. Sousa Williams, the web manager over at CBS 42, contacted me today to inform me that the rules for the contest had been updated. Apparently, the management didn’t realize the rules were written in such a way that strips a photographer’s rights to the submitted photos. The rules now read:
You represent that you own all copyrights in the photograph. As a condition of submitting your photo, you grant to Four Points Media a non-exclusive license to use the photograph for twelve months from the date of submission as follows:.
Four Points Media may, at its sole discretion, publish or otherwise use any photograph submitted by you. Such publication or other use may occur on television, in books, in newspapers and magazines, on the Internet, and/or in or on any other medium of communication now or hereafter devised, and may be for advertising, promotion, the use of trade, and/or other commercial purposes. By submitting a photograph, you (and any other individual depicted in a photograph) consent to such publication or any other use. As a condition of submitting your photograph, you (and any other individual depicted in a photograph) unconditionally and irrevocably waive all claims to compensation for use of the photograph by Four Points, and/or any rights with respect to such use you may have under copyright law, the right to publicity, the right to privacy, the law of defamation, and any other common law or statutory claims under the laws of any jurisdiction.
You represent that you have been given the authority by each individual depicted in a photograph to bind such individual to these release terms.
You must be 18 years of age or older to submit a photo.
It’s that first paragraph that really strikes me as being photographer friendly. I don’t yet know if it’s a panacea of photography goodness, but it’s certainly better than the absolute rights grab they were doing before. I’ve contacted the guys at Pro Imaging to get their input on this change because of their previous work in getting contests to change their rules for the betterment of photogs everywhere.
So far, the Austin Flickr community has received the notice with mixed reviews. Some still feel the new rules continue to abuse the photographer by not setting terms on what that license constitutes. Others, like me, think it’s certainly a step in the right direction.
More to come as I hear it.
Lighting the Nude
One of the styles of photography that I eventually want to get into is artistic nudes. No, not that skanky Hustler look or that overly lit Playboy style. Something moody, with depth and creativity. This is sort of a lead up into my big goal of doing edgy and risqué stuff … fetish photography and the like.
I’ve been taking baby steps leading up to this. Mostly it’s been learning to light and better understand the light. Then it was beginning to deal with models and getting comfortable with them AND working with the equipment at the same time. I’m still getting used to that. It’s somewhat disconcerting: like juggling flaming pitch, a porcupine, and a running sawzall. Your hands are going everywhere, you’re moving this way and that, you’re jumping forward to adjust something, you’re falling back to do something else. Lots of things to pay attention to.
Well, the next step in this for me is to learn more about the lighting nudes (in general). So, with that idea in mind, I was browsing the bookstore and came across two books on nude photography. The first one didn’t impress me much. I don’t even remember the name at this point. But, the second one, Lighting the Nude, caught my eye. It’s filled with resulting pictures, the lighting diagrams behind the images, and a description of how the shot was taken. This stuff is right up my alley. I can pick apart many photos now, so it’s interesting to see how some of these photos are built up.
The book is 448 pages, and is a collection of about 200 different images from various top photographers. Each chapter covers a different aspect of this style of photography, from props and posing to romantic and fetish. Each photo contains a breakdown of the lighting, positions of modifiers in reference to the model, the camera exposure and film type, as well as a short but concise write up by the photographer. Another thing it has going for it is that every photo I’ve seen in the book is done in a very tasteful way and I’ve gotten quite a few ideas for photographs I’d like to create.
The book is 448 pages, and is a collection of about 200 different images from various top photographers. Each chapter covers a different aspect of this style of photography, from props and posing to romantic and fetish. Each photo contains a breakdown of the lighting, positions of modifiers in reference to the model, the camera exposure and film type, as well as a short but concise write up by the photographer. Another thing it has going for it is that every photo I’ve seen in the book is done in a very tasteful way and I’ve gotten quite a few ideas for photographs I’d like to create.Overall, very well done and recommended (if you can find a copy).