Panasonic GH2+Olympus PEN FT 40mm 1.4 lens, ISO 160 or 320, Daylight white balance. Manual Exposure. Manual Focus. Handheld.
1.28.2012
A nod to the square.
Panasonic GH2+Olympus PEN FT 40mm 1.4 lens, ISO 160 or 320, Daylight white balance. Manual Exposure. Manual Focus. Handheld.
1.27.2012
The Week in Review. Chaos.
Wow. What a week. I started getting really sick on Sunday and by Weds. had descended into a bleak underworld of doom and gloom so depressing (as expressed in my column) that world renowned photographers (I had no idea they were even reading my blog) sent me private e-mails asking if I was okay. I was touched. And, while the meds my doctor gave me Tues. afternoon have been progressively effective it wasn't quick enough to prevent the staff at VSL from gleefully pushing me out of the way (under the pretense of encouraging me to rest) to make room for that annoyingly gleeful, Charlie Martini to come in and do his mischief, yesterday.
You know you're really ill if even your collection of original Nick Fury and the Agents of SHIELD comic books doesn't bring you back into balanced contentment.
I know some of you were worried so I though I'd give you an overall update. I'm back to 92.5% of my usual self and recovering on a geometric trajectory. I might even make it back to swim practice in the morning, tomorrow.
The world of photography is not imploding. Everything will be fine. They just stopped serving the buffets during the shoot. You know, like in the good old days. With the iced filled bowls the size of larger beauty dishes, packed high with freshly boiled and peeled jumbo shrimp and the elegant plates with the careful stacks of black caviar grains. Back when they served Champagne to the cast and crews instead of this cheap Prosecco we're getting now... But it will all be okay and we'll all adjust. Just cast that net a little wider and toss it a little harder.
I'm taking tomorrow off from blogging here but sent a scintillating article to Michael Johnston for his blog: the online photographer, that should run tomorrow. That's providing, of course, that it passes his rigorous editing and high standards.
I know today that it's not the fever so I know I'm really trembling with anticipation as the first copies of our new book: LED Lighting are being rushed to Amazon.com and other vendors across the United States. The book has a cover price of $34.95. The Amazon price is currently so low I don't even want to show it here but it's certainly less than the price of many lunches I've had. And not really incredible lunches either.
I can't really think of any big launches or products that hit this week and there's nothing much that I think we all need to run out and buy. Next week I'm planning to write a bunch of short articles about specific uses of the LED panels and I think that should be fun. I've used them for all of my assignments so far this year and I'm kinda thinking that I'll persevere through the year just for the hell of it. I just found out that I paid my lab bill twice last month so now I have enough credit to run through another 20 rolls of MF tri-x. If you see me out with the Hasselblad and a smile, that's why.
I'm turning the comments on. I'm around. Say hello. Check in. Be heard.
1.26.2012
The book is landing.
Things change in the time between writing the books and having them come off the trucks. I'll update info as necessary here on the VSL blog. Not too much has changed in the overall market. But we'll talk about it.
The effects of my illness seem to be fading. As does my hazy fog of pessimism. Now I need to have a conference with the interloper, Martini. What was he thinking? Was he thinking? It's all a mystery to me.
Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy. Imaging makes me warm and tingly.
From time to time, when Kirk is indisposed, the VSL staff sometimes has guest columnists step in and take the reins. After the massive dose of gloominess he subjected readers to today we asked comedian and lead VSL researcher, Charlie Martini, to step into the Office Depot discount swivel office chair and give it a go. Unlike Kirk, Charlie is remarkably optimistic about everything. But then he's also on a cocktail of three different SSRI's and takes Absolute liquid vitamins throughout the day.
I've been involved with photography for a long time and here are the things I've seen change for the better:
1. I no longer have to pay for film. Now every frame I shoot is free. Like the wind and water and my spirit. I am free to express who I really am with no economic consequences.
2. I no longer have to pay for processing. Since I live alone, and am too ugly to effectively date, I used to resent all the time I "saved" by having a "lab" process my film. Now I get to do the processing on my own computing machine and it serves to fill up the empty hours of my "bad part" of the day; that part that spans from the time they force us out of the VSL labs at the end of the day til I come dancing back through the air locks and biometric security in the next morning.
3. With the magic of the internet I can share my images of turtles and cat whiskers and blooming flowers and artistically blurry waterfalls, and members of full contact poetry slams, with people around the globe. Often I will receive the honor of a request that a photo of mine be used in a book or magazine or on a website. Even though there's never really a "'budget" to pay me I find the magic and rush of seeing my work spread across the internet as magical as the moment in Titanic when hero and heroine find themselves together on the deck as the ship goes down. It warms my heart so to be integrated into the discussion. And there's tremendous value in that! Just an amazing feeling of well being. I'd like to have a credit but have been reminded many times that space on the web is just so expensive.
4. Cameras have gotten so good that I can take fabulous photos anywhere. At anytime. For any reason. And that makes me feel empowered. Just last night I was sitting across from a couple in a nice restaurant and they were breaking up. It looked so sad. I put down my copy of Flat World and watched keenly. It was pretty quiet but she was crying a bit and it looked so dramatic and real and great that I leaned across the table and shot a bunch of frames to put up on facebook. I know they won't mind. It's part of the new universal ethos of maximum share. And, as we learned in lower school, sharing is always good.
5. The ISO performance of our mighty plastic recording beasts have become so superb I can even take photos of things I can't see. It's an amazing approach to art and one that works from time to time. Kirk has tried to explain how the quality and direction of light are critical to a photograph's success. But we all know what a curmudgeon he is. It's just another one of his time wasting excuses. If I point my camera at the general vicinity of something that seems like it may be exciting and set the autobracket just right I always come away with something I can rescue in Photoshop. If I didn't shoot I'd never know.
6. When I'm not in the lab trying to join up string theory with photographic composition I sometimes get to do free "imaging" work for my bank. I'm so proud that they let me submit photographs for their use as they are one of the biggest bank holding companies in the world. Mucho prestigo! But they're nice and I like to help them out. They appreciate the work I do and they are very nice about explaining the paperwork that helps me give them all my rights to the material. I'd try to charge them but, hey! we're all like family and it just seems like the right thing to do. When Kirk's last paycheck to me bounced they were so sweet about only charging me $80 for my bounced checks. That's what real love buys. You watch my back and I'll wash yours. I'll tell you this! Back in the good ole days this was an opportunity we never had. Especially if we had to pay for film!!!! Now I can say I've had my work used by XXXXX bank. (The contract I offered to sign said I couldn't actually use their name....)
7. Have you ever noticed that just owning a really good camera gets you invited into cool places? Since I'm pretty well known as "uncle Charlie" by everyone on staff, here and at the bank and, oh, at my favorite restaurants (love American style bangers and mash). I'm often asked to attend marvelous weddings and bar mitzvahs and office parties. (I'll never forget that really swell Christmas party in the Denny's "private" room. Those Walmart assistant managers can parteeeeee.) Funny thing is they always ask me to bring along my camera, you know, "just in case". But, would I be out on a Saturday night without it? Would I? Not bloody likely. To stay on the "A" list I've gotten into the habit of sending everyone a DVD with all the photos on it. Sharing brings me closer my fellow man and it spreads something we at VSL call, name recognition. When a real job shows up I'm sure they'll remember me!
8. Potential riches. Kirk has harped long enough on the his old song about the deflating value of photography but I've heard there's still a path to riches via a little bit of magic they call, "stock photography." It was a bit expensive to get started in since the stock photo companies wouldn't accept images from any of the cameras I had at the time but twelve thousand dollars later I was ready to get rich. I had a new, top of the line, approved camera and a couple of really great lenses. Now, all I have to do is to shoot whatever I want, keyword it, process it and upload it to the stock photography company's website. They have a skyscraper filled with crack editors who will help winnow down my submissions to a tight group of "super-winners." With a bit of elbow grease I've been told we'll be able to make at least a dollar for every image we sell, and possibly thousands of dollars. Honest, it's happened before!!! Logically, the stock company will take their 70% (it's only fair for all the hard work they do) but that still leaves me with 30%. I don't need my calculator to tell me that if all 6 billion people in the world pull out their gold credit cards and buy just one of my pictures just one time that's a whopping one point eight billion dollars!!!!!!! And don't worry, I am upping my chances at unimaginable wealth by uploading dozens and dozens of images at a time. If Kirk would turn off his "rainy day rants" and get to work he could potentially make billions as well. You can drag an old horse to water but you can't always resuscitate him. At least that's what my mum used to say. Tuck just doesn't seem to get the new economy. It's not about the big deal anymore. It's about hundreds of thousands of very, very, very tiny deals all coming together nicely.
9. Unlimited inspiration. Did you ever have one of those days when you left the house and you just didn't have any idea what to shoot? Or why you even brought your camera with you? Doesn't happen to me anymore because I use the Inspiration Image Juggler on Flickr and the Random Greatness button on 500px to see what everyone around the world is shooting, right now. And then I go out and try to shoot exactly the same thing. Most guys on the sites even provide equipment lists to help me and instructions on how they shot. Takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. And it gives you a much greater chance of artistic success. We certainly never had this in the good old days.
10. Never before, in the history of all photography and even art, have we had so many experts on the web tell us exactly how to do really good and unique photography. The one thing they all share is a remarkable optimism. They exude hearty confidence. They are indeed, the confidence men. They want to help us make photography fun. And part of the fun of photography is buying stuff. And so they teach us stuff we really need to know to be successful in being happy and we reciprocate by spending thousands of dollars a year on really cool gear that they talk about on their websites. It's amazing how much you can learn absolutely free. Just last week I learned that I really couldn't do effective portraits without this 45mm 1.8 lens from Olympus three of the guys were blogging about. The hard part was deciding whose link to click through. Never had this kind of "free" education before. And no strings attached. The real winner? Me. Now I've got the tools that will make my portraits sing like Madonna. (She's Brit now, you know?)
11. HDR. Oh my God!!! Have you seen this kind of photography? It makes every photograph look like a really, really cool painting. Seriously! Technicolor on steroids. Oh yeah, there's a learning curve but that's beautifully handled by that free education aspect of the new web 3.0. Essentially you find just about anything that might make a decent photograph and then you shoot three or more exposures. One for the shadows. One for the highlight. And one for the mid-tones. The more different exposures you shoot the more information you have to play with when you get back to your computer. But it's worth it because just about every photo will end up with the same ultra cool look. Almost like magic. (I have to make a wee confession here. I always wanted to be a painter but I didn't have the time or stick-to-it-tiveness to learn exactly how to do painting. Probably my ADHD... but now all my work can look like paintings and I've even used these incredible tools called "actions" to make the whole process almost automatic.) When I show the images to my friends they are always amazed. But I can walk them through the process pretty quickly and in no time they're knocking out these colorful masterpieces by the bucketload. What's not to like about that?
12. Really, really great workshops. Thousands and thousands of them. (If Kirk weren't so glum and bitchy and anti-social he could have a whole, new career in the new part of heaven I call workshops. That would take the gray air out of his negativity balloon!!!) In the old days there were one or two groups that held workshops and they were very prissy. They had the gumption to demand portfolios in order to get into a class. Hello!!!!!! I'd like to have a portfolio. Isn't that why I want to take your class??? But now there are thousands and thousands of them and they're on every topic you can imagine. And the amazing thing is that they're all taught by super busy, super hard working pros who have so many clients it's amazing they can even squeeze a random weekend in. I've taken 42 in the last five years and at least half of those were about how to use my "porty" flash. I've learned a remarkable amount. One teacher was so helpful in showing me what the manual for my camera really said. Another helped me find a method that would trigger my flash when I take it off the camera!!!! Really. I can't make this stuff up. Usually we see a slide show of the teacher's work and I must admit I've spent some time in the shadows of giants.
And all the top teachers seem to know each other and recommend each others workshops and that makes me feel more comfortable, taking advice from a trusted source. Pre-web it was just a shot in the dark. If I ever take the step to "Pro" I'll be ready. One light. Off Camera. HDR. And now maybe even LED. What more could any client want? And it's not so far fetched. There's a big ad agency in our town and I've actually toyed with the idea of putting together my best work and showing it to the person they call the "art buyer." I'm trying to narrow down my portfolio so I'm only showing my best work (I learned that in a workshop). So far I have vacation golf photos from Maui, animals shot with DOF at the local zoo (workshop), a few different photos of plates of food I ordered at restaurants (when I thought the plates looked good), and lots of street photography of people's backs. If I can interleave some waterfalls and some dramatic HDR sunsets and some shots of my neighbor's kid playing in the hose I'll have a pretty cool and well rounded selection of images. And I know most of them are good because we had critiques at a number of the workshops. It's like a stamp of approval.
In closing I have to say that the promise of the internet and of photography is that the markets have never been bigger or wider or more open. I can sell my images anywhere in the world and feel safe that the U.S. Copyright laws are there to protect my work at all times. If I can assemble my 1,000 true believers and they can feel good about my work then I can throw it all out onto the market with a healthy dosage of abundance energy and it will come, unerringly, back to me a million fold. And that's the real promise of the new economy. You just have to have a little faith. And, as I'm finding out, a lot of patience. But, it will happen.
Whether you are a pro, an aspiring pro, or an enthusiastic enthusiast there's never, ever been a better time to be a photographer. New markets are opening up everywhere. The education process is practically free and the barriers to getting in, either as an insider enthusiast or a new pro, are all gone. Let's face it: Anyone can do this and everyone needs photography. Saturated marketplace? That's what the glum experts said about gold ten years ago. Who's laughing now?
Thanks for reading. Hopefully Tuck's not working on a big doco and will be back to take the reins this Friday, coming. Cheerio. By the way, he's not really as glum as they make him out in the comments section and he does have a life outside of his blog. Oh well. My task is done and Bob's your uncle.
By Guest Columnist, Dr. Charlie Martini
When last we saw Kirk he was heading off in the specially equipped racing Honda Element (with lasers, machine guns and ejection seats) vowing to find happiness in the world of photography. We have every hope that, when the prescription drugs, triple strength coffee (you know he goes through a pound of Jamaican Blue Mountain every week day.) and the bottle of Jack Daniels give out he'll be back demanding that I get my scrappy, punter butt out of his chair and let him get back to work. And, of course I will, because of my profound respect for his diligent visual research and my deep personal fear of his temper.
His last foray of this nature was aptly chronicled here: Kirk's Crazy Journey. I can only hope this one is shorter in duration and less fraught with litigation after the fact.
But first, a brief introduction. I have a doctoral degree in astrophysics, I'm into racewalking, as a native Englishman I root for my local football club (that means soccer to you world-ravaging yanks) and love a good cuppa in the morning, with biscuits, if you please. I am masterful with my version of iPhone-o-graphy and am a big, big fan of the wide gamut world of HDR.
Today I'm going to talk about the things that make me positively hopeful and enthusiastic about the practice of photography. My goal? To take the nasty aftertaste of defeatism left by Kirk's last column out of your mouth and put it back where it belongs. And not a moment too soon, eh? What say we get along with the tale.
I've been involved with photography for a long time and here are the things I've seen change for the better:
1. I no longer have to pay for film. Now every frame I shoot is free. Like the wind and water and my spirit. I am free to express who I really am with no economic consequences.
2. I no longer have to pay for processing. Since I live alone, and am too ugly to effectively date, I used to resent all the time I "saved" by having a "lab" process my film. Now I get to do the processing on my own computing machine and it serves to fill up the empty hours of my "bad part" of the day; that part that spans from the time they force us out of the VSL labs at the end of the day til I come dancing back through the air locks and biometric security in the next morning.
3. With the magic of the internet I can share my images of turtles and cat whiskers and blooming flowers and artistically blurry waterfalls, and members of full contact poetry slams, with people around the globe. Often I will receive the honor of a request that a photo of mine be used in a book or magazine or on a website. Even though there's never really a "'budget" to pay me I find the magic and rush of seeing my work spread across the internet as magical as the moment in Titanic when hero and heroine find themselves together on the deck as the ship goes down. It warms my heart so to be integrated into the discussion. And there's tremendous value in that! Just an amazing feeling of well being. I'd like to have a credit but have been reminded many times that space on the web is just so expensive.
4. Cameras have gotten so good that I can take fabulous photos anywhere. At anytime. For any reason. And that makes me feel empowered. Just last night I was sitting across from a couple in a nice restaurant and they were breaking up. It looked so sad. I put down my copy of Flat World and watched keenly. It was pretty quiet but she was crying a bit and it looked so dramatic and real and great that I leaned across the table and shot a bunch of frames to put up on facebook. I know they won't mind. It's part of the new universal ethos of maximum share. And, as we learned in lower school, sharing is always good.
5. The ISO performance of our mighty plastic recording beasts have become so superb I can even take photos of things I can't see. It's an amazing approach to art and one that works from time to time. Kirk has tried to explain how the quality and direction of light are critical to a photograph's success. But we all know what a curmudgeon he is. It's just another one of his time wasting excuses. If I point my camera at the general vicinity of something that seems like it may be exciting and set the autobracket just right I always come away with something I can rescue in Photoshop. If I didn't shoot I'd never know.
6. When I'm not in the lab trying to join up string theory with photographic composition I sometimes get to do free "imaging" work for my bank. I'm so proud that they let me submit photographs for their use as they are one of the biggest bank holding companies in the world. Mucho prestigo! But they're nice and I like to help them out. They appreciate the work I do and they are very nice about explaining the paperwork that helps me give them all my rights to the material. I'd try to charge them but, hey! we're all like family and it just seems like the right thing to do. When Kirk's last paycheck to me bounced they were so sweet about only charging me $80 for my bounced checks. That's what real love buys. You watch my back and I'll wash yours. I'll tell you this! Back in the good ole days this was an opportunity we never had. Especially if we had to pay for film!!!! Now I can say I've had my work used by XXXXX bank. (The contract I offered to sign said I couldn't actually use their name....)
7. Have you ever noticed that just owning a really good camera gets you invited into cool places? Since I'm pretty well known as "uncle Charlie" by everyone on staff, here and at the bank and, oh, at my favorite restaurants (love American style bangers and mash). I'm often asked to attend marvelous weddings and bar mitzvahs and office parties. (I'll never forget that really swell Christmas party in the Denny's "private" room. Those Walmart assistant managers can parteeeeee.) Funny thing is they always ask me to bring along my camera, you know, "just in case". But, would I be out on a Saturday night without it? Would I? Not bloody likely. To stay on the "A" list I've gotten into the habit of sending everyone a DVD with all the photos on it. Sharing brings me closer my fellow man and it spreads something we at VSL call, name recognition. When a real job shows up I'm sure they'll remember me!
8. Potential riches. Kirk has harped long enough on the his old song about the deflating value of photography but I've heard there's still a path to riches via a little bit of magic they call, "stock photography." It was a bit expensive to get started in since the stock photo companies wouldn't accept images from any of the cameras I had at the time but twelve thousand dollars later I was ready to get rich. I had a new, top of the line, approved camera and a couple of really great lenses. Now, all I have to do is to shoot whatever I want, keyword it, process it and upload it to the stock photography company's website. They have a skyscraper filled with crack editors who will help winnow down my submissions to a tight group of "super-winners." With a bit of elbow grease I've been told we'll be able to make at least a dollar for every image we sell, and possibly thousands of dollars. Honest, it's happened before!!! Logically, the stock company will take their 70% (it's only fair for all the hard work they do) but that still leaves me with 30%. I don't need my calculator to tell me that if all 6 billion people in the world pull out their gold credit cards and buy just one of my pictures just one time that's a whopping one point eight billion dollars!!!!!!! And don't worry, I am upping my chances at unimaginable wealth by uploading dozens and dozens of images at a time. If Kirk would turn off his "rainy day rants" and get to work he could potentially make billions as well. You can drag an old horse to water but you can't always resuscitate him. At least that's what my mum used to say. Tuck just doesn't seem to get the new economy. It's not about the big deal anymore. It's about hundreds of thousands of very, very, very tiny deals all coming together nicely.
9. Unlimited inspiration. Did you ever have one of those days when you left the house and you just didn't have any idea what to shoot? Or why you even brought your camera with you? Doesn't happen to me anymore because I use the Inspiration Image Juggler on Flickr and the Random Greatness button on 500px to see what everyone around the world is shooting, right now. And then I go out and try to shoot exactly the same thing. Most guys on the sites even provide equipment lists to help me and instructions on how they shot. Takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process. And it gives you a much greater chance of artistic success. We certainly never had this in the good old days.
10. Never before, in the history of all photography and even art, have we had so many experts on the web tell us exactly how to do really good and unique photography. The one thing they all share is a remarkable optimism. They exude hearty confidence. They are indeed, the confidence men. They want to help us make photography fun. And part of the fun of photography is buying stuff. And so they teach us stuff we really need to know to be successful in being happy and we reciprocate by spending thousands of dollars a year on really cool gear that they talk about on their websites. It's amazing how much you can learn absolutely free. Just last week I learned that I really couldn't do effective portraits without this 45mm 1.8 lens from Olympus three of the guys were blogging about. The hard part was deciding whose link to click through. Never had this kind of "free" education before. And no strings attached. The real winner? Me. Now I've got the tools that will make my portraits sing like Madonna. (She's Brit now, you know?)
11. HDR. Oh my God!!! Have you seen this kind of photography? It makes every photograph look like a really, really cool painting. Seriously! Technicolor on steroids. Oh yeah, there's a learning curve but that's beautifully handled by that free education aspect of the new web 3.0. Essentially you find just about anything that might make a decent photograph and then you shoot three or more exposures. One for the shadows. One for the highlight. And one for the mid-tones. The more different exposures you shoot the more information you have to play with when you get back to your computer. But it's worth it because just about every photo will end up with the same ultra cool look. Almost like magic. (I have to make a wee confession here. I always wanted to be a painter but I didn't have the time or stick-to-it-tiveness to learn exactly how to do painting. Probably my ADHD... but now all my work can look like paintings and I've even used these incredible tools called "actions" to make the whole process almost automatic.) When I show the images to my friends they are always amazed. But I can walk them through the process pretty quickly and in no time they're knocking out these colorful masterpieces by the bucketload. What's not to like about that?
12. Really, really great workshops. Thousands and thousands of them. (If Kirk weren't so glum and bitchy and anti-social he could have a whole, new career in the new part of heaven I call workshops. That would take the gray air out of his negativity balloon!!!) In the old days there were one or two groups that held workshops and they were very prissy. They had the gumption to demand portfolios in order to get into a class. Hello!!!!!! I'd like to have a portfolio. Isn't that why I want to take your class??? But now there are thousands and thousands of them and they're on every topic you can imagine. And the amazing thing is that they're all taught by super busy, super hard working pros who have so many clients it's amazing they can even squeeze a random weekend in. I've taken 42 in the last five years and at least half of those were about how to use my "porty" flash. I've learned a remarkable amount. One teacher was so helpful in showing me what the manual for my camera really said. Another helped me find a method that would trigger my flash when I take it off the camera!!!! Really. I can't make this stuff up. Usually we see a slide show of the teacher's work and I must admit I've spent some time in the shadows of giants.
And all the top teachers seem to know each other and recommend each others workshops and that makes me feel more comfortable, taking advice from a trusted source. Pre-web it was just a shot in the dark. If I ever take the step to "Pro" I'll be ready. One light. Off Camera. HDR. And now maybe even LED. What more could any client want? And it's not so far fetched. There's a big ad agency in our town and I've actually toyed with the idea of putting together my best work and showing it to the person they call the "art buyer." I'm trying to narrow down my portfolio so I'm only showing my best work (I learned that in a workshop). So far I have vacation golf photos from Maui, animals shot with DOF at the local zoo (workshop), a few different photos of plates of food I ordered at restaurants (when I thought the plates looked good), and lots of street photography of people's backs. If I can interleave some waterfalls and some dramatic HDR sunsets and some shots of my neighbor's kid playing in the hose I'll have a pretty cool and well rounded selection of images. And I know most of them are good because we had critiques at a number of the workshops. It's like a stamp of approval.
In closing I have to say that the promise of the internet and of photography is that the markets have never been bigger or wider or more open. I can sell my images anywhere in the world and feel safe that the U.S. Copyright laws are there to protect my work at all times. If I can assemble my 1,000 true believers and they can feel good about my work then I can throw it all out onto the market with a healthy dosage of abundance energy and it will come, unerringly, back to me a million fold. And that's the real promise of the new economy. You just have to have a little faith. And, as I'm finding out, a lot of patience. But, it will happen.
Whether you are a pro, an aspiring pro, or an enthusiastic enthusiast there's never, ever been a better time to be a photographer. New markets are opening up everywhere. The education process is practically free and the barriers to getting in, either as an insider enthusiast or a new pro, are all gone. Let's face it: Anyone can do this and everyone needs photography. Saturated marketplace? That's what the glum experts said about gold ten years ago. Who's laughing now?
Thanks for reading. Hopefully Tuck's not working on a big doco and will be back to take the reins this Friday, coming. Cheerio. By the way, he's not really as glum as they make him out in the comments section and he does have a life outside of his blog. Oh well. My task is done and Bob's your uncle.
1.25.2012
Some predictions about the future of photography.
I think we're just about there. The point where photography, for the most part, becomes so ubiquitous, surrounds us so completely and, through its own total familiarity, loses all of its power to surprise and delight. Which means, necessarily that we're ripe for re-invention. Wholesale reinvention.
It's not that the cameras have gotten better, or easier, or more accessible that makes this inevitable, rather it's the unceasing firehose torrent of exposure to everyone's photographs, via the web, that'd sucking the life out of the medium. Really.
Yes, yes, I know that you'd never have come as far as you have without the resources of the web but at the same time you would have worked in a state of more relative isolation and you might have developed a very, very unique vision that was transformative instead of just being a check box for a style. HDR? Check. Joel Grime's Style? Check. Chase Jarvis Style (does he really have one yet?) ? Check. Street Photography? Check. Panos? Check. Hot chicks? Check. Moody black and white? Check.
We are able to become so aware, minute by minute, of what everyone else is up to and what everyone else is posting that we've become a giant stew pot of randomly seen, homogenized images. And I'm certainly not immune. If I were immune I'd still be shooting roll after roll of sweet medium format tri-x in an ample sized camera with a achingly beautiful, long lens instead of dicking around with a Panasonic this or an Olympus that.
It's not the cameras anymore it's the hypnotic access to images and the funneling of tastes into some twisted Bell Curve of merit that's sucking the life out of the art while at the same time spreading it out to a larger and larger audience. An audience of narcissists, just like me, who all want to have their time on your screen. But why? Why is a "nice capture" sentiment from a total stranger such a lure for so many?
I'll venture to say that most people are intent to show off their level of mastery. "See what I can do." "Watch me. Watch me." They are not so much sharing the content or feelings encapsulated in the image as they are showing off the technical mastery of the wrapping. Is this basic human nature? Are we, as a species, wired for maximum distribution?
So what does all this mean for the business of photography? You can see the effects everywhere. There are little silos or islands left for professionals to cling to. Knowing how to effectively use shift lenses and how to beautifully light interior spaces keeps some architectural photographers' noses above the water line. And there will always be a need for highly technical specialities that require techniques that are demanding but not "sexy." Like macro work with microchips or food photography for advertising (as opposed to the "anything goes" food photography for editorial clients). So, technical work is a safe island. Being on the cutting edge of massively detail oriented PhotoShop Compositing and retouching techniques might also be a safe haven, until one company after another automates what you've spent years learning to do...
The landscape for commercial photography looks a lot like an inverse Bell Curve. A big spike near the "cheap/free" axis and another spike in the opposite "high tech/high touch" access and a giant abyss in the middle. Which is decimating the traditional markets as the middle of the curve is where most of the job volume came from. No matter how good your game is "cheap/free" at 90% will always beat "really/really good at 100% if you are selling to a price sensitive market. And that's 99% of the market.
I was reading a link on a forum today where a member was asking for technical help. He needed to take a photograph with a huge background, cars and motorcycles and people and dogs in the foreground, all beautifully lit and perfectly done. His issue was that so much stuff, required in the frame, killed the detail he could resolve overall. But here's the deal. This wasn't his real job, he was a work "volunteer." Even though he was doing the job for free he wasn't in the planning meetings for the photo nor was his input valued. But, bless him, he was as anchored as a bulldog to a stick and ready to do a great job for the reward of doing......a great job. For free. Not as part of his job.
He got some suggestions which he really liked. One of which called for shooting each part separately and combining them together in post processing. Now, I don't know if you've done this before but he's likely looking at a couple of days to shoot everything, retouch it and composite it. On his own time. For the reward of showing off his chops.
This "altruism" is rampant all over the place and what it means is that it cost most companies nothing at all to give their employees a shot at doing something which might have previously cost them several thousand dollars. Their worst case scenario would only be to reject his work and hire someone working as a professional who has experience in doing these kinds of images. And owns the right tools to do them well. But more often than not the rank and file managers don't have the filters to see whether the work is good or just passable. They like the idea of getting their pizza for free as long as it's warm.
I have no doubt that the person who queried the forum will spend nights and weekends doing this project. I also have no doubt that his employers, having paid nothing for the project, will not be in the least bit appreciative of his efforts. And one less project will go to a kid out of photo school or a pro trying to keep his business up and running.
But this is not a problem that the clients are required to fix or even acknowledge. This is the new normal. Now, the number of exotic and highly technical jobs isn't increasing. It's pretty much a fixed number. So, if the trained specialists have those markets locked up where's the market for other photographers supposed to come from? Maybe there is no solution and the market segment will slowly dissolve as it did for typesetters and color separators. And color labs. And medium format film camera makers.
So, on to the predictions:
1. Wedding photography, baby photography and general retail photography has already become totally homogenized and every quarter the pricing, income and profit from these specialties will drop quickly. There will always be a high end market of buyers somewhere but they'll continue to seek out fine artists whose vision coincides with the aesthetic tastes of the buyers. A tiny 1% of the market, at best. Already the vast majority of child photographers are employees in national companies that inhabit the malls and provide tightly controlled and regimented photographic products for relatively low prices. They make their money on volume and the occasional upsell to "canvas" products with higher margins. Wedding photographers will come to grips with the fact that the new generations of clients have no real interest in a print book and want to have all the images turned over to them on a disk. Most clients know they can design and produce their own books at a fraction of the price and with total control. Resale? You gotta be kidding.
2. Advertising photography. This was never as big a market as most people think. And it's becoming smaller and smaller for dedicated photographers. We have a new phenomenon at play here as well. Give a designer or an art director a camera and some lessons, couple that with hours and hours of meticulous post processing and they will come out with something really good. Most of the time. Again, slicing into the inverted photo Bell Curve. Let's face facts, these people have a really good eye to begin with, they know what they want to see in an image and they can use the little screen on the back of the camera to iteratively experiment until they get what they need as raw material. The raw material goes into making an assemblage which becomes the ad.
But why do they do this if it's easier to hire a photographer? Well, for one thing more and more clients are scoffing at paying any sort of mark up for outside supplier used by their ad agencies. If the agency keeps all the work in house they can charge their clients for the photography and all the hours and hours of post processing and keep all the proceeds in their own profit stream. Let's face it, the ad agencies have been squeezed like everyone else and they're jumping at saving where they can and profiting where it's possible. They'll still rely on the current "A-list" of photographers for their high profile projects but the days of people making money shooting products on white are quickly coming to an end. Unless they do it in a way that's very, very compelling.
3. Everything else. There will always be sports photographers....until the 4K video cameras with high shutter speeds hit the market along with "best shot" selector programs to narrow down the streams. As it is the vast majority of sports shooters work for Getty or Corbis, aren't paid even the same wages their counterparts in the 1970's made (real dollars! Not inflation adjusted), and don't own the rights to their own images. Same with the "red carpet" celebrity photographers.
It's not that photographers have fallen down on their respective jobs it's just that photography is technically easier than ever before, more people have more time on their hands to practice a kind of amorphous pro/pro-lite/advanced amateur/will work for: tickets, access, food, a pat on the back style of photography. And the total saturation of photography supports this. It won't get better.
The attitude I've described above is exactly why the camera markets are in flux. The mirrorless cameras do about 90% of what the full sized, traditional DSLR's do and they are fun to play with and cheap to buy. They'll work for most of the stuff people want to do. With the right lenses they have certain advantages that make them perfect for portraits and pretty darn good for wide angle work. But the buy in is in just the right spot: Under $1,000.
I predict that the market for traditional, pro level DSLRs (the Nikon D4, the Canon 1DX) will remain strong as a status symbol for doctors, dentists, software engineers and trustfund enthusiasts. But they've long been out of the reach of aspiring professionals building their first systems. The rest of the DSLR market will plunge into the abyss as quickly as film did. In ten years there will be few, if any, mid-curve or bargain DSLR's. They will all have been replaced by smaller, cheaper but nearly as good, mirrorless cameras.
The bottom end of the market, the little Canon, Fuji, Sony, Nikon, Olympus point and shoot cameras will be entirely replaced by the very next generation of iPhones and their competitors because the "good enough" of those imaging tools and their addictive use as communications tools will be too good a value proposition.
I also predict that the sale of inkjet printers will follow the same trajectory as film. The idea of making a print at home or in the studio will appeal to a very small niche that enjoys complete control over every step of the process but the vast majority of people will rarely have prints made, will enjoy their images on screens scattered hither and yon around their homes and, when they feel the need for a print they'll send their digital files to Walmart or Costco or some other discount provider.
So, what does this mean for the future of "enthusiast" photographers? In previous generations we looked to the print as the gold standard. And, printed large, every wart or imperfection of process rang through most clearly. We worked not only on our "vision" but on our ability to translate it well to the print. We could all view the same print in the same way and in that sense we had a promise of objectivity about its "consumption." But the jagged rift in the the expectation of generations means that we know have an entire generation who will have grown up as "enthusiasts" who have never really seen a beautifully made prints. Their entire experience of photography other than their own comes from looking at low res images on the web. And that's a medium that really doesn't provide a fixed, objective viewing experience. It also covers up a myriad of flaws and defects. In this way it works against the acceptance of pricier camera options such as medium format digital cameras. Afterall, if the image will only be viewed on a screen whose maximum resolution is 2500 by 1280 pixels with 8 bits of information per channel why would anyone need or want a slower operating camera whose reason to be is wrapped around providing 7,000 or 8,000 pixels on a side? Why indeed?
Is the print even relevant to most people anymore? Is it still part of our collective consciousness? I think not.
I think the role of the historically typical professional photographer is now relegated to that of mythology. We want to believe that there's still space for them to exist because that reinforces our notions that when we make art we're competing with a known and revered quantity that elevates us in some way. It's targeting. We also harbor the inner conceit that someday we're going to "tell the boss to get screwed and launch ourselves as pros." And we can't let go of the myth without sabotaging our "back up" strategy that, if we thought rationally about, we'd never consider.... Witness that all camera manufacturers couch their cameras as tools for professionals and showcase pros in their ads. Especially Canon and Nikon. When, in fact, pros are a tiny, tiny fraction of all buyers.
That's not to say that there aren't swashbuckling photographers making their way in the world scaling mountains and selling the story and pictures of their six week adventure to a magazine for a couple thousand dollars. But the clinical reality is that they either have a spouse to help support them or they leverage their exposure in low paying magazines to breathe economic life into their endless series of workshops.
My overriding prediction? That in the next ten years photography will slide into the warm goo of modern culture and have no more relevance than the background music in the fast food restaurant in which you are having lunch. A small number of professionals will be shooting the images of crispy tacos for Taco Bell, the burgers for McDonalds and the power tools for the online catalog of your favorite manufacturer. The fashion magazines will be full of stock or "volunteer" photography, if the magazines still exist. And every workplace in the world will buy a photo booth for executive and employee photographs. Select your background and it will be seamlessly applied...
Some will say that I'm being gloomy and pessimistic but I think I have a pretty good vantage point from which to look at the market. But, I could be totally wrong. It's happened before.
I started this column talking about wholesale reinvention. What do I mean by that? I wish I knew because it's going to come from someone a lot smarter than I. Think about what works for advertising and understand that lots and lots of cultural affectations come from there. Keep your eye on younger and younger people because they'll lead by example. And, while I see them snap, post and discard lots of cellphone images I rarely come across anyone in my kid's generation who has any desire to own a "pro" camera, much less the inventory of lenses. They are the unencumbered generation.
Their only attachment seems to be for gaming. If I were a camera maker like Nikon I would try to push the development of a Wii game that has a "camera controller" and the the player can select what kind of photographer he'd like to be and then "go" to a shooting adventure and snap images from a video loop that then gleans out the captured still frames and ranks him on style and timing. Additions to the program could include post processing options via Hipstermatic. Live the experience without untethering from your console. Hmmm. I might have a marketable idea there.
What's my strategy? Sell stuff other people aren't. Black and white portraits done on MF film. Technical work for the tech clients. Executive portraits for people who aren't yet ready to make the march of shame into the photobooth. Shoots that require really good lighting and really good technique. And, of course, books that talk about the same. Or, maybe I'll chuck it all and move the family to a little fishing village on the coast of Belize.....
Don't argue with me too much. I'm sure I'll feel much better about the whole business tomorrow....
Edit: Do I harp on "too much free?" I am not alone: http://blog.allklier.com/2012/01/penny-wise-pound-foolish.html
New Addition: More information about the LED Lighting Book....
1.24.2012
Hanging around at home. Sick. And bugging everyone around me.
Joe York. Actor. Lead Role: Rocky Horror Picture Show. Zach Scott Theater.
When you have a fever (with some chills thrown in) and a throbbing headache, and the room seems to spin every time you stand up, it seems comforting to write a blog. I'm willing myself to get better as quickly as possible because I have an assignment tonight at 8pm to shoot a dress rehearsal of a new play at the Zachary Scott Theatre. That means I have to be able to focus on something other than how crappy I feel for about three hours straight.
When I was feeling dandy and in the pink it was my intention to get all experimental and shoot with stuff like the Olympus EP3 and the GH2, along with a bag full of the manual focus lenses I was talking about in my previous Saturday blog. But when I feel like crap I default to the easy, bulletproof stuff. So I'm loading up a couple of Canon 5Dmk2's and a couple of L zooms and I figure, unless we're doing the play by candle light I'll come back with the stuff I need. Funny how your health determines the gear you reach for.
I've been reading the forums this week and everyone seems focused on what Olympus is planning to launch on the 8th of February. From all signs it looks like an OM-1 body style stuffed with, depending on whom you believe, the best next Panasonic sensor, a super high res EVF and acres of weather sealing. The Olympus fans think it will focus on something before you even decide to focus on it. It's going to be that fast. Me? I don't care about it at all today. That'll change. But even though the OM-1 was Belinda's film camera of choice for many years I never really warmed up to the body design to the extent that I pine for its return.
I'd rather think about lights today. LED lights. And there are two reasons for my interest. The first is that I've received my advance copy of the LED Lighting For Photographers in the mail. It's the book I started working on in late 2010 and finished up in mid 2011. Judging by past books (and the fact that the book is now printed in the U.S.) I expect that the bulk of the books will be delivered to the publisher and to Amazon.com in the next couple of weeks.
The book looks good although I already found my first typo. I'm not sure I made this public information in past discussions of the book but there is a four page section by noted wedding/beauty photographer, Neil van Niekirk. He writes about how and why he's adapting LED light panels to his work and he was kind enough to also send along some examples.
Neil's work in consistently good as is his website: http://neilvn.com/tangents/ He also has written several really good books for my publisher and you can find more information about his books, here: http://www.amazon.com/Off-Camera-Flash-Techniques-Digital-Photographers/dp/1608952789/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1327430737&sr=1-1
The second reason I'm into my LEDs is that I added a second, big, cheap 1,000 bulb LED fixture to my inventory and I've gotten great use out of all the gear shooting product in the studio. Wonderful to work with WYSIWYG lights instead of flash when you are fine tuning stuff that stays still. You can track down that nasty little reflection on a book cover and fix it before you get all the way into PhotoShop.
I used one of the 1k bulb units, along with a 500 bulb unit, on location last week to shoot some portraits and I was very happy with the general look. With one layer of color correction and one layer of diffusion in front of the bulbs I got the same effect I'd get from a small softbox with a flash. But since there weren't any flash pops I didn't really have to worry about blinks and such. It's really a nice way to work unless you specialize in sports or fast moving children...
The photo above was taken as an ad image for the Zach Scott version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. We shot on both 35mm film and medium format film using 1k tungsten lights, pushed through diffusion panels, as our light sources. The film was Kodak 64T which was a tungsten balanced film with an ISO of 64. We worked on a tripod and Joe gave us lots to work with. I stumbled across this 35mm image as I was searching in the equipment closet for aspirin (don't ask) and I wanted to see it again so I scanned it with the old Epson V500 Photo scanner. We could have done better with a dedicated film scanner but the last Nikon LS-4000 got donated to somewhere almost a decade ago.
Amazing to think how much preplanning went into shoots in the film days. You had to figure out how you were going to handle the shoot in order to decide which film to bring. And how you were going to "Polaroid" something if you used a 35mm format. Since most of the theatre lighting back then was tungsten it was easiest to mix and match with similar lights and balanced films. Plus the fact that 64T was a beautiful emulsion.
Uh oh. Belinda just came out to the office to take my temperature. She gave me the "strict doctor" look. I better sign off and pretend to be resting....
1.23.2012
Weird-o-graphy for Restaurant Business Magazine.
A while back (early 2000's) I got a phone call from one of my favorite clients, the art director at Restaurant Business Magazine. When she called I usually got to shoot things like a premier chef showing off his chops while making an incredible duck recipe. We'd shoot and talk and then, after we were pretty sure we had the shot. we'd all sit down, crack a nice bottle of wine and take a crack at the duck as well. Other assignments introduced me to the brothers who own the legendary San Antonio restaurant, Mi Tierra. I even drove the six hours to Laredo once to photograph the one great chef in the region, at the time...
This assignment was different. Austin was one of the first cities in the country to ban smoking in restaurants and the gentleman in the photo above, Vic, (owner of Vic's Restaurant) was the protest hold out in the implementation of the law. Seems smokers comprised an overwhelming majority of his clientele and, according to Vic, they spent more per person than non-smokers. His basic philosophy could pretty much be distilled down to, "I don't require people to smoke. But they can if they'd like."
I packed the usual jumble of lights and stands and softboxes, and I packed a couple of Mamiya Six medium format cameras along with the trio of Mamiya Six lenses, and headed over the the "Y" at Oakhill. That's where two Texas Highways come together just west of Austin and just outside the front gate of Freescale Semiconductor's front gate.
I walked in, met Vic and looked around. Half of the restaurant was kinda cordoned off and I learned that this was where Vic practiced his second business, repairing computers.
The bar at which Vic is sitting faces a wall of windows so I immediately discarded the idea of lighting anything and instead went available light with the 75mm lens and camera on a tripod. I shot two twelve exposure rolls and ended up with just the look of defiance the magazine was looking for.
I packed the car and headed to the lab. That's how we did things back then. The next morning I picked up the MF transparency film, edited it and chunked it into a Fed Ex envelope because, that's how we did things back then.
Of all the cameras I've owned and sold I regret most selling the Mamiya Six cameras. They were absolute magic. They could make a photographer better. No matter what people say. Some times the Indian likes to shoot with a really perfect, absolutely straight arrow. Especially a magic one.
GH2 Officially Rocks. Kirk likes it. So much so that he's typing in the third person....
Bitchin Impala.
After a month of messing around with the GH2 I finally sat down and went through every word in the poorly written manual and mastered the settings on the GH2 that had confused me but which I really wanted to use for my photographs. I did a portrait assignment on location with the camera and its 14-140mm lens last week and, at ISO 160, the images were just right. (go figure).
But the big revelation to me was to set the preview to "constant" if I wanted to see real time changes in exposure, on the screen, when I changed camera parameters. I also found the "sledge hammer" settings in the film modes for sharpness, contrast and saturation. No fine tuning allowed. The jumps are big. But in Jpeg the one jump up to higher sharpness helped me zero in on what I wanted in my files. More apparent sharpness.
My lens test, on Saturday, showed me that all of these cameras and most of the lenses are pretty darn good. Even lenses from the 1960's and 1970's. You just have to eliminate operator error or operator laziness.
I ran into a large group of photographers who were doing the downtown "photo walk" thing and I was surprised to see that none of them had embraced the smaller, mirrorless cameras yet. Each participant was carrying a full sized DSLR. One person was walking around, shooting handheld with a Canon 24mm tilt/shift lens on a big Canon body. They all seemed to be having fun.
I was happy to be traveling light. Just the GH2 and the Olympus 60mm 1.5. Fast and easy.
1.22.2012
Nice Day for Photography with a 60mm 1.5.
I'm slowly getting the whole process of shooting with manual lenses on the Panasonic GH2 dialed in. First things first. You set the preview to "constant." That will show you exactly what happens, vis-a-vis color balance and exposure, when you shoot in "M." When you shoot in any other mode the GH2 ignores the constant setting and gives you what it thinks it the correct exposure. Good to know. Now I can walk around an use manual exposure and when I bring the camera to my eye, with my favorite shutter speed already set I can quickly fine tune with the aperture ring (or vice versa). The Pen F 60mm 1.5 has a lot of throw between f-stops and you can actually make adjustments in tiny increments and see them with feedback in the EVF. Perfect. And once you have the settings figured out you don't have to change anything until you shoot under different light.
Next up is the manual focusing routine. Since my adapter rings don't give me a correct infinity focus with Pen lenses I generally want to zoom in and look at the focus integrity before I shoot. I'll skip this step and squint a lot if the action is moving quickly but, in most situations like the chairs and door above, the subject isn't moving so fast that I don't have time to double check exact focus. With the camera at my eye I put the little dial that controls shutter speed and aperture. It sits on the top right of the back of the camera. You can push it straight in and it will increase the live view magnification to 8X, which is perfect for fine focusing a fast, moderate telephoto lens. One quick, slight touch on the shutter button and you're back to full frame in the EVF. Couldn't be easier and it's quicker to do than to read.
GH2 and Olympus Pen F 60mm 1.5 @ f2
My goal on today's walk was to dial in and learn the focus technique and the exposure technique forward and backward until I could do it without thinking. I worked hard on it and I think, in another few weeks, I'll have it nailed. We've talked here about time in the water so many times that I'm sure you're getting tired of hearing it but....part of good photography is being fluid with the tools in your hands. You can't let ineptitude and lack of practice rob you of opportunity.
I'll have my next practice session on Tues. night at Zach Scott Theatre when we do another dress rehearsal for a play that opens later in the week. Feels like an all m4/3rd's project to me.
While I was downtown I ran into Stephen N. An accomplished photographer. He was so skinny I hardly recognized him. He's been biking all over the place. Love the way I get a little control of DOF with the 60mm. f2.8
minimum focus distance. 60mm 1.5
For some reason I was looking for close up images this afternoon. Here a glass vase I found in a window on Guadelupe St. between 2nd and 3rd. This is as close as the 60mm will focus. I think it's adequate. And the performance is still very good, even close to wide open. And hand held.
The glass vase.
It must have been vase day for Kirk's blog because I kept running into them all over town. This one was in one of the retail shops at the bottom of the Monarch Residence Tower. I like the blue facets.
All manual. All the time. 60mm.
Love the satanic glow from the building that overlooks the Whole Foods HQ. Nice with the sky. WB set at daylight right after sunset. That makes the sky more blue saturated and accentuates the warmer lights on the buildings. You might be able to find noise if you peek "hard" but then I'll just call you a nerd and insist that your can "smooth it out" in post.
It was a wild day downtown from 4-6pm. I saw no fewer than 20 photographers out with bags over their shoulders, monopods gripped in their hands. Appears there was an organized "photo walk" happening. Looked like an engineer's convention to me. Meant in the nicest way possible. Loved seeing people out and shooting and sharing the experience. I hope that means more in the future.
The Panasonic has been officially pressed into service for a real job and it did just fine. In fact, it was easy to use and quick. The raw files were splendid. I lit the entire job with LED panels as well. It's one thing to write about them, it's an entirely different thing to put their money where your word processor is... The proof is in the pudding. Or on the web galleries.
If you don't like reading about Olympus and Panasonic stuff, don't despair. I'm sure some other shiny object will capture my attention, sooner or later....
note: I am now a member of 500px. My address is: http://500px.com/kirktuck
It would feel more like home if you would follow me there. Thanks. Lots of fun.
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