John Classen Photography | The Blog

How does your photography reflect your vision?

2010-11-24T10:39:00.001-06:00

It's been a while since I last added to my supposedly weekly blog, and I must apologize for my tardiness. My life, it seems, as resembled more of a roller-coaster these past couple of months, than a growing, dynamic journey where I can see where I've been, where I've come from and have an idea of where I'm going to. I've been questioning the meaning and purpose of my life and of course, the moment you start comparing yourself to friends, it's not long before you nose-dive into the muck and mire of depression.

My life may not be headlined in National Geographic images or coffee table books, but I food on my table, friends who I value and treasure, 3 incredible children who I'm proud of, a 78-year old mother who keeps me in her prayers (thanks Mom!) on-again/off-again siblings who I hear from occasionally, and given the distance we live from one another, that falls into the category of miracles.

This past week I got an email giving me advance notice about another E-book that photographer and author David DuChemin was releasing. This one is called, The Vision Driven Photographer, Notes on Discovering & Refining Your Vision.

While I love Dave's body of work, his international experiences, what I value most is his from-the-heart writing. In many ways, it's almost as though he and I are sitting down having a drink in his or my living room as he talks about how I can get in touch with my inner self again instead of moping about just how pitiful life is. In other words, this E-book (can be downloaded HERE) is food for the soul.

Dave says that vision matters because

...it is the place we begin, and the road we travel, on the way to our goal - creating compelling photographs that express something we've no other means of expression but through the frame...Learning to discover, and then express, our vision will make better photographs through a more fulfilling creative process.

He establishes the difference between vision, style and technique before giving us concrete examples, suggestions and exercises that will help to tap into or develop our vision. What I find most interesting about this E-book is that while it speaks directly to the photographer, it applies just as well to the watercolour artist as it does to the animator as it does to someone struggling in their marriage. Even though quoted out of context, the words from the Old Testament poet, "Where there is no vision, the people perish..." (Proverbs 29:18a), remain valid.

I could highly encourage you to purchase and download a copy from of this E-book from pixelatedimage.com and read it at your leisure. It is a $5 investment that you won't regret making. Furthermore, promotional code DRIVEN4 when you checkout, you can have the PDF version of The Vision Driven Photographer for only $4 OR use the code DRIVEN20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes start at 1:00am PST, November 24th, 2010 and expire at 11:59pm PST November 28th, 2010.

One final note, some of you know that I am leading an 11-day safari to Botswana next June. Yesterday I got notice that one seat is now available. If you are interested, or know anyone who is, please contact me. The cost, without airfare to Johannesburg, is close to $3000, a steal especially when everything is included. You will have two professional photographers, one of which is also a wildlife expert, on board to help you master your camera and capture incredible images.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Could we have a few more photographers please!?

2010-09-28T08:21:00.006-05:00

Today's blog post is a repost of Zack Arias' blog post dated September 22, 2010. Zack knows first hand what it's like to start as a photographer, lose it and then come back a 2nd time and finally make it big! He's a hero. At least, he's my hero. Links to his blog can be found at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

Everyone wants to be a photographer these days.

Let me warn you now that this blog post is currently in it’s third state of revisions. It’s a real rambler. If you’re up for it, I’m up for it. More after the jump.

If you hang out on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and the like enough you can “stumble upon” some trends without even trying to. Lately I have seen a number of articles flying around about the over saturation of the photography industry, the unsustainability of the microstock market, and the pros and cons of working for “free”. The “abuse” we photographers receive at the hands of our clients and totally absurd Craig’s List postings of people wanting work for free or photographers giving away the farm for nothing.

Here are a few of the articles that most people are talking about these days.

Photo business guru John Harrington over at Black Star Rising talking about the 12 excuses for shooting for free. This article is the one that got me thinking about doing this blog post.
Don Giannatti (Wizwow) has this article on shooting for free, and this article on getting experience. Great reads here.
David Hobby (Strobist) about working for free. Another must read.
Rob Haggart (A Photo Editor) about the unsustainability of the micro stock industry. Canary in the coal mine?

Let’s start with the “over saturated” market premise.

I, Zack Arias, am part of the over saturated market. I am one of the many who are filling the waters of this industry. Every job I take is a job off of the table of another photographer. I am a working photographer in large part due to the prevalence of affordable DSLRs, the expense of film and development being removed from my up front overhead, and the Internet.

I’ll be so bold to say that if you have entered this industry in the last ten years then you too are part of the over saturation equation. If you are thinking about becoming a pro photographer, whether part time or full time, then you are over saturating the market as well. I would say the “standard saturation” photographers are the ones who have been in the game, full time, without gaps, for more than ten years.

Let’s break this thing down.

In the days of Kodachrome and dinosaurs there were some pretty set rules of engagement and paths of entrance into the photography industry. You usually started by going to photography school or you started working in a lab. You had to get your feet wet somewhere and school and photo labs were a good place to get started. Once you were ready to move forward you started assisting working photographers. Many times you would have done this for free. I have assisted and interned for free many times and I have met countless photographers who started by schlepping bags and fetching coffee for nothing or next to nothing in pay. It’s what you did. It’s how you got to see how a “real” photographer worked. It was called… get this… “paying your dues.”

These days those paths aren’t so clearly defined. You can go to school via blogs, workshops, YouTube, and DVD’s. You can upload pictures to Flickr and suddenly get a message from an art director wanting you to shoot a job. You can be a kid from Canada, travel the world, shoot some bands and end up shooting campaigns for a company you aren’t even old enough to buy their product. You can be inspired by your own wedding photographer, buy a camera, a fast lens, and rise to the top of your zip code within a year. You can go to Wal-Mart, buy a cheap DSLR, shoot your friends and family, shoot their friends and families, put a blog together, and start a business. There are so many easy entry points into the market now. There is an abundance of inexpensive cameras, free learning portals, and free advertising routes that allows just about anyone with a camera to get out there and make a little or a lot of money with it.

The worst part about all of this is you don’t even have to be all that good of a photographer to get into the game. That really is the worst part about it all but hang out at enough photography water coolers and you’ll hear stories from “back in the day” about the same damn things. Being a crappy photographer with a profitable business is nothing new. There were just more up front costs to deal with back then. Now it’s just easier to be a crappy sucksessful photographer. Add insult to injury… You can be a fairly mediocre photographer these days and have a workshop teaching others how to be just as mediocre as you are. Meh. Whatever. It is what it is.

Add to all of this the deteriorating morale in the corporate workplace, the need of many to make an extra $100 here and there, unemployment, the recession, blah blah blah, and the fact that a lot of people find it a whole lot cooler to say “I’m a photographer” at social gatherings instead of saying “I’m a systems analyst at a health care company.” Bring this all together into the perfect shit storm of an industry filled to the gills with Joe and Jane Photographers trying to do something cool with their lives AND make some money doing it. I mean, Quicken and Quickbooks didn’t really over saturate the accounting market did it? Maybe I’m wrong.

I’m right here part of it all. I’m part of the over saturated market. You’re part of the over saturated market. Don’t bitch and moan and complain about it because you’re in it with the rest of us.

What do we do with that information? Here we all are. Up to our necks in each other. We watch ten leave because they can’t take the pressure and twenty more take their place. It all gets just a little tighter around here. The last thing in the world you need to do is complain about the situation… unless of course, you’ve been at this for twenty or more years. In that case, my apologies to you. I know you’re feeling the pressure of all of us new kids in the pool but here we are and it’s the only pool in town for us. Complaining about us isn’t making us leave and don’t think for a second that I didn’t just notice the water around me get a lot warmer.

Blah blah blah. Metaphor upon metaphor.

So it’s competitive. Guess what? Photography has always been competitive. I don’t know of any other time in this industry when it wasn’t competitive. The nice thing about the industry these days is it seems that most of us are now open to share our experiences with others. Gone are the days of everyone playing with their cards close to their chests. If you are still trying to stay in this industry with that sort of attitude your days are numbered. It’s a real hippy love fest around here these days and we young punk kids ain’t got no time for your old ways of doing things.

Us young punk kids actually really need you to stick around. We need the long established pros to help us out. I know you want us out of your pool but that isn’t happening any time soon. The better you can adapt the better you can survive. Part of adapting is now requiring you to kind of be a life guard even though you’d probably just be as happy to watch us all drown.

So. Yeah. Over saturated. Your attitude should shift from “This sucks.” to “So what?”. Big Deal. More at the party dude!

How can I run a business will all these $500 wedding photographers in my town?

That’s the next thing we are going to look at. I’ll let you in on this… I’m all for $500 wedding photographers. For many different and sometimes conflicting reasons. Then we’ll look at the micro stock situation. Is it the canary in the coal mine? Then let’s have a conversation about what it all means at the end of the day and will the industry adjust and what will that look like?

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming
So you better run*

*I actually like to listen to the song above as “The dark days are over” and the horses coming aren’t here for destruction.
Cheers,
Zack
------------

Zack Arias is a music photographer based in Atlanta, GA. You can follow his blog at www.zarias.com

September Wallpaper

2010-09-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

September is here in all it's glory and even though Labor Day has come and gone, I wanted to upload a new monthly feature, viz. desktop wallpapers. Each image will have a calendar at the bottom left or right every month.

This month's image is a scene photographed in the Kruger Park, South Africa. In spite of the bush that is filled with all sorts of wild animals, and river in which crocodiles lurk, the image highlights the loneliness and isolation that you feel when you are so far away from the hustle and bustle of the city.

2560 × 1600

1280 × 853

Sometimes it is so quiet, that your ears hurt. Of course, the night sky is something to behold!

I am leading a safari to Botswana and Zambia in June 2011, and am opening registration for the next Safari. I had thought the next trip could be a tour to Nambia and the Kalahari with their stark landscapes before returning back to Botswana in 2012. Please let me know if you have any interest.

Enjoy the images, and please let me know your thoughts.

A Traditional Treat: South African Crunchies

2010-09-04T09:16:00.001-05:00

As some of my readers know, I love cooking, and from time to time, I miss eating traditional South African foods, things like bobotjie, koeksusters, rusks, boerewors etc. and today I thought I would share a wonderful crunchie recipe that I have used. It's easy to make and requires no baking skills, except the ability to measure and follow a recipe.

Think of today's post as a sweet treat, thanks to my readers for following me. If you find this recipe on the web, please leave a comment. Measurements are metric.

Traditional South African Crunchies

Combine the following dry ingredients together:
2 cups (250 ml) cake (all purpose) flour
2 cups finely dessicated non-sweetened coconut
2 cups slow cooking rolled oats
1.5 cups of white sugar

Melt:
300-350 g of butter
1 heaped tablespoon of Lyle's golden syrup

When melted, add:

1.5 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) dissolved in 1 tablespoon of boiling water.
Add this to the melted butter/syrup mixture.

Stir vigorously, but be careful as the mixture will froth!

Mix the dry ingredients in and let it stand for about 10 minutes.

Press the mixture into a greased oven tray (I use a baking spray)

Bake at 220 deg C (428 deg F) for approximately 30 mins or until a deep golden brown.

Remove from oven, cut into squares while still warm and allow to cool in the baking tray before using a lifter and allowing to cool completely out of the tray,

Store in a tight container.

I am about to bake my own and if I remember will put up a photograph of what they look like!

Enjoy.

Photographing an Artist

2010-08-26T16:24:00.001-05:00

Artists are a unique breed of person because we are passionate about our work and the way we see the world. We will stand up for each other, but will also "move" around each like two novice dancers who have no idea who is supposed to lead, or who is supposed to follow because you're afraid to step on toes and hurt someone else's feelings.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph a friend and fellow artist, Kobi Baker who is based in Houston, Texas. I've known Kobi for almost 5 years, and while I have photographed him in a variety of styles and settings, our latest project was the most exciting, because it was radically different from what either of us had done in the past. The goal was create an image that would describe Kobi without using words, an image that would show the artist at work.

We threw a few ideas around, but one in particular stuck. Kobi would create an acrylic painting, and I would photograph the artist and his work together. The idea seemed innocuous enough. A couple of months had gone by when Kobi sent me a text saying the painting was finished and asking when the shoot was scheduled for! Needless to say I was stumped. The problem wasn't so much the "when", as the "where"! I was to photograph Kobi in front of his art while a 3rd person poured paint over him. I had no idea of a location that had tall ceilings, had a floor that we could potentially knock a can of paint onto, and was big enough to set up lights in such a way that it didn't look the image didn't end up looking as though it had been photographed in a cave. The MFAH came to mind, but I immediately discounted that idea.

"Untitled"

I contacted a couple of Houston artists and art organizations without success. Some people didn't even bother returning my phone calls. The Houston Art Alliance suggested that I place an ad on a bulletin board that many artists frequented, but while people read they ad, not a single person responded. As days turned into weeks, I realized that finding the right location, at the right price, was going to be a challenge and then I remembered that my fellow artist and colleague David Ayl has a studio located not far from downtown Houston. I shot him an email explaining what I wanted to do and within a day got his return email saying that I was more than welcome to use his place. The only problem was that while his studio didn't have a fully functioning shower, it did have a tub and shower head that Kobi could use to rinse off the paint.

With the location selected, all that remained was to set two dates: one to set up, and the other for the shoot. I packed my FJ Cruiser with all sorts of photo gear and included some heavy duty plastic bags and tape so we could protect the floor from the paint and met Kobi and David at the studio.

One thing I have omitted in my description of David's studio is that it doesn't have air conditioning. The humidity and heat in Houston is almost unbearable at this time of year, I knew that was going to be a hot job. As we unloaded my vehicle, the sweat poured from our bodies like water over the edge of Niagara Falls. We moved David's tables out of the way, cut open plastic bags and taped them to the floor.

Next we set up the lights, set up light modifiers and I took approximate measurements and translated those to use with my Canon 5D and 70-200 Mk II lens. Why the 70-200 lens? The longer the lens, the more it compresses the foreground with the background. While I wanted Kobi to stand in front of the painting, I didn't want it to be covered with falling paint, but wanted the image to appear as though there was very little distance between the subject and the art.

Artist and Art

The shoot was scheduled for 10 AM the next morning. This was tricky. After all, once the "operation" started, there was no stopping or going back. We had one go to make this a successful shoot.

I arrived at the studio and David was waiting for us. Kobi had brought a friend along who volunteered to climb up a ladder and to pour the paint over him. After a few more adjustments to the changing light, we were ready to go. Kobi knows how to respond to a camera and as I pressed the shutter, the dance began: lights, paint, movement, light, shutter, stop, wipe face, lens blur, shutter, light, more paint, check light, more paint... Before we knew it, the last bottle of paint was emptied and the last flash went off, but then Kobi had an idea...

The Pour Begins!

The Finished Product

...could I take a photo of him outside? OUTSIDE? Why? As we emerged into the hot Houston sunlight, me with my camera in hand and Kobi covered in paint, a Houston Police car cruised by.

Posing Outside

The officer probably just shook his head and thought obscene thoughts to himself.In the meanwhile, the paint was starting to dry. We ran the water for the bath that David had cleaned out and laughed as Kobi tried to wash paint off. That was a sight to behold after which we packed up all my equipment, loaded my car and I headed back to the studio to process the images.

All in all, a great day and a great experience, with some incredible photographs in hand, and special thanks to Kobi and David for an fun time.

On Your Own? Think Again!

2010-08-05T12:34:00.004-05:00

It's easy to think that we are sometimes that only person who has a certain world view or is struggling to define concepts, or battling to make ends meet in this rather lack-lustre economy. Yes, you can talk to friends and family about your life and the struggles you have on a daily basis, the disagreements you have with your bank or credit card company, but there is nothing quite like connecting with colleagues who are in the same boat as you are.

A couple of weeks ago I booked a flight up to Omaha, Nebraska on the urging of Ann Monteith an incredible photographer and past president of PPA to attend a workshop hosted in the town of Norfolk, Nebraska. I wasn't sure what to expect at the workshop. I knew that I would have to be bullied and glared at by cold-hearted security personnel with room temperature IQs at the airports, have to squeeze into aeroplane seats designed to fit 5-year olds and endure the two hour flight to Omaha on teeny packet of pretzels with the possibility that some 3-month old kid would be screaming his/her lungs out the entire journey. While the latter didn't happen, the plane was delayed for over an hour. I wonder if this is a sign of things to come with the merger of United and Continental?

I arrived at Omaha, picked up my car rental (a PT cruiser which handles the way it was designed - awkwardly) and drove into the green hills of Nebraska carpeted with fields of green corn. After a 2 hour journey, I found the hotel, checked in, rushed down for the "Welcome" cocktail hour (the older I get, the more cocktail hours I need!) and introduced myself to a few stragglers and made out way to the restaurant for dinner. What a treat. At table I sat with Bruce and Josh Hudson, a father and son team at Hudson Portrait Design. What an incredible team they make and they set me on fire with their stories of hurdles they had to overcome and tales success. This was a sign of things to come. For two days, I "workshopped" and networked with 35 other photographers who insisted that even though the economic climate sucks, failure in business is not an option. After all, what else can a photographer do? Work for some cold-hearted jack-ass boss whose ongoing mood swings need to be controlled with bi-polar medication? I think not!

The energy was intense. The workshops helped us design our goals, put systems in place for the next two quarters, overcome issues, tweak some ideas and plan for success. The evening were spent sharing our stories around a glass of wine, beer or scotch. The third day of activities was tightly scheduled as we met with graphic designers, web designers and marketing specialists back to back and who helped translate our ideas and dreams into marketing reality. At 5 PM we parted and I headed back to Omaha, NE and checked into a Holiday Inn (thanks to Priceline.com) at a good price.

I spent the Thursday morning relaxing over a late breakfast and then made my way to the airport. I was so anxious to get home, that I boarded the wrong plane! How was I supposed to know that the plane I was seated on was going to La Guardia, NY instead of Houston, TX? I mean, there I was comfortably seated in my teeny aisle seat, and the doors were about to close but one person had a ticket but because some people had switched seats, he had no place to sit. The gate official came up front and made an announcement for me to come to the front of the plane with all my belongings. What? Why was I being kicked off? I went up front without my stuff, and asked what was going on. The gate official asked if I had all my belongings with me. Of course I didnt! I wanted to know what was going on before they kicked me off. That's when I learnt that I was on the wrong flight. Ooops! I was a little flushed and apologized profusely. The gate official said it was their fault because they should've caught it. I exited the plane with my bags and ensconced in the waiting area once again waiting for the correct flight! Anyway, after a dull flight with well-behaved passengers, I was glad to get back to Houston.

It's easy for us to sometimes wallow in the fact that we're on our own and to underscore our aloneness by taking online classes or read books and manuals in isolation. This experience taught me how important it is to get out there, to mix with others, to share ideas, to listen to others and to surround yourself with people who know the taste of success and are happy to help you in your quest for success. The poet John Donne put it this way in his Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind...

Going on Safari to Africa

2010-07-08T07:56:00.000-05:00

There are many many photographers who call themselves "professional". Some are good, some are average and many are just bad. That's a pretty sweeping statement to make and I wont' be surprised if I get more than just a few comments about that. But stop and think about it. Just because you charge to take photographs doesn't make you a "professional".

A professional that I admire is former seminarian and Canadian, David DuChemin, because he is a man who, from my perspective at least, "there is no guile" (no pun intended in that Scriptural reference). Dave is honest and upfront and wants to get anyone interested in photography shooting with the equipment they have and no wishing they could take great photos because they don't have the latest and greatest gizmos on the market.

I'm singing Dave's praises because this week he released another monograph in a series called "The Print & The Process" called SAFARI. The title was like nectar to a honey bee because in less than a year (June 2011) Jamie Thom and I will be leading a group of 7 people on safari to Botswana and Zambia. Why seven? Well, because I am number 8 and Jamie is number 9. Jamie is a top flight photographer and skilled instructor who lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. He knows the African bush backwards and has won many awards for his photography. I grew up in South Africa and want others to grow to love Africa and it's heritage the way I do and what better way to make that happen by taking friends and their friends on safari. By the way, only THREE (3) seats remain, so if you are interested in going to Africa for less than $5000 (including airfare), then you need to contact me today!

This 62-page eBook, available for the ridiculously low price of $5.00 and whether you photograph your dog, cat, children, animals at the zoo or in the wild, I recommend you buy it. Dave discusses lessons he learned, (one being the importance of slowing down, because Africa moves at a different pace!), what gear he used and the Adobe Lightroom settings he created for his prints. If you buy this eBook before July 11, you can obtain it for $4.00 (that's cheaper than a meal at Mickey Ds) by clicking this link and using the promotional code SAFARI4 when you check out. (Oh, btw, Dave also puts out a great desktop wallpapers you can use on your computer every month! For 1280×853 click here and for 2560x1600 click here.)

What is my itinerary?

19th June, 2011
Overnight in hotel in Johannesburg. Still making arrangements at a 3-star or better hotel close to the airport.

20th June, 2011
Depart Oliver Tambo Airport, Johannesburg, South Africa
Arrive Maun, Botswana
Air Botswana

Overnight in hotel in Maun. Currently exploring opportunities. Hotels/Lodges range from simple B&B to USD500 a night all inclusive. More details to follow.

21st - 22nd June, 2011
Okavango Delta
Our adventure will take us in a north-westerly direction from Maun to the western side of the Okavango Delta, a special corner of paradise. Once we have reached the edge of the Delta, we will transfer our equipment to motorboats and cruise along the narrow papyrus-lined channels enjoying the exquisite birdlife of the region as well as the stunning landscape. Deeper in the Delta we will meet the local polers with their mokoro, a traditional dugout canoe, and enjoy a tranquil transfer to an island. We will spend two days exploring this beautiful area on mokoro excursions and taking guided walks on the islands and floodplains of the Okavango.
(Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner provided)

23rd June, 2011
Okavango Delta
Inspired by the beauty of the Okavango, we will retrace your route to Maun. We will have the option of taking a scenic flight over the Delta to return to Maun (1hr scenic flight is EUR 100 per person, with a minimum of 3 guests to guarantee the flight). This magical experience provides another perspective of the Okavango Delta’s unique water system and if you choose to take the flight, you will enjoy a leisurely afternoon in the Delta campsite writing postcards or reading a book while you wait for your afternoon flight. Your guide will travel back to Maun with the vehicle to resupply for the next stage of your adventure. After collecting you at the airport, we will shop for drinks and then spend the night at a campsite just outside Maun with permanent ablution facilities. (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner provided.)

24th - 26th June, 2011
Moremi Game Reserve
From Maun we will drive through to Moremi Game Reserve, one of the best wilderness areas of Botswana which covers swamp and dry areas. The next three days will be spent searching for the wide variety of wildlife and birds that this area is renowned for, while absorbing the sounds and beauty of this region. Game drives in the early morning as the sun rises and in the late afternoon as the sun sets will be the norm. After our morning game drive, we will return to camp for lunch and a siesta.
(Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner provided)

27th - 29th June, 2011
Chobe National Park
The diverse and striking landscape of Chobe National Park, is our next destination. As you continue your search for wildlife, we will traverse the drier region of Savuti where bull elephants dot the plains. We will then head northwards to the Chobe River where our game drives will meander along the banks of the river and venture further into the park.
(Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner provided)

30th June - 1st July, 2011
After a morning game drive you will cross the Zambezi River by ferry and then drive to Livingstone on the Zambian side of the Victoria Falls (Visa required), where you will spend the night at a comfortable lodge. In the afternoon there will be time to visit the thunderous Victoria Falls and shop for curios. Dinner will be at your own expense at the lodge. The safari officially ends at 10 AM on 1st July, 2011.

1st July, 2011
Depart Livingstone, Zambia
Arrive Oliver Tambo Airport, South Africa
British Airways

1st July, 2011
Overnight in hotel in Johannesburg and transit on your own to a local or international destination with memories of an incredible experience you cannot wait to share.

Just think about it! You can swelter away in next year's summer heat, or you can call me today at 713.581.0656 and be part of the trip that you will remember and reminisce about for the rest of your life.

Here is your To-do list:
1. Call John at 713.581.0656 to get more information on the Safari to Botswana and Zambia next July.
2. Download Dave's eBook.

That's it for another week. Peace, and happy shooting.

Expanding your network

2010-07-02T11:33:00.000-05:00

When most people hear the phrase, "Expanding your network", many think of friending people on Facebook. I have come to the conclusion that one's network is far wider and far more powerful than a list of names on Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn.

This past Monday, I had to take Charley, my brindle-coloured French Standard Poodle, to see the vet. The only times that one visits medical/veterinary people is if you or your pet is sick or you need a refill on a prescription and the doctor/vet needs to re-evaluate your condition before letting you pop more pills.

I took Charley in because he constantly shook his head as if something was stuck in his ear. I looked inside, didn't see anything, but certainly smelled the tell-tale odour of an ear infection. I arrived at the vet around 10 AM, and the place was packed out with dogs (and cats) of all shapes, sizes and breeds. Some were pretty aggressive and others were just the cutest things you can imagine. I typically, tend to keep to myself, not wanting to intrude into others' space, but the marketing class I attended this past weekend taught me that every encounter with another person is an opportunity not only to make friends, but to expand your network and to grow your business. While this isn't a new concept to me, it is one that decided to embrace with a certain amount of fear and trepidation. I can work a crowd of 30+ people without batting an eyelid, but chatting and becoming friends with random strangers, is another matter entirely.

The woman to my right had a sweet dog who had been neutered the week before, but his stitches had come out. The poor thing had a helmet around it's head that was meant to prevent it from getting to the stitches, but apparently it hadn't worked. I made small talk with the dog's owner, but she clearly didn't want to talk and her body language demonstrated it. You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink. A woman with the cutest baby came in with her Mom and dog and sat down next to me and she started chatting almost immediately. We totally hit it off. I learned that her husband is an opera singer who loves singing Wagner (he needs headshots), their baby was a mere 2 months old (needs beautiful photographs) and they want to have a family portrait taken.

I had my iPhone with me and showed her a few photos that I keep on there and she loved them, but it would've been better if I had a bigger screen like my iPad. Consequently, I now carry business cards and my iPad wherever I go. I gave her a card and invited her to contact me (need to be more pro-active and get her information so that "I" can contact the other party) right as Charley's name was called to see the vet.

What did I learn? Just because one person says "no" doesn't mean that everyone says "no". People have so many things going on in their heads, at work and at home that they may not be in the right place to be receptive. Consequently, don't sweat the small stuff and move on. Building your network isn't "friending" someone, but it is "being a friend" to another person and genuinely showing interest in their lives. If an opportunity comes to talk about what you have to offer, that's great, but if not, that is also fine because we shared our humanity together.

On Father's Day

2010-06-20T13:39:00.000-05:00

My father has been gone for almost 19 years after dying of a heart attack while on the road from Pretoria to Kuruman, both in South Africa, doing what he loved most, delivering cars to a client. He was a man who could sell anything but cars were his passion. While he was so filled with passion for work, his boat, his dogs and his work (have I already mentioned his love for his work?), a few images come to mind when I think of him.

I remember the times my grandmother would visit and beg my Mom and Dad to play duets (Mom on the piano and Dad on the violin), the Christmas I got a spinning top as gift and Dad was playing with it, but the foot bounced and went into his pinkie (it screwed up his violin playing), him singing in my Mom's choir at Berea Methodist Church, standing on his shoulders in the pool, going body surfing with him at Orient and Nahoon beaches in East London, South Africa and learning how to water ski. The image that comes to mind most readily however is a photograph from grandmother took of us after church one Sunday.

My only regret is that I never knew the man who was my father. I want to follow in his footsteps. I wanted him to be proud of me. I wanted to hear him say, "Well done. I'm proud of you". Those words never came from his mouth. While today is a bitter-sweet day for me, I'm thankful for the memories and the good times I had with him and thankful to be a father and to be able to tell my children how much I love them, how important they are to me, how proud I am of them, where they are in their lives, and are the inspiration that propels me to life a rich, full and happy life.

Happy Father's Day Dad wherever you are, and thanks to my children Sean, Dane and Shirley-Anne for giving me the opportunity to be a father and to learn first hand just how hard it can be at times, to learn what it means not only to say "I forgive you", but "I'm sorry, please forgive me." I love you all.

Lighting with Zack Arias

2010-06-14T09:15:00.029-05:00

Wow, what a weekend I've had! I've had so much information that it almost feels as though I've been run over by a truck. At the same time, I have gained so much knowledge that I can't wait to share it with you.

Permission to use the image above given by (c) Wilfredo Valle.

In a previous blog I mentioned that the folks at CreativeLive are helping people all over the world improve their photography skills at no cost! Yup. You heard right. All you need is a decent internet connection and a desire to learn and you have a front seat from some of the best in the world such as David DuChemin, Zack Arias, Chase Jarvis, John Greengo and many more.

This past weekend, Zack Arias with a team of over 30 people, taught lighting for 3 days, starting Friday and going through to Sunday. Talk about a marathon session! He pulled out almost every piece of equipment that anyone could ever desire to own or want to use and demonstrated how it different from other types of lighting that he used. All these images and more will be posted up on his blog (www.zarias.com) in the coming weeks.

Permission to use the image above given by (c) Zack Arias.

There is no way that I can ever begin to summarize what Zack taught, but I managed to find a tentative schedule of topics for the weekend on his blog:

Friday

My personal philosophy of having a studio space
Considerations for getting a space of your own or turning a space you have into a studio space.
The basics of exposure when using flash in studio. We will be using hotshoe flashes and strobes.
Working with multiple lights and working with different lighting ratios
Using a light meter and how to figure it out on the fly without a meter
Overview of the modifiers we will be using over the weekend. Those include: Straight flash, Umbrellas, Softboxes, Octabanks, Beauty dish, Ring flash, Grids, Flags/Silks/Reflectors, DIY modifiers
Q&A

Saturday

The many uses of white seamless. I’ll be walking you through the entire process of shooting on a white seamless and getting the most out of one simple background
Post production on the white seamless
Q&A
(lunch break somewhere between 1pm and 2pm.)
Building a set. It will already be in place. I’ll just talk about the basic modular set pieces that went into making it.
Grip equipment. How to put stuff together and do stuff with that stuff.
Slowly moving away from the seamless and onto other background choices. IE: Fabric/Walls/Sets
Working with subjects. Interaction and Posing. (I’ve had a lot of questions about this so I’m spending a lot of time on it.)
Musicians. Duo and Trio. Group shots plus individuals. White seamless and other backgrounds + a simple set.
Q&A

Sunday

Quick recap of previous day and previous information about exposure. Not going to spend a lot of time on this but just a quick recap for those just joining.
If I don’t cover the grip equipment on Saturday I’ll most likely do that Sunday morning.
Art Direction! I will be pulling people from the live audience and giving them assignments to see what problems they run into and guide them through the process.
More shooting. Different modifiers. Improv.
Q&A
(lunch break somewhere between 1pm and 2pm.)
Working with a four piece band.
Individuals and group shot.
More shooting. Whatever we decide to do making sure I’ve used all the modifiers from the list above.
Q&A

The good news is that YOU can (actually, you NEED to) buy this marathon lighting class from CreativeLive. It's a mere $129 for 25+ hours of a lighting workshop. So, instead of buying crappy equipment that you're going to have to replace in a 6 months, or struggling to get the "look" you wanted and then beating yourself up cuz your lighting sucks, just do yourself a favour and buy the download. It will be money well spent! While you're at it, sign up to get notified of upcoming classes.

Thanks to Zack for an incredible weekend and for permission to use one of his images (the model on set with foot on apple box) in this blog. My thanks also go to Wilfredo Valle (www.wilfredovalle.com) who submitted a video entry and was able to attend the entire weekend at no cost (I hate the word free as it reminds me of a used car salesman!) and who has also given me permission to his image of Zack teaching the class.

That's it for another week! Have a great week.

John

Photographing Events

2010-06-05T08:17:00.022-05:00

Photographing events can either be a very rewarding or a very tedious experience, but it is always tiring. Fortunately, a recent experience I had photographing the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) annual gala in Houston, Texas left me inspired and exhilarated.

Pre-event organization is key to a successful event. Contracts must be signed, advertising submitted, 2nd shooter (as well as a just-in-case-backup) lined up, batteries charged, lenses cleaned and compact flash cards formatted. The HRC event included well-known celebrities, including Tabatha Coffey, and I was asked to shoot not just the event, but to provide a station where portraits could be taken, which meant I needed to reserve studio lighting and make sure I had sufficient continuous 12-foot paper on the roll to use as a backdrop.

I picked up my friend, and 2nd shooter Ari, drove to the hotel and started unloading the vehicle. I had two 4’x8’ pieces of melamine board that had to carried up to the 4th floor, because they were too big to fit into the elevator.

HRC had provided a white 10‘x12’ backdrop with their logo on, and I set up the continuous paper behind the backdrop, pulled it down and under the HRC background, placed the melamine boards where I wanted people to stand (so no one would walk on and dirty or damage the white paper) and placed the lights. My idea was to light the background with 2 flash heads placed on either side of the paper and using barn doors to direct onto the background and limit the light. People would be lit using 2 umbrellas, each one facing to the opposite corner, placed slightly above so as to avoid falling shadows. I used a flash meter to make flash output to accommodate f/11 stop to minimize depth of field using ISO 200 at 1/200 sec.

I made a few adjustments to the flash heads, and then began to set up the lights that would blend the continuous paper and 10‘x12’ background only to discover that one of the two flash head extensions was missing. I could still work with one light, but the fall-off would be different to what I had envisioned. I placed the light, made sure the power pack was out of the way, went to plug in the power chord...well, there wasn’t one! My blood boiled. At this point, there was little value in pointing fingers. There was work to be done. Blame however, lay in 2 directions. While the equipment rental company hadn't packed full kits, I hadn’t checked the equipment. After all, they had never let me down in the past. Needless to say, I won't make that mistake a second time!

The shoot went off very well, except for the part where someone spilt a glass of red wine on the paper. Hotel personnel mopped up the spill quickly, but it left a huge stain which had to be removed by cloning in Photoshop, and which added at least 3 hours to the time i spent later processing the images. In retrospect, I should’ve stopped what I was doing, cut the paper, rolled out another 9 feet, smiled and restarted taking portraits.

Notwithstanding the drama, people loved having their portraits taken and the event was a huge success and I worked through the night to process the photographs. The wine-spoiled background paper meant I had a lot of post-processing. The photos were finally published to the site 3 hours later than anticipated, but the ended up costing me sales.

So, what did I learn?

Check and test all equipment prior to the shoot.
Rope off access to the set, allowing only one entrance. This will minimize accidents and ensure people do not walk on the paper thus reducing time that would be spent in post.
Ask organizers to place a table at the entrance to the set where people can place wine glasses, napkins, plates of food etc.
Have bottled water and napkins available for yourself. I perspire a lot when I shoot, and sweat pouring down your face isn't sexy.
If necessary, hire an assistant to tell you when you need to wipe your face, and to guide people onto the set.
Have plenty of business cards available. I had 300 on hand, and ran out.
If an accident occurs, act decisively. Stop, regroup and restart. It will save you time later on.
Deliver quality photographs on time and as promised.

That’s it for another week. Please leave your comments and/or horror stories.

Black and White Anyone?

2010-05-29T11:36:00.007-05:00

Many people have asked me questions like,"Which is the best camera to get", and my immediate reply is "The one you have in your pocket!" Needless to say, I get looks which suggest they question my sanity and intelligence.

Even a cursory glance at the list of cameras that are available today is staggering. Vendor after vendor offers cameras that seemingly have a never-ending amount of pixels packed into the chip. It's easy to get so caught up in the sales hype, and the draw of owning a bigger, better, faster, smarter, face-recognizing camera that you completely forget about practising your art and developing your eye.

When was the last time that you ignored the reviews on the latest and greatest, and headed outdoors to take photographs of ducks or flowers or statues in the cemetery or even the signs that clutter rail-road crossings?

A photographer is an artist who paints with light. There is no right way or wrong way to take photographs but a good photo is one that is well-composed, breaks a few rules, captures an emotion and grabs your attention. Very few photographer's are able to put down their camera, pull out the digital card, print off the image and be totally satisfied. Just as analog photographers (who used film) had to know the ins and outs of developing, dodging, burning, printing, fixing and mounting their images, so digital photographers must be familiar with their modern day darkroom. It doesn't matter if your darkroom is Photoshop, Phase One, Lightroom, Aperture or Picasa available on Google, whatever you use needs to be mastered.

The last time I went to a book store, I was overwhelmed at the selection of books available on Photoshop. What's more, they start at $20 and go up from there, and are often rehashed versions of an older book.

What to do? A Canadian photographer David duChemin is not only passionate about photography, but capturing gorgeous images without spending a ton of money on equipment or books. Consequently, he has created graphic rich PDFs or eBooks which cost a mere $5 each that guide you in subjects as diverse as the Business of Photography to creating incredible black and white images. These eBooks can be purchased at PixelatedImage.com

The latest is a 51-page Ebook by Andrew Gibson. This is Part 2 called “The Magic of Black and White” and helps you convert your color digital images into spectacular-looking black and white images.

David (and his team) are inspiring, encouraging but most of all have a heart for people who want to have better photographs but struggle on how to achieve the best image. Take a look and see what you think. OF COURSE there’s a special offer:
For the first few days only, if you use the promotional code MAGIC4 when you checkout, you can have the latest Ebook for only $4 OR they can use the code MAGIC20 to get 20% off when they buy 5 or more books from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST June 1, 2010.

A South African photographs baseball

2010-05-11T13:29:00.027-05:00

Two months ago, I was asked to photograph baseball and softball play-offs for The Grind, an online publication that highlights the athletic achievements of students on the west side of Houston in general and Katy ISD sports in particular. Katy is known for consistently helping students achieve success in sports with many of them getting full ride scholarships to universities and some even entering the pro leagues. The focus of The Grind is not to concentrate on the negative, i.e. how a particular student's scoring average is less consistent or less reliable than what it used to be, but it tries to focus on highlighting the successes of the team as a whole.

As some of my readers will know, I know very little about baseball or softball for that matter. I can tell you about soccer (having coached it) as well as the intricacies of rugby and cricket, both of which I played as a schoolboy while attending Selborne College in East London and Jeppe High School for Boys in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am somewhat better versed in American football, because my sons played it while in middle school and the moment I figured out how the game was played, I became the parent that would call the referee out on bad calls, and yes, there were some.

Back to the present. It's a strange feeling to walk up to a baseball game, camera with long lens slung over your shoulder and to know virtually nothing about the game. It would be akin to someone not knowing a thing about "Lost" holding a conversation about the actors, plot etc over drinks! I entered the bullpen, mingled with the players, introduced myself to the coaches who, for the most part, are really decent down-to-earth people. Oh, the prima donnas (Italian for First Ladies) who hold themselves to be above everyone else exist, but not in Katy. I could name names and schools, but that won't help the kids and I refuse to behave in a manner similar to them.

It's a late sun-soaked Texas afternoon, the air sticky with humidity. The bullpen is filled with screaming girls or grunting guys whooping and high-fiving each other and I start shooting at a low ISO, around 200, speed up high to try to capture the ball in mid-flight as the pitcher hurls it towards the batter (is that even a word?) who in turn tries to slug it out of the field. Aperture is about f/5.6 so that I can capture the pitcher or batsman in action. I get lucky, get a few decants shots. Wait, you say. What lens are you using? Canon 70-200 f/2.8 L II, oh and I'm hand-holding it. As the sun goes down and the ballpark lights come on, I have to increase my ISO first up to 800 until at last I am at 1600. More than that and digital noise will become more and more evident in the prints. The problem is that stadium lights just are NOT bright enough, so as it gets darker and darker I have to open the aperture more and more going down to f/2.8. The sky becomes darker, but the digital camera captures the most incredible hues of blue: indigo, blue-black, blue-purple. This has to be my favourite time of day. This is dusk, the magical hour. The game however doesn't stop. Batsmen sprint to 1st base, steal and slide in to second base, make a mad dash for 3rd and head for home plate when they are caught out. As the quality of light continues to diminish rapidly, I am forced to slow down the shutter speed. There is no chance that I can capture the ball in mid-air any longer. It becomes a stripe, a white smudge with a slight arc curving in towards the batsman or ending up in the catcher's gloved hands.

The pace and energy of the game doesn't generally slacken. Occasionally, one team gives up the fight and decide to just play ball. The adrenaline levels fall and weariness sets in. My shoulders, arms and back ache and my eyes struggle to focus. I cannot flag, because there is another game I must shoot before the night is over. Finally, the end comes. Sometimes it's a close call, merely one run apart. Other times it's a whitewash, the losing team getting one run and the winning team scoring 13! The players line up to greet each other following the game, each hammering the side of their opponents' closed-fist as they walk past each other. I capture some final shots of key players and the coach and then head to the next game.

Some will say, hang on. That 70-200mm lens is great, but shooting sports with it? It's like trying to cut a steak using a spoon! You're right. It is not the best lens to use for the job I'm doing. I could use a 1.4x converter and get a little more distance out of it, but I will also lose a stop of light. Another option is that I could buy a bigger lens, something like the Canon Telephoto EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS USM, but that costs around $4500. I tried the new Sigma 50-500mm DG OS HSM APO but the aperture is only f/4.5-6.3. No optimal at all and I got absolutely NO benefit using it in low light. that "mutha" is HEAVY! I was unable to hold it in my hands without shaking like a leaf in the wind. I used a monopod to provide some measure of stability, but the lens just isn't fast enough for night-time sports. Their is simply no way that I can capture a batsman sliding into base at f/6.3 at 1/30 second even if I am panning. The Sigma 50-500mm would be great if you were shooting your dog or kids or birds or wildlife during the day, but as soon as nightfall approaches, don't even think about it.

Now that we are into bi-district playoffs, and heading into games that determine the State Champions, I may have to just suck it up and rent a longer, faster lens from my friend Roger Cicala at LensRentals.com, but they are expensive all the same.

In case you're wondering if I've learned anything about baseball, Doug Johnson, the editor of The Grind, sat me down over a beer and gave me a few pointers. None of his advice helps me understand the Astros. They still suck! Thank goodness for Katy sports!

Online Inspiration

2010-04-25T20:34:00.006-05:00

It's not often that something truly free, (and yes, I do mean absolutely free, gratis, no cost) comes along that I can recommend without reservation. While I have my favourite photographers, I have nothing but praise for the people at Creative Live.

The way it works is this. You sign up at Creative Live (yes, you have to sign up to get their emails because their bulk email provider MailChimp, which is also mine, is ANAL about making sure that you don't spam users by using purchased email lists, or email addresses you randomly collected from cyperspace). Once you have signed up, you are able to tune in to various classes delivered by world-class experts in their field at no cost. If you dig the presentation enough, you can purchase the entire series for a very good price.

What types of programs does Creative Live offer?

Fundamentals of Digital Photography by John Greengo
Photoshop to HTML by Erik Fadiman
Android Java Apps
DSLR Cinema by Vincent Laforet
The Creative Eye by Art Wolfe
Aperture 3
Watercolor 101
and much more to come!

If you're in the mood to check it out, head over to Creative Live's website to see what offerings they have and the times they go "live". You can view the live feed here.

If you're a Twitter fan, follow them @CreativeLive and for the group use #creativeLIVE.

Remember you can follow me on Twitter: @classenj. Also, please recommend my blog to a friend. Later this week more news coming up including some great photographs and backgrounds for your desk/laptops.

Till then,

Adieu.

J.

Frustrated? Uninspired? Feel like a hack?

2010-04-23T08:58:00.005-05:00

There are days when I wonder whether or not I am a photographer, whether anyone cares about my work, whether I care about my work. I wonder why I am uninspired, when the dawn will break and the dark night of doubt will end.

If you have ever felt this way, or perhaps feel this way today, watch this amazing video:

American Heart Association: Heart Ball at Hilton Americas, Houston, TX

2010-02-14T17:09:00.006-06:00

The decor of Hilton Americas in Houston, Texas was augmented by glamorous women dressed in shades of red adorned with glittering jewelry largely accompanied by men dressed in the obligatory traditional black tuxedo as the "Who's Who" of Houston gathered for the annual ball of the American Heart Association.

I was photographing for a friend of mine, Todd Parker who is the owner of STP Images. We were suitably dressed in dark suits, white shirts and ties. The batteries in our cameras and flash heads were charged, digital cards were loaded and freshly cleaned lenses were loaded on our Canon bodies as we entered the hotel lobby. We headed up to the 24th floor where a VIP party was in progress, and immediately set to work taking photos of the event. I was shooting with my Canon 5D and a 24-70mm f/2.8L lens mounted on a bracket. The flash I used was a Speedlite 580EX unit with a diffuser mounted on the bracket above the camera connected to the hot shoe with the OC-E3 Off-Camera Shoe Cord. Not satisfied with the 4 batteries that the 580EX uses to power it, I attached a Canon flash battery pack CP-E4 to the bracket. I now had a total of 12 batteries powering the flash, with another 12 batteries in my suit pocket as backups. I had 3 spare digital cards and started snapping photos.

There are many things that can wrong, but the weak point of the set up is...? I quickly identified two weak areas. The first is that my fixed-arm bracket took incredible photos in landscape view. The photos were well exposed and people I photographed were flattered by what they saw. When I flipped the camera to the right so that it was in portrait mode, the flash head moved with the camera and I ended up with the most dreadful shadows appearing behind the people. Think about it. The flash head was pointed towards their chest/neck area and the shadow was then projected onto the closest wall. Not a pretty sight. The second area that concerned me was point where the off-camera shoe cord attaches to the flash head. Essentially, you have 1/2" of stability, and if you bump up against someone or a table, the whole unit can come crashing to the floor. The glue between the hot foot and the part that connects to the bracket is amazingly weak. I didn't have to deal with this issue, but there was another photographer who had to. I helped him out with some elastic bands I keep on the head of my flash (very ghetto-looking colours too!) but he was able to borrow a spare from someone else.

What did I learn? Keep a spare off-shoe camera cable in your bag and use a camera bracket which allows you to flip the camera from portrait to landscape and back again, while the flash unit remains stationary.

Overall, I was very pleased with the quality of the photographs. You can view them here yourself. Please let me know your thoughts.

Sporadic Posts

2010-02-14T16:43:00.003-06:00

Anyone who reads these occasional posts from time to time knows that postings have been sporadic to rare. This is partly due to the fact that while I love writing, I tend to write detailed epistles rather than brief interesting factoids and observations.

A second reason why my photo blog is a sporadic occurrence is that I was laid off on December 1, 2009 and have been focussed on finding work, sending resumes into great unknown black holes, aka as databases. Formerly, when one applied to a place of employment, they at least had the courtesy to thank you for your time, but that you were under-qualified or in some cases over-qualified. These days, one doesn't even get an automated email saying "Thanks, but no thanks!" Of course, these are the same companies that often insist their workforce is a cohesive unit, where your input is valued and appreciated. If they can't set up their HRIS platforms to send you an automated email when they deselect your name in the database, you can only wonder how they treat their employees!

As far as blog posts go, I will endeavour to write at least one posting a week and more if warranted.

2009 -> 2010

2009-12-26T17:24:00.007-06:00

I don't know about you, but it's hard to comprehend that it's the end of yet another year, and what a year it's been. Before I continue, here's wishing you a merry, joyous and peaceful Christmas. The good Lord knows we can all do with some joy and peace.

Some of the events of this past year such as the Israeli attack on Gaza, collapse of Icelandic banking institutions, North Korea sending off missiles into the blue yonder, Swine Flu, continued free fall of US markets and financial institutions, protests in Iran, Michael Jackson's death, floods, typhoons, snow in Houston....the list goes on, have left almost all of us unscathed by the pain and hurt that is 2009. As one radio commentator put it, Christmas is about hope, hope of the impossible becoming reality. My wish for you is that 2010 will become a year of realized hope for you.

I have updated 3 areas of my website. The company joined Twitter (@classenj) and I have placed a link on the homepage of the website. Two areas of the website have been expanded, viz. Interiors and Portraits.

New and exciting events, software, cameras, lenses etc. keep making their debut, and needless to say, it's almost impossible to keep up with everything. I will continue to share my photographic experiences and journey with you throughout 2010.

Best wishes for a successful and prosperous New Year.

Photographing the Twinkle of Holiday Lights

2009-12-02T16:02:00.009-06:00

With Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, most folks can begin to focus on getting their holidays decorations out of boxes that have been hidden away in storage for the past 11 months and can again begin to decorate their homes, shrubbery, trees etc.

I have seen some pretty spectacular holiday light displays, and cars line up outside the subdivision for what feels like hours so that everyone can ooh and aah at the night time wonders that are Holiday Lights. Someone pulls out a camera, takes a ton of photographs, but inevitably, they are bound to be disappointed with the pictures they took. Either they were so far away, that you can't see much of anything, or else they were so close and the flash went off creating daylight and hiding the beauty of the lights.

How can a person capture the beauty of Holiday lights? Last week I ran across a blog at one of my favourite sites to rent equipment from. Roger Cicala is a super guy, easy to work with and runs a top notch company. I am going to copy his blog here, as well as post a link back to the original article so that you can reference it yourself.

Stop down and use a tripod

OK, you knew it was coming. The most important thing you can get for shooting lights during the Holiday season is a tripod. Yes, I know you have image stabilization on your lens (or in your camera). But if you want the lights to really shine, you’re going to need a tripod. The reason is Light Rule # 1: Stop the aperture way down when shooting lights. If you shoot wide open, say f2.8 or more, the lights show up as glowing little blobs. But if you stop down. – way down, down where diffraction softening would interfere with a sharp daytime shot – you get awesome star points from your lights. Look at the same shot below, taken from f2.8 to f22. Major difference.

The effect is well worthwhile, but by the time the aperture was reduced to f8 (which still didn’t give great stars) the exposure time was almost a second. Way too long for any amount of Image Stabilization to be effective, so a tripod is a necessity if you want pointy-star lights.

BTW – here’s your photography equipment trivia of the day. Did you know you can tell how many aperture blades the lens has by the number of rays on the star? If the lens has an even number of aperture blades, the star will have the same number of rays as the number of aperture blades: 6 blades, the stars will have 6 rays, etc. If there are an odd number of aperture blades, the stars will have twice as many rays as there are blades: 7 blades, the stars have 14 rays. (The reason is that each blade makes two rays, but with an even number of blades two rays overlap at each location, with an odd number they don’t overlap.) Why does this matter? Because some of the lenses famous for their smooth bokeh have 9 aperture blades. The 18 points that result from these when stopped down tend to blur and not be as dramatic.

Dusk, not dark!

You know the ‘golden hour’ that landscape photographers talk about, the time just after dawn when the light is soft and angled and you get the best landscape images? There’s a similar time for shooting lights, the hour right after dusk. During this time there’s still enough light left to allow you to see at least an outline of the house, people or whatever else is being lit, instead of just a pattern of lights.

Fill flash / double exposures

When shooting indoors I go to lengths to avoid flash, especially direct flash. But outdoors its very useful. Especially if you miss dusk and things have gotten dark. A bit of fill flash can show the details of the house, gardens, or even the Christmas tree that would otherwise be lost if you’re exposing just by the lights.

There are several ways to set flash so that you don’t blow out the lights. Many flashes will let you choose a “fill flash ratio” or number of “stops of compensation”. A 4:1 ratio (which is the same as -2 stops of compensation) is usually about right. With a tripod, though, you will get better effects by what is variously called slow sync or dragging the shutter. With this technique you’re basically using a long exposure to get the pretty lights followed by a brief burst of flash to expose the background. The technique varies a bit depending on camera and flash brand, but I generally use it in Aperture Priority mode (to set a high f-stop to make the lights twinkle) and the camera will automatically set the flash for fill-flash function. If there is too much or too little flash, you can correct the next shot with exposure compensation. There are lots of other ways to do it but a half hour of experimenting (along with GASP reading the flash manual) will get you comfortable.

If you don’t want to mess with flash, then shooting two exposures (Ha! You’ll need a tripod again), one exposed for the background the other stopped down to expose just the lights, is an easy solution. You can combine as layers in Photoshop (I usually use the blend-if sliders, but there’s lots of ways to do it).

Swirls and effects

If its pitch dark and you don’t have your tripod (or even if its not pitch dark and you do) Holiday lights are a great time to totally play around. Set your aperture and ISO so the exposure time is a second or two, then move the camera around during the shot, zoom the lens in and out, whatever floats your boat to get some nice abstract patterns. They’re pretty by themselves, but if you put them as a layer in photoshop over a properly exposed image you can do all kinds of fun things using the “blend if” sliders, etc.

Three shots of the same set of lights with different camera movement during 1 to 2 second exposures

Reflections

Especially when shooting entire buildings, things are twice as pretty if you get the lights reflecting from other surfaces. Of course Christmas lights reflecting off a pond or lake is beautiful, but we don’t always have a pond or lake handy. Rain puddles, snowmelt, or ice all make the lights can all provide great reflections. Indoors lights will reflect from mirrors, but at night they’ll also often reflect from windows, glass cabinet fronts, or off of a well polished floor (like the pond, at my house there’s usually not a well-polished floor handy).

White balance for snow!

Most cameras auto fill-in-the-blank functions struggle with snow. Auto exposure and autofocus are not much of a problem when shooting lights because the high contrast lights will lock on autofocus easily and we’re usually setting long exposure times. The Auto white balance is usually useless when there’s a lot of snow, creating blue or sometimes yellow casts. To me the simples solution is shoot everything in RAW and correct it later, but most people set their white balance manually before shooting in snowy conditions. Just setting white balance on a clean, not shadowed patch of snow should do the trick.

Thanks Roger! That was a great tip.

Well folk, that's it for now. I'll keep the posts coming.

Catching up

2009-11-23T21:48:00.005-06:00

It's almost Turkey Day, and no sooner will the post Thanksgiving meal football games have started when Black Friday will have begun. I have already begun to hear stories of retail stores being open on Thanksgiving Day so that they can get in on the on the hype and pressure, not to mention the pre-sales rush.

Lightroom has come out with a new version 3 public beta available from here from Adobe, and many photographers have thrown their weight behind the new "miracle maker" even though it is not the definitive version and many features still need to be unlocked. On One, another software manufacturer that specialises in plug-in software for Adobe Photoshop specifically designed for photographers sent me an email a couple of days ago offering to drop the price by no less than $200 if I bought the package usually worth over $500. I baulked even at the discounted price. The truth is, that everyone, photographers included (specifically photographers!) are hurting during this economy. Gourmet magazine shut its doors with the end of it's November publication, and Modern Bride is soon to cease publication. All in all, over 383 magazines were shuttered in the first three-quarters of 2009. Needless to say, these closures, together with cheap stock images from just about anyone who owns a DSL camera, means a reduced need for photographs and no work the men and women who stand behind the cameras and who pride themselves on producing high quality work and who call themselves pros. What's more, every Tom, Dick and Harry, not to mention Jane, Judy and Mary carries a cheap phone on them, some embedded in their cellphones. What is a photographer to do these days?

My hero Chase Jarvis, who owns an Iphone, didn't just sit back and complain. He created an "app" so that you could enhance the photographs that you took with your Iphone. What's more, he set up a website so that you could post your photographs to the website and share them with others and finally, he took a ton of photographs with his Iphone, distilled them down and then published the good ones and now people all over the world are buying them. There's mud in your eye!

Like all technology, from the invention of the Spinning Jennie in England to present day complex machines, there are people who will lose their jobs because they choose to stay in the same rut and refuse to learn new technologies and staunchly prohibit the adoption of new methods. Photographers will either have to specialize in ancient and dying techniques (only a few will be needed) or else they will need to excel not only in methods and styles and techniques, but service. They need something, (that elusive something) that will set them apart from Joe Photographer down the road who wants and needs your business and Samantha Wedding Photographer who is thinking about shooting product because she can't cut it shooting weddings. At the same time, the photographer needs to be fair in his/her pricing, honest in his/her dealings with companies/public and a man/woman of integrity keeping his/her word and if necessary walking away from work if it means that he/she has to be dishonest about anything. As my mother always said, "Beware, your sins shall find your out!" because find you out, they shall and you'll lose business because of that.

While things are bad, or slow, take time to rework your portfolio, shoot new photographs, develop a new business plan, approach new clients, but above all, develop a new-found can-do belief in your abilities, in your strength, in your determination to succeed, in your past success and in the love that others around you show day to day and finally, "Go get 'em tiger!"

The Dark Side of Photography

2009-08-19T09:14:00.006-05:00

Let's face it, photography is supposed to be about beauty, occasionally. There are times when we feel compelled to capture an amazing sunrise or sunset, the yawn of a cat framed against the streaming rays of the late afternoon sun, but then there are those times we have to capture reality: the harsh violence of war, the anguish of a mother or father who have lost their child, the devastation caused the hurricanes and tornadoes and droughts. Photography is a depiction of the world they way you see it. You get the idea.

A side of photography that many people don't think about is what I call the "darker side" or the business side of photography. I can already sense you yawning and about to click to another website. Don't move that mouse or your finger! Read on. This won't be a long post and anyway, I have some recommendations below :grin:.

Doing business is tough for me. It's not part of my nature, but if I am to succeed in my photography I have to do business. Basically that means I have to offer:

Great customer service
Knowledge
Value for money
A product that no one else offers, i.e. a draw-card for people to choose me over someone else
Fair prices

Briefly, what entails great customer service? You have to have the interests of your client at heart. It's not all about the buck, but making sure that you client has images that they are more than thrilled with. You've gone the extra mile and both you and the client knows it. Customer service also means that you set up contracts to protect both the client and yourself from any unforeseeable mishap, and yes they happen. Customer service means you carry insurance, not only on your equipment, but liability insurance. What's more, you tell your client this upfront, so they know that they are protected.

Your knowledge, which is then translated into incredible photographs, is what sets you apart from the point-and-shoot photographer at the wedding you're photographing next Saturday, or the competition entry of food that you're setting up in your living room. Knowledge is power, but what I continue to be amazed at, is that so many great photographers are happy to share that knowledge with both noobs and pros at no cost whatsoever. Get involved in a photo club in your community, mentor kids at a local school or after-school programme. Share your knowledge and obtain knowledge from websites such as Fred Miranda, Open Source Photo, Strobist and many others, and let them critique your photographs. Don't settle for "oh that's great!" Improve. Get better. Push the limits. Light the baseball/cricket ball/orange differently! Get out of the rut of mediocrity. Btw, rut is just another word for grave!

Last night, someone asked me where they could find a place online that could tell them how much to charge for their photographs. I told them that there isn't any place like that. There are places that can guide you, BUT pricing your product is not simply about making a buck. It is a combination of your experience, demand for your product, combined with satisfying the client's needs. Price yourself too high, and you'll have no clients. Price yourself too low and you won't eat. What's more, if your prices are too low, clients will often wonder why your prices are so low. In other words, your price structure can put you out of the game before it even starts. Sometimes other photographers will share their information with you, or you can even find it listed on their websites, but if you're a member of ASMP or PPA call someone up in a city in another state with similar demographics etc, cost of living to yours and ask them. More often than not, they will help you, because you're not a threat.

Finally, what do you offer that no one else around you does? How do your photographs different from those of Jim Photographer and Mary Shooter? Why should anyone hire you for still photographs over Lee Videographer with his new Canon 5D II that shoots still AND video?

So, here are two books that I would highly recommend every photographer have as part of his/her library:

Please note that Harrington has a new edition coming out this coming October!

That's it for now folks!

Making an Idea come to Life

2009-08-02T17:04:00.013-05:00

As I write this blog, I'm busy listening to the BBC Proms in the Albert Hall via the internet with music from the MGM studios including including The Wizard of Oz, Meet Me in St Louis, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, High Society, Gigi and Singin' in the Rain. The remarkable thing about today's music, is as the programme notes put it

...although the original orchestral parts were lost when the studio destroyed its music library to make way for a car park, [conductor John] Wilson has succeeded in reconstructing the scores by painstakingly transcribing each soundtrack by ear.

I can't imagine doing that, because transcribing 4 seconds of music amounts of days of work, but at the same time, Wilson's act made him far more intimate with the music that he would otherwise have been.

This leads me to wonder how many photographers stop to actually think about what they did to create a particular photograph, or do they accept a great picture as a fluke and hope it happens again soon? I've heard some people say that you have to shoot as many photos as you can (and you can do that with digital) and somewhere in that you'll have yourself a masterpiece. Perhaps. I know first-hand that some people have a very hard time relaxing for portraits, and I have to try all sorts of gimmicks to get a photo that shows something wonderful. Sometimes this is ever more difficult when I have to photograph people who I know well, and don't respond to my tricks. Perhaps I need a baby's rattle! Not a bad idea actually.

A photographer who painstakingly plans his shoots, and posts his lighting sketches is Joe McNally. Let's face it, planning a shoot tends to take away 'some' of the spontaneity, but more importantly, it reduces the chance of failure, helps organize your thinking, focuses your mind so that you can see the final product before you have ever started to capture a single frame.

Two months ago I was asked to shoot priest who had just graduated from seminary and had been ordained, but wanted to remember his time at the seminary. I happen to know that like any place of academic training, these guys have to worry about getting good grades, while at the same time learning how to spend time on their knees and becoming godly men. Somehow, most us pray when it comes time for exams, and then forget about the bargains we made when we pass. These guys can't! So what to do? Well, first off, I usually shoot with big lights, soft boxes and monolights and tripods. We were going to shoot in two places: outside in the hallway and in the chapel itself. First problem. How do I create the feeling that the "seminarian" is on his way to the chapel to pray at the END of the day at 11 AM and the sun is shining in all it's summer glory? Second problem. The chapel has awful lighting, for the camera at least.

The day before the shoot I visited the location at the approximate time of day that I would be shooting the next day. That gave me an idea of where the sun would be, and then got out a piece of paper and pen and sketched a brief diagram.

My rationale was this. I wanted to "pretend" that the sun was setting, so blasted light with 2 flash units 45 deg. behind him with full CTO gel on each flash head both on full power. This would give me a feeling that I had a setting sun somewhere. Next, I put 1/4 CTO gel on a flash head to his right to light up the side of his face. Finally I had a flash head without any gels coming from behind the camera. The camera settings, on the other hand, had to compensate for both the sun and the flash. Create darkness! Drop the ISO to 50, keep the aperture at something usable around f/8 or so, speed up time so that all the camera would see would be the flash settings which I fired off using nifty new devices from Pocket Wizard. The result...

Apologies for a longer than usual blog. I have the diagram for this photo somewhere and will try to find it. My next blog will show how I did the inside of the chapel. That's it for now folks!

Still alive, and shooting!

2009-07-22T20:57:00.003-05:00

Hi All,

I haven't died or forgotten about my sacred obligation to this blog. I have in fact been working on updating my webpage to something a lot cleaner, so bear with me as I get that done.

In the interim, if you have ANY interest in HDR, you HAVE to check this link out.

Furthermore, I am also thinking about leading a group of photographers to Southern Africa in about two years time (if there is enough interest) to be taught by one of the top wildlife photographers in the world. If you are interested, let me know.

My next posting will be about a portrait shoot I did in a chapel a few weeks back.

That's it for now.

Keep shooting!

A New Appreciation of Sports Shooters

2009-07-06T19:36:00.012-05:00

I am currently enjoying a break from the horrible, soul-destroying and mental debilitating heat of Southeast Texas here in balmy Southern California, and the only words that can suitably describe it come from a hymn, "... and oh the joy that floods my soul ..." I wake up in the morning, and the room is chilly, the skies are overcast with the marine layer which burns off around 10 am. All I need every now and then is a fan or a breeze but that is about that. The evenings are cool, the grass luscious, and I can walk barefoot without worrying about being bitten by those dreaded imports from South America, fire ants!

The plane landed without incident and the same evening my nephews had a swim meet they were going to participate in at the local community college. Being the photographer in the family, I volunteered to take some "nice pictures" of the boys with a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS Canon lens. Admittedly, while it was a fast lens, it wasn't long enough to do the job, but I wasn't about to schlep a longer lens to California for one event.

The swim meet (aka a gala to the rest of the world) was held at 5.30 pm. The sun was starting to sink in west giving me some incredible quality light, BUT shadows were a problem. There were no overhead lights, but the light was reflecting off the water, off of the concrete around the pool, off of the concrete walls and stands, so it was a nightmare to balance shadow and light. I am sure that I could've set up a number of strobes at one end of the pool, but again, I had just got off a plane and this supposed to be a vacation.

I put a 77mm circular polarizer on to cut back on specular highlights from the water and glare from the concrete, used a low ISO, set my aperture for f/8 and adjusted the time accordingly. However, I didn't adjust for highlights, but stopped down 1/2 stop, so that I didn't blow out highlights knowing that I could safely use Lightroom to make a few "fill light", "contrast", as well as "color temperature" adjustments in post processing. I had eight opportunities to perfect my skill. Both of the boys had to swim all four strokes: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke, and butterfly. Being a product photographer, I didn't know (my manual was at the house - at least I brought it with me) where on the camera I was supposed to make the change to Al Servo etc, but I did ensure that I took multiple frames. I pre-focused, the buzzer sounded, the boys dived and before I knew it, the 50 yards were over.

It was intense! If you miss a shot, there is no going back. There is no redo, no stopping the swim meet. If your shot is not focussed or your mind wandered for a second, you can miss that perfect shot. The sports photographer can never rest. I have a new appreciation for men and women such as Brad Mangin whose work appears in Sports Illustrated, ESPN, and a host of other news outlets. Yes, they earn the big bucks if they get the picture, but if they don't, they go hungry.

If you have a favourite sports photographer, please drop me a line and let me know about them.

Easy Peasy Photography. Oh yeah, right!

2009-06-29T16:22:00.012-05:00

As far as Mondays go, today was a pretty decent one, mostly because this morning's shoot went off smoothly, post-processing was a cinch and I have a beer in one hand and the AC is cranked down. Work on the other hand has been demanding as ever.

Before I forget and get carried away, here is a snapshot of my studio.

It's nothing to write home about and the equipment is very middle grade stuff, consisting of mono lights, but it gives you an idea of what I have to work with. Most days I shoot product stuff which can get pretty monotonous, and then you tend to get brain-dead and do everything in rote. Yes, it can be pretty soul-destroying work, but then again, any job can become that way if you let it. I don't plan on shooting antiques for the rest of my life, but it gives me the opportunity to work with lights, and to experiment with lights in a way that most people could only dream of.

There isn't much that I haven't done with those lights. I've schlepped them all over the place in their Pelican case, and yes, I would love to replace them with some high grade equipment, but that type of budget doesn't exist right now. In the meantime, here is an image of what I what I shot today with those same paltry lights, and a few gobos. The client was ecstatic. Your thoughts? Click on the photo for a larger image. By the way, I really would like your thoughts if you feel you have an idea that could add to the photo.

I am still working on my 10000 hours, and one of the things that I have figured that I need to do is slow down when setting up a shoot and be sure to think through the situation ahead of time. If I can scope out the place well before the shoot I will and if I can't, I will definitely draw a diagram of sorts indicating where I want the lights, and which ones will be gelled, because when the pressure is on, those notes I have made pay off. Essentially, you have to be intentional about what you are doing. Don't waste valuable time being in fibrillation mode when you need to be massaging the client or coaxing a light or changing batteries or adding a snoot. You get the idea.

Something else I have discovered is that I will not be rushed. I understand that the client wants you to set up and shoot and to wrap it up and go away as soon as you can because it's cheaper for him or her, but I won't be rushed. I need to think. I need to walk around, and make whatever adjustments need to be made. Post-processing is fine, but the days of fixing things in Photoshop are over. Trying to fix stuff that could've been fixed on set is tedious and darn right expensive, when all you had to do is turn off the lights or move the prop etc.

Being intentional about your photography isn't necessarily something that comes easily, and yes, it may even slow you down, but ultimately, you will speed up because you'll be correcting bad habits and will be covering all the bases to ensure a perfect picture.