Photography

Concept to Photo – Urban Dry Tooling Video Tutorial

13 Oct ’08Urban Dry ToolingConcept to Photo, Creativity, Photoshop, Tutorial, Video

Photography and text-based web publishing are fantastic tools for communicating ideas across the world. However, they have their limitations. I think in a 3D moving picture mindset, and therefore, it made sense to start communicating using moving pictures and spoken words. Concept to Photo – Urban Dry Tooling is a video tutorial about starting with a concept, and then translating that inspiration into a final photo.

This isn’t a new idea, there are many photography related video tutorials on the web. However, I rarely find one I want to watch for more than 30 seconds, because they’re either boring, or filled with the least relevant information possible. Another problem is that in many ways the photography tutorial video genre has become a dumping ground for marketing videos from photographers trying to emulate Chase Jarvis – the famous commercial photographer from Seattle who is often credited with starting the photo-video marketing movement. However, he’s a unique gem in the chaotic video landscape of the internet, and his videos have yet to be matched for style or content. I’m not a photographer posting a video to show off my equipment and pretend like I have a cutting edge production studio. I’m a guy in an apartment with an old G4 Macintosh and an old Minolta 7D DSLR who likes to think up concepts and express them.

The concept behind this video is simple, compress my creative and photo production process into the upper attention span limit of an average internet video viewer.

This video tutorial was created to fulfill three functions: first, as an exercise for me in producing a video I would want to watch (but I’m weird so this probably doesn’t apply to the average internet viewer). Second to help me understand my creative workflow by packaging it in a video form (teaching to others is the best way to learn). And Third to give other photographers, creatives, and anyone else interested in a new (or old) perspective on the creative process as applied to photography.

Audio was recorded using my Zoom H4, screen capture video was obtained using Snapz Pro X, music was obtained from Kevin Mcleod’s music collection, and the rest is just still images and titles. Some say that soon cameras and camcorders will be one and the same, and they’re right. But in transitioning to the video world I wanted to start simple, and that meant using primarily still images.

Concept to Photo – Workflow Tutorial

3 Aug ’08Concept-PhotoConcept to Photo, Features, Photography, Tutorial, Workflow

For some reason the job details between photographers and scientific researchers are dramatically different, but from my perspective the motivation and work-flows are almost indistinguishable. Maybe it’s just my will to be weird, but when I sketch out a photo concept or think up a new research project, the exact same centers of my brain are working at peak capacity. This was the inspiration in developing this article on the creative workflow from concept to realization as applied to photography.

IKEA Dry Tooling

The generic view of artists is that they’re filled with an abundance of talent and drive and create through pure inspiration – bubbling from a magical fountain in their soul. The generic view of a scientist/engineer is one of a logically cold calculating individual slaving for days and nights and eventually years with a sort of mad-scientist personality detached from reality – characterizing the world in theories and mathematics that normal folks just don’t understand.

The more I started actually doing photography I began to realize some things would go faster and come out better if I actually thought about them – laid them out beforehand you see. It’s not like I need to define the process in a textbook. After all, photography is Art, the result of intuitive inspiration and amazing talent…blah, blah, blah. But the fact is, as an engineer I acutely appreciate the poetry in a well executed project. An elegant well-thought out project map is as beautiful as a fleeting mountain vista or abstract impression. The link between art and science/engineering/design is indistinguishable, so why not integrate them all? Take the analytical themes of science and fuse them with the free out-of-the-box thinking of art and photography.

I like to take the analysis aspects of science, combine with the project management aspects of engineering, mix with the artistic element of design and cap it off with the fool-proof ease of digital photography and computer imaging. We end up with a total process for the concept develop though image execution and output.

I’m not defining the creative process because I feel a need to before producing an image. Yes I can pick up a camera, set up lights, or not use any lights and produce great images. Sure art is supposed to be free-wheeling and off the cuff and pure inspiration and guess what – so is engineering. Even if you don’t think there’s a process going on inside the nicely packaged computer inside your skull, doesn’t mean it’s not happening. So why not exploit it? Why not explore the creative production process and learn how to improve it?

So, for clarity let’s quickly define the photo production process as:

Concept – Production – Shooting – Processing – Deliverables

Concept

This stage probably doesn’t need to include a camera or computer or anything more complicated than a pen and paper and your thoughts. You just think up what you want to do and start putting it down so it doesn’t get erased in your short-term memory banks. Sure this can be done inside your head, visualize a subject with lights and angles and photoshop layers and then try to produce it directly with a camera. Alternatively setting things down on paper usually brings up more questions. Like, what color should the pants of the model be, will I need a grid to highlight the face or will two soft boxes suffice. Of course, all of this can be worked out on the fly as you’re shooting, but if you can visualize everything before you start, you will naturally get more accomplished and probably get closer to realizing of your vision faster than doing it all on the fly. Essentially the concept stage is there for brainstorming: subject, location, colors, lighting, message, mood, etc. These are realized as sketches, mock-ups, whatever you need. Figuring these things out early means not having to screw around with them later.

Production/Logistics

Once everything is set up in your head, you just need to go through the actual process of producing the work. How will lights be set up, what equipment and wardrobe is needed? Do we need to buy a purple velvet jacket? How about some clear makeup to reduce glare on the nose? Where will the shoot will take place, and how do we get equipment and the models together in production. You could even include a subsection purely for logistics. Screwing things up here means you forgot to bring batteries and your cool new flash doesn’t work or that awesome Octabox is useless because you didn’t pack the speedring. And that means not having the elements necessary to get the image you wanted. Developing equipment lists, maintaining an organized lighting kit which can be taken when needed, and knowing how to set everything up and execute the shooting session efficiently means it could take 10 minutes instead of 60 to get the images you originally wanted.

Shooting

With the concept in your head, and all the logistics worked out and the various elements of the production set up, all you have to do now is press the shutter and head to the next step (in theory). We could also call this the execution stage, but that sounds a tad morbid. Probably it won’t go so smoothly as simply depressing the shutter button, but the point is that if you work out the concept and logistics before you actually start shooting, you won’t have to run around looking for random flashes or light modifiers or – trying to come up with a totally new concept on the fly and not have the resources to see it realized. Many people will say they’re in their “element” when running around fiddling with flash position and making models wait because they didn’t prepare beforehand. I’d rather take the least amount of time as needed to do the actual shooting and move on to Processing the images moving on to the Deliverables. The idea is, get the shot and make great exposures that can be successfully processed into the final image you want.

Processing

In the golden ages of darkrooms and chemicals the main essence of your image was produced in-camera, unless you were a real wiz who lived in the darkroom. I now more or less consider the image from a camera to be a nice starting point – or a possible end point. Processing can be as easy as tweaking the levels or a bit more complicated, leading to various layers, filters, and electronic brush strokes in Photoshop. Processing can mean compositing multiple images together or working exclusively on one from the camera. Processing can make an angry man look approachable or a little girl look like a devil. The colors, shadows, image sharpness, it can all be defined and/or modified at this point to realize the final interpretation of your original concept/vision. How you do it is up to you. My processing work-flow starts by loading images in Adobe Lightroom, editing those images to focus on the images I want, the ones which best communicate the original concept I had. Those are further edited down and the finalists are exported to Photoshop for editing and compositing (if needed), whatever is needed before finishing and moving on to Deliverables. The final images are generally exported from Lightroom (even if heavily modified in Photoshop), primarily because last minute exposure tweaks, cropping, and adding watermarks is far easier in Lightroom than in Photoshop. Depending on your output destination color management is either irrelevant (like to the web) or essential (like for printing).

Deliverables

Website, Flickr, print, Flash movie, printed tattoo, however the image gets from your computer to your audience/client is the Deliverable. Here, beyond sizes, formats, and possibly printer and color profiles there’s not much to enhance or to dilute the vision conceived in the Concept stage. If the Concept-Production-Shooting-Processing stages were done well then the output will look great in any media. If you got lost somewhere between Concept and Processing and forgot to pack an extra flash, then the Deliverable might be lacking, it’s the culmination of everything which came before.

The End?

Here it was and now it’s not, a guide to conceptualizing and producing the fantastic images you want out of your digital life. You can be an engineer, naturally untalented Artist or a librarian, or anything else you can imagine to classify yourself, but if you recognize and follow a process or develop your own and stay true to the vision in your head (and pay attention to the details) the images will come out fantastic. Getting down to Brass Tacs, any project, whether scientific or artist can be thought of as the effective management of resources. You have models, locations, lighting equipment, etc. The job is simply to communicate a message/concept based off of those resources in the least painful way.

Ricoh GR Digital – Climbing Review

14 Jul ’08Photography, Ricoh GRDCameras, Climbing, Features, GR Digital, GRD, mountaineering, Ricoh

One reason I bought the Ricoh GR Digital (GRD) was to use as a climbing and mountaineering camera. What follows is a user review and my impressions of the GRD in the mountain environment.

I live in Switzerland and mountain trips are frequently on my schedule. A basic day trip involves an elevation gain (and equally large loss) of 800-1200 meters, and involves hiking, rock scrambling or sections of actual climbing. This means that any weight savings makes a difference in terms of how fast and how far I can go on any given trip. It also means that if I want to use a camera, I don’t always have the benefit of using two hands when taking a picture. Sometimes trips just need to be documented, a shot for the blog, or just to record the day. Other times I go with the intention of bringing back some good-looking, printable photos. My current list of cameras includes: Contax G1 (28,45,90mm lenses), Fuji GA645, GA645wi, Minolta 7D.

In general, none of these cameras have been ideal in the mountains, although the Fuji GA cameras come pretty close to being perfect for landscapes. The Contax G1/G2 is a good choice, but if I’m just documenting a trip, then I don’t need or want to go through the costs of processing 35mm film, and then taking the time to scan the images. Plus, while 35mm film can produce some very nice detail and colors, it leaves me wanting more for landscapes. The Fuji GA645 and GA645wi are my favorite film cameras for mountaineering, but (aside from the developing costs) they don’t have a close focusing distance, which only makes them good for landscape shots, and is not ideal for focusing on close objects. The Minolta 7D is great, but generally needs to be accessed from my backpack and can’t be comfortably held with one hand for shooting purposes. Plus, a 7D with lenses is not a light kit to carry into the hills.

From a certain perspective, the Ricoh GRD was seemingly made for mountaineers. The fixed 28mm and 21mm add-on lenses are ideal for landscapes and the camera is incredibly compact. In fact, it’s not a stretch to call the Ricoh GRD (and GRD-II) as well as the GX100/GX200 some of the most compact wide-angle cameras on the market. In addition, the GRD is incredibly light. The Contax G1/G2 is also a compact camera, but it isn’t really light from a pack-weight point of view.

My first mountain trip with the Ricoh GRD was up Mt. Fuji in Japan, where I also took my Fuji GA645wi. The Ricoh performed wonderfully, but since Mt. Fuji can’t really be considered more than a hike, it wasn’t until I got back to mountaineering in Switzerland that I could get a feeling for how the GRD performs in a mountain touring environment, which is the focus of this article.

To date, I’ve taken my GRD ice climbing, mountain touring in Graubünden, hiking up Säntis in the Alpstein, and climbing on a klettersteig in Braunwald. I plan on ascending some higher peaks and undertaking some longer tours soon and think the GRD will be up to snuff. There are a few main criteria I’ll be focusing on including how well the GRD can be operated while climbing, it’s attributes such as the LCD screen, and creating good exposures in the mountains.

Operation – One of the GRD’s strengths has always been customization and user control. I can hold the camera up to a scene, automatically see if the histogram looks good, and if not, two small clicks on the exposure compensation button and I know I can take a picture without blowing away the highlights. Similarly, the ISO, focusing mode, file type/size, shutter speed, and aperture can all be changed within a few seconds using one-handed operation. I can’t do that with any other camera I own without the risk of dropping the camera. While seemingly unimportant or at best a convenience for city use, when one hand is holding onto the mountainside, one-handed operation really does make the difference between possibly falling or getting the shot I want. With the GRD I can easily have my left hand secured on a handhold while operating the camera with my right hand.

Image Quality – As a small sensor camera, the Ricoh GR Digital obviously can’t compare with DSLRs or medium format film cameras for image quality. However, you don’t always need a perfect landscape image worthy of pixel-peeping. For trip documenting and small prints, the Ricoh GRD does pretty good. When the images are exposed correctly the contain a great deal of detail and you won’t have a problem creating large prints. Small sensor camera image quality degrades as ISO increases, however, in the mountain environment you generally have more than enough natural sunlight to create exposures with shutter speeds above 1/200 using ISO 64 (the base ISO of the GRD). Since these landscapes will nearly always be with a low ISO, noise won’t be much of an issue. I love the colors I get from GRD files and so long as the images aren’t over-exposed you’ll be pleased with the results.

RAW Write Time – This is by far the greatest drawback of the original GRD. When deciding to buy the GRD, one of the biggest draws was its ability to write RAW files at a time when pretty much every other pocket camera would only do jpeg. Depending on SD card type, the time to write a RAW file is about 9-12 seconds using the original GR Digital. Many users have produced reports detailing which cards write faster, but generally the difference is only a few seconds at best, and the three cards I have all write at different speeds. Depending on your shooting style, for landscape use the RAW write time is sort of irrelevant. With the exception of creating multiple images for stitched panoramas, I haven’t found the long write time to be a significant problem for landscape images. On the other hand, when you’re moving fast over a mountain landscape and trying to document the climb, I would no doubt love the improved RAW write time of the GX100/GX200 and GRD-II, which from what I read are on the order of 4-5 seconds.

Battery Life – At least with the GRD (not considering the GRD-II as I haven’t used one) the battery life and performance could be better. I find that I’m always getting low by the end of a climb, and although I always carry a second battery, this is one area that I would like to see improvement in. For multi-day trips nothing sucks more than running out of juice, which is one reason I still love my Fuji GA and other film cameras, as I’ve never had a similar battery problem. Cold also seems to be an issue, and hampered by ability to use the GRD while ice climbing during December.

LCD Screen – The LCD screen on the GRD leaves much to be desired in the mountain environment. It just sucks in bright sunlight, and is only good for framing the subject. I do have the external viewfinder, and I’m glad I bought it, but don’t use it very much in the mountains. Since the live histogram is available (and easy to see in sunlight), I’m of the opinion that having a perfect image on the LCD screen isn’t really a big deal. More exact framing can be accomplished with the aid of the external viewfinder. Here’s the thing, If you can monitor the histogram, you know if the highlights will be blown and can adjust the exposure as you like. It doesn’t really matter if you have a bright, perfectly defined image when framing a shot. Often times upon review, the images on the GRD LCD screen look extremely dark in bright sun, but when reviewed later indoors, the images are perfect. As long as you base your exposure on the live histogram, the quality of the image on the LCD is somewhat unimportant. The lack of a live histogram display is one big reason I’ve decided not to buy the Sigma DP-1. The live histogram is invaluable in producing well-exposed images the first time, and eliminates the need to reshoot a scene. It’s one of the things I love about digital cameras to start with, and the primary reason I want live-view in the next DSLR I buy (probably the Sony A900). As the DP-1 lacks this seemingly basic function, I’d rather take a Fuji GA rangefinder on a climb.

Macro Focusing – This is where the GRD really beats all my other cameras and is one big reason why I love climbing with it. You can get as close as 1cm from your subject to create sharp macro images of anything on a tour whenever you feel inspired. You might just think this is great for flower shots – and it is, but what I love is creating wide-angle macro shots during climbing for point-of-view (POV) images. I love getting the Ricoh close to my equipment or looking out over rock edges and creating unique shots that I haven’t seen before. The only way to get similar images with my current equipment is using my Minolta 7 film camera with the Sigma 20mm lens (very close focusing ability), which also is rather large, heavy, and also produces images with just a bit more distortion than I would like. Plus, with the Sigma 20mm you have a much shallower depth of field and a lot of Bokeh (diffused image areas), which isn’t a bad thing, but at the moment for climbing, I like close-up images with a good deal of sharpness across the image. With the small sensor of the GRD, you get really deep depth of field, and combined with the 28mm lens and one-handed operation, this means the ability to take crisp images that are more or less unobtainable with other camera systems.

Compact Size – This is one of the main requirements for a mountaineering camera, it needs as small and light as possible. The GRD is great because I can put it in a case and clip it to the chest strap on my backpack. This keeps it away from my carabiners or quick-draws, and is accessible whenever I want to shoot. It also means it won’t interfere with my climbing movements.

Wide Angle Lens – The lens on the GR Digital is very good, as has been reported elsewhere. I have the 21mm add-on lens, which supplements the fixed 28mm lens. The wide angle still sets the Ricoh apart from other compact cameras. Even the top of the line Canon G9 only has about a 37mm (in 35mm terms) lens, which is not ideal for landscapes. Distortion is very low and the lens will render a sharp image across its entire frame. For mountain landscapes, and in particular for climbing, the wide angle lenses on the GRD are unique and much more useful than those of competing cameras. Using the wide lens of the GRD I’ve been able to obtain shots in the mountains that would not have been possible otherwise.

So, Why Do I Take My Ricoh GRD Mountaineering?

Great image quality
Unique macro image ability
Low weight
One-hand operation
Live histogram display

What Needs Improvement?

Battery life
RAW write time
LCD screen performance
Image stabilization would be nice

The strengths far outweigh the drawbacks of the GRD. It remains a high quality, extremely packable digital camera. If you’re in the market for a climbing and mountaineering camera, I highly recommend one of the Ricoh designs, including the GR Digital, GRD2, GX100, and GX200. In addition to using the GRD as a traditional landscape and portrait tool, it also works well for off-camera lighting, and I plan to do more trips packing the GR Digital with a small strobe flash and radio triggers.

Fantastic Magazines for Photographers

7 Jul ’08Inspirationarchive, CITY, Features, magazines, metro.pop, nylon, Photography

If you find anything about concept or design in a photography magazine, it’ll most likely be a puff piece about digital workflow or boring model shoots. I don’t need to read about what a softbox is or how putting my flash off my camera will enable better light control. What I’m interested in is advancing and expanding my ability to visualize and create cool-looking photographs. That’s why I’ve compiled a review of the best magazines (as I see it) to read if you’re interested in pushing your photo-making creativity abilities and improve your image-making capabilities.

The Background

What’s Photography without Design? If you go through the trouble of picking out the lens, capture medium, lighting, wardrobe and makeup, are you a designer or a photographer, or the art directory? If you’re trying to improve your photography, does it make sense to read meaningless photo publications with over-written gear reviews, or should you pick up fashion and design magazines instead? Photography magazines are often touted as places to learn about image capture and advancing your in your ability as a photographer – and they generally are if you don’t do much more than take generic pictures of sunsets and cats, but why be mediocre?

When I thumb through magazine racks, the photography-specific magazines are usually filled with little more than the latest meaningless gear reviews and photoshop tips, or the rare technique tutorial. Too often images in photography publications are generally boring and uninspiring because they serve no purpose but being content for selling a magazine which explains how to take generic photos.

The best way to get inspired and expand your conceptual mind is to learn about stuff aside from the easiest art form ever created (digital photography). To do this, I recommend reading a seemingly random combination of design, fashion, and commercial photography publications.

Paper

I used to think design was just an abstract marketing tool for high-end Swedish furniture companies and million dollar ad agencies. The cool thing about Paper is that it’s basically easy-to-digest design for non-art people. By reading Paper you get exposed to design concepts in different areas; from high-end art to the coffee maker on your desk, and it’s done in a very unpretentious, inspiring way. A lot of the written content will seem more like a pop-culture magazine, but it’s one of my favorite reads because it really shows you the artistic, design, and style elements in every day life.

CITY

The Destination for Style CITY is a magazine somewhere in between high-end fashion and practically unobtainable design. Some highlights from the iSPY 2008 Design Issue (#56) covers product design in Tokyo, the internal design of a Volkswagen factory, and a photo spread shot by Vincent Skeltis (styled by Julie Ragolia). CITY is great because it gives the reader a wide range of high-end design and style input.

Nylon

The more photography and portraits I make, the more I realize how little I know about fashion and current trends. It’s not like I want to copy every new fashion trend I see, but I like being exposed to new things. Nylon is a great publication because it has a certain street edginess and gives you all the latest fashion trends and insights without reading like an uppity advertisement-filled tome like Cosmo or In Style. Once you learn to translate a certain fashion style to your own work, you basically open up a whole new set of tools for visually communicating your concepts.

Metro.Pop

“A fashion magazine for the rest of us.” Most of the time when you pick up a fashion magazine it’s like 60 percent advertisements, 30 percent boring articles, and the actual fashion content in terms of photography and style can sometimes be very small. That’s why Metro Pop rocks, it’s basically a well-done fashion mag where the total focus is on presenting daring fashion images. Every time I pick up a copy of Glamour, the images are all easy, boring (from my viewpoint) well-lit glamour images. Conversely, the content in Metro Pop is sometimes out of focus, maybe a tad blurred, and the lighting will mostly be non-standard and definitely not flat. Read Metro Pop to get a feeling for how bad your fashion images suck.

Layers Magazine

No progressive list of magazines for photography in the modern day and age is complete without the inclusion of Layers Magazine; the place to learn about all things Adobe. In the mixed-media world into which photography is heading, the image will just be part of the larger story. Layers gives you a feeling for how vast the possibilities are for producing visual content using Photoshop, Flash, Illustrator, InDesign, and any other Adobe product. Photography is often included in one form or another, either in Photoshop articles or in articles like the recent inclusion of a piece by Joe McNally, detailing the use of different modifiers in camera lighting.

What Does It All Mean?

Look, there’s not really anything wrong with reading magazines like Popular Photography, but pretty much all important parts of the content can be found online, so why pay for the hardcopy? Ahhh, yes, they publish all of those cool camera reports. So what, Your Camera Doesn’t Matter, well, at least not as much as most marketing people want you to think it does. For those learning photography, the difference between all DSLRs is pretty much nothing, so use the time and money you would have wasted on dissecting the differences between the Canon 5D and the Nikon D700 and produce some images or get inspired.

In its essence, a photo is just a capsule of concepts and elements of communication. I never buy photography-based magazines because they generally don’t contain engaging imagery or feed my creative mind. Instead, I’ve stared reading design, fashion and commercial photography publications to feed my need for visual exploration. The act of image making is the same as ever before, a lens focuses light on an image capture medium and the exposure is controlled by the shutter and lens aperture. That’s all photography is.

You can get all the near-meaningless (for most photographers) technical gear reviews and puff pieces about taking generic photos on the web, so why pay for the same lame content in magazine form? I love strong content, it drives my imagination, and I love seeing engaging imagery, (not limited to engaging photos).

If you want to push yourself and get exposed to new ideas move beyond the old photography publications, which have become largely redundant in the digital age. Get crazy and expose yourself to new ideas and be daring – otherwise, what’s the point in getting out of bed every morning?

Zoom H4 – Sweet Photo-Audio Fusion

16 Jun ’08Gearaudio, Features, review, Zoom H4

I’m a tech fiend, not from a mad-capped desire to own every little gizmo I see, but rather from the philosophy to collect the tools needed to create whatever creative thing I imagine – or am driven to explore. I’ve been running through film and digital raw files for a many years now – landscape, cityscape, portrait, studio and location lighting, it’s all up there in my head. Creative vision and work flow? It’s all good – but there’s always a way to expand and take things to the next level.

Photography only excites the visual areas, but some concepts require – or at least are greatly enhanced by communicating audio elements as well. I love the concept of getting into video, but it’s also another medium to master and a fortune of gadgets to collect. Plus, I love using just one or a series of high-quality images to communicate a concept. Must photography become video in the form of a super video device like the Red One Scarlet? If the story can be told with one high quality image, why use video? Well, I often imagine concepts as videos in my head, combining audio and imagery in one to convie an experience to the viewer. So how can I use current photographic techniques and add elements of audio excitation?

Often I walk dark city streets and bad poetry fills my mind. An image of that dark street doesn’t communicate the poetry I’d like to rap to the viewer. And if you add text, like in a blog, the tone and depth of the voice is lost. Bacially, photography only gets you so far, and the idea of integrating audio with photography has been sticking in my head for a while. But how to do it? How do you collect high-quality audio to effectively complement the visual? With another high-priced gadget, in this case, a studio quality digial audio recorder like the Zoom H4.

The Zoom H4 is a handheld studio quality digital audio recorder. After a not so intensive research look into the different digital audio devices on the market, the Zoom H4 was an easy pick, as it comes with a high-quality microphone and a reasonable pirce tag. There are various extremely well-written reviews of the H4, but the one you are currently reading comes from a film/digital photographer who needed a device to mix well with his other digital capture and expression devices (expensive toys).

I’m not what you would call “knowledgeable” about audio gathering. Bascially I wanted something like the Ricoh GR Digital camera; high quality media capture in a hand-held package. My desires for the H4 were pretty simple: the ability to quickly choose between uncompressed WAV for high quality sound gathering, or mp3 for lower quality when desired. Analogous to choosing .tiff or .jpeg as a digital camera analogy.

The Zoom H4 is crazy easy to operate, there are a few buttons to control microphone gain, file type, and recording. On the left side of the Zoom you choose between mp3, or various uncompressed WAV file sizes. Push the big record button once and it starts flashing, with the headphones on you can hear in real-time how the audio sounds. On the display you can see if the sound levels are being read well. If they’re too low, you just increase the microphone gain (low-medium-high).

This allows you to boost the microphone sensitivity higher or lower (like changing camera exposure) as needed to optimize the recording quality. You know if you need to or not because the input levels are displayed (similar to a histogram in digital cameras), which gives you an idea of which gain sensitivity (low-medium-high) to use.

In general you want the audio input levels to be as high as possible without exceeding the range of the microphone. This is akin to pushing the exposure on your digital camera as far as possible without clipping the highlights (exceeding the exposure limit of your camera). Press the record button a second time and you start recording. Press it a third time and the recording stops and the file is saved. You can easily navigate the recorded files and play them back, delete them, format the card, etc.

The Zoom H4 looks like a taser, but feels more like a Star Trek tricorder. For collecting ambient street and bar music you only have to be sure the microphones are protected from the wind or not bumped/touched during recording. It’s somewhat directional, something akin to using a 28mm wide angle lens on a 35mm camera. Just point in the direction of your audio subject and start recording.

There are a number of more advanced features which I’m not qualified to get into. With the XLR inputs you can hook up fancy microphones and record multiple tracks to use the H4 as a pocketable studio, or record directly to a computer via the USB connection. No doubt this is crazy useful for journalists, podcasters, and people who are really into the home studio thing, but I’m into the high-end hobby photography thing, and recording directly to the solid state SD card is what I bought H4 for.

Recording in uncompressed WAV format can eat up a lot of memory if you’re recording speeches or are out for the whole night doing street poetry. Like with a digital camera, the audio files are easily downloaded to a portable drive like the Hyperdrive Space. For basic recording, a couple of 2GB SD cards will serve your recording needs well. The H4 takes AA batteries, and will last for a couple hours of actual recording time before dying, this and the fact that the SD card is actaully incoviently difficult to access are the only real drawbacks I’ve found so far.

Those of us who got interested in the concept of Gonzo reporting by watching Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas walk around a bombed out hotel room with a microphone taped to his head will appreciate the flexiblity of mounting the Zoom. For a throat-to-the-wall night of fast moving action and high qualitiy auido gathering, the H4 can be mounted to a Gorilla Pod and wrapped around the neck of the reporter. If Hunter S. Thompson were just starting out in 2008, I could imagine him picking up a Zoom H4 to do his work. The Gorialla-Pod-around-the-neck mounting system allows hands free continuous recording of events after the record button has been pushed. It can also be easliy mounted to the forearm and the Freak reporter can then run around all night pointing the Zoom H4 at people like a dropout from the X-men school of Gonzo reporting.

I imagine I’ll move towards video at some point. But here’s my rational: I love having a high quality image which invokes emotion or tells a story. Doing video just because you can won’t necessarily create a better story telling style. I just feel limited in that many times the environment/subject is not just a still life, but a combination of audio and visual elements. Yes, many point-and-shoot cameras do video and audio recording, but we all know the output is not high quality. The ability to record studio quality audio right along with high quality images is a very powerful combination. Now the challenge is to elegantly combine the photography and audio in one media package. If you combine great photography with cheesy audio you’re just going to turn people off because it will come across as a gimmick. One needs to take the “eye” for creativity from photography and find the creative “ear” for audio recording.

No review is complete without output, so here is a sample from the Zoom H4, of some bad street poetry put together on a warm summer night in New Orleans, somewhere near Burboun Street. The wedding I had just attended was over, but I had no desire for sleep and instead walked through the city collecting ambient sounds and spewing lines into the open air for the H4 to record. It’s not my best work, and is highly reminiscent of my worst photography work, ill-thought-out and laking in focus or direction. The coming challenges include developing a mixed-media workflow to elegantly combine visual and mixed-down audio into one package.

But for now, there’s just this short piece of Bad New Orleans Street Poetry, a combination of spoken word and ambient sounds.

[audio:http://blog.americanpeyote.com/wp-content/uploads/new-orleans-street-mp3.mp3]

What comes next? I don’t know for sure, but if I wanted to describe the Zukunft in an unoriginal and overdone way I’d say, “the Future looks and sounds fantastic.”

Other reviews of the Zoom H4

Mark Nelson at O’Reilly.com

Jeff Towne at transom.org

Santis – Mountaineering and Strobes

4 Jun ’08Climbing, Gear, Photographymountaineering, Santis, Steinbock, strobist

June 1st was a sunny Sunday in the Swiss-German land, and seemed like the perfect day to begin my return to the mountain environment. On another sunny day in April, the 28th to be exact, I’d sweated through my dissertation defense, and after jumping from Zurich to Amsterdam, to Zurich to New Orleans to Detroit, to Boston, to Detroit, and finally back to Zurich, I found myself unemployed and in need of a mountain tour.

So on a sunny Sunday, the first of June, I headed out for a tour up Santis, the iconic mountain massif floating in the green landscape of Appenzeller, the heart of Swiss-German speaking peoples in Switzerland.

Santis is one of those mountains that people grow up with, starting with hikes as children and continue into old age. This was something like my 5th trip up the mountain, and the first early summer ascent. It was also an introductory trip for Matt Anderson, the Seattle mountain guide-turned Zurich-based commercial photographer.

I’ve photographed Santis in Summer and Winter, blanketed in snow and covered in wildflowers. However, I’ve long since grown bored with basic landscape shots, the type perfected on postcards sold all over Zurich. So to make the trip more interesting I packed along some off-camera lighting gear.

The essential problem with mountaineering and photography is the weight trade-off. In the Swiss Alps every once counts, and as your desire to include cameras, flashes, and light modifiers goes up, your physical mobility in the mountains decreases.

A normal hike in the Swiss hills generally means a minimum elevation gain of 1000m, and by the time you finish the tour, the elevation gain over summits and passes adds up pretty fast. So, in principle it’s ill advised to take more than a DSLR and a lens or two. My photo and lighting kit included a Fuji GA645wi, a Ricoh GR Digital, Sunpak 383 flash and Gadget Infinity radio trigger.

The Ricoh GRD has proven itself many times as more than capable with it comes to off-camera, or Strobist flash techniques. Choosing the Ricoh dramatically minimized the weight penalty as compared with packing my Minolta 7D DSLR with a macro lens. The Fuji was used for basic landscape shots.

Off-camera lighting on a mountain side isn’t so easy. After you’ve ascended 1000m the body is shaking a bit, and when you’re on a rock ridge, it’s not like there’s any place to set up light stands. I put a Gadget Infinity radio trigger on the Ricoh GR and held the Sunpak 383 at arms length from above the wildflowers growing on the mountain ridge. In a few minutes and a little exposure management I could balance the landscape exposure with the flash lighting the flowers. Wham! Bahm! And there we have a mountain photo I haven’t seen in the postcard stand.

In early June there are few people making the ascent up Santis, mainly due to the snow, which covers most of the Alpine route. Many people will ascend with nothing in the way of mountaineering equipment, but I recommend taking crampons and an axe, because slipping on an exposed snow-covered 50 degree slope on a Sunny June Sunday is probably as stupid and just as deadly as putting a bullet in your brain.

Santis is a tamed mountain. There’s a weather station at the summit and Steinbock have long since lost any fright-or-flight instinct. The animals roam the Santis as they like and have no fear of humans, which means it’s pretty easy to make some of those iconic mountain wildlife shots.

Well, the Steinbock have one predator – avalanches. And if you climb up Santis in early Summer don’t be surprised to find a decayed carcass or skull in the snow.

Lazy Sunday – Fun with Flower Photos

14 Apr ’08Concept-Photo, Lazy SundayFlowers, GRD, lighting, Photography, Ricoh GR, strobist

After too many days and weeks of rain and snow and late spring sleet the Sun shown bright and strong over Zurich on the second Sunday of April in the year 2008. I took the opportunity to sun bathe and then set up flashes, picked up my Minolta 7D and Ricoh GRD and set about photographing the excellent garden on the terrace.

One of the coolest things you can do with off-camera lighting is balancing the power of Sunlight with the watt-seconds of your strobe. Now, with powerful studio flashes from Alien Bees, Elinchrom, Profoto, and many others, this is easy. But the technique is often overlooked by amateur photographers since normal camera flashes are too weak to balance, or to over-power the exposure from the Sun.

I set up two flashes, a Contax TLA280 and Metz MZ40-3i. Gadget Infinity radio triggers were used to fire them. I had to use direct flash, with both set to nearly full output, since the high afternoon sun made weaker flash settings and any umbrella diffusers useless.

This meant I could light the main parts of the garden and create a nice blue sky in the background. The flowers take on a sort of unrealistic shine, a certain texture your eyes can’t perceive in reality. Ah, but the magic of simple off-camera lighting makes the magic appear with little effort.

A number of photos were taken during this session with the Minolta 7D and 20mm lens, but the best were produced using the Ricoh GR Digital with a 28mm lens. The near infinite depth of field of the Ricoh GRD coupled with the with wide angle of view of the 21mm and 28mm lenses produced nothing short of perfection for capturing the cool colors of the flowers to contrast against the deep blue sky. The Ricoh GRD rendered excellent saturation and sharpness of the flower petals and sharp green stems.

The setup for this shot took all of 10 minutes and there was no real concept I was trying to communicate. The motivation was keenly contained within a desire to play around with my cameras and flashes and produce an image I’d never seen before.

There’s little doubt that flash photography and flowers has been around for decades and countless photographers will produce more countless generic flower photos with deep blue skies and saturated petals. However, these will stick in my memory for a while, mainly because I was just playing around, and that’s when all the really cool things are done, when we don’t mean to do anything beyond killing the time we find on our hands.

Concept to Photo – Urban Dry Tooling

8 Apr ’08Concept-Photo, Urban Dry ToolingConcept to Photo, lighting, Photography, Photoshop

How was that image created? What was the workflow from the initial idea to the finished product? Concept to Photo is a growing collection of articles detailing how various images were produced, starting from the initial concept stage through to the final image. What worked, what didn’t, could the concept be translated to an image, and how successful was the experiment? This installment includes the development of the Urban Dry Tooling Concept: the perfect mix of climbing coolness and the industrial edge.

The Concept:

I’ve been moving towards combining climbing and urban concepts for a while. It’s a natural result when you have little time to climb and too much camera equipment combined with a night of self-portrait experimentation. Everyone knows what the generic city mountaineer looks like: jeans, fuzzy hat, fleece gloves, cool sport sunglasses, Teva or Chaco sandals in the summer and hiking boots in the winter, all topped off with an expensive Gortex jacket fit for Nepal but mainly used to fend off the wind in front of Starbucks. I’m not an exception, except that I keep the boots at home in favor of Dr. Martens. Anyways, I wanted to take the Urban Climber/Mountaineer look a bit further than the coffee shop.

The concept started with a sketch and was simple, take the best parts of Urban and combine with the edginess of mountaineering. I wanted something sort of dramatic, I wanted movement (or the sense of it), and I wanted it to look cool (at least to my eyes). For the Urban part this meant that dark industrial backdrop only available from a circa 1940’s sky scape or an old factory. It also meant fashion and not just taking a mountaineer and putting them onto the side of a building.

I wanted the coolest elements from mountaineering: ice tools, quickdraws, well-fit jacket, cool hat, and sunglasses – and then combine with a clean hip urban look. Unless you ice climb you probably know what an ice axe is but don’t have any idea what an “ice tool” is supposed to look like. Ice tools are short and meant for climbing frozen waterfalls or hanging from rock edges in winter. They’re curved, wicked and stylish.

The clean hip Urban look was realized by integrating jeans and super-fly Dr. Martens into the mix. The location was an old industrial area, in conjunction with a zuerichflickrdrinks Flickr group outing.

The Location:

The old industrial Sulzer-Areal complex in Winterthur, just outside of Zurich, Switzerland. Originally a manufacturing complex, since transformed into an ultra-chic locale with apartments and one fantastic parking garage which is largely unused on the weekends.

The Wardrobe:

Mountain Hardware Jacket
Levis Jeans
Dr. Martins wing tips
Bolivian Hat
Trango Captain Hook Ice Tools
Random Accessories (quickdraws and ice screws)

The Execution

The original idea was to hang on to the columns of the parking garage with the ice tools and be pulled by a rope attached to the harness. Then the model could have his legs pulled out into space or jump out. This actually seemed a lot more dangerous in real life with actual steel and concrete to bash his head into – and hence was scraped as an option. After killing that notion static posing on the steel column in classic climbing fashion became the main focus. Assisting with the camera was done by ubiquity_zh.

Sometimes the lighting dominates the subject and other times very simple lighting is paired with a subject. There are a number of things which could have been done better, like lighting the steel column or mixing soft overhead light with some hard lights for contrast, but in the end a simple (somewhat pathetic) one umbrella setup mixed with the natural light filtering through the ceiling was used. A Contax TLA280 was reflected into an umbrella high camera left and a 20 mm lens was used to get some slight distortion and bring out the Dr. Martens when the feet were properly positioned.

The Processing

Dodging and burning was used on the jeans to bring them out. Then various curves, high-pass and levels adjustment layers were used to stylize and a deep green color was added with a fill layer. Layer masking was used where appropriate to bring back facial features lost in the layers. A grung texture was produced from the concrete in the factory and used as the final step.

The Debrief

The images from the Urban Dry Tooling shoot were ok, more or less what was wanted, but in many ways don’t really pop in the way intended. On the one hand this is good, it means the photographer is not egotistical to the point where he’s fooled into thinking that crap photography is fabulous because he designed it. On the other hand it means one can see the road of improvement.

One main problem is the poor separation between the black Mountain Hardware jacket and the background. A light grey jacket or T-shirt would have absorbed less light, and would’ve rendered better defined shadows. Furthermore, a diffused light from the right would have illuminated the torso of the model better. Of course, adding some back-lighting would have helped as well to improve separation, and grid spot to light the ice tools probably would have prevented them being lost in the shadows of the steel framework. What comes next? Only the Shadow knows.

Cutting Edge Online Imaging Research

4 Apr ’08Photographyonline, perception, psychology, test, visual

There has and is and maybe always will be a problem with the internet and media production. What you see on your monitor might not be what another person perceives. A deep dark red rose might be engaging for me and lack a certain depth for someone else.

On going research at Media Technology dept. at Empa, a research center in Switzerland is currently testing an online image evaluation system. The test is simple, you go there, click through a few calibration images to calibrate the test to your monitor according to their standards, and start looking at images. Some images will look good to you, some will seem not right. You pick the image you like and in the end a better print algorithm will be developed.

This may sound simple, but it’s a fantastic platform for the future. It means the possibility to set up a testing environment for images and colors for a multitude of media. The more participants the better, and by taking this quick exam you will be contributing to cutting-edge research into how colors and images can be evaluated using the internet.

Online Psychovisual Test

The Project is headed by the smart, talented, and amazingly beautiful Iris Sprow (pictured below):

Those who are working with images, are familiar with the difficulty of color representation in computer systems: one captures an image, scans it, or already has the file on his computer, works with it, saves it, puts it up on the Internet-and suddenly colors look differently than intended. When looking at the Internet page, colors appear yellowish in on the office monitor, they look too dark on the beamer of the colleague, dad’s laptop alters the bright colors blueish and grandma’s plasma display gives an overall pastel appearance.

This has to do with each monitor’s adjustment, with the system used, with the image processing program, the browser, etc. This is how the Internet works at the moment and is exactly what we want to take advantage of. Our research group tries to use this circumstance to draw conclusions to quality estimations and employed standards. Normally, for such ‘psycho-visual tests’, people are invited to evaluate a bunch of images in a darkened, standardized room on expensive high-end displays. This is a very costly and time-consuming task which leads, amongst other things, to why the issue of color, particularly in computers, still is not solved to a common satisfaction. We are trying to create such tests more efficiently by having the user investigate images at home on his own computer.

For this, we are looking for volunteers who take part in this test; since the start last week about 150 people already took the test. It is simple and takes, depending on enthusiasm, ten to twenty minutes and has no side effects. The test is available in English, German and Polish, all information is stored anonymously. There is no right or wrong; we are simply trying to find out how the average Internet user evaluates images.

The research group of Empa’s Media technology department and especially the project leader Iris Sprow would be glad if many ECI members would participate in the test; of course all others are encouraged as well, family, friends, etc.

Link to the test:

http://www.empamedia.ethz.ch/

-Iris Sprow

Photoshop Express – Divine Deliverance

27 Mar ’08PhotoshopExpress, Flickr, Image_Editing, Photoshop, Photoshop_Express

In the dark ages there came to pass the revelation in imaging technology, which has since come to define and dominate the photo world. Photoshop, has and will continue to be the premier photo editing go-to program for millions of minions – but it what form will the program take? The introduction of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom brings the easy of photo organization and keywording to a new level. Work-flows are faster, letting one access and edit images with gleeful ease.

But when one has images and feels a need to share them Photoshop and Lightroom falter, for they offer no output directly to the web. And if your image are not on the web, then they don’t exist. Images, like cartoons die without the attention of viewers.

This is why we love Flickr. The easy of image uploading and keyword tagging means you can post and distribute your images across the web in femtoseconds.

What if some freak accident fused the awesomeness of Photoshop with the web-coolness of Flickr?

Bow down Earthly photo-crazed mortals, for the Divine ones from the digital sanctuary have again blessed us with new gifts.

Photoshop Express

The cosmic programmers at Adobe seem to have taken the best of Photoshop and Lightroom and fused those excellent image editing and browsing tools with the goodness of Flickr.

With a free Photoshop Express account one gets 2 GB of storage and a browsing and image editing interface similar to Adobe Lightroom. You can upload images, edit them, their colors, tones, crop, fix exposure, red eye, white balance,sharpen, and do black and white conversions, but that’s not all.

Images can be distributed similar to Flickr, which means embedding images in websites and blogs and having them linked to you Photoshop Express account. Naturally you can set up a gallery and show your images directly from Express. The really cool thing is the images are not public until you make them so. In Flickr everything is just up on your photostream. Express also offers integration with Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa.

The Future with Photoshop Express?

Sweet Jesus, just imagine the future with me for a second…
You take a picture with your WiFi enabled camera, it uploads directly to Photoshop Express, with your WiFi laptop you do the editing and then distribute you digital media to blogs and website, all online, no computer program to load on a computer, it’s all online, in the air, across the radio waves. The need for redundant backup harddrives at home is less needed and you can access and edit your photos anywhere with an internet connection.

…or whatever, brass tacks Photoshop Express is a pretty kickass – a cool photo editing and sharing platform, and it’s what we’ve been expecting for a while. Program distribution over the net, and all you need is a license agreement with the provider. Many are surprised Microsoft hasn’t already done this with Windows.

Here’s the future: No software, just onlineware, nolineware, and for now it’s freeware, but for how long?

You can sign up here:

Photoshop Express

And quick tutorials are here:

Photoshop Express Techniques

Joey L Photoshop Tutorial – After the Honeymoon

12 Mar ’08PhotoshopJoey_L, Joey_Lawrence, Photoshop, review, Tutorial

The worth of any product does not lie in the first impression, but is rather exposed after having used the thing for an extended time period. Given the turnover in digital camera technology, 4 months is probably a decent time frame to assess the worth of the Joey L Behind the Scenes Photoshop DVD Tutorial. I purchased the Joey L DVD Photoshop Tutorial just after it was released in October of 2007 and it is now March of 2008. After having viewed and used the tutorial for an extended period, did it have a lasting, positive impact on my image making abilities? Am I now a Photoshop Buddha? Is it time for me to organize my own DVD and start teaching workshops? Was the Tutorial a wise investment in my education or an overpriced, rash, ill-thought out toss of my money out the digital window?

The Back Story

There are few things which I view with a need-it-now mentality, in particular when it comes to education. It might suck to learn long division as a disgruntled youth, but it pays dividends later in life when you can calculate things fifty times faster than someone who needs a calculator.

Similarly, I didn’t buy the Joey L DVD thinking it would change my Photoshop skills overnight, but rather, over time it would either have a positive, or absent affect. The purpose of this extended After-the-Honeymoon review is to look at how the material from the Joey L DVD affected my photoshop and photography capabilities – after the initial joy of buying another digital imaging product had worn off.

First: Why Buy a DVD Tutorial?

The main criticism of the Joey L DVD Tutorial in various internet circles is that it’s overpriced, and doesn’t show anything that can’t be learned on the internet, either for free, or via modest monetary costs. So why buy it?

It’s true, there are countless opportunities to learn Photoshop and Photography on the web. Sites like Scott Kelby, Layers Magazine, Photoshop User TV, Dr. Brown, and a number of random totally free videos and written tutorials (often with sample files) are sitting there in virtual space, begging to be viewed. There’s also libraries of books on-hand dealing with every aspect of Photoshop.

I also know from experience that a number of the tutorials are little more than simple near-pointless tips on using curves, the healing brush, and converting to Black and White. Not all of course, the paid ones have more real value and there are many gems at Layers Magazine. However, my main experience is that many almost universally use bland uninspiring images for their examples, and often times it feels like I’m watching a copy of a copy of a copy. I was looking for something more original to supplement my Photoshop education.

One main draw of the Joey L DVD tutorial is that Joey Lawrence is an actual working photographer. A dynamic beacon of creativity in an industry of imitators. The draw of learning from an active Pro is unique for me, as I often have the feeling that too many tutorials are done by people who realized it was more profitable to teach Photoshop instead of being a photographer. This is probably a pessimistic view, and there’s really nothing wrong with that business model, I encourage folks to make money in any legal fashion they wish, and teaching is one of the noblest professions. Still, I get my science education from world class-researchers. Why skimp on my Photoshop education?

A tutorial like the Joey L DVD instantly makes me think of photography workshops. Workshops are popular from a few perspectives; when you get to the point as a photographer that you want to expand your creative consciousness or skills in a certain areas, or you travel to some distant hard-to-organize location. Workshops are generally considered to be money-well-spent, and in general I would never spend money on a workshop because many just seem like an excuse for people with too much money to pay someone to tell them to use their camera equipment. There are exceptions, if David Hobby or Don Giannati flew into Zurich for a Strobist or Lighting Essentials workshop, I’d probably be there to welcome them at the airport. Basically, I wanted a Photoshop tutorial, and the Joey L DVD seemed like a good fit.

Playing and Criticism

Another main criticism is that Joey doesn’t teach good Photoshop technique. From a technical stand-point I’d say this is true – but if I was technically a Photoshop whiz, I wouldn’t have bought the Tutorial in the first place. The Joey L tutorial is primarily about using destructive editing techniques and just doing what "seems" right for the image – you know, to make it look good. I don’t really think this is a bad thing. This is what artistic expression is all about, if you stick to rigid guidelines in books and always listen to your teachers, you’ll always be one step behind your peers and more or less copying from the old Master’s.

If you copy what Joey does point-for-point, you’re not learning anything that a monkey couldn’t learn (yes, it could take a generation or two of breeding and genetic engineering). Anytime you’re confronted with a large, intimidating construct like biomechanics, quantum physics or Photoshop, playing around isn’t such a bad thing – and should be encouraged. "Playing around" has brought more ground breaking discoveries than I care to list, including penicillin and bubble wrap. Playing in Photoshop is an important lesson I’ve taken away from the tutorial, which is also how Dave Hill developed his legendary style that so many geeks try to achieve. This doesn’t mean I use the techniques Mr. Lawrence has described in his tutorial. I do Photoshop with my own workflow and so should you. But it’s not bad to learn from someone who isn’t using Adobe standard practices.

Ah, But the Cost

The Joey L DVD is not cheap, but education is what the student makes of it more so than what the teacher teaches. This is contrary to many philosophies of modern pedagogy, but after going through three engineering degrees and a few semesters as a teaching assistant, I feel comfortable saying that a motivated student will learn no matter how dimwitted the professor may be. Ahhh, but inspiration from a teacher, is sometimes priceless. The Joey L DVD was inspiring for me, and that is hard to put a dollar sign on. But it might not be for other pupils.

Draw Like the Maple Tree Young Grasshopper

I feel like the DVD has helped open up the horizons of Photoshop. This doesn’t mean that now I think that every photo needs to emulate Dave Hill and Joey Lawrence, it just means that my mind is more open to what I can do with the raw image – and the DVD Tutorial had a part in that.

I love to draw and do images on paper, but I’ve generally felt constrained in Photoshop, "Hmmmm, I should make layers with correct names and make sure I can go back and change everything." So, again one of the important lessons from the Joey L DVD is that a desire to play in Photoshop is essential, the program is a tool, not a defined process. My Photoshop skills are getting more fluid and playful, which opens up more creative directions in photo manipulation – and hence visual expression.

Was the Joey L Tutorial a good buy?

After 4 months, I’m still comfortable with the amount of money I threw down for the Joey L DVD. I come back to it and replay a lesson here and there when I need to, thinking back to the techniques, imagining how to use and create them differently, and often also disregarding them and doing something different.

I like being able to replay different lessons quickly, and then go back to other projects – something you can’t do with a workshop (unless they include a DVD). I’ll probably never buy another DVD like this again (ok, maybe one), the exception being the forthcoming Strobist DVDs or the offerings from Lighting Essentials.

Why not go crazy buying more DVDs? Because I’ve hit the point where all the other fine points of Photoshop can be easily found or discovered, maybe I didn’t need to buy the Joey L DVD to get to this point, but that’s the way I’ve arrived here, and I don’t regret the path I’ve taken.

Brass Tacks

Here’s the thing, with Photoshop I was looking for a spark, something to open the flood gates and broaden my horizons on this subject of digital post-processing. The Joey L Tutorial DVD did that – exactly that – I see images in layers and masks and color shifts and shadowed hues now. When I look at setting up a shot, I think about the post-processing, the way the lighting will define how the image can be manipulated later. This isn’t a certain style, it’s an addition to my digital visualization abilities – the same as visualizing a wide angle effect before taking a picture. The horizons for communicating a certain message have now been expanded.

Could the Joey L Tutorial DVD have been done better? The crazy thing about the Joey L Tutorial DVD is that it could have been one of the most fantastic photography-centered Photoshop learning tools ever created – if it had been created with an eye towards integrating the lighting and photoshop techniques. However, it doesn’t take long to see for yourself which type of images "work" and which ones "don’t" based on their lighting. No Photoshop action can "fix" images which don’t have the right lighting to start with. That’s the shortcoming of the Joey L DVD, the lighting-processing connection is mostly missing. However, playing around with different images and the Joey L actions will quickly reveal how lighting affects the post-processing.

Here’s an example, both of the images shown below were processed using the Joey L Signature Action, and should be slightly representative of how this technique works. It’s pretty obvious how the first image doesn’t really look all that great. It’s flat and desaturated, and more or less boring. This is because the face and torso are turned away from the light source, and all we have is definition of the jacket. However, the second image is better-lit, and renders the deep-grudge shadows much better than the first one. Once you see which type of images and lighting combinations work it’s easy to draw up in your mind how to design shots specifically for this type of deep-shadow processing.


Poor lighting, only shadow and definition in the jacket	Better lighting, good shadow definition of the arms, torso, and face.

Monkey See Monkey Do?

There is a pervading attitude from many dark corners of the web that if you buy his DVD to learn from someone like Joey Lawrence, you’re trying to adopt or steal his look/style instead of developing your own. If such an attitude existed in the scientific research world, we’d still be riding horses and the telegraph would probably be 200 years from being invented. In general everything has been done before. There are very few truly new things. There was Dragan, people copied him by creating Photoshop actions, Joey Lawrence no doubt learned from these influences, and developed his own style. He made a DVD, I bought it, and here we are. That’s how progress and the evolution of style sometimes works in the digital imaging world.

As you move through life you learn things – and the knowledge you retain becomes tools which you can use to do other things: build bridges, take pictures, climb mountains, relax on a beach. The real mistake is not learning as much as you can and using those tools as desired. I didn’t set out to imitate Joey Lawrence, or to create iconic art that will stand the test of time. But if that iconic art thing happens, well – cool.

The Joey L Tutorial DVD is just an addition to my photography digital image making toolset, what comes next no one knows. Should you buy the Joey L DVD Tutorial, or that Canon 85 mm lens or that Nikon D300? Will a set of Profoto strobes make you a better photographer? Figure out what you "need" to accomplish what you’re seeking to accomplish – acquire those tools, and then go write your book, develop your look, live your life, whatever.

No one single piece of knowledge or equipment will improve your skills in life unless you’re motivated to push yourself to the next level, but once you know how things work…well, maybe I’m working on my own tutorial DVD…

Learning Photography Online – A Road Map to Madness

3 Mar ’08Photographyeducation, learning, Photography, websites

The combination of the web and efficient search engines coupled with the crazy ease of online publishing has made one thing clear: learning photography can be easy and almost essentially free. What follows is a breakdown and review of some of the best sites on the internet to learn photography and lighting.

Learning Photography Technique

Strobist: In my experience Strobist is one of the best photo lighting-oriented sites on the internet. Interactivity between readers and author is taken to an extreme level. Interaction on the internet generally means at best that readers are willing to comment on whatever your write, with Strobist it means readers buying flashes, light modifiers, and producing pro quality images based. Readers are inspired organize Strobist get-together’s from Germany to Seattle. The great thing about Strobist is that it teaches lighting – without which there can’t be any photography. Gear is covered, but only to the minimal extent needed to produce excellent images. Every type of photographer from portrait to landscape or commercial can benefit from this site, and if you’re a beginner, Strobist will probably take you farther than any other in a given timeframe. Strobist isn’t just a cool site, David Hobby has started a movement and created his own adjective without even trying. This movement has grown beyond the simple blog, and Mr. Hobby now teaches sold-out lighting workshops throughout the world.

Lighting Essentials: When David Hobby started Strobist he ignited a movement. Maybe Lighting Essentials would have been launched without Strobist, but the connections between the sites are evident. Both focus on lighting, both contain some of the most easily accessible and relevant information on lighting on the net, and both are not only websites, but portals for their owners to organize and lead lighting workshops from coast to coast. One big difference between Strobist and Lighting Essentials is layout and presentation. Lighting Essentials is the well-organized website that Strobist could be if organized and designed outside of the anti-CMS (Content Management System) Blogger platform. Yes, this is a public plea for a redesign of the Strobist site and implementation of a CMS friendly system like WordPress, Joomla, etc. Lighting Essentials and the partner Magazine site feel like they were built from the ground up to be the best online resource for lighting and photography around. The author, Don Giannatti is extremely approachable and shares volumes of knowledge on the net, his Flickr (wizwow) account is filled with photos with some of the best lighting setup information around.

The Luminous Landscape: My internet photo education started here. Published by Michael Reichmann, the Luminous-Landscape is probably one of the most comprehensive photography knowledge sites on the net. Composition, discussions on perspective, and any technical aspect including Bokeh is included. The site is so comprehensive that new material is rarely added (as it’s not really needed), the What’s New section is basically an update board for new super-expensive (the locations sometimes worth it) workshops and moderately priced tutorial DVDs. Otherwise, thoughts of the camera industry sometimes embody the new content along side the occasional mini-dissertations by Alain Briot, which generally make me think he’s harboring some deep subconscious regret about not finishing his PhD. If you need a good background in photography go through the Understanding Series and you’ll never need to buy a book on photo basics. But once you get the basics, move on to more interactive sites like Strobist or Lighting Essentials.

StudioLighting.net: When you first visit StudioLighting.net you might be put off by the content-centered Google ads and brush it off as a me-too photo splog. The format is simple, and the content unique; two guys who are learning about photography have built a lighting-centered site with arguably the best photo-niche podcast on the Net. Every week or so they do a radio style podcast with a new photographer or similarly notable figure. The archives include interviews with Michael Grecco, Dave Hill, David Hobby, Chase Jarvis, and a ton of people I’ve never heard of. The great thing is that StudioLighting.net is run by guys who are developing their skills, and are more or less intermediate shooters, which means they ask questions which the thousands of photographers like me are interested in; like how different photographers work, how their businesses got started and what type of equipment, or lack there of is used in shoots. There are other attributes to the site like video lighting tutorials and gear reviews, but the reason to visit is the podcast archive.

Learning To Expand

Chase Jarvis: An internet photography icon, Chase Jarvis is a full-time professional commercial photographer with the desire to share his knowledge and inspire the people around him. His work is fresh and his blog is filled with good stuff to exercise the mental side of a photographic mind. His commentary on the business and views on the art form mix with his business skills and philosophy university degree to be a unique voice which many photographers can learn from. Plus, he’s just an all-around inspirational figure, well-spoken and energetic, he embodies the image of how a pro photographer should act. There are a number of videos on his site, depicting photo shoots with ninjas, REI products, and the gear he uses. Once you know what you’re doing with a camera, delve into ChaseJarvis.com and get inspired to push yourself further.

Layers Magazine: True it’s technically focused on all things Adobe, why should photographers learning technique care? What does Dreamweaver and web publishing have to do with making great images? Given the dominance of Adobe in everything including digital image manipulation, web publishing, Flash, and Lightroom, keeping abreast of the tutorials and random creative insights on Layers Magazine will keep the inquisitive photographer knowledgeable on many aspects of imaging from capture to print and publishing. You can also buy the print magazine if you like. The videos and written tutorials are excellent. When you want to understand the tools of digital image manipulation head to Layers Magazine and delve into all things Adobe.

Photoshop User TV: Sort of a sometimes non-free companion to Layers Magazine, Photoshop User TV is one of the best pay-oriented video sites around for learning photoshop. If you try do everything in-camera that’s great. However, not utilizing Photoshop as a tool and learning how to use it well just seems so archaic. Digital imaging manipulation isn’t just magic for graphic artists, Photoshop is a tool to communicate concepts via visual interpretation. Of course you can do photography without it, but knowing how to use all of that power in your finger tips opens up worlds of expression. Current videos are free, while the archived ones require a reasonable fee.

Russell Brown: International Photoshop guru and Mad Scientist-like personality, Doc Brown has one of the best Photoshop podcasts on the net.

Learning the Business

Dan Heller: It’s sometimes said that professional photography is 20% photography and 80% business. One of the best places on the net to get the business perspective on photography is Dan Heller’s blog. He writes nice long thorough posts focused on the stock photo industry, and if you’re serious about getting into the industry on any level Dan Heller has content and insight you won’t find anywhere else.

A Photo Editor: If you gravitate towards the business side of the industry the middle-person between the photographer and printed magazine is critical. Photo editors find and hire photographers based on what the magazines want for visual interpretation of their magazine content. Originally a blog by an anonymous photo editor at a national magazine, now the premier source on the net for getting inside the head of the person you need to please to get hired to shoot for magazines. A Photo Editor is fresh and unique in an internet populated by imitators.

Avoid the Gear Craze

Many internet photography junkies either worship or curse Ken Rockwell. His site is vastly popular and certain people will hang on his every word as gear gospel. Although his site is basically a giant gear review site, and hence of little value to someone learning photography, he has some very relevant and interesting essays including: Your Camera Doesn’t Matter.

Don’t Feed the Trolls

I won’t mention any photo forums, mainly because their usefulness is defined by the members and active participation and your own motivations. For example, Photo.net used to be the premier forum center on the net, and now is passé. Dpreview is filled with thousands of people who are more interested in asking questions than taking pictures, and there are far too many forums to list and review. If you need answers for specific gear problems, a number of forums will be able to answer your questions. If you’re looking for ego boosting kudos there’s plenty of forums to post pictures where half the viewers will love and the others will decry your images as a bane on humanity. If you have the determination to read through this article, your curiosity will no-doubt eventually lead you to the photo forum which is best for you if you search it out. Experimenting with different lighting setups, locations, and subjects will push your craft farther and faster than any forum will. In general, once you find one or two forums you really like, never speak of them or promote them to others on the net, lest they become diluted with trolls looking for attention.

Brass Tacks

Photography, like science, is best learned by doing and playing around. I recommend the following course of internet study:

Learn the basics, just enough to be dangerous and then start photographing (or splitting atoms). The means checking out the camera technique series on the Luminous Landscape as well as lighting with Strobist and Lighting Essentials.

Learn to Expand, delve into Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and the main Adobe programs. Photography is basically light painting, and now that pallet exists on digital media more so than printed. Understanding how images can be created and published on the Net expands how you view subjects and can open doors in your mind.

Never Stop Learning

Explore photo sites and try different techniques. Listen to StudioLighting.net podcasts and develop your eye. That’s really all photography is. Check out blogs like ChaseJarvis and realize that there’s always something new to learn. Avoid forums unless necessary, because if you need to ask random people on the Net which lens to buy then you don’t need it. Photography can be very simple and cheap or needlessly complex and expensive, the choice is up to you.

American Peyote

Photography

Concept to Photo – Urban Dry Tooling Video Tutorial

Concept to Photo – Workflow Tutorial

Concept – Production – Shooting – Processing – Deliverables

Concept

Production/Logistics

Shooting

Processing

Deliverables

The End?

Ricoh GR Digital – Climbing Review

Fantastic Magazines for Photographers

The Background

Archive

Paper

CITY

Nylon

Metro.Pop

Layers Magazine

What Does It All Mean?

Zoom H4 – Sweet Photo-Audio Fusion

Santis – Mountaineering and Strobes

Lazy Sunday – Fun with Flower Photos

Concept to Photo – Urban Dry Tooling

Cutting Edge Online Imaging Research

Photoshop Express – Divine Deliverance

Joey L Photoshop Tutorial – After the Honeymoon

Learning Photography Online – A Road Map to Madness