The Jazz Tones

Last week my business magazines celebrated their tenth anniversary. Yippeee! And we had a reception at the Penn Square Marriott in Lancaster. My friend Art Lumsden is a super successful CEO, he has another buddy who's a prominent attorney, and another who's heavy into IT selling. But... but just incidentally on weekends they are The Jazz Tones. They were the entertainment and Art asked if I'd snap a publicity picture for them. From the choices he selected this one.....
Which after straightening and color balancing looked like this.....
But of course I could not leave alone. Thought it might be useable as a poster. So? Wuddaya think of the final image on the bottom here? <- Click here
Incidentally, I did not use a flash... all natural light with my D70 at f4 and 1/13th/sec at ISO 3200 through my Canon EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6. Is their grain? Uh-Huh. But I wanted a sense of nightclub grit so I really dialed up the ISO. Thing is, I had to add some grain to the final image since even at ISO 3200 these images are very acceptable even at large size!

Testing Narrow DOF

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Fortunately I have this virgin image (direct from my FlashCard) of a cooperative model who I got to stand outside of the gym against a corrugated red tin wall on the anniversary of his first full year of dieting and training (July 9, 2010). This secluded side of the building was in shade with the main indirect sunlight coming right to left. There was an unpainted cement wall off to the left which acted as a natural reflector. All of the light sources were natural and sufficiently bright at 6:14AM on a July morning to allow a low ISO (200). In other words, perfect conditions to capture a tack sharp image with max Depth OF Field (DOF), particularly from some 15 feet away from the model.

The goal here on my fifth test of the beta version of Bokeh2 is much more modest than the former playful attempts to use it as a stand-alone graphic device. Now I'm looking at its ability to compliment an image without imposing itself upon the viewer. I wanted to make it as invisible as possible to simulate the natural DOF of a long lens opened to it widest aperture. To that end I cropped the original layer and used PS4's content aware scale to turn the image into a horizontal. Of course I eliminated distracting imperfections in the tin wall behind the model.

Why a horizontal? Well the original is a snapshot with the model standing dead-center almost up against the red corrugated surface. So this altered composition applies the rule of thirds to powerfully draw attention to the key subject.

Okay, now I duplicated the cropped layer and then opened that duplicate in the Bokeh2 filter. There I simply chose from the preset lenses simulated in the application and picked the Canon 300mm f/2.8L@f2.8. I rendered the new layer, masked it, then painted away the blur over the model.

From there I duplicated the visible onto a new layer and using an adjustment curves layer, reconfigured the dynamic range of the image to emphasize the highlights in the wall while darkening its shadows. Again, I masked out the model. Which was pretty much the entire operation (except for a couple of sharpening steps of course).


Finished Image & Geek Data:
Camera: Canon 7D, Lens Canon EF-S 17-85mm, Focal Length 47mm, Aperture f/5.4, 1/80sec, ISO 200.
Processed: PS4, Bokeh2

4 Rules Of Wedding Guest Etiquette Photography

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Maria and John were married last weekend in Pittsburgh. And the reception was held at LeMont...

The gourmet restaurant sits behind a crystal wall atop Mt. Washington which peers down upon The Point... where the mighty and historic Ohio, Monongahela, and Allegheny rivers swirl together to showcase Steel City's astonishing explosion of world headquarters.

While they're destined to enjoy a lot of things, the couple - my wife's cousins - will never again be the stars of a setting to rival their wedding afloat in a glimmering gem filled with everyone they love.

I wanted to capture one feeling to bring them back there each time they open it up over the years. A memory for them... So? How'd I do?

Following the rules...

When you're a guest there's a clear etiquette involving photography.

Most importantly, there's a professional who's earning a living documenting the event. .

• Rule number one... DON'T COMPETE! Don't interfere, insinuate, elbow, or shove into the pro-space. You're not the cook, so hunt for the crumbs.
• Rule Number two... Don't compose the bridal party. They have entered the zone of photography fatigue. The pro has done all of the standard poses, configurations, assemblies, and CLICHéS!!!!
• Rule Number three... Discover the details and candids. These are the atmospherics which will bring the memory book to life for the kids twenty years from now. You know the people better than the pro, know the culture. Know what will make Aunt Clara tear up, Uncle Jim giggle. You know about Harry's hairpiece and Myrna's implants.

And you know what the bride and groom consider romantic. If you want to give them a present, don't go looking to grab yourself one.

Here's your chance to repay your hosts for a great family meeting... By marrying your craft to their tastes.

• Rule 4... The wedding is NOT about you... yet strangely, the more invisible you become, the more memorable you will be....

Emery

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Emery DeWitt sat in my painting studio, the north light of late April streaming across his face. Unfortunately the light held for only about four hours at a sitting so I had to work fast. Even so we had to schedule seven dates to let me block in enough that I could fill it the rest of the way without him. Oil painting's so tedious and, I don't care what they say, it's an unforgiving medium if you lack a clear intent from the start. I've found that "a better idea" really isn't possible with a portrait since spontanaeity isn't, as they say, in the oils.

Heh.. heh.. heh...

Yeah, there was a time that the portraitist did all of that as his subject struggled to hold a pose, hour upon hour. In this case Emery sat across from me at lunch in Café Chuckles while I showed him my new Canon G10, the company's top of the line point-and-click camera. "What the hell," I figured, "why not point and click?" So I did at 1600 ISO. This evening I did the color balancing, adjusted the dynamic range and enhanced the sharpness and shadows in PhotoShop before working the image through AlienSkin's SnapArt filter. I took about ninety minutes for the entire process... far longer than it probably needed, but I wanted to capture Emery's animation and wonderful personality, just so... Y'know?

You oughta' see this puppy blown up to 10"X10"... it ROCKS! I can only imagine how it would look say three feet on a side printed on canvas. Woof! Anybody feel like shelling out a couple of bucks to find
out? :-)

Against Racism... Poster #1

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Thousands come each year. They fill Musser Park and the streets around it. They run for prizes, they run for fun, they run to be together... Together... Yeah, it's the annual Race Against Racism, and it's about 'together'. Nobody loses... You know what I'm saying?

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First I turned to AlienSkin's Bokeh filter then, to create a powerful poster, once again AlienSkin's SnapArt, this time the impasto filter pulled out exactly what I needed to say. The morning broke cloudy so that light was wonderfully flat and my mighty Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM Lens was the work horse that day. But then again, it's a wildlife lens, right? Plus the image stabilization holds it steady as a surgeon's fingers.

For those of you who enjoy it.... Here's the virgin image direct from my flashcard (again, just click upon it for a larger image). When there are models like this, I guess I could have used a cellphone camera, huh?

By Request

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A participant in last Wednesday's event at Musser Park emailed me. "Ted, I've seen those gatherings portrayed on TV and in print, yet none seem as sensitive as the handful of pictures you've posted here over the last week. I wonder if you could put some together for me... perhaps in square formats... that I might get framed to hang? I'm thinking that this is a quiet footnote to history and I'd like to keep it in my home office."

How flattering. And of course I have done that... and here are the results. He went on to tell me that he might want as many as three, each to measure about twenty inches on a side. So here's what I prepared for him.

Have any of you comments? They do look handsome... and somehow quietly seem to glimmer at that size. It will be interesting to see them matted and framed, huh?

Bokeh Revisited

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Whoa! Got an email yesterday from Terence Tay, the lead developer of Alien Skin's Bokeh. As you'll recall last Saturday (April 18th) I posted a quick doodle I did using the demo version of that application. I'm more than pleased. In such little time I was able to get the effects you can see in that image. I posted other examples of my Bokeh-play on other sites which seems to have gotten a bunch of you interested in the PhotoShop filter. Actually I did the Saturday image about ten or twelve days ago when I first downloaded the Bokeh demo. Then I started applying it to the images I captured on April 15th in Musser Park during the political demonstration.

It's my strong feeling that filters are to us as brushes are to painters. You use them sparingly to tease out the ideas and feelings that you want your art to communicate. I hope that the Bokeh filter was used so subtly in this series that you actually don't notice it since there are a range of other tools at work in each of those images.

My point is, that I'm finding the AlienSkin application increasingly useful, and today's posting from that same Musser Park demonstration would not have been possible in the same time without the Bokeh filter. And yet... I hope that even when you study the image that you won't be easily able to track down the specific elements of the piece which Bokeh helped me create.

It was wonderful of Terence to contact and thank me for featuring his filter. I hope he enjoys this image as well. More importantly I hope that you all do... and appreciate the strength of this man I've pictured here. His strong personality demanded, I think, a dramatic presentation... and yeah... Bokeh seems to help do that.

Enjoy....

Pink Challenge

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Have you heard of RedBubble.com? It's a photo forum and social community for artists. They have various groups dedicated to specific interests. The Fine Art Composite Group announced a Texture Challenge. Members post their work that meet the rules. In this case the moderator of the group posted four textures. Entrants had to use at least two of the textures when creating an image.

I'm not good at assignments. One of the reasons I chose not to pursue a career in photography was the understandable directive, "He who has the gold makes the rules." And since most of those "he's" were really "she's" who were brides... well it got old reeeeeely fast for me. Ditto the photo editors at newspapers and magazines. And then the art directors. Look I can follow orders and have no real difficulty with authority. But the reason photography seduced me was the creative outlet it offered. But my ideas of creativity were only rarely the same as those of the folks with the gold... so I finished economics school and never returned to photography directly for pay or at least to pay the bills.

Which gets me back to the point, I'm not good at assignments. It's rare that my interpretation of the assignment's the same as the assigner's idea. But every now and then the folks involved get get me interested. And textures are fun to use to crack open ideas.

Problem is, most textured images are dark, evocative, and moooooody. And I know that there are a lot of RedBubble artists who can probe into those concepts deeply and with a bunch of power. Sooooo.. I decided to go in an entirely different direction. Surprised? Of course not, right?

I decided to go high key, bright, and whimsical. So I grabbed three photos I took of a perky young girl, and went after everything that was NOT moody, dark, and deep. Which means, I think, that I will get no votes in this challenge.

If you study textured images, generally you'll note that the texturing is usually applied to the setting of the primary feature/person/object. Okay, so using one texture of plastered wall, and a second of an icy crust atop snow, I used the extrude filter in PhotoShop to alter the backgrounds so that they dramatically set off the child's personality. I simultaneously altered the palette so that the background picked up the blues in the child's objects. Hence everything set off the pinks of the girl's outfit and her skin tones.

Comedies never get Academy Awards, even though comedy is at least as hard to do as tragedy. Hopefully you'll smile at this young girl's play. I did. I want to communicate joy. I think I have. But joy, like comedy, rarely get the big awards, or even serious consideration.

This image does what I wanted it to do. The texture is not the star, but it makes the star burn brighter. I think that's what artistic texturing should do. I also think that I'll be lucky to get even one vote as viewers choose a winner of this challenge. If I could vote for my image though... I think I would.

The Professional's Challenge

THE TRACTOR BEAM OF COMMODITY PRICING


NOTE: Inspired by a note on the terrific http://prophotolife.com/, I was moved to expand this essay from a comment I posted on Jim Talkington's blogzine.

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At an early career turning point I had the choice of following the road marked “Professional Photographer.” Didn’t because it simply looked too steep, twisty, and poorly marked. Put simply, it seemed too damned hard. So for fifty years I’ve picked the low hanging fruit that amateurs get to pluck. And they have been sweet. Photography’s given me consolation, perspective, and an alternative outlet for my passions, ideas, and emotions.

But while I don’t regret my choice, I do admire just how hard successful commercial photographers in every one of the fields work for their living. Yes there are more competitors than ever. And yes technical competency is coming at a younger age when those youngsters lack family responsibilities and are stoked with an enthusiasm to work a hundred hours on projects that only pay for ten. The young wolves have always challenged the pack leaders - but it does seem as if they are coming on in larger hoards, each anxious to work for a Happy Meal at MacD’s with enough left over to buy a new lens. Subsidized by parents, they have little sense of overhead, depreciation, or profits … But many seem fixed with the edgy eye that editors, art directors, designers, brides, and gallery owners find the passion du jour.

And since they share the generational culture that buyers want to attract/distract - what they lack in capital equipment can frequently be overwhelmed by a cultural vocabulary. It’s useful to speak in the voice and language of your market.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a generational divide in the tastes of those who pull the trigger on purchases. A generation of young buyers who have been raised within a thick-walled paradigm which reflects back their self worth at ever angle… is hard for folks to crack when they are standing outside of that generational bubble.

But… all is not grim for the professional who can escape the tractor beam of the commodity force which seems to pull prices down as equipment, overhead, and life costs soar. Never before has marketing literacy been so important to commercial photographers. If price is the opiate of the new photographer, brand is its cure.

How many community photographers, for example, are Rotary members? Lions? Sertoma? Elks? How many have joined the Chambers of Commerce? How many attend every mixer and small business meeting? How many volunteer for arts organizations? For non-profits? How many have donations in every charity fund raising auction? How many hang out at the local coffee shops in the early AM where everyone knows your name? How many warm calls do you make a week? How many cards do you hand out daily? Where? I can think of a half dozen guerilla marketing techniques that are invaluable to advertising but cost nothing except sweat equity. How many do you know? Have you ever heard of guerilla marketing? Punk marketing? Why not?

How do you use free media? What is it? If you don't know, you are NOT a professional. And now I'm not just thinking of the community professional. Speaking of professional - what professional meetings do you attend? Are most of them, or all of them in your profession? WRONG! You will meet very few buyers at a seminar on "The New Wedding Techniques," or - "Follow Focus For Sports Photographers." Simple question, are you building technique or market with your spare time? What is your balance? What must it be to survive?

Have you Googled brand building? Read any books? Does the whole thing make your eyes glaze? Then you either need to find a job working for someone who has clear eyes, or sell the cameras to pay for those accounting, economic, and science credits you should have taken to get you into another career.

To the degree that the commercial photographer has been engaged over his/her years in building brand and product differentiation: To the degree that it’s been reinforced with strategic networking techniques: Then this appears to be a very good time to be a pro.

Although I still won’t swap my amateur standing with any of you.