Why I Like Wide

I’m a portrait photographer who uses wide-angle lenses a lot.  These are two things that are not supposed to go together very well. If you’re up close wide-angle lenses can tend to distort and accentuate people’s features for example.  And sometimes not for the better. That said, I think they get a bad rap. As I wrote a few months ago, that distortion can be interesting. Let me say here that I’m not suggesting super-wide like some of these 15mm, 17mm kinds of focal lengths.  To me, those are special purpose lenses which are so obvious about themselves that they take you out of the image and make you think about how it was taken too much. Ok, end mini-rant.

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Megapixels, Who Needs Them?

Well, me for one, though in my opinion most people don’t.

The first consumer digital SLRs were 6 Megapixel cameras.  I remember, I had a original Digital Rebel back in 2004 when they came out and I thought 6MP was a world of data.  Granted my previous digital camera was a little 2MP digital Elph so it real was a world of data.  Then I went to a 20D at 8MP and a 5D at 12MP and finally to a 5D2 at 21MP.  Now the average pocketable compact camera is 12 to 14 megapixels, which I think is just crazy.

DigiCams
First off, most of the people using these cameras are coming home from a vacation and dumping their 140 pictures of them and their family at the beach onto their computer. Probably into iPhoto or similar and then onto Flickr or Facebook. Both of which will involve throwing out 90% of the picture’s information to get it down to the 1000px that’ll fit on your average screen. Very few people print anymore. In fact, I don’t think I know anyone other than pro or serious amateur photographers who does. I’m sure there out there, but I don’t know any, and I think the days of having shoe boxes full of 4×6″ prints has certainly come to an end.

It’s not to say that I don’t think people should print.  I certainly think they should. Most of the online places will do 4×6″ prints for 20 cents or less. I think people should come back from their vacation, cull the 140 pictures down to 30 good ones and have them printed and put in a box or an album. No one needs to see 7 shots of that same sunset. Pick the best one or two and move on. In fact I think that’s a problem for photographers in general in the digital age. Digital lets you take a lot of pictures, but that doesn’t mean you should and it doesn’t mean you have to keep them all. It’s all about editing.

And even if people are actually printing; How big are they printing at?  I printed a couple shots from my 6MP Rebel at 20×30″ and they’re passable from a foot or two away. But how many people print posters? I’d say that 99% of pictures are printed 8×10″ or smaller, and a 12MP compact is overkill for that size print.
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Unwitting Subjects

A few years ago I took this photo of a blind man on the F train and it sparked some lively discussion in the comments. If you want to read the original post it’s right here.  As I was walking around today I was thinking about how photography has changing within our society.

As I mentioned in the comments the first time this all came up, people have been taking pictures of each other without their knowledge for just about as long as photography has been around.  Certainly the point at which small handheld cameras came along was a big turning point. And street pictures of blind people and other unwitting subjects have become icons of early street photography, as this Paul Strand picture you’ve all seen a hundred times will show. A few weeks ago my good friend Meg sent me a site with a number of videos with interviews of a number of famous street photographers. I found it both fascinating and stressful to watch. Especially those who were not being coy about it, but rather just sticking the camera in people’s faces.  I dislike confrontation enough that the idea of making it part of my creative process is a non-starter. Maybe I’m too nice.

There are now cameras everywhere, in our phones, on telephone polls, behind the counter at the bodega, and 15 other places in between. And with these cameras being everywhere it seems like people are less keen in getting their picture taken than ever before. Based on the pictures I’ve seen, if there was a guy with a camera around there was an excuse to ham it up and try to get in front of the lens. Maybe because it was more expensive it was more of a novelty. Now everyone questions your motives, more often than not people are trying to cover their faces if you pull a camera up to your eye when they’re around. Maybe it’s because they think they’ll end up on your Flickr stream. But so what if they do?
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The Tale of Three 50s. Good, Better, & Best

Writing a Book, Need Input

I’ve spent the past 5 years or so reading and learning about photography on top of actually doing it.  One of the things that drew me to it in the first place was that it’s both science and art.  You could come at photography with light meters and calibrated tripod heads, or show up with a Holga and and mindlessly snap away with a hope that serendipity is riding shotgun.  There are those extremes and everything in between which is why it’s so vibrant a culture.

Those who don’t know me might not now this but I love talking to people (hear this people who want me to give presentations, I’m waiting for your call) And I think I have a somewhat unique perspective on photography as an autodidact who wants to share and knows what he’s talking about.  And not ‘what knob to turn when’ but rather ‘why do you turn THAT knob’.  I’ve read countless tutorials, but most just teach you how to do it their way without explaining enough for you to make it your own. Well I’ve wanted to give back as of late and start helping other people.

Therefore I’ve started to write a book, the working title of which is “self-taught photography by a self-taught photographer” (I know, it needs to be a little snappier and YES the fake cover to the left is meant to be a joke). In it I plan to pour everything I know about the craft and mechanics of photography. Hopefully in a way that people can understand and enjoy.  So far I’ve only written around 10,000 words, but it’s a progressive thing.  The point of this post is to make a list of what I’m talking about and making sure I’m not missing anything you’d like me to talk about.  So here’s what I’ve got so far.

Camera basics and a quick history
-Sizes, types, and qualities of film

Exposure
-Shutter Speed and Aperture and ISO

Light
-Color temp and spectrum
-Available and artificial light (including the sun, speedlights, big strobes)
-Light modifiers
-Taking pictures with strobes

Deconstructing other people’s photos.
– shadow number and direction

Retouching Way Overcooked

Look I’m not going to lie, I do a lot of post production to my images and I think retouching has it’s place. Nowadays as a commercial photographer, you almost have to to make pictures look the way people expect them to look.  We’ve become inundated with perfection in advertising and movies. And I’m ok with all of that. I know it’s an illusion and I expect that most other people do too. I expect it from cosmetic and beauty ads, or fashion shoots, but when TV and Movie actors start looking like plastic mannequins, you’ve gone too far.

Recently there was a poster for the Little Fockers movie with Ben Stiller and De Niro.  Stiller is 45 and De Niro is almost 70, but on the poster, I swear to God, they looked 25 and 40 respectfully.  It was retouching run amuck and you know the guys who work on movie posters are pros as well as my heroes so I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and blame it on their clients.  This was totally some exec or producer who kept coming in and saying, “You’ve got to make them look younger” and the retoucher said, “But sir, it’s going to start looking really stupid soon because it looks a little stupid already”.  But of course the money talks and you end up not with a couple of good looking hollywood men with some make-up on and their skin cleaned up for zits, but rather something much close to a photo illustration than a photograph.

Here’s another one.

Look at Kevin James’  neck, and don’t get me started on either of their foreheads.  Are these guys supposed to be in college? You know they don’t look like this in the movie, so why not make them look like well groomed actors, which I’m sure they are.  Do a little work to clean it up, but don’t sandblast them.

Speaking of sandblasting, take a look at this poster for the new season of White Collar.

I watch this show, so I know what this guy really looks like.  And you know what?  He’s one of the better looking people I’ve ever seen.  He doesn’t need the help guys, and he certainly doesn’t need to look like this. This is such awful retouching that it’s a bit embarrassing. Back when you don’t know what you’re doing so you just create a new layer, blur the shit out of it and then paint it in with a mask, THAT is what this looks like. It looks like what I would do if I only had 15 seconds before the bomb went off.  I hope that I speak for all of us when I say that we’d much rather see the real person.

I guess the main point is that ideally, pictures shouldn’t LOOK like they’ve been retouched.  The best people’s work, and the goal that I aspire to, doesn’t look like it was touched at all. I’m ok with idealizing reality in photographs. Just don’t make it look unreal or it looks incredibly stupid.  The pendulum as swung way too far in the other direction and the people who make decisions really need to know when to stop because they’re overcooking stuff way too much.  Ok rant over, you can all go back to your lives. Thanks.

Thoughts On The End of Kodachrome et al.

Dwayne’s Photo in Kansas is processing the last rolls of Kodachrome as I write this (nice article on NYT), so I thought it fitting to give my thoughts on the matter.  I’ll start by admitting something to you all and that’s that I’ve never shot a single frame of Kodachrome.  By the time I started into photography past Tri-X it was already largely too late. I started shooting mostly digital as it was cheaper in the long run and you could see what you were doing instantly as you worked. That said I’ll admit that it’s passing does upset me. Images shot on Kodachrome just look different. Paul Simon was right.

There are those who are quick to point the finger at Kodak, but I certainly don’t. Just the same as Polaroid before them, it was the lack of users that caused the death of these products. They’re trying to run a business and it doesn’t add up on the ledger sheet I don’t expect them to lose money just to keep us photographers happy.

It is however one more nail in the proverbial coffin. I have a friend who just started taking pictures a couple years ago.  She was shooting only film, didn’t want to move to digital, even worked at one of the remaining major labs which many of the big-dog film shooters still go to do get their processing done.  She and other people like her act as if film really isn’t going anywhere, but they’re delusional. I’ve only been in the business for 4 years or so and I can tell you that there has been a huge shift even since then.

Back in late 2006 I was in London and brought some film I had shot to get processed. Among the standard b/w and c-41 color was a roll of Scala, which was a black and white slide film made by Agfa.  The guy at the lab told me they didn’t process Scala but that there was a lab down the street that did, but I better hurry since they were the last such lab in Europe and they were running their last batch ever through the machine the next day.  I still remember how I felt that day, probably much like the people standing in line at the counter at Dwayne’s Photo do today. I love Scala. There is something about how it renders grays that I haven’t been able to replicate. It was like I was loosing a friend. One which in my case was a friend I had just made.

Scala wouldn’t be the last for me. I had been shooting a series of studio portraits on Polaroid 55 positive/negative film in my 4×5” for a year when I received the next box in the mail with the dreaded “This product is being discontinued” sticker on it. I’ve still got a half box of maybe 8 frames of expired film in the closet that I’m miserly using.  The problem, of course, is that the candles burning at both ends. I don’t want to use it too quick, but it’s also deteriorating as we speak so I need to use it before it really goes to hell. I’ve got a couple rolls of Scala in the fridge as well. There’s still a lab in the US that processes it, at something like $25 a roll.  I should just bite the bullet and shoot them.

Another example is QuickLoad film for the 4×5. In the old days you had to manually load and unload reusable film holders in completely blacked out rooms.  I myself am a little too lazy for that, so I was using Fuji QuickLoad film which is basically a single slice of film with an integrated cardboard sleeve which acted as a dark slide when used with the correct film holder. Kodak make a similar system called ReadyLoad. I liked the Fuji because you could just use the old Polaroid 545 film holder instead.  Now both Kodak and Fuji have discontinued their products.

Between that and the death of 55 my 4×5 becomes much less useful to me and as much as I enjoyed it, it’ll probably sit in it’s box more often than not, which is very sad to me.

Some people are even delusional enough to think they’re going to bring this stuff back. They point to The Impossible Project which has started making Polaroid again, but as far as I’ve seen they’re all about the 600 series film for the little cameras that hipsters use at parties to be retro.  I’ve had a few friends who have shot a roll or two of this stuff with mediocre results. I know there is a page on their site about restarting the 8×10 sheets too, but for me it was about the oddball positive/negative films and I’m not about to hold my breathe.  As for Kodachrome, it wasn’t just that people weren’t using it, but also that it was a really complicated chemistry and from what I’ve heard, quite nasty to the environment too.

I may sound like a Debbie Downer, but these are just the facts.  Lots of stuff that you’ve loved in analog photography is going away.  Yes, I concede that there will probably always be boutique b/w films for people who want to process their own, but I don’t think it’ll be anything but a niche. Certainly not like the resurgence of LP records.  Do I like it?  No.  Is it sad? Yes.  But honestly, isn’t it inevitable?  The one good thing in all of this is that digital photography keeps getting better.  It keeps getting better at an alarming rate and it’s already pretty damn good.  If you’re a photographer who only shoots film, and you tried a digital camera 3-4 years ago and came away unimpressed with the image quality, go try one again.

In the meantime, I’m going to go pull those rolls of Scala out of my fridge and load my Hasselblad.

My day involved in goodness: (RED) 2015 poster

So a few weeks ago I was asked to participate in project to create a poster for the (RED) campaign against AIDS.  Well mostly I watched designers Craig Ward and Ian Wright create the 4×8 foot poster out of raffia fibers and rope. It’s always fun to watch masters at work. Though it took several hours to create, in the end it was my turn to take a few minutes to photograph it.  They had worked with tan rope on black board and then did a little wizardry to flip it to red rope on white for the final poster.

The entire campaign is launching today and they’ve posted the images on the (RED) blog, so I figure it’s time to give you a peak. You can check out the final as well as the posters from the other designers here:
http://blog.joinred.com/2010/11/aids-free-generation-is-due-in-2015.html

Here’s a portrait of the gents with their creation:

Gear, and how to get Good

Gear is just gear.  I know it’s a self-referential statement that seems meaningless, but I assure you it’s not.  By gear I mean all of the tools of our trade. Cameras and lenses and lights and filters and cards and computers and stands and tripods and wireless do-dads and bags and all the other stuff you’ve got in your cabinet of glory. Within reason, none of it makes much difference. You make the difference.

Before you go calling me a hypocrite, I’ll head you off at the pass and admit that I use some fairly high-end gear myself.  Canon L primes and Profoto packs and such, and I’ll admit that there are certain advantages to them, but most of them have to do with reliability and serious 100% on screen pixel peeping.  I tend to live by an adage my father used to say (but didn’t himself follow) which was “Buy the best, you’ll never be sorry”, so I want my gear to last and not break. Especially when I’m on the job. So yes, I’ve spend $1500 on a 50mm prime. There are things it does that the f/1.4 doesn’t do.  Well one very specific and specialized thing.

Could I have made Drabbles or Motion with a Digital Rebel and a kit lens? Of course I could have. In fact the 28mm lens I used for the whole project is like $350. Would the images have been quite as sharp at 20×30” on a gallery wall?  Maybe not. Would I have had more noise in the shadows? Yah, probably a little. Would anyone other than me and 5 of my photo nerd friends noticed?  Nah, probably not.  Let’s face it, even the least expensive digital SLR out there is worlds better than anything a photographer could buy for any price even 8 years ago. Digital moves fast. Which is most of the problem as the camera industry is, now more than ever, just another facet of a consumer electronics industry that has to convince you that you need the next thing in order for them to survive.

So you go these shows like the PhotoExpo here in NY and others that occur quarterly around the world and it’s enormous rooms full of gear by a plethora of different companies all vying for your dollar.  But you know what? If what you’re really interested in is making good images then none of this stuff makes any difference. So what if you don’t have this year’s model? You’re life is not going to end and your work is not going to drastically suffer. And let me let you in on a little secret: companies don’t make money on pros; they make money on amateurs who want to be like the pros.

Let’s also be honest about how most people use these images. I had a couple of big 30×48” prints done from my recent trip to Yosemite (Actually had to crop my 21MP images a little at the top and bottom to make them fit the aspect ratio)  They look gorgeous (thanks el-co color), and I mean really great. Worlds better than any 35mm film and as good as big medium format film in my opinion. And that was hand-held with fairly cheap primes. The thing is, how many people print this big? Think how many times have you personally done it?  How often do you print bigger than 11×14”?  How much do you print period!?

People keep upgrading to more and more megapixels, but why?  98% of the time, the person viewing it is looking at a down-rezed copy anyway. At best in a magazine or book, and at worst on a computer screen.  I’ll be the first to admit, gear can be fun. Everyone likes to have the latest stuff and there’s a fast high you get from it. There’s that new shiny thing advertised on the back cover of the glossy magazine that you lusted over. Salivating until it was released. And there is an argument to be made that new gear can spark interest in a pursuit that then leads to new and exciting work. But I personally think that’s a weak argument. If you need that kind of carrot to stay interested then go find another hobby and leave this one to those of us who love it just because. You’ll save yourself a lot of money.

Another argument people often make is that you have to have the latest stuff because the next guy does or that clients are expecting it. ‘They want to see that they’re getting their money’s worth’, is the cry.  That if you have the latest camera, or an iPad to show your portfolio on that you’ll get more work.  I tend not to believe this line of reasoning and even if it is true, well then we’re talking about theater and that has nothing to do with photography.  I’m not interested in looking like I’m good.  I want to actually be good.

I get emails from companies asking me to write blog posts about their products for money, or places like Amazon and B&H offering an ‘associate’ fees of stuff people buy through links on my site.  While I know that this is the smart thing to do business-wise, and that there’s no such thing as selling out, I still can’t get myself to do it. I know plenty of people that I’m friendly with that do and I mean no ill-will towards them, and I could probably make some dough, but it’s just not me. I don’t want to live off of the suckers that believe the line Nikon and others are feeding them. I came to photography to make good images and be respected for my work above all else. It may be futile and naive, but as Ayn Rand of all people put it: “I don’t intend to build in order to have clients,” Roark tells the dean who expels him from architecture school. “I intend to have clients in order to build.”

You want to become a better photographer? Your gear is almost certainly not your limiting factor.  Stop reading magazines and gear blogs. Stop staring at your camera wondering if you need to upgrade. Pick up your camera and go shoot. And then do it some more. That’s how you get good.

QED

The Making of Drabbles – Video Lecture

Some of you may remember that I gave a lecture on the making of my Drabbles portrait series about a month ago.  Well my good friends Dan and Claude used their nerdy might and recorded it for your viewing pleasure.  It was, as you would expect, quite dark in the room, but I’ve gone in and inserted full screen images of what was on the screen for your viewing pleasure.

About 45 minutes of photoshop post-production and compositing goodness.  If you ever wanted to know how I pulled a lot of them off, this is your chance to find out.

I could embed it here in a smaller size, but go over to vimeo and watch it at full-size instead.

I hope you enjoy, and please spread it around.