2009 -> 2010

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

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

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

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

Best wishes for a successful and prosperous New Year.

Photographing the Twinkle of Holiday Lights

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

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

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

Stop down and use a tripod

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

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

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

Dusk, not dark!

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

Fill flash / double exposures

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

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

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

Swirls and effects

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

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

Reflections

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

White balance for snow!

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

Thanks Roger! That was a great tip.

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

Catching up

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

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

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

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

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

The Dark Side of Photography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

That's it for now folks!

Making an Idea come to Life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still alive, and shooting!

Hi All,

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

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

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

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

That's it for now.

Keep shooting!

A New Appreciation of Sports Shooters

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

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

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

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

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

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

Easy Peasy Photography. Oh yeah, right!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Best Kind of Camera

Canon? Nikon? Minolta? Sony? What is the best camera? C'mon, you know the answer to that, but before I launch into that, can I say a word about the weather? I'm over summer! Seriously. June is supposed to be the wettest month in Houston, and so far its proved to be the hottest. Today was a high of 96 deg. F and from what I hear, we're supposed to see temperatures in excess of 100 tomorrow and Thursday!

Why do I dread it? Well, today I had a shoot in a teeny, but old building set close to downtown, but it had no air-conditioning whatsoever! We brought a few fans along, ice, iced water, etc., but by the time I left I was dead.

The other good news is that I got my new IPhone 32 MB phone this weekend, notwithstanding a tummy ailment that I was suffering from because of a rather serious bout of food poisoning.

The line wasn't long at all. One of the reasons that I was excited to get the phone was because of a number of functions: a 3 megapixel camera, a video, GPS and the ability to geotag. That is brilliant. Consequently, I have had to start taking it on myself to follow my own advice, and the advice of others that the best kind of the camera is the one you have with you! I've taken some fairly decent photos with it already, two videos and some really crappy photographs that will never see the light of day! Here is a photo that is half-decent. The subject is nothing special, and the camera is my Iphone that is about it.

We were all gathered at my son's house for a braai (the South African word for a BBQ) this past Saturday afternoon as I was trying to get the hang of it. Previous to this, I had had a another brand that didn't sync with Mac and attempted to be some kind of berry, but well, 'nuf said about the past. My son had asked me to bring my camera with to take photographs of him playing his guitar. I obliged, and this is the result.

See if you can figure out the lighting for yourself. I'm not used to all the Stobist "talk", but here it is for those who may be interested: Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L on my 5D, 1/80 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 640. I turned the bedroom light off and opened the blinds (camera right) to make use of natural light, but that left the part of his body facing the camera quite dark. I put my EX580 Speedlight flash on, dialed it onto iTTL and then set it way down before diffusing it. Even so, you can still see some shadows around the right-hand side of the guitar on the wall, but they are soft and I don't find them obtrusive. Oh, I processed that in Lightroom 2.0 and then used an action I have in Photoshop CS3 to make it smaller.

Let me know your thoughts. I haven't forgotten to put up photos of the studio I work in as well as other things, but will do those on a dry day! :) Sure they will come.

Drudgery or Beauty?

Why photography? Well, when I was a little kid, my grandfather gave me my first camera and from that instant I knew...crap! That is not my story. I loved collecting stones: amethyst, tiger's eye, rose quartz, and changed gears. Then I collected coins, then stamps, then fantasized about being a missionary doctor or famous pianist or perhaps a famous preacher and sort of managed that for a while. The truth is, I had a 1000 different interests as a kid, but being a photographer wasn't one of them. I became a photographer because I had an interest and the opportunity presented itself. Simple as that.

My first camera was an old Brownie camera that I inherited from my Mom, which took some pretty darn good black and white photos and which I used up until 1980 when I bought a used camera from a theology professor, my first that I bought, that had a blade that could slice through the negative in a darkroom. I forget the name, but somehow the name Ricoh jumps out at me. I could be way off.

After that I was given a Canon AE-1 as a Christmas gift by my then parents-in-law and that was a baby I used for as long as I can remember. It went everywhere with me. It was the first SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera that was available to the masses of which I was one. The only problem was that film was expensive and I wasn't a "pet" of the photographer on campus who had access to the darkroom, which later closed down at any rate. By the time you bought film, shot it, and then had it developed, you'd spent a lot of money. So, I shot slides, many of which I still have and need to transfer into digital files. It was THIS camera however that I blame for setting me on the Canon road, a brand I continue to use today, even though Nikon seems to have surpassed Canon at the present.

Skip a number of years, a few point-and-shoots such as the Canon G2, which was a great camera for what it could do back then, and some wanna-be SLR bodies, and I bought myself a Canon 10D which I thought kicked ass! 6.3 Megapixels! Whoop! I almost fell over myself trying to get to the store! :) It cost $1500. Now, if you look at Digital Photography Review, a site I totally trust and one I consult when I purchase new equipment, (and who I am linking to to get this photograph from) this camera now costs $250! Still, it was a workhorse, the camera that I learned much of my art on even if the noise level becomes unbearable at 1600 ISO.

My current workhorse of choice is a Canon 5D (and trying not to slip on the puddle of drool on the floor after working with the 5D II a few weekends ago!). Once again thanks to dpreview.com for this image. I don't shoot namby-pamby floral and perfumed weddings or high powered corporate execs meticulously groomed and enjoyed air-conditioning. The camera has to function in high humidity up to temperatures of 110 deg. F in the summer and in winter (okay, I live in Texas!) it drops to 30 deg. F some nights (not counting wind-chill factor), but the shutter has to do it's work. Dust is everywhere, and I cannot clean the chip every 5 minutes. The camera gets bumped, bruised and manhandled and still I get great shots!

I only shoot in RAW and generally only use the manual setting. Occasionally I will with the Tv or Av setting, depending on my subject (and that has also caused me to make stupid mistakes too because I forgot to change my setting!) and have a variety of lenses I'll shoot with and lights, again, depending on the circumstances.

No Profoto 8 or 7As or B lights for me I'm afraid unless I rent them. Talk about mega $$$ but absolutely incredible light. That the equipment that Annie Leibowitz uses. Check this video of her in action. It's amazing!

My point is that the best camera to have is the one you own. It doesn't matter if it's an old Brownie or a Hasselblad with a Capture One digital back, or the camera you have in your cellphone. Use what you have to take the best pictures you can. Art isn't always captivatingly beautiful, but it tells others how you see the world and how you think. It tells others that you are unique and that is a thing of beauty in and of itself.

Standing on the shoulders of others

As a kid, I remember going to the beach with my family. Getting there was a nightmare. Five kids in the backseat, my Dad refusing to stop, my Mom insisting on us learning the names of rocks on the way down to relieve our boredom, but once we got to the beach, we all rushed into the Indian Ocean. Of course we wanted to go as deep as we could, which was about 2 feet! Not deep at all. So my Dad would pick me up, put me on his shoulders, and take me into the deep places I could only dream of going.

That is what the giants of photography such as Chase Jarvis, David Hobby and Joe McNally do for photographers every day. Not only do they challenge us to greater heights, but they put up with our questions and whining as we attempt to claw our way to the top of the heap. Once in a while, they lift us up through their blogs or their workshops and help us see the possibilities that exist.

Here's a link back to the original, but I am taking the liberty of posting Chase's blog here, because it inspired me so much. To view the videos, please follow the link back to Chase's blog.

THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IN PHOTOGRAPHY (originally posted 12/07/2008)

I recently synthesized -- stumbled upon, really -- a great response to a question I've been asked at least 10,000 times. It's a simple question on the surface, but I've always seen the answer to be so complex.
Until now.

Q: "Chase, how do I 'make it' as a photographer?"

Prior to today, I either tried to respond with some enthusiastic bullet points about passion, creativity, and hard work; or I lamented that I didn't have a good answer; or replied with a)"I don't know, but I'll call you when I get there"; OR b)"Call me on my cell at 3am on a Saturday night when I'm 5,000 miles from home - I'll be awake working and I'll tell you then."

Obviously all these answers lack something. From here on out, however, I'll be excited to steer that broad question to this two-part answer:

1. Be Undeniably Good. Last year, in an interview with Charlie Rose, the famous comedian Steve Martin gave this advice to anyone trying to make it in any field:
Be undeniably good. When people ask me how do you make it in show business or whatever, what I always tell them and nobody ever takes note of it 'cuz it's not the answer they wanted to hear -- what they want to hear is here's how you get an agent, here's how you write a script, here's how you do this -- but I always say, "Be so good they can't ignore you." If somebody's thinking, "How can I be really good?", people are going to come to you. It's much easier doing it that way than going to cocktail parties.
Part 2 of this answer and a link to a great video after the jump. Hit 'continue reading' below.
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It hit me like a ton of bricks. It's simple, but profound and unarguably true. And in case someone responds to that suggestion with, "Ya, but how do I get to be so good that people can't ignore what I'm doing?", then I'll drop part 2, complements of Malcolm Gladwell:

2. Dedicate at least 10,000 hours to whatever it is you're looking to master. In his enlightening talk at the 2008 AIGA Business Design Conference, about innovation and misconceptions regarding what it takes to become a success, Gladwell discussed this concept from his new book Outliers: The Story of Success. "Genius and creativity don’t necessarily spring forth unbidden, they require time and support to experiment, try and even fail." I found his talk really entertaining, and I'd imagine you might too.

What's fun about photography, of course, is that anyone can pick up a camera these days and make great pictures, straight outta the gate. No brainer, really accessible, relatively little effort, nice pictures. I love that about photography - it's why everyone has a camera these days. The technology is really wonderful.

But, if you want to "make it", whatever that means, I think you need to start by being undeniably good. And if you can't intuit how to be undeniably good, then start by dedicating 10,000 hours to it. That will get you where you want to be.

VERY IMPORTANT: Do NOT be discouraged by this answer. On the contrary, let this be your golden ticket, the keys to the kingdom. Let it be refreshing that the answer to your questions about mastering photography isn't bound by money, gear, or even DNA. It's right there for the taking.

Tomorrow I'll throw up a few photos including one of the studio. Until then, ciao for now.