Ideas vs Reality

A somewhat flawed attempt at shooting with a lot of motion in it. I loved the colours in the latest dress that Amanda got, so wanted to shoot it with a vivid green surrounding, to really set off the orange & blue. I had this idea in my head to try and capture some motion in the dress and blur in the background, along with Amanda moving. Lots of motion & blur, but with some detail and sharp focus - out of focus and motion blur are pretty different things. Something that is sharply focused but moving looks very different to something thrown out of focus completely. The shoes in this shot are a good example of that - sharp but blurry. We went to Laguna Gloria on a very windy Saturday afternoon to try out this idea. On reflection, I think we should have gone a bit later in the day to get somewhat softer light. I also didn't have my head screwed on right, because the longest lens I brought was an 85mm 1.8. If I was looking for lots of background blur and shallow depth of field, something longer would have been a much better choice - next time I'm bringing the 400mm! The second silly mistake I made was that shooting mid day in Texas, on a bright sunny day isn't the most conducive to using slow shutter speeds. I wanted to pan the movement, to further blur the background and capture some of that sharp/ motion feel I mentioned - but that needs shutter speeds down around 1/60s or slower. 1/30s would have been ideal. Then combine that with wanting to shoot close to wide open, again for the shallow depth of field and you have a problem. Shutter speeds around 1/2000s make this tough! Even at ISO50. So next time, a polariser and/or ND would really help to make this shot work. The polariser will help the colours pop a bit more and saturate the way I had it in my head. The photo above has had the colours pushed further than I'd like in post processing, to get close to the idea I had - the polariser would be great in that respect, doing double duty as a 2-stop ND and saturating the end result. I quite like this result though, Amanda in the air, face sharp enough, still lots of movement and it has a lot of the design elements I had in mind for the shot. Amanda did a great job of running/ jumping around after our 18 mile run that morning! It was also just fun to hang out with her on such a beautiful day and do something fun. The kind people in my portrait class really seemed to like this result - even though I had a hard time getting a final print that I was happy with. I think though that what I struggle to accept is the difference between the image on the page and the idea that I had in my head. Some, very few times, those ideas come out in the end result fully formed. Other days, happy accidents occur and you go off in a whole new direction. This is just one that doesn't quite live up to the idea I've got still in the back of my head. I think I'll give this another go, just as soon as Amanda feels up to it.

Hobgoblins & Consistency

I've been attending a portrait class at AMOA for a couple of weeks now. So far it has been good for me, to push me to really think about lighting and how to work with a subject. Mainly though, it has been a way to carve out 3 hours a week to think about portraiture and photography. The instructor is great with some really inspiring portraits of his own, but what I really enjoy about these sorts of things is to be able to see and share images with a wide range of different photographers. The levels of experience and areas of interest are all over the place so it is great to see what people are doing and discuss and share process and ideas.

Last night we all put up three portraits from a series that we are working on. I used some of the images from my friends project. I'd shown one image on its own last week and the colour processing stood out from everyone else's work as somewhat different or odd. But when I put them together, the consistent treatment starts to work and my images pull together. After we talked about those three for a bit of time, I put the rest of the images up there - suddenly I could see that two stood out as not the right colour palette. Something was wrong - they didn't fit. What was interesting was I'd never seen that before - I think because I haven't yet put them out and really looked at them together.

Although I've been shooting this series in available light, the light that's available isn't always the same(*). Even though I've been applying the same set of colour manipulations to the images, the end results don't always tone in the same way - there's a couple that were shot outdoors that stood out as different and I think I'll need to re-work to fit in with the theme. I've been using the same focal length lens and roughly the same f-stop, but in a couple of cases I'm further away from the subject and that also stood out, side by side. On their own, they look perfectly okay, but as part of a consistent collection, the difference is clear. It is strange to realise how good your eye is at seeing the difference between colours - rather than seeing the absolute colours. Someone else had one picture printed at three different white balance settings. Each in isolation looked fine - the colour differences just were not very apparent - but when all three were shown side by side it really jumped out at you and only one looked right.

It was also instructive to note the effect of camera position, relative to the subjects in my portraits. The difference in camera height to subject height really changed the feel of the shots. Really subtle changes in where the eye level to camera level is changes the mood of the shots quite dramatically. The same with just where the person's head is, relative to the frame. Again this only really became visible to me when I started looking at the images side by side, so that I could compare the results.

I recently bought a metal rail for my office - I stick the prints up there to view them, so that they are in front of me more often. That way I can see them and they aren't hidden away in a box or on a hard drive. But I still hadn't confronted the images in the way I did last night. Taking the time to really look at them has given me new ideas on how to proceed - what needs to change, what's working and what needs to be adjusted. But what was good was how much they did all hang together and look like a consistent body of images. So I'm doing some things right and have some ideas to work out.

*There's an Arnold Newman quote where he was asked if he used available light and he replied 'yes, any light that's available'. I seem to be falling in to that mode.

Trey

Nedra's husband, Trey - again. This is the shot that is part of the natural light portrait project. I wanted to use this room for the really deep purple walls. I opened up the shutters on the window (to the camera right) and got Trey to stand fairly close to it, so the light would fall across his face. The wall was further back in the shade so went even darker. Again I liked the complimentary colours of the purple and orange. I composed this one with the Longhorns logo in it, which I find gives interesting repetition. The shape repeats in the logo, the shape of the shirt collar/buttons and also his eyes & nose are at a similar angle, so the T shape repeating through the frame at different scales ties the elements together.

Nedra

Nedra is a good friend of mine who I met through training for a triathlon a few years ago. She is an exceptional runner and recently qualified for the Boston marathon. There is no way I can keep up with her! This shot was taken in her home. The room is painted a really subtle green which I wanted to use to compliment her orange/ purple top. That top also played well on her signature glasses. I've recently been paying more attention to some of the ideas from colour theory and looking for complimentary colours, or close to complimentary colours to play on in my photography. Here the green/teal and orange are close to opposites and work well. The lighting is really simple, just window light behind me, to the camera rear/right. We set up and just talked a bit and shot several frames. Nedra even took her turn playing with my camera and shooting me, to get a feel for what I was seeing. Between that and showing her some of the results on the back of the camera, I think I managed to break the ice and give her a better idea of what I was trying to achieve. Post processed with the same partial desaturation and dodge/ burn that I've been working with for all of the portraits in this project. I've printed them all out and they are really starting to hang together thematically and visually. I'm also finding that the commitment to shooting in a similar style and subject over and over is really helping me to learn more about what I'm trying to do and how to improve each time.

Only in Texas

This shot was a high dynamic range composite of three exposures, taken about two thirds of a stop apart. It is the Texas state history museum at twilight. I've been wanting to shoot this for a while now and felt that twilight would be the perfect time, to get that deep blue sky colour. I pushed it a bit further to get a really strong complimentary colour relationship to the orange star and deep blue sky that I think makes for a much more dramatic scene than if the sky was totally black. I found that you just have to be there at the right time to get shots like this - and the right time doesn't last very long. Ten minutes earlier than this and the sky was too light, ten minutes later and the magic was gone. The sky was black and while it still works, the result just isn't as effective. Low angle, on a tripod, Canon 17-40mm F4L at the 17mm end and stopped down quite far to get the point light sources to give that characteristic small aperture star pattern. This subject is one of those I want to capture for my Iconic Austin series. I'm beginning to question the idea of shooting all of this project with a lensbaby. I might have to revise how I'm approaching this, or expand into an Austin at Night side project.

Calm on top, paddling like crazy beneath the surface

A couple of people have commented on how lucky I am to have so many subjects willing to pose for me. I agree. I have wonderful friends. But the reality is that I also put quite a bit of effort in up front to make these shoots go quickly and appear simple and effortless. Most of the actual shoots are brief - 5 or 10 minutes per person is what I'm aiming for. I don't want to intrude beyond that. But prior to that there is often a week or more of email, discussion and cajoling that goes on. In some cases, the 5 or 10 minutes of shooting took two months from asking if I could take the picture to actually getting together to shoot it.

I think many people only ever have had their portraits done in the assembly line of school pictures or perhaps in the mayhem of their wedding day. So when I first ask if I can take someone's picture, there's all those 'fun' experiences that flashes into their head. So I need to get beyond that barrier and explain what I'm wanting to to - why I want to take their picture. Also, the majority of people are just shy about having their picture taken, lots of perfectly normal doubts and insecurities surface - it all seems much more formal than a quick snap at a party. I suspect most people are secretly flattered to be asked, but there is also usually a lot of questions or reticence about it. I show samples of what I've been doing (which is getting easier now that I have actually got more samples to show). Having a web site with the images on it helps a lot too. I can point people right at what the pictures will look like. I try to answer the questions or put the fears to rest. So far nobody has turned me down - though that's also fine if someone isn't interested. Nobody has to take part!

The other thing that pays off big time is asking more than once. That follow-through or persistence seems to count. People take you more seriously if you actually set up a date and try to schedule it in somewhere. It also gives them time to mentally prepare, to be in the right place and be ready to give you 10 minutes of their time, rather than just springing it from nowhere, with a camera in hand. I usually try to give some guidance about clothes or at least general styles that will work and we try to pick a time when the light should be good.

Before I turn up, I try to think through where I want to shoot. I'm lucky for this project because part of the aim is to shoot in familiar places - people's homes, or spaces that we spend a lot of time in. So I usually have some idea of what the location will be like. I'm thinking ahead for good windows facing away from the sun for even, easy to use light (such as in the shot with Arun) or else I'm looking for something that will work well as a background in good light. For the shot with Michelle, I saw where I wanted to shoot her about 4 hours before we actually shot there - a bright yellow wall - but when I saw it, it was in full sunlight. So I waited for the light to change and we happened to be near there that afternoon as well and I suggested we go and shoot. It took about 5 minutes total, from her perspective, but only because I'd been trying to find the right location all day. I also spend time thinking about what poses or expressions I want to get. People very strongly reflect the mood of the photographer, so if you are high energy, the shoot will be high energy. If you are quiet, the shoot will be quiet - so I have to get into the right frame of mind for the results I want to get. I also get the camera set up so that I can pay as little attention to it as possible and spend all of the time trying to talk to the subject, interact and move towards the results I want. I'll direct a bit but not a whole lot. Often I just try to talk about something I know will engage their attention and then just watch and shoot when I see the things I want happening. I'll try to guide the conversation in the right direction but I'm really aiming to keep things natural and flowing. The main thing I'm trying to pay attention to is the catchlights in the eyes and how the shadows are working in the scene. I'll occasionally check that the shutter speed is fast enough or that I'm getting a good exposure on the histogram but that's all I do with the camera. I use a small, prime lens (85mm 1.8) to avoid the lens looking too big or imposing, which is intimidating. The camera is often on a tripod so my head can appear out from behind it and make some eye contact while talking. Expressions change quickly so I try to react and shoot a lot, knowing that I'll miss some shots but that I can get natural responses rather than something that is really stiff or posed.

Arun

I spent a fun Sunday afternoon with JoEllen and Arun, taking their pictures for my friends' project. Arun was one of the first people I met in Austin. He & I worked on the same project at Motorola and he was very kind to me in those first few weeks, inviting me to his house for a Hallowe'en party, where Amanda & I first got to know each other.

We've become good friends over the last seven years, with repeat Hallowe'en parties and a shared love of whiskey and also the occasional game of squash. (Very occasional) Very simple set-up for this one, just available window light, to the camera left. Canon 1DII on a tripod, with an 85mm 1.8. Shot at f5.0, 1/40s, ISO 320

JoEllen

I managed to spend a bit of time on Sunday with my friends, Arun & Jo. The weekend had been hectic, with a long bike ride and a fairly tiring run that morning, so it was good to just relax and have a beer. They have a lovely, beautifully lit house with plenty of bright window light and white walls, so it was perfect for shooting portraits. I've probably known Arun longer than any of the other friends I've made in Austin, as he and I worked together on my first project here with Motorola. I've known JoEllen for about as long as I've known Arun. Since I met them, they have gotten married and now are expecting their first child in a few weeks time. When we first met, Jo was friendly to me, nodding and smiling. I only found out about a year later that she couldn't understand a word I said, with my odd, foreign accent! I think she can understand a few words now though. The shoot was pretty low key, with me needing to sit on a stool because my legs were aching and also just being tired and not feeling very creative or active. I just set the camera up on a tripod and talked to them, shooting occasionally when I saw something promising. This one above was actually taken after we'd pretty much finished and was shot hand-held. I like what was happening with the triangles of the red couch and yellow pillow, combined with Jo's neckline & face so we played around with some poses. Available light, shot handheld. Canon 1DII, 85mm 1.8 @ f3.2, 1/60s, ISO 320

2007 projects

Well, I've been waffling around writing these down for a few days now. Life's been busy (well, mostly its been sitting on a bike or running, but that passes for busy, in and around working). I have three ideas in mind for the projects that I'm going to work on at least for the first half of the year or possibly through the whole year.

Two are continuations/resurrections of on-going projects and the third is something that I'm trying to force myself to start up but I seem to be having a big issue just putting it out there and going for it.

First off, I'm going to keep working on the 'Friends in Austin' project. I started this late last year and have been making good progress, with 5 shots done. I need to get a bit more organised and start making the appointments with people to shoot some more. Should be easier now that the holidays are over. The next shoot for this project is tomorrow, assuming I manage to stay awake after the ARA 20 miler. This has been a lot of fun so far and I've been really happy with the results I've been getting. It is, all shot available light and I think I'm going to keep it that way. Also, I'm using one single lens for all the shots (Canon 85mm) which is giving a good, consistent feel to the images, along with some similar processing/ toning. The idea is to get some great pictures of the friends I've made in Austin over the last 7 years, partly to make sure I spend some time seeing my friends, partly to work on my portraits and also finally to have a good memento if and when Amanda & I move on from Austin. I can see this being put together as a small single issue book when it is done. But I really need to list out who's picture I'm going to take so I know where I"m at in the process - maybe its done when we leave - seems appropriate!

The second project is the iconic Austin theme project that I started last year. I got suggestions from a lot of people on what they consider iconic things or views of Austin - I just need to go and shoot them! The suggestions were from a mix of local Austinites & new transplants and covers the range from the tourist icons to the more eclectic. I did start out shooting this with the lensbaby and I think I'm going to keep going that way - but maybe with some more consideration on how I'm using it. I'm not 100% sure about the tungsten white balance used in the shots above - it feels like a gimmick for the sake of it. I need to compile the list and organise/prioritise it so I know where I'm going and when I get there. I might also try increasing the range of suggestions I get and I've also considered linking it in to the first project - and shooting the person's idea of an icon along with their portrait, so they could be shown together. The third project is one that I'm both excited about and somewhat nervous about starting. I'm calling it 'Everyday Ironmen'. There are a lot of articles and features on the exceptional athletes who finish Ironmen triathlons in the top places. There are also a lot of articles about those who overcome huge odds to complete one of these crazy races. But here I am, stuck in the middle. A friend remarked 'You know, Gordon really doesn't look like an Ironman' and that's true - I'm just ordinary in that respect, nothing special. But there are a whole lot of ordinary, everyday people who complete these races. I'm training with a bunch of the exceptional, everyday people who somehow manage to fit this huge challenge in and around their normal lives. There is a group of about 20 of us, all training for one race in a few months time. So I want to take pictures of those people. I have a somewhat more grandiose idea to have interviews to accompany the pictures and also perhaps include race reports when we all get done with Ironman Arizona in April. I know the lighting style I want to shoot most of the portraits in (though I don't yet know how to do it) . I know the theme of shots I want - full bod or 3/4 portraits of people in race gear, on bikes, running, swimming. I'm even considering some underwater portrait shoots too. But I need to start getting volunteers and writing something up to approach people with. I guess I've started that process here. Again, I think this has the potential to be a great book project, I have a writer in mind and I think it could be really exciting. If any of you have suggestions, thoughts, comments or ideas on how these could be improved, I'd love to hear it.