Art / Photography / PotD

Flexible Friday

August 7, 2015

Flexible Friday

And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday. —Alfred Doblin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]As I sit down to write this morning, and it’s a rather unusual thing that I wake up on a Friday not already having at least half this thing done, I’m tempted to just set the picture here and walk away, leaving you to look at it and wonder for yourself what manner of meaning, if any, it might hold. For me, there’s a sadness to this image, but that’s a personal matter not really fit for public consumption. There are also the technical aspects of how this particular multiple exposure was achieved; a different technique used due to the fact that the background on each image was bright white. I’m not terribly motivated to recount the steps for that process, either.

As you look at the picture, you might be impressed with the model’s flexibility, and appropriately so. Lord knows I’m no longer in any condition to be contorting myself into such positions. Sure, I have friends who are yoga instructors and they all assure me that there are things I could do to increase my physical mobility without aggravating the pain issues. What no one has been able to do yet, however, is find a way to increase my mental flexibility that seems to be increasingly rigid as I get older. I’m sadly reaching that point in life when rather than being excited about the prospects for fun-filled Friday night activities, I’m wondering how early I might be able to get to bed.

I once met a lovely little lady in Paradise, California, back in 1981, who was 101 years old. She was the first person of such age I’d ever met and her spryness caught me off guard. “The secret,” she said, “is to never let anyone convince you that you’re old.” She was amazingly flexible, a former dancer, who put her stockings on while standing up to help maintain both her balance and her flexibility. She read constantly to maintain her mental acuity and every Friday walked the mile and a half each way to the senior center for lunch just to prove to “those old people” that it was still possible. She was quite inspirational.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]There was a time, and it seems like it was not long ago, when I considered myself reasonably flexible. I could scale a climbing wall as fast as any of my boys. I could straddle two canoes and manage to not fall into the river. I could leap across rocks to the middle of a stream so as to have the best perspective for a picture and not worry too much about dunking my equipment. I was also socially flexible. Last-minute schedule changes didn’t bother me. Long lines were something I could marginally tolerate. Differences of opinion were interesting and often worth considering. Fridays were busy and fun, even when we stayed home.

Not so much anymore. When my alarm went off this morning, the first thing I had to do was pop a dozen different joints that had gone stiff during the night. Walking across the floor to my desk was arduous, slow, with carefully measured steps. Getting up and down from my chair is challenging enough that I’ll sit here arguing with myself as to whether I really need that second cup of coffee before I lose consciousness and fall asleep on the keyboard. Again. Changes to my schedule? Don’t you dare! Once I have an appointment set it might as well be carved in stone. Death is the only excuse I’ll accept for changes and even then I might gripe about how inconsiderate it is for someone to die on a Friday and ruin the whole weekend. Cross opinions with me and you’re just being stupid.

Oh look, I’ve actually made it past my minimum 600-word count. I just got up and put on water for the second pot of coffee (French press). Perhaps I’m more flexible than I thought. I even have plans to go see a friend’s photography exhibition tonight, children in tow and everything. Just don’t talk to me about last night’s presidential debate; that was an exercise in who can pander in the most disgusting manner. I’m still not flexible enough to handle stupid. Don’t expect that to change.[/one_half_last]

Nature / Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Cool Water

August 3, 2015

Cool Water

All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Water. For a lot of people across the Midwest United States, it’s something we’ve had a bit much of this summer. There’s been no short amount of rain and with it has come a significant amount of flooding, sometimes in areas that had never seen such a problem before. For all those people who are still cleaning up from the devastating effects of those floods, there doesn’t seem to be any shortage of cool water.

Wet conditions don’t prevail everywhere, though, and Western states have continued a drought that started in 2012 and is well beyond critical levels. The National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA) reports that for the month of June approximately 14 percent of the US was plagued with severe to extreme drought, an increase of five percent over May. July numbers aren’t ready yet, but don’t expect them to be any better. Good luck finding cool water around here.

If you want cool water that is actually clean and drinkable, there aren’t that many sources. The entire planet is experiencing a shortage of the stuff and the situation is getting worse. Numbers from aid organizations and charities vary a little bit, but the United Nations reports that 783 million people, that’s over one-tenth of the world’s population, does not have access to clean water. 2.5 billion people do not have adequate sanitation. What’s the resulting impact? 6 to 8 million people die annually from the consequences of disasters and water-related diseases. And if you think throwing money at the problem is the answer, you’re wrong. The UN estimates it would take 3.5 planets Earth to provide enough water to sustain the existing population at the current lifestyles common to Western Europe and the US. The UN also reports that, “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world population could live under water stress conditions.”

We’re not exactly doing well with this cool water thing, are we? I’m pretty sure the majority of people in the US take for granted how fortunate we are to have the easy access to clean, cool water that we do. We don’t have to walk for miles. We simply turn on a tap and it’s there. We don’t even have to worry too often about it being clean.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Aid organizations have been trying for years to draw our attention to the global water issue without too much luck. In California early this year, Governor Jerry Brown issued an executive order requiring, among other things, a 25% reduction in water usage across the board, no exceptions. Just this past week, the Internet nearly choked as pictures of Melinda Gates, wife of world’s richest man Bill Gates, was photographed carrying drinking water on her head in solidarity with women in Malawi. Still, at the end of the day, most Americans and Western Europeans ignore the looming disaster.

Today’s picture is a tempting one as we’ve created a double exposure by merging an image of a babbling brook with that of a young woman bathing in a stream. The cool water looks comfortable, refreshing, and alluring. This is a fairly complicated image that not only blends two separate photographs but changes from color to black and white as one moves from left to right across the picture. The result is a blend of emotions as our perspective of the image changes.

Back in 1963, on his album Cattle Call, which produced his signature song, singer/actor Eddie Arnold also included the song Cool Water, about a cowboy crossing the desert with his horse, Dan.

All day I’ve faced a barren waste
Without the taste of water, cool water
Old Dan and I with throats burnt dry
And souls that cry for water, cool clear water.

Dan’s feet are sore he’s yearning for
Just one thing more than water, cool water
Like me I guess he’d like to rest
Where there’s no quest for water, cool clear water

If something doesn’t change, and quickly, those are sentiments we may all soon share.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Double Exposure: Did You Mean To Do That?

August 2, 2015

Natural Beauty. Model: Destany Harte

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ― Ansel Adams

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I like quiet Sunday mornings; the kind where I can sit here at the computer and read, drink my coffee, and listen to music in the headphones without being interrupted. I’m only mildly annoyed that we’re not out shooting in this perfect light because I was up way too late last night to have been thinking lucidly early enough to actually take advantage of the situation. I’ve been behind a camera long enough now that I don’t have to have one in my hands every waking second, I don’t have to shoot every day to feel complete, and when I do shoot I’m much more likely to be concerned about the emotion of the image rather than the technical aspects. If I’m not feeling a concept, there’s little use in pushing through and shooting it; there’s little point in taking more bad pictures. We’ve had our fair share of those plus a few.

Not every Sunday morning is quiet, though, and not every bad shot is a waste. I remember, early in my career, getting a phone call at some ungodly hour of a Sunday morning telling me that yet another tornado had ripped through yet another small town in Oklahoma. I pulled on clothes in the dark (the advantage of a monochrome wardrobe), grabbed my camera and a half-dozen packs of film and headed out. One of the dangers of early-morning shooting, especially when the matter’s urgent, is that one tends to not check their camera bag as thoroughly as they should, and I didn’t. I knew I had film and my lenses with a selection of filters for effect. I didn’t bother checking for backup batteries for the film advance.

It seems almost silly now, and is one of those problems that new shooters will never experience, having to manually advance film. The batteries that powered that function were often specialized, expensive, and impossible to find outside a camera store. Finding one on a Sunday would be impossible. So, I kept a couple of spares. On a shelf. And they were still sitting there when I drove off bleary-eyed into the night rain. This was one of those moments when I was second-guessing my profession and spent most the drive thinking about going back to college and working on my masters degree. Being a photographer just seemed like a ridiculous way to try and learning a living. No one ever asked a symphony conductor to be up before dawn.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Arriving in the small town forced me to focus on my job. The tornado had skipped through town obliterating the two-block commercial area before taking out a church building, a handful of homes, and the school gym. There were trees and power lines down everywhere, making the situation a bit dangerous. Highway patrol and electric company officials were already there keeping people away from live electric lines. Miraculously, no one had been seriously hurt this time. I pulled my camera from my bag, slapped in the first roll of film and started shooting. I was about a dozen shots in when I noticed I was hearing the click of the shutter, but not the whir of the film advance. I took the battery out, wiped it on my shirt, and stuck it back in the camera, and it gave me a few more shots before dying completely. That’s when I discovered I’d left the backup batteries at home, some 70 miles away.

I did the best I could,trying to remember to manually advance the film after every shot, but I knew I had missed a few and warned the lab that there would be a few double exposure shots out of the batch. I apologized for the wasted film. Monday morning, the lab called to let me know that there were a couple of those “wasted” shots might be worth keeping. Specifically, the double exposure had placed the rising sun coming up right behind the destroyed church building. The effect was rather striking and totally unique, one of those things one can never reproduce.

Double exposure doesn’t naturally occur with digital cameras, but we can re-create the effect with some careful layer work. There are several different ways of achieving the effect, layering one image over the other, then adjusting the layer blend mode and opacity, then tweaking the levels and curves. One can easily get bogged down in the details, but double exposure really has to do with emotion. If the image doesn’t create an emotional response then it’s a waste of time. So, this week we’re going to look at some specially created double exposure images that we’ve produced along a number of themes for the end of summer. This is different from what we normally share. I hope you’re ready to feel something. [/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Not Dead Yet

July 25, 2015

Polaroid PX 600 Silver Shade Impossible UV+ Monochrome

I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]For those whose lives are incredibly boring and/or severely disadvantaged, let me explain why I chose the title for this today’s photo. In the movie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, there is a scene invoking images of the black plague. A man is walking through the streets of London yelling, “Bring out your dead,” as he pushes a cart carrying the bodies of the deceased.

As one body is tossed onto the cart, the presumably deceased man objects: “I’m not dead yet!” At which he is told he soon will be and that he should just lie down and die already.

Then, in true Monty Python fashion, they break into song.

Polaroid is the photographic equivalent of that old man; it just refuses to die, even though there is no longer any logical use for the once-popular technology. When Edwin Land introduced his first instant camera in 1947, he wowed the photography world with his amazing film that processed on its own. The impact was every bit as significant as digital photography would be some fifty years later. There wasn’t a serious photographer on the planet who didn’t snap a series of Polaroids to make sure the light and camera settings were correct before committing to film. Polaroids quickly became an indispensable part of the profession for anyone working in a studio. I shudder to think of the millions of Polaroid images scattered across studio floors that were eventually swept up and thrown away. If those Polaroids could talk …

Then came digital cameras and with them the ability to “preview” an image right on the camera. One knew instantly whether they had the shot or not. No waiting. No shaking. No suddenly discovering one had a bad packet of film (which happened too frequently). As the new millennium dawned, Polaroid’s days seemed numbered. Sales of both its cameras and films plummeted. Bankruptcy was inevitable and talk of the company’s demise just assumed that doors had already been shuttered and no one was left. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Folks at Polaroid weren’t so quick to just give up, though, and as though crying, “I’m not dead yet!” they came back in 2008 with an instant mobile printer and followed that with the Z340 instant digital camera in 2011. The company has recommitted itself to finding ways to bring their instant prints to a digital-centric society that has very little patience. While the Polaroid may no longer be a studio necessity, the new cameras as still a lot of fun and give a person that instant gratification of being able to hold a picture in their hands.

To some extent, creating a digital conversion to a Polaroid-type look seems, well, very anti-Polaroid. After all, having a Polaroid is all about the print, being able to hold something in one’s hands. Yet, for articles about the technology or perhaps just the uniqueness of the look, there are ways of re-creating most of the Polaroid film looks. You don’t want to try this on your own, though, unless you have more patience than I. Fortunately, you don’t have to be the brave explorer here. There are Photoshop™ actions all over the place that make it process much easier and, in this particular case, I suggest using one. I used one from rawimage which is available by clicking here. Be aware the link takes you to their page on DeviantArt. After running the action, we did a little burning around the edges to further “age” the image a bit and bring out the streaks that were inevitable with older Polaroids.

Keep in mind a couple of things. First, the actions require original images with strong lines and good contrast. I ran the action on a picture of a white wedding cake with a white topper and when it finished the topper had completely disappeared! Second, Polaroid images were not meant to be permanent. Don’t try to give them too polished a look or you’re missing the whole point. Polaroid was never a perfect film and the majority were inevitably thrown away. Don’t think the days of Polaroid are completely gone, though. They’re not dead yet.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

A Good Touch

July 24, 2015

Tintype

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. —Walker Evans

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Photography isn’t all that old of a medium and it has been one of constant change pretty much from the moment it first started. Fortunately, it is a well-documented history and we have done a decent job of preserving not only the images from the past but the manner in which they were taken. We can, though sometimes with a level of great difficulty, with a good touch duplicate almost any type of photography with either the original equipment or exact copies. Photographers tend to be a nostalgic bunch and no matter what advancements are made to the industry, there has always been those who prefer the way it used to be.

Photography inevitably invokes looks at the past because it is the past we have captured. Sure, sometimes it’s the recent past, but even if we share photographs “in real time” there is a lapse there that only grows longer. Today’s photo was taken in 2006, which is practically forever by digital standards. Given the temporary nature of anything digital, it is a bit surprising that nine-year-old photos still exist. The camera on which this shot was taken is just as much a relic now as would be a tintype. In fact, that is exactly the reason I chose to process this image using a tintype tonality. Both cameras are obsolete, but at least the tintype gives us a distinctive look into the past.

A good touch is necessary when doing any kind of “antique” look. There have been multiple methods of recreating this old look over the years, depending on what was available in a particular version of Photoshop™ and with all of them the challenge has been to not go overboard with the effect, making the image too dark or too light. All we can do is approximate the look, after all. Remember that original tintypes were printed on thin sheets of metal, not paper, which gave it a reflective tone not possible in a digital format. We’re also accustomed to seeing streaks and burning around the edges, but that is due to decay, not originally part of the image.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I don’t use this conversion method often because to do so just ends up looking cheap and gimmicky. It works best on older digital images that are less than ten megapixels in depth and more likely to have a natural noise level similar to the grain of a tintype. Also remember that there are two different types of tintype, dry and wet, and each has its own tonal range. Try this on an image:

Duplicate the background layer. Desaturate and equalize the new layer and reduce its opacity to 25%.
Duplicate that new layer. Auto-adjust the levels and contrast on the new layer, then apply a smart blur with a radius of 3 and threshold of 25, quality: low.
Here’s the tricky part. Add a curves adjustment layer and make an adjustment in the red channel only. Make one adjustment point with input 128 and output 157, which curves upward, giving the image a light pink tone.
Create a second curves adjustment layer, this time doing an auto adjustment in each channel, red, green, and blue.
Create a levels adjustment layer and set the output to 50, 208.
Add a fill layer with the blending mode set to color. Use these settings: Red-255, Green-229, Blue-191.
Add a second fill layer. Set the blending mode to color and reduce the opacity to 40%. The settings are easy: Red-223, Green-223, Blue-223.

What you do beyond this point is totally up to you. We added a frame to our image for effect, but it really isn’t necessary. If an image is too clean, you might add some noise and if you want an aged look you could dodge and burn around the edges to create the streaking. Again, you’ll need a good touch, a delicate and reserved use of the tools, to not overdo the effect. This isn’t an everyday conversion, but for special images it can really stand out.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Mind The Shadows

July 23, 2015

LAB Processing

In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated. —August Sander

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]One of the challenges of working with natural light is the depth of shadows, even in well-diffused situations. Natural light shadows tend to have a bit more gradient to them, which is nice, but they can also run extremely dark and be impossible to lighten without introducing significant amounts of noise to the image. This is one of those situations where it is more appropriate to find a black and white conversion method that can work with the shadows rather than trying to fight it, which makes the conversion more labor-intensive than just moving black and white adjustment sliders. This can get scary.

Our image today is again from 2007. The setting is an executive office in an abandoned facility originally built in 1930-31. Obviously, a few more modern enhancements were made at some point, such as the grounded electrical outlet and fireplace screen, but marble fireplace and wood paneling are likely original. Light was wonderfully diffused through smoked glass windows that were largely opaque but still managed to let enough light in to shoot at 200 ISO. This gave us a beautiful shadow gradient across the model’s skin, and a very gradual light-to-shadow gradient across the entire room. However, where it did go to complete shadow it was extremely dark. The room had a bit of a spooky feeling to it.

What was important in making this conversion was being able to adequately capture not just a specific tone, but the overall feeling of the room. If I had shot this on film, I would have instructed the lab to let it sit in the developer a little longer, maybe +2 or +3, or perhaps use a T-Max developer rather than D76 if I had used a T-Max film. This would give me a little more detail in the shadows while maintaining the overall feel. However, this would also seriously affect the tone and one would have to be extremely careful to not introduce grain.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]From a digital perspective, the options can be even more challenging. We don’t want the shadow around the door to go all the way black. We want to see the door. Please note, this process does not work well for every image. Proceed at your own risk. You’ll need some sharp Photoshop knowledge here.

Convert the image to LAB color, then select the lightness channel.
With the lightness channel selected, convert to greyscale mode. This flattens the image a bit, so be careful. Don’t stop here.
Now it gets tricky. You want to create a selection of the lighter parts of the image then invert the selection. There are numerous ways of doing this, choose your favorite and save the selection.
Convert the image back to RGB. Make a new layer and with that layer selected create a new masked channel using the saved selection. Make sure the channel is visible.
Select the new layer and change its blending mode to “multiply” then select the RGB channel. Make sure the selection is still active.
Create a new fill layer using hue 40.9°, saturation 63, brightness 58. The masked channel should automatically be applied to this layer as a mask.
Adjust the saturation where you like it. I’ve used -45 for this image.

There are other tweaks one can use, such as adding a light blue layer at 10% opacity for a more silver tone, or very carefully playing with the curves just a bit. Each image is going to be so very different that it’s impossible to impose one specific setting. Play around and see if it works for you.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Subtle Touches

July 22, 2015

Kodak T-Max 100

Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Do you remember the first picture you ever took? Chances are it wasn’t 35mm, but rather a popular consumer-grade fixed-lens camera. Poppa wouldn’t let me touch his Brownie, but we did own a series of little 110 Instamatics that were passed around to whichever family member wasn’t actually in the photo. I remember dumping that film cartridge in the back and looking through the small viewfinder, trying to not cut off everyone’s heads as Mother tended to do. If we were inside, there was a requirement for flash, which most often came in the form of a cube that sat on top of the camera. Getting four flashes without having to change cubes seemed so much more modern than the single-use bulbs required for the Brownie. Never mind that they tended to over-light, casts horrible shadows, and were anything but subtle. We were just having fun with friends and family. No one took seriously anything shot with a 110.

Using a 35mm film was different and something I didn’t experience until I was in college. It was the summer of 1981, if I remember correctly, and we were going to a family reunion of sorts, back to Arkansas and the little farming community where Poppa grew up. A friend loaned me his 35mm, loaded a roll of color 36-exposure color film, and showed me quickly how to focus the lens. I put the camera in the trunk of the car, largely afraid to use it for fear of causing damage. When I did try to take a few pictures with it, I was frustrated by the fact that a subtle movement could throw the entire picture out of focus. I didn’t even use the full 36 frames. I was sure, at that point, that photography at any advanced level wasn’t for me.

So much of photography seems to center around the big, highly-produced, carefully manipulated, high-processed images that appear in fashion magazines that we tend to lose sight of the subtle, more nuanced images where careful attention is given to the detail. Finer points of an image are easily lost as we mismanage light or fail to pay attention to precise settings on the camera. Sure, maybe no one notices, and perhaps no one cares, but when I look back at archived images, which is where we find most of our #POTD subjects, detail, or the lack of it, is the first thing my eyes catch. Subtle touches can make a tremendous amount of difference.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]No black and white film I’ve used handles those subtle touches better than Kodak Professional T-Max 100. When I first started taking pictures, this was the film I wasn’t allowed to touch; it was more expensive, required a photographer that knew what they were doing, and was reserved for those special occasions when someone of national prominence was visiting. There is no finer grain, no better resolving power, no sharper lines than is possible with this film. T-Max enlarges well, it is consistent in tone from batch to batch, and it handles the most subtle of details with finesse. Art photographers have long loved this film, but I always liked it for portraits as well because I feel like it does a better job of capturing everything one wants to see in a face.

Okay, so there are times T-Max can be fussy, especially in development. There is dramatic difference between the 100 speed and 400 speed versions of the film. 100 speed prefers longer exposure times, which may be great for portraits and still life, but is totally inappropriate for almost any kind of motion at all. The shorter the exposure time, the more the film struggles. Variances in any portion of the development environment affect the contrast and tone of the final image. Even subtle changes in temperature can have strong results. Similarly, one has to be careful with the conversion to digital. I used these settings for black and white adjustment: reds-37, yellows-70, greens-33, cyans-64, blues-28, magentas-68.

Whether there is, or can be, a good digital equivalent of T-Max 100 is open for debate. With digital images, grain, or more correctly, noise is introduced by the camera sensor and is not something easily removed in processing. T-Max 100 has such a fine grain that any noise in the image discounts the accuracy of the conversion. One needs to be extremely careful with any contrast adjustment as well. Still, when one is starting with a good image, this is a good method to use and the subtle handling of detail makes a world of difference.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

One Grumpy Cat

July 21, 2015

Ilford Delta

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv. —Henri Cartier-Bresson

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Remember that warning about not working with animals or children? This cat is a good example of why animal photography is difficult. The shot was taken in March, 2007, long before that whole grumpy cat meme took over the Internet, but he easily could have served as the inspiration. The model, whom we had shot before, was on her way home from college for Spring Break and was, naturally enough, taking her cat with her. She stopped by just long enough for a few shots and, given that she had a hat whose coloring matched that of the feline, she wanted pictures with her dear feline. Sounds reasonable enough, doesn’t it?

The cat wasn’t nearly as enthused as was it’s human. Actually, dear cat hated being stuck in a carrier and absolutely loathed riding in the car. By the time they had made the hour trip to us, dear cat was nothing short of royally pissed. He expressed his displeasure by yowling and hissing from inside the carrier as she brought him in. Thinking it might help him settle down a bit, the model decided to let the cat out so he could roam and get acquainted with his surroundings. The problem with that thought? We were shooting from Nick Tucker’s place on the South side of Indianapolis. Nick had a dog. A very large, friendly, and slobbery Saint Bernard.

You can probably guess what happened next. Even though the poor dog was sequestered to a separate room, the cat took one whiff of dog and ran for cover. Finding and retrieving him took so long that we had to drop one of the sets planned. By the time we actually got the extremely miffed cat in the pictures, the model was exhausted, which shows. The cat scowled the entire time, I think. It can be difficult to tell with cats like this; they have a resting grumpy face that never really changes.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Our challenge in choosing a processing method for this shot lies in the fact that everything from the wall to the chair to the cat is pretty much within the same general tonal range, with the exception of the model’s jeans. Nick did a great job with the lighting, but there was still a danger of losing detail. So, I chose a method duplicating what was typically my second-favorite film: Ilford Delta 100. Ilford is an old British film company that has been around since the 1870s, started in the basement of Alfred Harman’s house in Northeast London.

What makes Ilford Delta the best choice for this image is its sharpness and such fine grain that it is nearly grain-free, even under the most severe of conditions. Given the tonal range of our image, even Kodak professional films would have difficulty matching what Ilford Delta could do with this shot. The challenge, of course, is finding a digital conversion that meets that standard. This one took a while, but what we finally came up with is this: reds- 34, yellows- 76, greens- 40, cyans- 66, blues- 25, magentas- 61. That back-and-forth approach hits just the perfect tonal balance for pulling out detail without introducing unnecessary noise. Once we had that conversion setting, we made only the slightest adjustments to contrast before closing the file.

Shots like this are difficult to convert to a good digital black and white. It’s too easy to go too low on the contrast, which leaves the photo looking flat. Take the contrast just a tweak too far, and the highlights are lost. I’ve used this conversion method on several different challenging images, though, and it has yet to fail. It even manages to make a grumpy cat look almost friendly. Don’t be fooled, though. He wasn’t. [/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Surprise!

July 20, 2015

Fomapan

The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Surprise in photography is rarely a good thing. One of the most significant differences between shooting film and shooting digital is ease of traveling. When traveling with film, one has to take great pains going through security to make sure the film canisters are removed and not exposed to any x-ray or other devices that might damage the product. Sometimes security personnel were cooperative and understanding, sometimes they weren’t, especially in countries with a history of rebellious violence. Digital cameras sail through security much more easily, though it still makes me quite nervous.

Imagine being in a former Soviet-bloc country, such as the Czech Republic, and your film not surviving the airport. Suddenly, and frustratingly, the success of a high-budget project depends on finding a replacement film with high enough quality to do the job. After asking around, you find a local photographer who hands you a roll of a locally-made film he promises is professional quality. At least, you think that’s what he’s saying; the interpreter was having problems with the vocabulary. You drop the film in the camera and pray, hard. To make matters more challenging, lighting conditions for the shoot are far from perfect and you keep having to adjust exposure by a stop or two. Warning the art director that you can’t guarantee results seems like a good idea.

Next, you bring the film home and hand it off at a lab to be processed. After a couple of hours, the phone rings and you get the strange message that the film has turned both the developer and the negatives a bright blue! After sharing some strong words with the lab manager, he agrees to go ahead and finish processing the first roll. You wait patiently for the results and when they arrive you are pleasantly surprised to discover some of the sharpest photographs you’ve seen. Even when the exposure had to be adjusted, the film compensated more than adequately. Much to everyone’s delight, the project has been saved. Surprise![/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]As the former Soviet Union crumbled and both nation states and businesses struggled to retain some identity in this new existence, we discovered a host of smaller film companies who, to great surprise, created products that excelled in different ways. The Czech company now known as FOMA Bohemia is one of those companies. Founded in the early 1920s, the film products were rarely seen outside Eastern Europe until the mid-90s, after the Czech Republic was formed. They had the bad luck of hitting the global market just before the whole digital craze took hold and never had much of a chance to prove what they could do. The film is still available in limited quantities, but more for hobbyist than professional use.

Fomapan is an interesting film that likes to surprise photographers with slightly different results on every roll. These are good results, mind you, but how the film is scanned and any variation in how long they’re left in developer, which will still turn bright blue, shift the tonal base even for black and white film. This makes the film quite fun from an artistic perspective and totally frustrating when one needs consistency. Recreating the look digitally is easy enough, and one has plenty of latitude. For today’s photo, we used the following black and white adjustment settings: reds- 31, yellows- 89, greens- 105, cyans- 77, blues- 46, magentas- 44. Where the fun, and surprise, comes in is applying various color filters on top of the black and white layer. We used an orange filter to bring out the model’s freckles, but blue and red filters can be very dramatic.

Fomapan does play a little dark on blues and reds, so one has to be careful with shadows and shading. For added effect, mix this setting with a Holga filter if you have one. Fomapan in a Holga is truly a work of art, but is better for landscapes than portraits. Fomapan is a black and white with a lot of tonal flexibility. Try it and share the surprise.[/one_half_last]

Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Remembering Days of Film

July 19, 2015

Agfa APX

Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]There are days that I really miss using film. Not enough to actually pull out my old Canon A1 and load a roll, mind you, but I do miss the click and whir of the film advance, the limited number of shots that could be taken without interruption, and that feeling drilled into my head from the very beginning that every frame was valuable and therefore not to be wasted. I sometimes think we took better pictures with film because we took the time to actually think about what we were doing rather than just snapping away mindlessly. Using film requires thought. Each picture is a mini-project unto itself and there was always the consideration before snapping, “Is this really worth capturing?”

Film is still available, of course, and there are still a number of photographers who use it. The practicality of such, though, is questionable and it has largely become the domain of hobbyist who appreciate the artistry not only of shooting with film but developing it as well. Even then, what we see today in terms of emulsions and papers is nothing like what it once was. There is no more black and white paper. Many emulsions have moved toward “green” chemicals that are not as hard on the environment. While the moves make economic and ecological sense, what was lost was a tonal environment that was only possible under very specific conditions.

So, all this week we are taking a look at attempts to recreate the tonal environments of some popular black and white films with digital photography. For this experiment, you should know what we are using the latest cloud version of Adobe® Photoshop™ and conducting most of the tonal changes using the sliders in a black and white adjustment layer. We’ve also taken careful consideration as to which image is best served by which film process. Not every photo renders well with various processes and careful consideration should be taken. We also applied color filters to some images, but not all. We’ll let you know which ones were so modified. Yes, the whole thing is a little geeky.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s image attempts to duplicate Agfa APX film. I’ll admit I have a soft spot in my heart for Agfa, not so much because of any superiority of the film, but because one of the company’s founders was Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the son of composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy whose music from A Midsummer’s Night Dream is more popularly known as the wedding march. Agfa began making camera film in 1898 and at one point enjoyed a popularity that rivaled that of Kodak. Today, unfortunately, after a disastrous attempt to split off the consumer imaging portion in 2005, Agfa is much smaller with much more limited offerings, operating primarily as a business-to-business concern in the field of medical imaging.

Agfa’s APX film is still widely available, especially online, and there are a number of photographers who still swear by it’s very fine grain and speed versatility. The speed of the film is questionable, though. If you have a camera that can do so, the 100-speed film actually works better at 80. 400 works best at 360. Obviously, not every camera can make that adjustment and it can modify the results. Digitally, this style is most easy to duplicate in an image with a light background behind a darker but well-lit subject. The black and white adjustment sliders don’t move a lot for this conversion: reds-50, yellows-91, greens-82, cyans-80, blues-33, and magentas-79. I also used a light green color filter on this image to correct some skin tone issues. Green, yellow, and orange filters work well with this setting. I kept the contrast moderate and added just the tiniest bit of grain to duplicate the older version of the film.

I much prefer how the photo looks using this process than leaving it in color. There’s a story in this picture and in black and white it compels us to imagine what that story might be. I won’t say that the duplication effect is 100% precise, but it’s close enough to give me warm fuzzies. This is going to be an interesting week. We hope you’ll join us every day.[/one_half_last]

Advertising / Photography / PotD

Varying Effects

July 17, 2015

Drink More Tequila

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ― David Honegger

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Nowhere do the varying effects of Photoshop™ draw more criticism than in advertising. I understand why: people are inherently wired to believe what they see; we are not inclined to ask questions. Even with the Internet being over 20 years old, we still tend to trust what we see, especially if it is in print. Yet, if one thinks for a moment, where is the most logical place to manipulate images if it isn’t in an attempt to sell something? After all, there are some boring products out there and without a little pizzazz to spark some interest there’s no way anyone would ever just think to examine the product on their own.

Fashion, and any other ad that features women, draw the most criticism for how they manipulate an image, especially when it comes to body shape and size. Women have, for as long as there have been print ads, used the examples they see in magazines and catalogs as a basis for judging their own bodies and, subsequently, their own self-worth. As a result, for as long as there have been print ads (which originally had to use illustrations rather than photographs), there have been people complaining that the example set forth is “not real,” and “impossible to achieve.” Yet, while campaigns such as Dove’s “Real Women” at least try to move the industry, and women’s opinions, the opposite direction, years of sales evidence points to the fact that people don’t buy products when the image is too realistic. Sexy sells every time, even if it is totally a work of fiction.

What’s amazing is that we know better. We know that ads lie to us, that images have had varying effects applied to them, that claims are deceptive and that some bust-to-waist ratios defy the laws of physics. We have experienced these things our entire lives, we’ve criticized them in conversation, we’ve had countless studies done to prove the degree to which some industries lie more than others (Big Tobacco, anyone?). Still, at the end of the day, when the dollars are counted and the sales added up, the ads work.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]For the most part, I prefer to keep my images within the realm of reason and only apply varying effects that I feel aid the communicative qualities of the image overall. There are always exceptions to that rule, though, and today’s image is certainly one of them. With the proliferation of mobile ads popping up everywhere one looks, it is more important than ever to create images that stand out, that are different, and able to grab one’s attention at first glance. Sometimes, that means going for a more extreme effect such as those composited together for this image.

The original picture (seen below) is hardly recognizable by comparison to the finished product. If one were to drop the same copy over the grey/blue background of the original image, it would get lost. Even changing the colors wouldn’t help that much. As an ad, the original image doesn’t have what it takes to stand out from the crowd. On its own, sure, it’s a nice portrait of a lovely young woman. But if we’re selling tequila we have to apply a number of varying effects to create an image that gets attention. Reality isn’t a concern because reality isn’t our goal. We want an image that looks interesting. The copy, which is a modification of a quote by Ernest Hemingway, encourages one to drink for the specific purpose of leaving reality behind. So, we created an image that is interesting, with little concern for reality.

In our criticism of manipulated photos and all the varying effects applied to them, we forget, I think, that we’re really not interested in looking at reality. We don’t read novels for the reality. We don’t go to the movies for the reality. Even reality television is an over-edited caricature of reality (and the whole genre is losing popularity). We get our fill of reality when we look in the mirror. Fortunately, the varying effects of good photo manipulation hides reality just long enough for us to pull out our wallets. The economy works, we keep our jobs, and the world continues spinning. There’s reality for you.[/one_half_last]

You’ll Dream of Me (2014)

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Dreams

July 16, 2015

Varying Dreams

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]”I just had the strangest dream …”

How many times have you awoken with that thought? Sometimes it is followed with, “At least, I hope it was a dream.” Varying dreams are something that not only unite us, but also mystifies us. Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? Why are some dreams repetitive and some even common among different peoples around the world? What would happen if we stopped dreaming? Dreams are the most unexplained yet most common pieces of our humanity.

Talk about dreams and we have to talk about the work of Carl Jung, the late psychiatrist of some prominence who felt that dreams were one’s subconscious and that they could be translated to tell us more about ourselves and why we do the things we do. Jung initiated the concept of keeping a dream journal to keep track of which dreams repeated and how one felt and acted after having particular kinds of dreams. Those who follow in his footsteps are still quite sure that dreams hold answers and may even warn of impending mental issues. The majority of psychiatrists find the field interesting, but largely lacking in scientific authority and research.

Varying dreams definitely have their effect on us. Wake up from a particularly good dream and one is likely to start the day in a better mood. Dream about something terrifying or dangerous, and one may find themselves on edge and anxious for a while. Dreams about deceased family members or close friends may have us feeling depressed and lonely. Then, there are those pesky dreams about showing up somewhere important stark naked. Almost everyone has those dreams on occasion, even in tribes where clothing is practically non-existent in the first place. Opinions differ as to the exact meaning, but they always leave us a little unsettled as we try to laugh at how silly they are.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Artistically, varying dreams are great image fodder, especially if one tends to lean toward surrealism in the first place. Translating dreams into works of art is something we’ve been doing almost since we first started making crude drawings on caves. The challenge for a photographer, though, is that our cameras only capture what is real. While we can perhaps go to great lengths to create situations that are dramatic and seem somewhat unreal, where our dreams take leave of the laws of physics and reason they become almost impossible to capture. Fortunately, Photoshop™ allows us to fill that gap with special effects and tricks that make possible the physically impossible.

Today’s image is a great example of how we can be influenced by varying dreams. The original image comes from a set we did last year with model Loren Hawk. Pouring paint on her was fun, interesting, and colorful in its own right. The original pictures are not something that necessarily need a lot of manipulation in order to look good. When we started playing with this one, though, we became obsessed with trying to communicate a dreamy, etherial feeling, almost like an underwater ambiance. After almost three days of work, I think the image sufficiently captures the surrealness of a dream state.

We may never know with certainty what our dreams are trying to tell us. Perhaps they’re messages from deity. Maybe aliens are trying to teach us something. Whatever the purpose is for varying dreams, they certainly interest us and at times make our lives very interesting. To the extent we are able to do something productive and creative with our dreams is a benefit. Not to mention that visually suspending the laws of physics on occasion is rather fun.[/one_half_last]

Body Painting (2014). Model: Loren Hawk

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Reality

July 15, 2015

A Game Unthroned

Which is the true nightmare, the horrific dream that you have in your sleep or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake? -Justin Alcala

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]My dear mother, whom I view now as a paragon on patience, more than once rolled her eyes in despair as she muttered in my general direction, “You’re just like a goose: you wake up in a new world every morning.” I don’t know how true that is of geese, but for children under the age of ten or so reality is a variable that changes on a whim. There is nothing that is not possible and no adult can convince them otherwise. Varying reality is a given. A child’s creativity and imagination create multiple complex universes that make perfect sense to the child and totally bale adults. A new world every morning? Why not?

Politicians have a way of creating their own varying realities as well, though perhaps without as much amusement as that of a five-year-old. Politicians give words and worlds different meanings, create vocabularies the rest of us can’t hope to understand, and argue over the meaning of is. By politicians’ reasoning, charity is bad if it comes from their pocket but good if they’re receiving an act of kindness. Taxation is bad if it effects them and their campaign donors, but necessary to keep the poor engaged. Civil rights are fineto talk about until it means sharing a restroom with a gay person and his transgender spouse. Politicians rarely have any concept of reality that aligns with that of their constituents.

We can also lose reality, which is a very frightening proposition. I remember watching my granddaddy suffer through the stages of Alzheimer’s disease. I was too young to totally understand everything that was going on, but watching his world change from something sure to a unstable mix of memories was horrifying. 5.3 million people have Alzheimer’s and for them reality can change with the blink of an eye. I can hardly think of anything more nightmarish.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10 px”]By comparison, creating alternate realities in Photoshop ™ is easy. All one needs is a bit of imagination and a truck load of patience. Here, we really can begin to create the worlds we imagined as children. Elephants can be any color we want and may fit in a box we keep on a shelf if that’s how we choose to portray them. Light can come from multiple directions at the same time (which isn’t always a good thing) and laws of physics are easily suspended. For a number of very creative people, varying reality is what they do best and we delight in seeing this alternative universe.

Not that everyone is equally gifted in creating new worlds. Creating new space, finding balance and just the right amount of light and shadow requires a level of patience few have. Plug-ins offer some hope of speeding the process, but applied inappropriately or incorrectly they can result in a horrible display of mismatched elements and conflicting tonality. Today’s image took the better part of the days to create and by comparison with some is not even all that challenging.

No one lives in a prefect world and because of that our imagination is consumed with varying realities that solve our problems and make living a little more fun. Digital manipulation allows us to bring some of those realities to life, to get them out of our heads where we can deal with them. Some days is like waking up in a new world every morning. It certainly beats hours of therapy.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Varying Intensity

July 14, 2015

Varying Intensity

The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus. ― Robert Greene, Mastery

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Varying intensity is how one might describe the storms that plowed their way across the midwest yesterday and last night. The first wave came and went with ferociousness, downing tree limbs and power lines and leaving lakes of water where none normally exists. I went to bed as the second wave approached, sounds of thunder still slightly in the distance. This episode wasn’t so bad, focused more to the North of us, and I was able to get some sleep. I was pleased.

Then, about 2:30 EDT, the third wave hit hard. I was awakened by a loud clap of thunder that I’m pretty sure fried our neighbor’s satellite dish. The light we keep on in the bathroom (ostensibly for the children, but more realistically so we don’t trip over cats), began to flicker. I got up and went to the living room to unplug the electronics, illuminated by lightening the entire way. Returning to bed, I listened to heavy rain mixed with the sound of sirens in the distance. I still had the power outage map up on my phone and decided to check. Sure enough, over 10,000 without power. Again.

Heavy rain came and went for the next hour. I was awake and couldn’t do anything to force myself back asleep. I suppose I could have gotten up and drank enough to do the trick, but that would be a bad solution to the problem and might start a habit I don’t need. I stayed in bed listening to the sound of the rain waxing and waning, almost as if it were playing hide-and-seek with the emergency vehicles. Varying intensity made for a very long and restless night and I cannot say that the end results were positive. Morning’s first light reveals new limbs down in the yard and tomato plants knocked over in the garden.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Varying intensity also describes the Dragan effect applied to today’s photo and, like last night’s storms, there appears to be some damage, though this time the effect is intentional. The process method is named for a Polish physicist-turned-photographer named Andrzej Dragan. In 2003 he developed this extremely intense method of processing photographs, on film at the time, that brought out the features we normally try to minimize, such as wrinkles and skin blemishes.

Applying the Dragan process is supposed to add depth of character to a high micro contrast portrait. By removing some color and shifting midtones a bit darker, we begin to see features such as pores, lines, and freckles. What’s interesting is that, in some cases, the effect can even override some of the blurring frequently used to soften and even skin tone. Varying intensity of the effect, specifically by applying it only to the person and not the surrounding background, makes the picture look more dramatic and serious. However, this dramatic shift also changes the focus and emotion of the picture. We’re no longer looking at a pretty girl in a stream, but someone who is anxious, perhaps even a bit frightened, and she seems to be in a hurry.

We most often see the Dragan effect applied to working-class men, such as coal miners and construction workers. There, the varying intensity works, makes them appear as rugged as they are. On women, though, the effect is not as popular. There’s no gloss, no glitz, no glamour. We see women in a different light and are not sure we like it. But then, maybe that was the whole point. [/one_half_last]

Beauty On The Rocks (2012)

Art / Photography / PotD

Varying Emotions

July 13, 2015

An Artful Card

It’s much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.― Criss Jami, Killosophy

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]How we feel when we look at a picture, that very first split-second glance, says a lot about how we will ultimately respond to the whole image. If one perceives a picture as flirty, sexy, or possibly even obscene, we are not likely to take seriously any message it may want to convey. If that immediate reaction causes us to feel happy, curious, humorous we are more likely to investigate further and pay attention to any communication forthcoming. Our first response to a photograph is based on emotion and to the extent we can manipulate an image to vary that emotion we change who finds an image appealing.

Dealing with other people’s emotions is tricky, of course, and there’s no guarantee that people will respond how we expect. The advertising world is full of examples, almost daily, of ads where the imagery is so totally off-point that one wonders how they made it out the door. Yet, we can be sure that an entire room full of well-educated and experienced people had looked at that picture and thought it conveyed the exact emotion they wanted. We can also be sure they are surprised to find out they were wrong. Playing with other people’s emotions is necessary, but can backfire in a huge way if not well-tested.

One of the biggest mistakes I made when starting out on my own was creating a two-sided business card that was too sexy on one side. One side was a fairly standard head shot; neat, clean, and well-balanced, nothing surprising or potentially offensive. The other side, however, was a picture of a very busty young woman wearing a white fishnet dress on a white background. She was crouched so that nothing too personal was showing, but there was no question that nothing was beneath the fishnet.

Watching how people responded to that card was an important lesson. If I handed them the card with the headshot side up, their response was generally positive until they saw the second side, at which point many cards were returned to me. Not only did they not like the picture, people didn’t want the card in their possession. If I handed them the card with the sexy side up, something I was careful about doing, more people actually kept the card but were still careful about letting others see it.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Perhaps the most telling response came the night I happen to come across a very popular professional baseball player. Social aspects of the gathering put us in conversation together and eventually, after exhausting how wonderful a season he had just finished, he asked what I did for a living. I handed him my card, headshot side up, and he started to put it in his jacket pocket without looking at the other side. However, his wife caught a glimpse of the other side from across the room and immediately came rushing over to investigate.

Upon looking at the card she apologized for her reaction. “I’m sorry, I thought you were giving him tickets to a strip club,” she explained.

There were dozens of variations I could have applied to that card that would have changed the immediate emotion while still keeping the basic aspect of the image in tact but I went with what appealed to me rather than what experience told me would work. Not paying attention to the emotional content of an image as small as a business card caused a lot more trouble than I had anticipated.

Changes to today’s image weren’t many and didn’t take long, but totally change the emotional impact of the picture. The original (below) is flat, the colors dull, contrast is too soft, and the gradient between highlights and shadows is too flat. One’s first impression of that picture is likely to be somewhere in the range of dismissive. A few changes make the colors more intense, the highlights and shadows more extreme, and looks more artistic rather than borderline pornographic. Toss in the name of a salon, and the image becomes appealing to the salon’s primary audience. Emotional content has changed.

Varying emotions are easy to manipulate in a photograph. Getting it correct, however, isn’t always quite so simple. My best advice is to proceed with caution and never rely solely upon your own opinion. Test, re-test, and then test some more. Even then, be ready for surprises.[/one_half_last]

A Private Moment (2012)

Art / Behind The Scenes / Photography / PotD

Variations On A Theme

July 12, 2015

Low Contrast Colorization

It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]If one wants to start an argument among photographers, bring up the topic of Photoshop®™ and what amount of post-processing is appropriate. We don’t agree. We never have agreed. Even before the desktop computer put a professional tool in the hands of amateurs, we didn’t agree. Debates about processing and photo manipulation methods are as old as photography itself and at no point has there been a consensus as to what is best or when one has gone too far. As a result, one can, and often does, see pictures in magazines and other publications that don’t appeal to their aesthetic taste. When we do, we often complain.

I want to spend this week looking at variations in photo manipulation. We are starting today with a very simple low contrast colorization. By the end of the week, however, we will totally transform the images into something completely different. With each one, I will place the original, untouched photo at the end of the post for comparison. This will, hopefully, give one a sense of just how dramatic a simple change can be and how extreme we can manipulate an image when necessary. Half of these variations were possible with film though they were perhaps a bit more difficult. Others, though, are only possible with digital tools and a great deal of patience.

Anytime we embark upon a project like this we get challenges and questions regarding our methods and motives. Let me go ahead and address those now so that we can keep the answers in mind the rest of the week.

Always the first question is why we manipulate images at all. The full answer is a couple of hours long, but the short answer is this: because we want to do more than what the camera can capture. Cameras themselves, even the fanciest modern boxes, are mere tools and as such they have limits. The extent of manipulation is a different issue.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]”I like the original better,” is a comment we often hear, usually from people who are not photographers or otherwise employed in a creative capacity. I understand the sentiment, though, because variations that merely attempt to cover up bad photography rarely succeed. We want to start with a strong, well-photographed image or else the end result is probably going to suck.

Why we choose a specific form of manipulation to go with a specific photograph generally falls into two categories: to change the emotional tone of the image, or to fit a specific artistic vision. Commercial and editorial images more often require changes in emotional tone to go along with a specific message. A photo may be too bright for a serious message or not quite enough for a lighter concept. Those are usually more simple edits (though not always). Matching a specific artistic vision is where variations tend to get tricky and complicated, especially if the concept didn’t originate with the photographer or person doing the manipulation. Endless possibilities often mean an endless debate over minute details.

Yes, there are enough variations to make anything possible. That does not mean the end result will be believable or appropriate and in matters of parody it is sometimes best to not make the end result too believable. Not everyone has the ability to distinguish real from fake and a narwhal horn too carefully attached to a horse could have some folks out looking for a unicorn.

I look at photo manipulation the same way I look at musical variations on a theme: start with a strong melody or image, even one that’s familiar, and explore. See what can be done, plum the depths of different emotional ranges, and test your own skill. There’s no “higher purpose” in what we’re presenting this week. Let’s indulge in the pleasure of variations.[/one_half_last]

A Lovely Necklace (2011)

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

The Thing of Nightmares

June 19, 2015

My Own Nightmare (2009)

“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]A lot of people have trouble sleeping for a number of different reasons; for some medical, others emotional, and for some it is totally because they just watched the wrong movie before going to bed. It happens. Nightmares. We hated them as children because they were so wild and ferocious and creative. As adults, though, what we often hate about them is the fact they are too damn real. Nightmares for adults seldom involve exotic monsters drawn from an over-active imagination but, instead, come from real life, involving people we actually know and love, in situations we seem unable to stop.

I rarely have nightmares anymore. I don’t watch movies before going to bed. I’m careful to time my medicine. I pull my adventurous imagination back a couple of notches. And then, I don’t sleep that long. I’m blaming that on getting older. Typically, I can go a couple of hours before my body thinks we need to wake up and check the house for mysterious noises. But then, there are weeks like this one where it has rained every night, causing already problematic arthritis to go into hyperdrive, making it impossible to find a comfortable sleeping position for more than 15 minutes or so. The dark circles under my eyes are almost as black as my wardrobe. When one doesn’t sleep, one doesn’t have nightmares. A small consolation.

Then, there are the nine families in Charleston, South Carolina who are living a nightmare. Wednesday night was prayer meeting night. I remember what that was like. Every Wednesday, usually around 6:30 or 7:00 PM, the church doors would open and 15-20 people, on a good night, would trickle into the small sanctuary. We’d sing a song, Poppa would read a few verses of scripture, then would come the prayer requests. Every possible concern of the community would be raised, both personal and public. After about 30 minutes, they’d start praying, pray for another 30 minutes, then go home. Except, for these nine people, they didn’t go home. They were shot dead, right where they prayed, by someone who had sat through the whole service. A living nightmare in every possible sense.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s photo was meant to be part of a composite where a beautiful young woman was awakened by a more frightening version of herself. The concept required shooting the model twice, once reclining in various states of slumber, and then again as the nightmarish self. Care to guess which this one is? Unfortunately, we only got one finished image from the set. I totally messed up the shoot, failing to mark my tripod settings correctly and thereby throwing off the perspective. Trying to composite the two pieces consumed days as I tried to correct the perspective and make something work. When I say there’s one finished image, it’s only because I eventually gave up and called it done. You won’t find it on display.

When I opened this file and took another look, though, I couldn’t help but be impressed by the makeup work of Kelly Oswalt. Sara Williams is such a lovely little wisp of a thing in real life and Kelly did an amazing job of creating something a little more terrifying. Even without the accompanying “beauty” piece, this makes for an interesting and striking image. I also had to giggle a bit looking at this, as Sara is now eight-months-plus pregnant, about to deliver her first child any day now. Perhaps Sara can threaten the child when she gets older with something like, “This is what happens to mommy when you don’t take a nap.” Of course, then the baby would have nightmares, and that just doesn’t help anyone, does it?

I wish we lived in a world where all our nightmares were those derived from imagination. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. As long as there is hate there will be nightmares like that of Wednesday night. Such events do not happen in truly civilized societies. In fact, the United States is the only first world country where mass shootings such as this are an issue. Our nightmare has repeated itself far too many times and we fail to even bother looking for a reasonable solution for fear it might keep one person from carrying a gun or somehow diminish the shooter’s rights, despite the fact he’s trampling the rights of others to live peacefully.[/one_half_last]

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

Photography / PotD / Social Commentary

Look First In A Mirror

June 18, 2015

Twins (2009)

“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]You are an idiot. That’s okay. Don’t feel bad. So am I. In fact, applying the scale by which I measure myself, there are only about three people in the world that I would not put under that heading and since I don’t actually know any of those people personally it is quite possible that they are idiots, too. Here’s the problem: there is no measurable definition for what an idiot actually is (the APA discarded its use of the term years ago), which leaves the term open to mean just about anything I might want it to mean. The only aspect for certain is that it infers an insult directed toward one’s lack of intelligence. But how much intelligence must one have to not be an idiot? And is intelligence itself even enough of a monitor?

My father had what seems to be a pretty workable rule: judge others by what you see in the mirror. His intent was that we should be very much aware of our own faults and shortcomings before daring to judge anyone else’s. That sounds like a pretty good maxim and is probably applicable in a lot of cases. Yet, when we don’t like what we see in the mirror we are less likely to accept what we see in others, perpetuating a cycle of loathing that ultimately leads to destruction in one form or another. Without a reasonably healthy sense of self-esteem one’s base value system is likely to be askew.

Others would attempt to follow the direction of, “judge not, lest you be judged.” Zero judgement. I think there’s a gym that tries to apply that reasoning, hoping that people who are intimidated by the muscle-bound will use their facility to become more healthy. Yet, just as with any other gym, most people pay for the membership and never actually go. A certain amount of judgement is absolutely necessary. Are you healthy? Will you fit in those jeans without having to grease your thighs? Can you be trusted to handle the scissors without hurting yourself? Going through life without making any judgements at all can be quite dangerous.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]I look at today’s picture and can’t believe it wasn’t part of the set originally processed. Simply the different expressions on the girls’ faces tells a story of what it’s like to have a twin. How the hell did I miss this one? Obviously, I’m an idiot. What hurts even worse, though, is that I dropped the ball with these girls in helping them do more. Sure, I had my reasons at the time, but have since kicked myself repeatedly for not at least remembering their names. Yes, you read that correctly. Again, I’m an idiot. I have their names on a release, somewhere, but the motivation to actually go through the stacks of papers shoved in a box in storage has yet to hit me.

Judgements we make today don’t always hold up to future scrutiny. Sure, we can justify our decisions at the moment, but is our thought process in the heat of some emotion as objective as it perhaps should be? Rarely do we take the time to let something just sit, making no decision at all, until we can approach the matter rationally. Yes, some situations are more urgent than others, but isn’t one sign of intelligence the ability to know not only what decision to make, but when to make that decision? While waiting six years to process this image is extreme, might there have been a benefit to waiting a month or so before deciding to shelve it completely?

Maybe looking in the mirror a bit more often is a good idea. Taking a check of reality and one’s relation to it might be an activity in which we should all engage a little frequently. Not only might that give us a better grasp of the immediate tasks before us, but perhaps it would help prevent whatever it is that leads one to walk into a church and kill nine people.

Or maybe we’re all just idiots. Your call.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

When Bad Pictures Are Good

June 15, 2015

Living In Color (2012)

“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I like this picture. I like this picture a lot, so it is a little surprising that I’ve not found an excuse to publish it before now. I like the lighting. I like the styling. The makeup by Sasha Starz kicks ass. One would think that this might have been the first picture from the collection that we would use, and if this one was omitted from the original collection then the others must be absolutely amazing. While the original set of pictures achieves their purpose, though, none of them has the photographic strength found here.

So, why wasn’t this image used? It was not what we wanted. It was a mistake. The original set was intended to showcase Sasha’s makeup using a very dynamic set of colors in an extremely contemporary style. To achieve our purpose, faces needed to be clear of any obstruction. This face is beautifully obstructed by the model’s hair, so it would not work for the desired purpose. That’s just the way things go in our world. In non-digital days it would have gone into the trash bin.

Photographers take plenty of bad photographs. We always have. I am amused now when someone comes across what they think is a treasure trove of never-before-seen old negatives or plates from a long-dead photographer and they decide to publish them. Rarely does one stop to think that perhaps there is a damned good reason why the photos weren’t seen before. Some were full of errors. Some were intended as nothing more than practice. Others were perhaps embarrassing or revealed something the photographer had no intention of ever making public. Yet, now they’re out in the open, quite possibly in violation of the photographer’s wishes.

I remember meeting a young Playboy Playmate, fresh off her gatefold shoot in Chicago. While gushing about how wonderful the experience was, she expressed disappointment that, prior to taking the shots that would eventually appear in the magazine, photographer Arny Freytag had taken several Polaroid shots that littered the studio floor. After the shoot, she went to pick up one of the Polaroids as a memento and was immediately, and severely reprimanded. Those Polaroids, she was told, were the property of the Playboy Corporation and no, she could not have one. Playboy and every other successful magazine and ad agency have long understood what many have not: Losing control of the bad photographs makes the good ones worthless. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When digital photography first began to rise as the medium that would eventually replace film for most applications, we saw the numbers of both amateur photographers and amateur models increase dramatically. All over the world, there were (mostly) young men anxious to take pictures of pretty girls and more than a few pretty young women anxious to call themselves a model. However, no one on either side of the camera in those situations understood the actual value of an image, copyright law, nor the concept of limited exposure.

What happened was that a young photographer would drop 500 or so frames on a shoot, which could take a couple of hours or more. The model, frustrated and only getting a handful of shots she didn’t like, would ask the photographer if she could have a disk with all the unedited shots. Foolishly, the photographer would comply, the model would put really horrible edits of really ridiculous photos on her MySpace page or blog, and war would ensue between model and photographer over who had the right to publish what.

As we go through this week of pictures that were missed, we’re going to see some photos such as this one where one might be tempted to think, “How could you have missed that one?” When we do, we need to remember that not every frame snapped deserves to be published. There are endless reasons for not including a picture, from its inability to meet product or client requirements to changes in desired color or the wrong hair being out of place.

Prior to digital media, second chances like this rarely existed for a photograph. What wasn’t immediately used was typically burned to prevent an unapproved image from making it to publication. Photographers do well to guard their unpublished work so as to protect their reputations.

Yet, every once in a while, we save one like this that is just too good to throw away. The issue that kept it from being considered the first time make it all the more attractive now. I certainly don’t regret saving this one. Enjoy it, there won’t be more.[/one_half_last]

Art / Photography / PotD

Splitting Exposure

June 13, 2015

From the Window to the Wall (2006)

“The trouble with rules, though, is that you’ll always be tempted to break one- for the right reasons, due to unavoidable circumstances, because it feels as if there’s no other choice. And once you break one, the rest seem like so much broken glass. The damage is already done.” ― Stacey Kade, The Rules

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Here we are at the very end of this rule breaking week and I can tell by the significant drop in the number of visitors we’ve had that you’re really not too terribly interested in the topic. Perhaps you are too busy breaking your own rules in your own way to find our discussion of them to be of any value. Perhaps you’ve observed the breaking of rules for so long that you doubt, probably correctly, that we are covering any new territory. Maybe you just found other things to do. I don’t know. I only care because I really don’t like that feeling that I’m screaming into the wind.

So, I’m breaking one of my own rules today with a full nude. I had told myself, in my annual introspective meeting of my mind, that I would not post any full nudes outside the Art section of the website. The reason for that being my desire to not overtly offend those who might arrive at the website without prior knowledge of who I am or what I shoot. If one is simply looking for a photographer for your child’s one-year-old portrait, one doesn’t necessarily want to be inundated with nudity. I don’t fault someone for not wanting to look at nude photography without warning. Most the nude imagery is kept to the art section where it attracts people who are interested in that material.

Oh, but you, dear voyeur, have shown your true colors. You enjoy the enticing and even implied naughtiness of some pictures. When we posted a picture of a couple simulating sex last week, our hit count went through the digital roof with us doing only minimal marketing. If anyone was offended, they certainly didn’t bother saying so. If anything, the inference is that, given the opportunity, those of more salacious appetites will beat a webbed path to our world-wide door if we simply guide them with the right picture. Such knowledge puts us in a bit of a quandary: do we go for the increased attention or do we try to be good neighbors in our digital neighborhood? [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Our picture today is actually one of my favorites and I do so miss the model who has moved on to other endeavors. Long exposure shots are always interesting and this one is made more so by the fact that the window through which a street lamp provides illumination contains two different kinds of glass. As a result, the glass in the lower part of the window creates a distortion that dramatically alters the lines. By having the model stand half in light, half in shadow, we open the image to numerous metaphors and interpretations. There is a lot going on here for such a very simple looking photograph.

Are we breaking a photographic rule? Yes, a couple of them actually. We’re not going to tell you what they are, though, since that’s almost assuredly not why you’re really here. If you’re just dying to know, though, you can always drop me a note and I’ll be happy to answer when I return from camping, which is how I am spending my weekend. While we will be taking some pictures this weekend, they are likely to be much more journalistic in nature and almost certainly won’t involve any nudity, or adult situations, or much of anything else that a reasonable person might find objectionable. Note that I said a reasonable person; those who are offended by everything we do are obviously not reasonable.

There’s a lot going on this weekend and I’m sure that no matter where you live there are better things to do than sitting around looking at nine-year-old pictures of naked people on the Internet. If you’ve not found any of those things, you are seriously in need of a life transplant and I cannot assist you with that. You’re on your own. For the rest of you who are stopping by either after or perhaps in between all the festivities, thank you. We take off in a significantly less structured direction starting tomorrow, so please add checking the #POTD to your to-do list. Better yet, just subscribe so that a gentle, loving reminder shows up in your email every morning. [/one_half_last]

PEACE

Advertising / Photography / PotD

Wide Open Spaces

June 12, 2015

Before Leaving (2012)

“The irony of rule followers is they often quote a lot of people that do not follow as many rules as they do.” ― Shannon L. Alder

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Creative people have never liked feeling they were limited in any way. Adventurous people are much the same. Chances are, if you’re a friend of mine, you’re not a fan of limitations, either. Breaking rules? Hell yeah!

There is a song sounding like it’s from the old west that says:

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don’t fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don’t fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin’ breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don’t fence me in

Cole Porter, who wrote the song based on a poem by Robert Fletcher, was nowhere near the “old west,” though. He wrote the song for a movie that was never produced. Go figure. Some ten years later, the song was given to Roy Rogers who made it a hit because, you know, horses and cowboys and those legendary wide open space were a big hit in post-war America. Interestingly enough, Porter never really liked the song all that much.

A lot of people feign amusement with the concept of wide open spaces, including space itself. Yet, when we find it, not too many of us are actually comfortable. Where space is truly plentiful, where there is an absence of things, there is also an absence of people, anyone with whom one might have a decent conversation, and from there matters quickly get boring. And lonely. And suddenly those wide open spaces aren’t looking quite as good as they did when one first arrived.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When it comes to space, I live in a world of sometimes uncomfortable juxtaposition. A very basic rule of photography is to fill the frame; make the whole picture interesting, give the eye plenty to see, but make sure it’s all cohesive. At the same time, though, advertising needs space, white space, sometimes a great deal of space, for all the copy that goes into an ad. Some are simple, with little more than a product logo and copyright/trademark notices. Others, especially those having anything to do with medicine, can be quite extensive with a requirement for a full list of possible side effects. For those ads, there’s no such thing as too much space.

Today’s picture breaks the fill the frame rule. Maybe it’s still the ad person left in me, but I like the space. I like that there’s room for copy, a lot of copy, but no copy exists. In my mind, the space gives the mind room to create its own story, its own copy, to go along with the picture. We titled the image, “Before Leaving,” because the way in which her body is slightly turned gives one the impression that perhaps she is on her way out the door. Why? That’s for you to decide. Maybe she’s looking for pants. Maybe she’s about to take a shower. Maybe she’s changed her mind and doesn’t like you as much as you thought. Maybe she’s not a fan of the space.

Giving an image space, sometimes a lot of space, leaves a story open to almost endless possibilities. I like that mystery, myself. I’m not looking for a world all neatly bundled together and fitting nicely into a frame. I enjoy concepts that require thinking for myself. For me, space is a friend and I frequently break this rule, especially for portraits. Let this moment be endless, not boxed and framed and predictable.

Just don’t fence me in. Please. Whatever you do. [/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Balancing Act

June 11, 2015

The Bird Cage (2012)

“Unfortunately, in many cases, the rule book goes way too far – it tries to tell people how to be instead of explaining what we’re trying to do. We need recipes, not rules.” ― Howard Behar, It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]I am far from being the most graceful person on the planet. I’ve fallen in front of presidents. I’ve tripped over red carpets. If there’s a cup of coffee near a white table cloth, I’ve spilled it. When I was young, my mother used to say I was like a bull in a china shop, which is why we never visited any china shops or anywhere else that tended to have a lot of glass. For myself and a lot of other people I know, that thing in our inner ear that keeps us level and helps us establish equilibrium doesn’t always work as well as it should. As a result, we go blundering through life, being especially careful when required to handle anything sharp or otherwise potentially dangerous.

What I’ve learned from my somewhat lop-sided life, though, is that being slightly off center, looking at life on somewhat of a tilt, isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Not every measure we take can or should be balanced because there simply isn’t enough detail or information or content to support the balance that everyone seems to think is necessary. Even a ship can have a bit of a list and still manage to sail its way into port safely. Being unbalanced isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is quite different.

The rule broken in today’s picture is that of balance, but it’s one where the circumstances create such strong leading lines that we might not notice at first just how uneven the image is. Note that there are two models. Ideally, each would be given an equal amount of space. They needn’t occupy the space in the same manner or even the same general position, but the space should be available to them. In this image, though, the model on the left is limited to the left third of the image. The panel trim on the wall behind her creates a very strong visual barrier that, at least as far as our eyes are concerned, holds her to that side of the space.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]However, one might also notice that the entire frame is a bit askew. The lines are not parallel with the horizon; they’re not even close. Our entire perspective of the scene is thrown off balance by the angle from which the image was taken. The uniqueness of the angle ends up being a strength that allows the unintentional division between the models to exist without making us want to move one of them.

Not that we had much choice. The picture is taken in an elevator built sometime in the 1920s. This is one of those small, residential elevators where one has to manually close the gate, then close the door, before engaging the lift. If the models appear uneven and off balance, it’s because the only way to get the shot was by lying on the floor, having someone out-of-frame hold open the gate, and praying that no one in the building would need the elevator before we got the shots taken.

Metaphors for life, anyone? There are some things that claim to be fair and balanced and intentionally are not; their claim to equality is an attempt to mask just how one-sided their view actually is. Other times, we look at something that appears to be off-center only to discover that our eyes deceive us because of the limitations of our perspective or the specific angle from which we view the situation. What we learn with experience, hopefully, is that balance is precarious and not always something that is even possible. Returning to the ship metaphor, even the largest aircraft carrier moves back and forth along the waves; sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. That ability shift weight from one side to the other is critical to preventing the vessel from capsizing.

Balance is something our eyes like to see, but what appears to be is not always true.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Right Smack In The Middle

June 10, 2015

Pin This (2012)

“More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.” ― Hyman G. Rickover

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Stop and think for a moment what you might do if there was no one to tell you no. Ever. You want ice cream for breakfast? Go for it. Wear a yellow jumpsuit to a funeral? Sure, why not? Build an elevator into space? Others have talked about it, let’s see how you do. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to innovation and progress is the fear that someone will object to what you do. There are too many people who are afraid of upsetting the status quo and that keeps them from ever venturing into an area of imagination and experimentation that could quite possibly lead to fantastic inventions and dramatically wonderful changes in society. But first, one has to be willing to break the rules.

Breaking the rules in photography is actually rather easy. First, there are too many damn rules and most of those are under-supported and fail to take into account all the possible variations one might encounter when shooting. Second, those rules are generally not explained too terribly well, even in photography courses, and some of them are so confusing as to make it difficult to know whether the rule is actually being broken or not. Breaking photography rules is about as easy, and pretty much as earth shattering, as rolling out of bed in the morning.

Breaking the rules of society, not just society in general, but the very specific society of which you are immediately and constantly a part, is more difficult, though. Why? Because you have to live there. If you venture out and make a mistake, the people around you know about it, and might possibly remind you. Constantly. Cruelly. Taking risks to do something as different as changing the brand of coffee used in the office means taking on the possibility that others, especially the boss, might disagree. Breaking rules in life, no matter how small they are, can have some very large consequence and that risk is enough to keep the majority of people quiet and toeing the line.[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s image is sneaky and breaks a visual framing rule that may not be noticeable to anyone who is not a photographer or works with visual layout on a regular basis. This is one of those violations of good imagery that rather sneaks past the rule checkers without immediately setting off any red flags. The model is attractive. The set looks good. There are strong leading lines. Makeup, hair, accessories, styling, are all pretty much on point. This is such a quiet little bit of rule breaking that some might not even think that it is worth mentioning at all.

What’s wrong is that the model is positioned right smack in the middle of the frame, which is actually a fairly strong framing no-no. We would much rather have positioned her slightly to the right just a bit. Making the rule violation even worse is that the positioning puts the dead center of the image right at the model’s crotch. Awkward. And now that I’ve mentioned it, you won’t be able to not notice. We went ahead and broke this rule for two reasons. 1. The leading lines created by the car put our eyes there whether we like that or not. 2. Size restrictions of the frame made it impossible to move left or right without creating additional visual problems. Sometimes we have to decide which rule to keep and which to ignore.

Earth shattering? Not hardly. You’ll go on about your day and quite possibly won’t give it a second thought, unless you spending time looking at a lot of pictures. The picture won’t cause the overthrow of any dictatorial government or change the economic policies of the Midwest. But our whole purpose this week is to reinforce the idea that breaking rules is not something we should be afraid to do. Should we give thought to the consequences? Yes. But if more of us were willing to break rules, even the simple one such as this, we might be surprised at how wonderful the changes would be.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Shooting For Exposure

June 9, 2015

Through Different Lenses (2011)

“If you follow the rules, it’s your own fault.” ― Marty Rubin

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Life is busy for everyone and it is quite nice that we have at our disposal now a variety of tools and applications to help ease just a little bit of the strain here and there so we can better focus on the truly important aspects of whatever it is we’re doing. One of the applications I have installed assists me with catching common grammar errors. More than just spell checking, it looks for proper subject/verb agreement, makes sure the verb conjugation is correct, and that I’m putting the most appropriate punctuation in place. When I’m typing quickly, and especially early in the morning when I’m still on my first cup of coffee, the tool saves me a lot of time going back and proofreading, especially since I’m really lousy at proofreading.

There’s a problem with this application, though: it doesn’t like the Oxford Comma. Personally, I quite like the Oxford Comma and find that the meaning of some word lists changes significantly depending on whether the comma is used. If I have a sentence, or thought, or fragment, or phrase such as this one then I am going to use the extra comma every time. Unfortunately, the application marks it wrong every time and attempts to correct the matter. I end up having to take extra steps, and time, to keep the comma in place and assure that the list is going to infer exactly what I intend.

Image processing software is no different. Applications such as Lightroom and Photoshop are full of little guides and measuring devices to provide photographers and graphic artists with multiple checks and balances so as to, hopefully, prevent errors that might result in bad print. However, none of those tools is accurate 100% of the time and relying on them too heavily can sometimes result in even larger errors than if they hadn’t been used at all. Certainly, the tools are helpful and are included with the best of intentions, but in the end there’s no substitution for pulling a hard print and going with what your eyes tell you is best.

Today’s image is a perfect example of the tools not always being the best judge. This is also an example of just how much the appearance of an image can change from one computer monitor to another. [/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]When I shot this image in 2011, I processed it using the most current version of Photoshop, but on a Frankenstein computer I had been carefully rubber-banding together since 2005 using a monitor that dated even older than that. While the monitor was calibrated to the best of its ability, I knew from experience that what I saw on the screen was not a true match when pulling a print. So, I tried making adjustments as best I could and most of the time I was at least within the ballpark.

The primary challenge of this image is one of exposure. The model’s hair is jet black, to the point that one has to dramatically open the shutter to even begin picking up any highlights. Without a high level of exposure, her hair would appear to be nothing more than a black mass sitting on her head. In a studio, that problem is easily resolved by putting a light specifically on her hair. We’re not in a studio, though. We’re using natural light and even with a reflector there wasn’t enough natural illumination to pull out the highlights in her hair without risking over-exposing the entire left side of the image. I made specific choices and was pleased with the result.

Then, a couple of years ago, I got a new computer and monitor and loaded newer software. Going through the archives to see what needed to be revised, I brought up this image and it instantly showed a warning that the left side was over exposed. I tried correcting the image to what the software said was appropriate, but doing so left the photo flat and dull. Finally, I had no choice but to pull a print and, wouldn’t you know it, the over-exposure was still within gamut (barely), and the image looked fine.

Exposure can be a very tricky thing at times and while generally running highlights out of gamut is a no-no, there are times, arguably including this one, where the risk is worth the effect. Are we going to make mistakes? Yes. Is everyone going to agree with our choices? No. But again, what matters is whether the image generates the emotion the photographer intended. At the end of the day, perhaps a little too much light is better than not enough.[/one_half_last]

Photography / PotD

Guessing At The Rule Of Thirds

June 8, 2015

A Moment of Sun (2012)

“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]In a strange, almost psychotic social twist, “breaking the rules” has possibly become more admirable than following them. For every person out there yelling and screaming about something not following one rule or another, there are two applauding that the rule has been broken. Breaking rules, regardless of where they’re found or to what they apply, is seen as a measure of one’s independence; a willingness to stand out from the crowd and break away from the status quo. Those who create new technologies or build huge businesses from scratch are often said to have “broken the rules,” either of business or technology, in achieving their goals. Adventurist billionaires such as Sir Richard Branson or Elon Musk are widely considered to have gotten where they are by breaking all the rules.

So, do rules exist only for the purpose of being broken? What good is it to have a set of guidelines if no one is going to follow them? I know one of my most frequent non-photography pet peeves is matters of grammar and improper spelling on social media; not those committed so much through acts of “fat-fingering” or victims of auto correct, but those intentional misdeeds such as substituting U for you and R for are, along with other idiosyncracies of what is commonly referred to now as text speech. While such abbreviations appear to me as a lack of attention and most likely diminished intelligence, more than a few linguist have decided that such rule breaking is part of the natural, continual, evolution of language. If breaking the rules is actually just evolving the rules, then why is anyone worried about rules in the first place?

Sociologists tell us, as do those of severe moral convictions, that without rules society decays into chaos. We must have a system of laws, rules, and guidelines that set the standard for acceptable social participation for society to have any meaningful cohesion. Do not kill. Do not steal. Do not try passing off a Bruce Springsteen tune as your own. Where we have rules, we typically have people assigned to enforce them: policemen, teachers, court systems, and government agencies come to mind. Photography, and creative media in general, doesn’t have any official authority reprimanding or punishing those who break rules of art. Does that mean we’re doomed to chaos?[/one_half]

[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Today’s image, for example, breaks the rule of thirds. The rule of thirds, for those not familiar, relates to how an image is framed. An image is theoretically divided into thirds both horizontally and vertically and the four intersection points are considered the strongest areas of the image. If there is a horizon, for example, it should occur on either the top or bottom line. Whatever the primary focal point is, it should be positioned on one of those imaginary lines with other content placed as to guide the flow of vision from one intersection to the other. The rule of thirds is so basic and fundamental, that software tools such as Photoshop offer guides to help position an image along the correct lines.

But this image just won’t fit. The young woman in the picture should be positioned along the left vertical line; her bust and her hips, ideally, would fall along the horizontal lines. If this were a painting, those issues would be easily resolved. This isn’t a painting, though, and we are limited by a couple of issues that are immutable. First, this image is part of a series that, for the sake of visual continuity, all have a canvas of the same size (reduced to 1200 x 900 pixels for use here). Cropping the image differently just to make it fit the rule of thirds would have made it awkward and interrupt the visual flow of the whole set. Second, there was just behind the model an open and rather unattractive space that would have altered the aesthetic had it been included. So, expanding the frame to fit the rule of thirds is not a solution either.

What ultimately matters is whether the image works and, to a large degree, this one does. While I might not submit the image for adjudication, I still find it quite lovely and would have no problem with it bring part of a gallery presentation. Breaking the rule, in this case, isn’t so much a matter of innovation as it is necessity because of the constraints. Are we plummeting into chaos? No, not at all.

We must be our own guides. Not every rule should be broken. Not every image should try breaking them. What every photograph should do is make us feel, and if we’ve done that we have found success.[/one_half_last]

Photography

And if you ask again whether there is any justice in the world, you’ll have to be satisfied with the reply: Not for the time being; at any rate, not up to this Friday. —Alfred Doblin

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All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. ― Susan Sontag

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When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence. ― Ansel Adams

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I’m definitely a Polaroid camera girl. For me, what I’m really excited about is bringing back the artistry and the nature of Polaroid. —Lady Gaga

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Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts. —Walker Evans

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In photography there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated. —August Sander

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Photography deals exquisitely with appearances, but nothing is what it appears to be. —Duane Michals

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In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv. —Henri Cartier-Bresson

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The camera should be used for a recording of life, for rendering the very substance and quintessence of the thing itself, whether it be polished steel or palpitating flesh. —Edward Weston

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Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything. —Aaron Siskind

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Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. ― David Honegger

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Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. ― Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

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Which is the true nightmare, the horrific dream that you have in your sleep or the dissatisfied reality that awaits you when you awake? -Justin Alcala

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The time that leads to mastery is dependent on the intensity of our focus. ― Robert Greene, Mastery

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It’s much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.― Criss Jami, Killosophy

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It can be a trap of the photographer to think that his or her best pictures were the ones that were hardest to get. – Timothy Allen

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“The 50-50-90 rule: anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.” ― Andy Rooney

We can’t put a stop to all nightmares, but we can reduce them. We have no choice. Now is the time to seriously put a clamp on gun violence. This is one nightmare we must end.

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“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy and we’re gonna make mistakes.” ― Mel Brooks

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“Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

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PEACE

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“The irony of rule followers is they often quote a lot of people that do not follow as many rules as they do.” ― Shannon L. Alder

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“Unfortunately, in many cases, the rule book goes way too far – it tries to tell people how to be instead of explaining what we’re trying to do. We need recipes, not rules.” ― Howard Behar, It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks

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“More than ambition, more than ability, it is rules that limit contribution; rules are the lowest common denominator of human behavior. They are a substitute for rational thought.” ― Hyman G. Rickover

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“If you follow the rules, it’s your own fault.” ― Marty Rubin

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“I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.” ― Robert A. Heinlein

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