Thinking about the business side of photography again. It's changing again.

Knowing WHAT do do with it is more important 

than just knowing how to own it.

The pendulum seems to be swinging again. If my anecdotal, personal evidence combined with my communication with other established professional photographers can be trusted then I'm ready to say that I am seeing a swing back into better business for commercial (people who sell their products and services to businesses, not to consumers) photographers. Our billings are up sharply this year; both the number of jobs and the average budgets. The same is true in many of the tech centric markets across the country. 

I'm almost certain that three things are at work here. First is sheer endurance. Markets are cyclical and one must be committed to staying in the market to have any chance of success. We did our best to market well even in the slowest times and it is paying off as the corporate need for very good visual content accelerates. People don't have the time right now to experiment with alternate and untested providers and are willing to pay a premium to get work that meets high technical standards (lighting and appropriate post production coupled with shooting "chops") and also those who offer a track record of continuous, successful delivery. We are starting to see more work come in providing portraits and lifestyle imaging at the very top of the market, and those marketing directors who must put providers face to face with top executives and board members are less willing to sacrifice experience and good "bedside" manner for a slight reduction in the overall costs of projects. 

Along the same lines I think ad agencies and their clients finally understand or re-understand that there is very little real difference, especially by percentage, in the rates charged by established and proven practitioners of the visual arts and a legion of new arrivals in the markets who have yet to understand all the intricacies of producing good work while keeping final clients happy and comfortable. If you are buying several million dollars of media placement and the visual in your marketing is designed to drive sales or create brand goodwill it might be foolish to opt for a photographer based on the lowest bid. While a person who has done thousands of successful shoots will likely charge a premium, the difference between a $2,000 fee and a $5,000 fee on a project with a huge ad placement budget (web or print) and/or a long endurance requirement is microscopic in the context of the overall expenditures of a complete campaign, and so much rides on the quality and impact of perhaps a single well done image. In fact, in the midst of our economic recovery a quick way to get fired from a nice position as a marketing director or marcom officer might just involve being "penny wise and pound foolish." 

An image that works positively leverages all the marketing costs and expensive media placement that surrounds it while images that just quite doesn't work may sabotage the entire project and, in fact, work against a company hoping to benefit from advertising. The quality of the message is critical. Why spec a cheap part to use on a Bentley or a Leica if it is critical to the success of the whole automotive enterprise? An M series Leica with plastic body panels? Cheap vinyl seats in your Aston Martin Lagonda?

Finally, I think the finest ally for serious, professional photographers are the iPhone and Android smartphone camera and the mass accepts that their convenience brings. Now the contrast between a professionally lit and directed image and an average consumer generated phone image is technically much starker than when every hipster, house wife and bored I.T. employee in the country was anxious to continually upgrade to more and more capable cameras on an almost twice a year schedule. If everyone opts to make their primary camera an iPhone then they trade convenience for technical quality, flexibility and, by extension, a unwillingness to carry and use lighting equipment too.  I rejoice, because while we always want to believe that it's our superior knowledge and talent that should shift the client decision scales it's an extra turbo boost of sales power when a potential client can also see a big difference in overall image quality combined with focused intentionality. 

As the market recovers and 4K computer screens and TVs sniff around the perimeter of the creative fence line more and more clients are swinging back to the idea that skills, rapport and experience provide extensive value when combined with tour de force tech. Or even just a nice meaty sensor and some well designed lighting. In our market we're finally (thankfully) beginning to see less of an emphasis on just the raw expense calculations and more credence given to long term results and performance. A welcome nod to the obvious facts that time tested visual taste combined with technical master has a real value that's greater than the first blush, mathematical sum of the parts. It's a nice change to be able to talk with clients about how to do something, why to add components, why a difference in approach is valuable instead of the tired and ultimately worthless question: "exactly what does this  cost?"  It's the fun part of the cycle wherein good clients move away from "knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

Take it with a grain of salt but longer range results are trumping initial purchase price today in our market. I hope they are in yours too! 

A special note of thanks to Apple's smartphone for helping to spin the cycle of change...

Portrait Making as an antidote to the hustle and bustle of life.

I had a deep and wonderful flirtation with all sorts of medium format cameras in the film days but the camera and lens that seemed to yield the most wonderful portraits, albeit with much struggle, was probably the 90mm Summicron on the front of whatever flavor of the year slr camera Leica had on offer to foolish photographers of the time. I'd like to say that this portrait was done with an R6 or an R8 but we had a mix of cameras and since the "sensors" inside were all identical (you got to choose what film you put in..) it hardly matters. But there was (is) something about that ancient 90mm f2.0 lens that was just magic. Or maybe it was the placebo effect. Perhaps we were consistently trying to justify having spent so much more on a lens than we would have spent on one of the Japanese equivalents. The closest two lenses I've used from the "big two" would be Canon's inexpensive 100 mm f2 and Nikon's too expensive (but not in Leica territory...) 105mm f2.0 Defocus Coupling lens.

After having shot several thousand considered images this weekend on GH4's, EM-5's and the stalwart Nikon D7100 I've come to re-understand that the bodies are increasingly meaningless and that the personality of images comes from the lenses with which they were created. Something to consider.

Why does it take me half an hour to change a tire when these guys can change four in under five seconds?

Honestly. These guys changed all four tires in something like 4.5 seconds. 

They'd have made great photographic assistants back in the days when 

Hasselblads mostly shot twelve exposure rolls and we needed to change film

quickly. I'm going to guess the budget was a bit bigger yesterday than

my typical budget for assistants back in the 1990's. 

At the F1 track in Austin, Texas 

Race Day 2014.

Tired and happy after four days of solid corporate photography work.

Bob Schneider. 

In the last four days I've shot thousands of images for a corporate client in conjunction with the Formula One race in Austin, Texas. I spent three evenings photographing and being well fed in three of Austin's finest restaurants. This morning a beautiful Austrian woman made me a latté and brought me a basket of warm croissants. I photographed and watched people watch Formula One cars go around and around the track and before that I photographed Porsches going around and around the track and before that I watched a flock of Ferraris fling themselves around the same track. Mostly from a very nice vantage point.

Since it was both Halloween weekend and also Formula One weekend my client graciously put me into a room at the Four Seasons Hotel so I wouldn't have to get through traffic to get in to downtown each day. The stay at the Four Seasons also negated any sort of parking hassles. An extra bonus was the option to use the Hotel's premium internet connection which was about ten times faster than my service in the studio. 200 files need uploading? No problem, I've got and extra three minutes and fifteen seconds. 

I started out using the Olympus EM-5 cameras, switched to a mix of Olympus and Panasonic on the second day and then switched to a mix of Olympus and Nikon for the last two days. There are benefits to each system and once you've had a camera in your hand for an hour or so all the muscle memory of settings comes roaring back.

Most used two lenses were the Nikon 18-140mm and the Panasonic 12-35mm. Both, in their own way, are brilliant. 

I just got home, kissed the dog and the wife and made my way back out to the studio to edit down a day's worth of shooting so I can make a final, share-able web gallery for today. Someone won the Formula One race. Everyone else lost. I didn't bother slowing down to find out who (added: Hamilton). 

I'll flesh out some photo stuff tomorrow but I'm happy to have another assignment wrapped up and ready for final post processing and delivery. But mostly it feels good to be back home.

A couple of quick questions about workshops in the next year. Answer if you can...

I've taught portrait lighting workshops from time to time and I get mail almost weekly asking me "when is your next workshop???".  I'd like to add in some workshop experiences to my repertoire and my schedule next year but I'm a marketing geek and I don't want to offer something that no one really wants. So I have some questions and by you answering them I hope to understand what kind of workshop you would like me to teach and where, in the U.S. we should have workshops. I'm also interested to hear if anyone in the E.U. is interested. 

So, here are my questions:

1. Do you have any interest at all in taking a workshop on portrait lighting with me? 

2. Would you want a "hands on" experience, a lecturing/demo experience or a mix of the two?

3. What cool cities in the U.S. would you travel to if we did workshops there? (I vote for Denver to start....).

4. Would you travel to Austin, Texas for a workshop?

5. What would you like to come out of the workshop with? New techniques? More confidence? A new circle of friends?

6. Any interest in a workshop teaching best practice of portrait lighting with continuous lights?

7. Would you rather just have dinner, go out for drinks and sit around talking about photography with me till the bars close? 

Answer all the questions, some of the questions or none of the above questions. Make up new questions. Tell me not to waste my time. Tell me to spend more time on this. Go all freeform and just comment about your experiences and what you like and don't like about workshops you've lived through. It's all very useful to me. But I would like to hear from as many people as possible. You can be anonymous, this will not be graded.  Thanks for your input.  Kirk

P.S. Don't mention names but I'm also interested in your stories about the best and the worst workshops you've taken and what made them so bad or so good. Thanks, KT

Another article about pre-planning and getting packed for a shoot. 2100th post.

Happy Halloween. 

(I wanted to get that out now because I'll be working all day on the actual day.)

Here's a mantra guaranteed to raise your anxiety levels a bit higher than they probably need to be but it's something I've come to believe and it rattles around in my head when I'm preparing for any event that includes clients. It goes like this: Anything that's not in my direct control I consider to be out of control.

In short, when I plan my role in events or projects I assume that nearly everyone else involved with screw up somehow and jeopardize the show. Pretty paranoid outlook. And to be fair it only comes true about 50% of the time...

But I do my best to minimize the possibilities of accelerating entropy by making sure I've planned and double checked everything I can. 

During the next four days I am booked to shoot portraits, events, celebrity meet and greets and social photography in venues ranging from dark clubs to darker restaurants to race tracks to offices in tall buildings. I'll be working in seven different venues. I'll be uploading images to shared folders in the dead of night and will do some printing after midnight on Saturday.  

Let's start with the camera selection and talk about files. I'll be walking, running and moving most places on my own two feet so camera weight and lens weight becomes critical. I settled on shooting with two Olympus EM-5 cameras with two in reserve as back up cameras. Every camera gets three batteries to start and a fast charger is in the side pocket of the bag. That's twelve fresh batteries  to start with. I doubt very much that I'll go through more than four per day but, hey, I'll be ready if I need them. I'm bringing along four 32 gig SD cards and four 64 gig SD cards. Don't plan to fill up more than one per camera but, hey, I like to have back-ups, and they are light. 

I'm bringing the two excellent zooms from Panasonic, the 12-35mm 2.8 and the 35-100mm 2.8. I'll use them for just about everything but the portrait work. In that part of the job I'm going for slim slices of depth of field so I'll be leaning on the 60mm 1.5 lens. So nice at f2.  As back up I'm bringing the 17mm 1.8, the 19mm Sigma, the 25mm 1.4, the 30mm Sigma, the 40mm 1.4 Pen lens, the 45mm 1.8 lens and the 60mm Sigma. Coverage. If something goes down I'll have a "near enough" focal length to replace it. I'm happy with all the lenses. They're all first rate. 

I'm bringing two of the fl600r flashes. One to use and one for back up. I'm also bringing a Yongnuo 560 type 2 for some additional ceiling bounce on the celebrity "meet and greet" portraits. I'm bringing an adapter so I can mount that flash on my light weight tripod. No extra light stand needed. Every flash gets two sets of batteries. I doubt I'll really need more than one set but, hey, I like to be prepared.

Knowing I wanted to use a ceiling bounce I did have the client contact the venue to make sure the ceilings were white. Of course Murphy's Law says that they'll be painted green by tomorrow afternoon. That's why I have a six by six foot sheet of white nylon diffusion material added as padding in the bottom of the camera bag along with some thumbtacks. If fate intrudes we'll make our own white ceiling. 

Midnight printing? What could go wrong? Yes, I have three times as much paper as I'll need. Yes, I've tested the printing and the profile I'm going to use. But, what if the printer goes down? We'll we've got a second one in Belinda's office that uses the same ink cartridges and paper. We'll presto change it out. What if the fault is with the computer? We've got back up laptops standing by. What if the power goes down? Of course we have an inverter and some big marine batteries. 

And it goes on and on. I try to pre-plan for any contingency but there are some that come up and are more or less insurmountable. If we can't plan for em we can't fix em. But there are a lot of situations that can be salvaged with a little planning. 

I plan on having an assistant drop me off downtown in the mornings and pick me up at the end of the day. If something happens to prevent that there are also taxis I can grab at local hotels (pocket full of transportation $20's at the ready=please get a receipt). But guess what? I've also packed a bus schedule...just in case. 

I've printed out the agenda, I have cell numbers for all other suppliers and all critical client contacts. 

It should be fun. But It's only fun for me if I have all my ducks in a row. I hate to try shooting while worrying about details. Now, for a good dinner and early bed. Those early calls come quick.

Errata:  I returned the  front focusing Nikon D7000 to the store today. Of course, while I was there I happened across a pristine, perfect Olympus EM-5 with battery grip and the salesperson dropped the price for me to $525. I've tested it and shot it this afternoon and that's my final selection for the birthday camera. That's what I really wanted in the first place. If you find a camera you really like you know you've become obsessive when you stock in four....just in case. Nothing like getting used to something and having it discontinued.

Next on the acquire list for me is the new Olympus 40-150mm f2.8. I handled one and it's darn near perfect. It would be a wonderful lens to use for theatrical shoots. Might even try shooting some fast moving cars with that one but I'd probably want to use it on the Panasonic body for that.

Finally, this is the 2,100th post I've written for the Visual Science Lab blog. Unbelieveable. That means that if you've read from the very beginning your eyes much be very tired. Thanks for hanging in there with me and supporting my writing. If you want to celebrate you could always order your own copy of the novel. I also re-read the LED book recently and it's not bad! I'll put the links below and I'll thank you in advance for your brilliant buying decisions. 

Best, Kirk

Another fun work day. And a camera saga. Oh the glory of total camera failure...

Let's get the camera prattle out of the way first. My Pavlovian response to my birthdays is to rush out and buy a camera. I tried to contain myself and I made it all the way through my actual birthday with no acquisitions. I was so proud. But a large (and unexpected) royalty payment came in the last minutes of the day, via e-mail, and trigger anew the whole acquisitive process. I know the camera I emotionally want; it's the EM-1. I know the camera I would like to own for a longer time; it's the Olympus EP-5 with the new EVF finder. Why? Because it is so beautifully designed and assuages my nostalgia for the original (to me) EP-2 Pen camera that I really did love very much. Well all of it but the sensor....  I think I've got a line on a good, very lightly used EP-5 tricked out the way I want it I just need to be patient for a week. 

So, here's how the downfall from camera chastity to camera sluttiness occurred: I need to do some overnight printing for a fast approaching assignment. What does that mean? Well, after a full day of shooting (maybe till midnight or around there) I need to come back to the studio and make 40+ small prints before I return to the job the next day at seven. I may seem as though I operate by the seat of my pants but I really do test stuff before I head out and do it. I like to know that I'll be able to pull of what I'm about to promise. Keeps the clients much happier.

I needed a box of Canon lustre pro inkjet paper so I headed up the clogged highway to visit my friends at Precision Camera. I found the box of paper and tried to find someone to ring it up. But in the search I walked by the used Nikon shelf and happened to see a Nikon D7000 camera body offered used at a reasonable price and, in a moment of weakness, bought it as a back up body for the D7100. The logic was pretty flawless: pretty much the same menus, the same basic feel and control set up, really good high ISO performance and appreciably smaller file sizes. I bargained a bit and the next thing I knew I was heading home with it and, truth be told, I was pretty happy with my decision. 

I had an assignment to deal with this afternoon. I shot a series of marketing images for the people at Zach Theatre. They needed new creative visual content for the upcoming play, A Christmas Carol. 

What a perfect opportunity to break in the new camera!!! I packed it along with a few lenses and a bucket full of lights and umbrellas and what not. But old habits die hard and even though Precision Camera prides themselves on thoroughly checking out used cameras before sale I would never leave the studio to shoot a job without a backup camera in the bag so I grabbed the D7100 to back up for the D7000.  I set up the background first. Always. And then I got around to lighting everything and when that was done I grabbed the new camera, the used D7000 out of the case and put a lens on the front. Then I had the marketing intern step in so I could make a few test shots. 

Funny, when I blew up the test images nothing was sharp. Nothing. I tried another lens and got the same results. I tried a third lens and then gave up and tossed the camera into the bag and pulled out the thoroughly tested D7100. We did the whole shoot with that camera and the Nikon 18-140mm. All the images turned out great. 

When I got back to the studio I put the camera on a tripod, pulled out a home made focus tester and got to work on the new/used/offending D7000 body. I wanted to determine if the fault was just a calibration issue that could be user fixed. Nope. Even at +20 steps of correction or -20 steps of correction it was uncorrectable. Frustrating but better to find out before a major, unrepeatable project. Back the camera goes for a refund. Another hour spent driving up and back down Mopac Expressway. I'm resolved to just wait for fate to deliver that beautiful Pen EP5 to me...

Now, on to the job. The folks at Zach Theatre are doing the classic Dicken's, A Christmas Carol.  They needed images of Scrooge and Tiny Tim against white. They'll cut out the people and combine them or put them into other graphic elements. Zach is using an organizational software program called, BaseCamp, so I'm in the e-mail loop for every step of preproduction. Kind of fun. Almost like being omniscient. 

The packing was straightforward. Starting with the background we used a white muslin that packs down small and works well. We bought it in 2002 for a Southwestern Water Company annual report and I've been using it ever since. It's not as graceful a white background as Super White background paper but it does the trick when you are working fast, don't want to worry about light reflected back to the subject and you don't mine a little tone in the background. Works best when your art director's production team is highly proficient at dropping out backgrounds. 

I lit the background with two Elinchrom D-Lite 400s firing into matte silver surface umbrellas. The main subject is lit from the left (as you see the image) with a 60 inch Softlighter umbrella and from the right with a very powered down second light firing into yet another 43 inch silver interior umbrella. All four of the lights are Elinchrom D-LIte 400s.

After metering with a Minolta flash meter 5 I set the camera to ISO 200, 1/80th of a second, f7.1. Knowing the large expanse of white would serve as an auto reference I got lazy and used AWB for color. The camera nailed it perfectly.

We shot 350+ raw images which were post processed into 96 compression Jpegs at the full 6000x4000 pixel size. 

In this wide shot you can see the placement of umbrellas. The shot is wide angle so the background seems smaller and further away. 

We wanted the kid, William, to be on "Scrooge's" shoulders but our older actor has had some back issues so we needed to find a creative work around to make the shot happen. We ended up putting Tiny Tim on a ladder and compensating for the difference in heights by putting Scrooge on a step stool. I think it matched fairly well. All of the positioning was very stable which allowed me to get a wide range of expressions. If the kid had really been on Harvey's shoulders we would have had to take more breaks and work much more carefully...

Our make-up artist steps in to re-powder and actor's forehead. 

With the combination shoot coming to an end the marketing people stepped in to bring William down safely off the ladder. This shot should give you an idea of how we set up the shot.

Sad tiny Tim. 

Happy Tiny Tim.

We were in and out in about an hour and a half. We tried lots of different exposures and combinations. The D7100 was flawless. The 18-140mm was a good, all around lens for this kind of work. I had all of the files post processed and on a memory stick by dinner. 

First thing tomorrow the used D7000 goes back. I guess life can't always be perfect.  But it's been darn close lately.