Apparel Shoot - Part 2 - Schulich School of Business' Shoe-lickers

One of the most interesting parts of the marathon-day of shooting was getting into the Schulich School of Business and getting nerd shots done. It gathered some real interest in the clothing, plus the pictures don't look half bad to boot. Having a huge bunch of helpful hands on location were invaluable, from holding lights, to getting ready to model, to crowd control down long hallways. The mantra of shoe-licking is a play on Schulich the school (pronounced in the same way), so of course in true shoelicking fashion; lots of the act and hot pictures were required. I think the t-shirts sold out in quick succession afterwards. To the shots:

These three work great as a set - the epitome of licking shoes.

First: the looming task - looming, but never daunting.

Second: The act.

Third: No amount of shoe licking can phase us.

And next to Tova, the irrefutably hot nerd:

And the rest:

I loved the combination of the environment, and the distortion in the faces when using a wide-angle lens. It really extenuates the nerd stereotype that those of us at the school have come to love and hate.

Set 3; the study room coming up next!

Apparel Shoot - Part 1 - The Grays

It's about time I get to showing off the recent work (and finishing edits) of the clothing shoot for Mighty Clothing.

There were five locations that we shot at during the full-day shoot:

1. Some clean background shooitng, including white seamlesses and a red wall in a seperate room

2. A School Environment with a dork and nerd theme

3. A study room

4. The Beach...well...a beach with snow instead of sand, and negative double digit temperatures rather than positive ones

5. A neat mirrored mural

I will be posting the pictures from each location in succession. Enjoy.

One of the most important concepts for photographers to understand is that the learning process is never really complete. Each day our work needs to be improved through our continual commitment to self-improvement. Processing is becoming the bread and butter of the photography industry. A well composed and lit photograph is no longer adequate to stay up-to-date with the industry. Adding different looks and processing techniques builds a repretoire of possibilities, allowing you to fit and exceed clients' expectations. There may even be techniques and processes that you familiarize yourself with that the client would have never thought of. It's this dedication that truly brings out the spirit and dedication of a photographer to provide the best possible service to their clients. And that's what it's all about; isn't it?

This is a unique detail extraction/high and low key processing. I posted the before and after of my normal editing, followed by the new process.

More to come soon!

Update: The more and more I see these pictures, the more I love the contrasty and playful look of them. It really excentuates what the art director was looking for in the clothing line.

Teaser Picture from Mighty Apparel

This is one of the themed location shoots we did in and around York University. The models were in a study room, and I was shooting relatively wide (from a crop body) from behind a pane of glass. The smoke turned out better than I could have imagined from the cap guns. The model's ears hopefully have stopped ringing.

Overall it was a blast of a day, and I'll get the whole set of pictures posted towards the end of the week.

A day after my best/craziest/epic-est? shoot ever

The next day after a huge shoot makes the previous day seem surreal.

The editing is starting now; and I would expect close to 100 keepers from 552 frames taken.

A huge thank you goes out to all the models that even froze outside in a bikini in Toronto's frigid cold, and the client/Art Director Darren Tam from Mighty Clothing. It's awesome to be able to truly let your creative mind run wild as a photographer and have such willing people on board. Vision and all a photographer's tools (both physical and intrinsic) are nothing without willing people. Huge thanks also go to my willing girlfriend who puts up with me. Both during shoots and off shoots.

I'll get all the pictures done hopefully be week's end, and I'll be posting videos, photos and impressions of everything and anything.

Can't wait.

Mother's Progress - A Personal Project

[I shot a video for this posting, but this isn't about technicals this time. More on that in blog entry perhaps.]

Inspiration can strike us at the most unusual times. Not just a day after I discuss a few of the projects I plan on taking on this year; a special shoot seemed to present itself out of no where. This one is close to my heart.

On my now habitual 2 a.m. cereal run this morning, I noticed the milk calendar that my mum religously posts to the side of the fridge each and every month. This month's recipe is some kind of beef and noodle terriyaki. Mother is some sort of time scheduling nut. Now whether or not she actually makes it on time to her destinations is another matter.

But these calendars aren't meant for lunch dates, nor birthdates. Rather medical appointments. A year ago mother wasn't nearly as well as before. Her health was a function of a number less than 1.5. It's a scary thought that such a small number could mean such a large thing. It was a very challenging time indeed, yet things are much better now. Such is the inspiration for the second component. Initially I had only considered doing the first photo of the two. It seemed only fittingly halfway through to include another shot from today's revelations.

I don't expect most people to understand what the set of two pictures mean. It's something very personal, yet I knew as soon as I saw the calendar what I would do with it. A before and after. Not exactly before, and not exactly after. Yet; progress nonetheless.

I love you so much mum.

These times; it'll be personal.

As a professional photographer, it can be at times daunting, yet rewarding to fill all the client projects. We need to remember to take our time to fulfill some of our own visions; some of the things that we wish to shoot on our own time; to our own creative visions. I've had a couple things in mind recently, and I wanted to make a short list of different things I'd like to shoot over the next coming months. Here's what I have thinking so far:

> A Spy/Hitman/Armani Shoot: black and white of course, maybe some de-saturated sepia. I picked up some toy cap guns (the ones I wasn't allowed to have as a kid), and they give off quite a bit of smoke. I'm thinking that I'll get the model (a guy likely) to shoot off the 8 rounds continuously, then shoot it as if it was a just-happened murder. This will likely be a shot from the mouth down, hopefully with a cigarette or the like for fun. I'll be playing around from different environments and locales that a spy would be in. I'll likely devote a day for this, just thinking like a spy.
> Steamwhistle Shoot: steamwhistle is likely my favorite brand of beer. They're a microbrewery in downtown toronto. Their branding is very old fashioned, almost 50s pin-up style. I wanted to get some practice doing some advertising work, then sending it over to them. Just to see how it goes. This shot has two concepts: lots of green gelled lights with guys sitting at the bar at the end of the friday's work day, and a foosball table converted into using steamwhistle bottles into players.

These are the two I've had in mind for a while these are significantly less than full ideas (note the omen to CJ?):

> Ninjas. 'Nuff said.
> Dancing...break-dancing
> Kung-Fu
> More engagement and wedding work

And every so often I'm sure something else will be added to this list. I can't wait to get moving on these shoots whenever I have the time.

LIME (www.squeezethelime.com) in their fourth podcast discusses the importance of personal shooting. I couldn't agree more. Not only does it develop one's ability, and fills ones drive and passion with photography, but gets clients noticing what they have the potential to do.

Happy shooting!

Jewelry, Jewelry, Jewelry...

When a friend of mine asked to do some jewelry shots for her, I was not as much perplexed, but fascinated at the challenge. It's really is a colourful bunch of jewelry. For the occasion I decided to build a macro box, which I described in the post before this one. Really just a box with two translucent sheets and a white seamless. I also had with me at the time the Sigma 70mm f/2.8 lens. A fantastic sharp lens that really had no other gripes
but that it had a little too long of a working distance, especially for macro work.

The intricacies of doing macro/product shots is much different from anything I've done with people as subjects. Product shots have to be absolutely immaculate. No dirt, dust, blurriness or faults; solely the mission to portray a given object in the most attractive means. Normally with people as subjects, any flaws or differentiations in a person is something to accentuate in pictures, rather than to mask or fix. This leads to character. The ability for a photographer to instill this personality within pictures adds a dimension, a quality of picture that really is not attainable by even the most meticulously crafted picture. A photograph is only as important as those whom perceive it so. The most technical photographer is nothing unless they have the creative flair to draw their personality into the pictures as well. This may be from an environment, an object they hold dear, or through various photographic conventions. It's this ability for portraits to convey such meaning that really draws me to people photography, rather than products, landscapes or the like. I'll be doing more of this in my upcoming picture projects in the next few weeks, and I'll discuss this more as I go.

More of my favorites below:

[No technical stuff this time 'round; I talk about the Sigma in my last post if you're interested]

More Product Shots? - A Photographer's Fluke

I've had the pleasure for the past few years to do product testing of both prototype and production samples for JAYS (www.jays.se); a Swedish company that consistently puts out a high-quality product. I recently got their first ever over-the-head headphone model (they usually focus on in-ear models); the c-JAYS. They really are something else, and do sound pretty neat. I'll link to my review on www.head-fi.org/forums when it's completed. But Nick, I thougt that this was a photography blog! I know...I know...

Well, for the review I thought it was a good time to use my macro box for the second time (next posting: jewelry photography). It wasn't too challenging to put together, apart from challenges of finding the right materials, including a clean seamless background. I also put some hooks in mine to be able to give some definition to jewelry hanging. It actually worked quite well for headphone cables as well. Rather than just lying them down, hanging them gave the cables some interesting depth to the pictures. I really wasn't thinking of posting them until I just did some editing on them this morning before sending it out to the product manager at JAYS who loved them. They really did have an interesting texture and feeling to them. I'm not usually that interested in product shots, but with this success and the jewelry it's really quite fun to do, and it seems I have a knack for it.

Only two pictures that I would say are blog worthy; at least so far. This next one is my favorite. Something about its texture just rocks.



[Geek photography stuff below]

For the first set of product shots I had a Sigma 70mm f/2.8 MACRO lens at my disposal. That was truly an astounding lens, although for the price, it's essentially a 70mm f/2.8 prime with built-in extension tubes. I may head back to it though just for its sharpness in everyday use. It also has great colours; even for a Sigma! From my experience, usually third party lenses lack a good amount of colour, but not this one. It may in fact be an inherent characteristic of macro lenses. It sure did focus slow though, and the hood is a screw-on, preventing easy lens cap application and increases the cost of filters as it's a larger diameter when using the hood. I wouldn't be surprised that there's a little bit of vignetting as well unless it's a slim version (which is even more expensive).

I'll talk more on that lens with my next jewelry post. I used one main lens for this shoot; the 70-210mm f/4, which has a surprisingly decent macro maginification for a telephoto. It's also sharp. Both pictures were shot at f/7 at 1/160th of a second. This was just enough for my radio trigger's max sync speed, and at a small enough aperture to get sharpness all throughout the headphones, while hopefully blurring out some of the less than ideal seamless. The box had its two sides cut out, filled with a waxpaper-like sheet on the left and right sides with two speedlights at 1/4th power to give some good recycling times. The macro box is ideal for this work to get a huge light source in order to ensure that there's no hotspots or apparent light sources. It worked out quite well, and I'll try to get a video up next time I use the box, or its next bretheren.

Cheers everyone!

An Ode to Merry St. Nick

Another holdiay season comes to a close. Now that we're done picking up the scraps after (what I found to be mediocre) boxing week sales and all the turkey leftovers are eaten in lunches, we can start to reflect on the year it's been and the year to come. Start making those resolutions; you know we do them every year. One thing I always want to do is shoot more. Shoot more. Learn more. It's really that simple. It's too easy to sit around for hours reading about blogs and other professionals' work. There's so many impressive blogs and photographers going on destination weddings, doing commercial work in New Zealand, and doing feature projects all over Europe. In our slow shooting times we lie back and daydream of that "good life" and "how nice it would be". But these professionals got to where they are by shooting. They are so incredible because they shoot every single day. So my outlook for 2009? A lot more shooting, a lot more blogging, and a lot more sharing.

On the note of sharing, there's no video this time around (sorry folks), but some pictures of Christmas past:

And as always at the end...photography/gear/methods talk:

Those shots were all done with the (now returned) Sony 24-70mm f/2.8. Likely one of my favorite lenses ever held/tried/drooled over. By far the best zoom I've ever tried. I will definitely be renting it for all my future events/shoots. The Sony 70-200 mm 2.8G is my next lens to rent, but I'm not usually using that focal length, but it too is an incredible lens. I originally shot Canon, but got incredibly frustrated with the 20D I used to own. It's extremely well made and ergonomically designed, but the pictures to my eye seemed flat. Very flat. Their lens system was also out of reach for my budget. Sony/Minolta re-spurred my interest in photography. After seeing the "minolta colours" with my 50 mm prime, and seeing how ergonomic it is (even more so than the Canon), I was hooked. But now, I find that the Sony system has two very significant gaps. As I improve and seek better equipment to keep up, these gaps are really enticing me to move to another system.

1: ISO Performance: No Sony camera can really match the ISO performance of something like their counter-system counterpart. I wouldn't dare shoot at over ISO400. At 800 and up I just think the noise isn't acceptable. Even with the new A900 I've read and seen that up to 1600 is decent. My shooting style doesn't need a 24.6 megapixel sensor, and for the same price, I think that a D3 or D300 would suit my needs better. Usable 6400 and 3200 ISO? Yes please.

2: Mid-range lenses: while I love my vintage glass and the expensive sony glass, a real large gap that I miss in the Sony line-up are mid-range prime lenses. The mid-range zoom component is nicely filled by third party companies. Sure, the line-up is supplemented with old Minolta glass. But as that glass becomes more and more expensive (many on par with new counterparts), I don't think that's a viable reason anymore. Older minolta lenses for the most part sill use older motor systems, leading to noisier, less precise and lower auto-focus functions. They also lack the newest coatings and specialty glass like low-dispersion lenses. The usefulness of these features may be significantly over-flaunted by camera companies to sell more glass, but they're still significant nonetheless. Eventually, like all good old glass from other systems; they will be replaced. There's still adaptors and such, but that's less for professional usage and more for the hobbyist placement. Professionals will always need the newest technology to keep up with the market's standard offerings. Albeit Sony hasn't yet accepted that there is a "professional" line-up as of yet. They're currently in the paradigm of getting professionals interested in the system, maybe rent it for a bit and keep their eyes out. It wouldn't surprise me that in 5 years or so they'll be quite advanced; how far advanced relative to Sony and Nikon will yet to be seen. They still have large holes in their line-up to fill before that comes of age. I know I have a few lenses in my wish list:

> A 35mm f/2. Yes, there's the minolta one, but it's wayyyy out of its own price range. I'd rather invest in the newer sigma 30mm f/1.4.

> A 85mm f/1.8; really a gap here; even in the minolta line-up.

> A 50mm prime. Yes, there's the 1.7, but the Sony 1.4 is disappointing from what I've read; it's solely based on the old minolta design

> A mid-range zoom, for cropped bodies, alike the 50-150mm f/2.8 Sigma, or the 17-50 Tamron

> More wide-angle offerings; a 11-18mm f/4.5-5.6 isn't exactly ideal for low-light work, although the third party manufacturers are putting out some great stuff now

New camera technology comes down to two three factors: megapixels, picture quality and low-light performance. So in essence, you're paying for: a large or full-frame sensor with more pixels, sharper lenses/higher quality ones overall and better ISO performance. The true test of the technology in a camera is its low-light performance. Even the oldest cameras set to ISO100 in good light with decent glass at a high aperture can take very nice pictures. The rest is how well you can take pictures in low-light. (Note, this is from my event perspective, something say for sports benefits significantly more from improved frame rates or better autofocusing). Sony has decent ISO performance and a lack of some new mid-range glass. As I do more professional work, it's a difficult decision as to wait along with the Sony system to see it develop until I can afford to own incredibly expensive glass, or switch to another system in order to take advantage of its more professionally-tailored offerings.

Decisions...decisions...decisions...

Family Portraits - My Own Take

This year I decided to take the creative, no...frugal, no...easy, no...innovative way out of the crampness that is mall madness around the holidays. I can't count how many times my dad has told me and my sister how whenever he takes out the camera we leap for cover, usually nabbing nearby pillows or chairs, sometimes utilizing projectiles to make a safe escape. There really aren't any pictures of the whole family. That's why this year I set-out to get a good group picture of the four of us, and then an individual headshot. I picked up a nice 16x20 sized picture frame and then four borderless clip 8x10 picture holders that will flank it. Originall I wanted to do a horizontal (landscape) picture, but there really wasn't much room to fit it in, so I'm going with a portrait (vertical) orientation with the other pictures also vertical around it. While the chocolates and gift cards will be respectively digested and left to gain dust in a closet, I wanted to really leave something on the wall to commemorate how far we've really come as a family. It may become hard to digest how much we've come or will change down the road, and it may gain dust, but how unique is chocolate or itchy sweaters?

I knew that doing a portrait of a group like this will require sharpness throughout the frame, as well as a proper filling of the frame. A 16x20 print isn't that big of a problem, but rather safe than sorry. Or maybe I'm just trying to find an excuse to rent the most expensive zoom lens currently availalbe for D-SLRs, and unarguably my favorite lens for the Sony/Minolta A mount. It's the Sony Zeiss 24-70 f/2.8 SSM lens; essentially the only lens one could really need in that range. The weight of the lens is insane, making my body feel like a cheap accessory. Even with the vertical grip, I felt more comfortable holding it by the lens than the body to take some strain off of the lens mount. It felt incredibly nice in the hand, but I just didn't like the zoom and focus ring grip. It had really shallow perforations. The king in grips is tamron with their deep texturized rings. But that's beside the point anyways. The sharpness of the lens is immediately apparent, but what really strikes the end-product is the bokeh (the blurriness attributed to areas not in focus of the photo). It has a circular aperture, meaning that you don't get hexagonal-shaped bokeh like most stanard 6-7 blades. The SSM (similar to HSM or USM on Nikon and Canon) leads to fast and virtually silent focusing. A nice touch. Most new year's resolutions involve some kind of diet to loose weight. My diet will consist entirely of ramen freeze-dried noodles until I can afford this lens.

Enough of that. More of pictures and videos. If you take a look below, I've posted another video of the set-up and a dicussion of setting up the shots. Some of the pictures look blurry in the video, I'm not sure why something along the lines of the rendering process or file format.

You can check out some of my favorite shots below (some look a little on the blue/cold side when uploaded, but they look fine to me outside of blogger).

It was pretty fun doing the shoot, although it was challenging getting the lighting right. Next time I'll definately be renting lights for groups larger than 1 or 2. Here's my thoughts on that (only photo and lighting keeps apply):

Speedlight madness have taken the amateur photography world by storm. The capability of these strobes has really opened up the ability for amateur and aspiring photographers to take some great portraits. The hundreds of [Location] Strobist Group, including the Toronto Strobist Group that I'm a part of (http://www.flickr.com/groups/487531@N21/) as well as the main strobist flickr pool (http://www.flickr.com/groups/strobist/) show that people aren't afraid to buy an umbrealla and take pictures of their friends, or even do a collaborative model shoot. The strobes themselves are mightly portable. My entire location kit as of right now consists of 1 hockey bag. That's lights, cameras, lenses, everything and anything I could possibly need. That's 4 lights too. But shooting yesterday I really came to a physical roadblock, something I had been contemplating for a long time: a lack of power.

I currently have an arsenal of 6 strobes. 5 off-camera, and 1 on-camera. My off-camera lights consist of the entire SB-2x series praised: an SB-24, SB-25, SB-26 and SB-28 as well an a Vivitar 285 HV. The only reason that I keep the vivtar is because I have the neatest gel kit for it that I nabbed for 5$. It also makes me feel nostalgic. It's mainly used for coloured gels in combination with a seperate optical slave. I currently use 2 receivers for my triggering system, and can use up to 4 strobes total. 2 radio triggered and 2 optically (1x SB-26, 1x accessory). That gives me a good amount of light for portraits. The issue here is with large groups and recycle times with power. I wasn't even able to take a group portrait without 3 slaves, with most on full power, sucking the little life out my rechargeables. I've made a decision that over the next year I'll be adding some larger strobes to my aresenal just to give me the flexibility I need on shoots. I don't think I'll ever completely part with speedlights. For a great headshot, 2 strobes will do. 1 umbrella'ed and 1 snooted hairlight. But for large groups, or for times when I can't wait 10 seconds in between a full power flash, I'll need to rely on larger strobes more and more. Any thoughts on this?

I don't think I'm too far off the mark with this. I love doing couple shots and individual headshots, but my true desire is to do more commercial and corporate photography, where power and time are of the essence. There are still a few professionals out there that do use their small speedlights (David Hobby, Joe McNally, etc.), but the big players still rely on their large strobes. Even the great DVD set by Zack Arias in most of his shots uses the Sunpak 120J strobe that is essentially a speedlight with a full-sized strobe tube and a capacitor liekly the size of your fist. He also relies heavily on his alienbees gear in combination. Just some food for thought here.

I wish everyone the best for the new year, and I can't wait to get my feet wet in some new ideas I have cooking up.

Cheers everyone.