Post Production
This photo of Avedon’s instructions to his printer has been bouncing around the interwebs recently, and although I think I’ve discussed this before, I think it’s worth mentioning again: Digital post production is no different than chemical post production in a traditional film lab.
There is always the caveat of course: bad photoshop is still bad photoshop. Just the way that bad physical retouching is still bad physical retouching. To be good at intensive digital retouching you need to have control, subtly, creativity and knowledge of how things are supposed to look. This is why there are professional retouchers to offset every other schmo with a copy of Photoshop Elements.
I am do not use photoshop a lot these days. In fact, the more I shoot the more I want to do everything in-camera. Why? a few reasons. First, I’m impatient. I want the image to be as close to final when the shoot is over. Second, I find it much more fun to figure out how to make that perfect (or near perfect image) while working on the set, rather than sitting at my computer. I’ll nudge around pieces of black foam core for hours on set rather than try to photo shop out an unsightly reflection. And third? I’m not that great at retouching, so I try to avoid it.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I don’t do retouching at all. Like anyone else, I spend time removing blemishes and softening age lines and wrinkles. Note that I said softening, not removing. I do everything I can to not “remove” wrinkles. Wrinkles are character and there is a certain amount of photographic honesty involved here. In fact, I like wrinkles. I’ve never been a fan of the space alien completely flawless look. I’m usually not shooting beauty and fashion shots after all (at least no yet).
90% of my post production is done in Lightroom these days, which is a tool that has become invaluable to my workflow. Here is a quick run down of my post production process for most shoots:
Rough Selects: I do a first pass through the entire shoot, flagging picks. This is what I call rough selects and I flag everything that seems like it is worth saving. I generally don’t use the Reject flag at this point because I never like to throw anything away.
Selects: Next, I take a second pass and narrow down my rough selects further to a minimum number of shots that I feel are the best. This usually means that the cut goes down to three to four images per setup (this could be more or less depending of course on the project).
Develop: I shoot in raw, so that I can to develop those images similar to the way that film would be developed in a lab. I need to adjust the saturation, contrast, exposure and color balance. Lightroom makes it easy for me to make these adjustments to one of my selects and then sync the settings with all of the rest.
Minor retouching: Light room has some simple retouching tools for things like blemishes and spot removal. I use these tools minimally to take care of easy to remove problems.
Share with the client: Once I’m happy with the selects, I share these to the client. These days I’m using Photoshelter for this process and I love it. More on that in another post.
Final retouching: When the client gets back to me with their choice(s), then I do a final pass of more detailed retouching. It is at this point that I do the more intensive retouching that is necessary like removing copyrighted logos from a subject’s t-shirt or taking out an unsightly lamp that got into your shot somehow. Again, I’d like to mention that I do everything I can to make sure that all out removal is kept to a minimum in my shots. Depending on the final use I also make test prints to make sure that everything looks the way that I want it.
Image Delivery: Once the images are complete and ready to go, I make the high res images available for download (again via Photoshelter).
That’s it. I think my process is really no different than it would be if I was shooting film. The only real difference is that I can all of the steps at my desk instead of a lab, and I can do the whole process in one day if need be.
Mobile Fotos App for the iPhone
As I mentioned last week, I’ve been utilizing my iPhone a bit more lately for scouting, idea capture and in general, just another way to boost my creativity a bit. One of the challenges that I’ve faced with the iPhone, however, is how to get my photos off the phone and onto my computer in a reasonable fashion. The problem lies in the fact that I sync my iPhone to my home computer (a Mac) and spend most of my day working on a PC at work. I don’t want to connect my phone to my work computer, so this means that if I snap a photo on my iPhone during the day, I can’t really access it to post on my blog or on Flickr unless I email it to myself, wait for my email sever to hiccup a few times, and finally get it through.
So I’ve been looking for an app that will easily and reliably allow me to upload photos from my iPhone to Flickr. Surprisingly, Yahoo doesn’t have a native app for this. You would think that they would at this point, but they don’t. So after some research through forums and the iTunes store, I narrowed my decision to two apps: AirMe and Mobile Fotos. Both allow you to take photos on your iPhone and post them to Flickr directly from the app.
I tried out AirMe first because it is a free application and I’d read good things about it. Almost immediately I came across some obvious problems. First, with AirMe you can only post photos that you take using the AirMe camera interface, which is poorly designed and covers way more of the screen (in this case, your viewfinder) which makes composing more difficult. You can’t post photos from your camera roll, only from the AirMe camera interface.
The first time I tried to upload the photos, it worked great, and I was prepared to deal with the other problems, because the price was right. After my third upload, however, the app started to crash. I’d take the photo, would choose “Use Photo” and then watch as the app cranked for a minute, then crashed. This resulted in losing the photo. On one particular occasion I was really excited about a shot I’d pulled off, only to lose it seconds later when AirMe crashed. It ended up being a waste of time and effort.
So I ponied up the $1.99 for Mobile Fotos and so far everything has been golden. I can upload directly to Flickr, I can add title, description, tags, create or add to existing sets, and set privacy levels for my images, and best of all I can use the regular iPhone camera and pull images from my Camera Roll. So far I’ve uploaded images without trouble using the Edge network as well as when connected to WiFi. Mobile Fotos also has a great interface for browsing your photostream on Flickr which caches thumbnails to make subsequent viewings go faster.
I’ve only been using Mobile Fotos for a day or so, but so far it’s been a great compliment to my iPhone.
Keywords and Metadata
Since I don’t have much in the way of interesting visuals to show off this week (damn, I need to get away from my cube so I can shoot more!) I’m going to do a few brief posts about my workflow for those of you who are curious.
I tend to shoot a lot, probably too much really. I tend to get caught up in the moment and bang away a few too many identical frames, because honestly, I just love doing it. I love the act of making photos just as much as seeing the results. But when I go to unload my cards, there are usually many many images. This means a big library, which is difficult to maintain. When I started shooting professionally and the amount of images in my library started to increase, it because imperative that find a better solution to organize everything.
Then I found Adobe Lightroom. As I think I’ve mentioned before, this is my photography software product of the year two years running. When I started looking for a software to organize my photography, I compared Lightroom with Apple’s product, Aperture. In the end, my decision to go with Lightroom came down to three things: price (lightroom was cheaper), speed (lightroom performed better, even on my Mac) and platform (I could run Lightroom at home on my mac and at work on my shitty PC, therefore enhancing workflow). I’m not going to get into a long discussion about Lightroom at the moment but suffice it to say that I love it and couldn’t work as smoothly without it.
So here’s my workflow tip of the day: keyword every photo as you import it. Don’t wait and do it manually after the fact, do it immediately. Lightroom has an option to batch add keywords in the import screen: take advantage of this. Here’s why I do it:
In the past, I’d merrily skip past the import options and then painstakingly add the keywords afterwards. This works pretty well and doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. But as I started shooting more and more, my schedules got tighter, and I’d get distracted and wouldn’t actually go back and do it. The result? 18k photos in my library without keywords. This is a big problem.
Here’s what I do now: for every shoot, I choose at least one or two keywords that apply to everything that I’m importing. Most of the time it’s the person’s name, if it’s a portrait session, or an event name, or a project name. Obviously if you’re shooting more than one person you don’t want to apply everyone’s name in bulk. So I add a general set of keywords that work for all the images, and the do specific keywords later. This way, even if I procrastinate and never make it back to add those specific keywords, I have the ability to at least narrow down my search with some general terms.
Believe me, adding keywords every time I import has been a huge help. This also applies for metadata. Set up some basic information about you that applies to all your photographs – your name, your URL, your location, your contact information etc. Apply this to every photo you take, that way you won’t have to go back in and do it later. There is no better way to make sure that your name stays with a photo than metadata.
Was any of this helpful? I know it seems pretty basic, but it was a bit of an eye opener to me when I figured it out.
Me and My Lightmeter
To meter or not to meter.
I’ve been reading photo blogs religously for the last couple of years, and the one over-arching theme amongst the digital professionals has been: when shooting digital, use the LCD as your meter rather than using an actual light meter. Nearly all of the pro-photo bloggers that I read don’t use meters, so naturally I stopped using my meter at all. When I started my lighting class at the beginning of the summer, I wasn’t in the habit of metering and caught shit from Clay about forgetting to meter. After a few weeks, I came to the realization: metering makes my life a whole lot easier and my work has improved greatly.
The photographers who advocate not using a meter generally have been shooting for years. As such, they have much more experience guessing where the exposure needs to be for a given situation. Even after my piddly two years shooting professionally I’m much better at guessing exposure – imagine where I’ll be in eight or ten years. However, in order to learn how to guess those exposures, you need to understand the exposure. If you’re constantly just clicking up or down a stop with your aperture, you aren’t going to understand the relationships between the light and your camera settings. You aren’t going to think, ok, if my key is f8 then I want my kicker to be f1. You’re just taking a few dozen setup shots to get it right. And lets not get started about drop off. Depending on your light source, drop off can be pretty dramatic. If you have your model step back a couple feet, do you really want to go through another series of test shots to check your aperture? Bottom line, until you have a lot of experience with a lot of different lighting setups, being scientific is going to get you more accurate images, quicker.
For the most part, I work without and assistant. This makes it hard when you have to set up lights on your own in a strange place without someone to stand in. When I was going through my non-metered phase, I’d guess at the lights then put the camera on a tripod, hit the shutter then run over to the setup and get into the shot to test the light. I’d have to do this a half dozen times to get it right, and even then, I’m relying on my LCD for accuracy. This sucks. When I meter, I have a pretty decent idea of how the lights are going to hit. When my subject arrives I’m all set up and generally only need minor tweaks to the angles etc.
Long story short, metering allows me to get set up faster, make changes faster, get lighting experience through a scientific approach as opposed to a haphazard one, and in general makes me more confident when I’m shooting. I heart metering.
I use a Sekonic L-358
Seamless
Last year I was shooting almost exclusively on white seamless for my firm – the type of advertising we were shooting for was all actual employees for a people first campaign. This year the style has changed dramatically, and while I’m glad to be doing a wider variety of work, I still kind of miss the seamless stuff.
If you want to get into some seamless stuff, here is an excellent tutorial that I came across today which is excellent. Zach tells you how to go through the a bargain-basement set too. As always, I’m jealous of the studio. Why can’t I have a nice big studio?
/whine
Gear Envy
Lets face it, no matter what you say about how a good camera doesn’t make a good photographer, and how a real artist doesn’t need fancy gadgets to get the shot, photography is a technology driven field. And lets face it, if you want a large scale photo shoot to go smoothly, the easiest way to deal with the the unforeseen is to come prepared. The ever present Chase Jarvis is one of those photographers who has the status and client-base (yeah yeah, talent as well) to afford all kinds of amazing gear which would make any photographer drool. He has put together a short video showing how he packs his gear for travel, and in the process makes my gear set-up look down right pathetic.
For even more abuse, check out his podcast in the iTunes store for the 30 extended video where he shows off his full gear collection which makes my set of Hensels look pretty sad.
From a marketing standpoint, Chase is a genius with all these videos. What better way to show your clients that you are technically savy, prepared for anything, not to mention that you have the travel experience to travel with all your gear to exotic lands for a shoot.
Outside My Bubble
It’s been a little over four years since I first started hiring and working with professional photographers, and almost exactly a year since I took my first shots as a professional myself. Working as a photographer is maybe only 50% of my workday at the moment, and it’s definitely the fun half. I’m still doing a good bit of design, and I’d like to be doing much more photography. This week for example, I only have two still life shoots, and next week I’ll be shooting some more of our employees for advertising, but in between I’m still slogging my way through tedious reports and the other corporate design work I’ve been doing for the last seven years.
This is part of the reason I’m enjoying the photography work so much – it’s new, it’s exciting, and it’s a way for me to build on my creativity a bit. I’ve been complaining about the boring work I’ve had to do for years, and photography gives me an excuse to stay cloistered in my cushy corporate job a little longer. The question arises: Once I get my fill of corporate photography for my one big client, my employer, will I stay here being bored like I have been with the design side, or will I try to branch out on my own? Or will my other projects pay off so that I don’t have to worry about it?
Dipping my toe in to the wild world of photography outside my bubble is a bit scary. I read a number of blogs that are uplifting and encouraging. But I read an equal number of blogs that scare the pants off me. Some of these make me question my creativity, my ability to drum up business for myself, and whether or not I’m real or if I’m just a poser, an artist or a hack. I had an email conversation with Jayme Thornton, one of the first photographers I hired in New York (who does really great work, btw), and he said “you’re in a brave new world of photography bizness. It’s mean and changing.”
The “mean” part is what I’m worried about I suppose. There are so many amateurs crossing over to the pro side, that I often question whether or not I’m one of them. Technology has made the competition fierce, although to be honest, I wouldn’t be here without the technology advancements either. From the sound of it, I just need to dive in, no matter how cold the water is and see what happens. For now I’ve got the cushy job to protect me while I learn.
I am also extremely lucky to be part of my other project which I have no doubt will make me rich someday, and then I’ll be able to make photos to my hearts content with a couple of 1Ds Mark IIIs and a full array of Profotos without having to worry about making money with my art. Right? Right??
Shooting Money
These days I am constantly looking for ways to increase my photography assignments. Whenever I see photos being used around the office I try to see if it’s something that I could do, and if possible I try to convince the designer to hire me to shoot what they’ve comped up before they purchase it from Getty or Corbis. Most of the time they’re buying royalty free images, which are cheaper and easier to just purchase, but if they’re using a rights-managed image, I have a chance of saving them some money.
I was walking past one of the work tables in my office this afternoon and happened to see a set of publications that another designer in my office was working on. It featured a still life photo of U.S. currency pinned to a clothesline, dripping with water. Apparently it was a image was meant to depict money laundering. I gave a quick pitch to my boss about the possibility of me shooting final, but it turns out they’d already paid for the image.
We did get in a conversation about what it would entail if I did do the shot. One of the issues with the existing shot is that the money was very soft focus, with a very short depth of field, and the back light used was too bright, and made the ink on the backsides of the bills show through and blend in with the front side of the bills, which made the image blurry and sloppy looking. My boss suggested it had to do with the reproduction restrictions on U.S. currency. This got me thinking that I didn’t know what those restrictions are, so I looked up on the internets.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, here are the rules:
Reproduction of Currency
Authority: The Counterfeit Detection Act of 1992, Public Law 102-550
Color Reproductions
Section 411 of Title 31 of the Code of Federal Regulations permits the printing, publishing or importation, or the making or importation of the necessary plates or items for such printing or publication, of color illustrations of U.S. currency provided that:
1. The illustration must be of a size less than three-fourths or more than one and one-half, in linear dimension, of each part of any matter so illustrated;
2. The illustration must be one sided; and
3. All negatives, plates, digitized storage medium, graphic files, magnetic medium, optical storage devices, and any other thing used in the making of the illustration that contain an image of the illustration or any part thereof shall be destroyed and or deleted or erased after their final use in accordance with this section.
Black and White Reproductions
Title 18, United States Code, Section 504 permits black and white reproductions of currency and other obligations, provided such reproductions meet the size requirement.
Gotta love government clarification. So does “illustration” including photography? And what is item #3 all about? Especially when thinking about digital photography. Am I expected to delete my digital photos and erase them from my backup drives after publication?
If anyone figures this one out, lemme know.
Making It Easy
I did a quick shoot yesterday in the office of a employee for the firm’s website. We needed a casual, seamless shot like most of the photos I’ve been taking. She was a bit nervous and, like most people that I’ve shot, she said she was terrible at getting her picture taken. I assured her that everyone can have good pictures taken of them and then proceeded to chat with her and make her laugh as I tried to get the shot I needed.
When she left, she said “Thanks for making this easy.”
And of course I realize how important that is — that part of my new job as a photographer — to make it easy for the subject, to get them to relax, to create the mood that is needed to get the shot. I heard an interview on one of the photography podcasts that I listen to these days (Lightsource) where a photographer was explaining how important it is to stay calm on the set. He said that the photographer sets the tone, and even if something goes horribly wrong, you’ve got to keep it together or everyone freaks from the client to the model to the assistants.
Having been the client to photographers is a huge help to me now that I’m behind the camera. My experience with the photographers that I’ve hired as a designer has shown the importance of a calm and collected photographer. One in particular that I’ve used is extremely laid back and everything goes like clockwork every time – I’m confident that everything is going to be ok. Another photographer I’ve used is always scattered and there was a feeling of stress throughout the shoot, and I’m constantly on edge. As a client if I don’t feel comfortable, and I’m worried about the final product, I still feel uneasy about ti even though the shots ended up working. Therefore, that photographer doesn’t get as much work from me as the ones that make me feel confident.
This is especially important for a newbie like me, where I have to try very hard not to sweat or fumble around or scream randomly while on the set. I’m spending so much time trying to keep myself calm, that I worry that I’m not doing enough for everyone else, especially the subject. I’ve got 100 things running through my head, from the camera to the lens to the lights to the backdrop to ohmyfuckingodIhopeIdon’tfuckthisup.
After my client left yesterday, a coworker who sits outside my little studio overheard her comment, popped his head up and said “Smooth Jon, very smooth.” I shrugged like it was no big deal, but honestly, having the subject thank me for making it easy made my day.
Olan Mills
I started taking headshots of our employees about a year or so ago and until recently they were more of a waste of time for me, rather than a learning experience. They are dead boring – 3/4 pose, facing the camera, blue background. For the most part, they are basically point and shoot – to the point where I have a couple of people who know practically nothing about photography covering for me when I’m out. The shots are basically used for proposals and employee databases etc. and creativity is not important to the clients. To date, my assistants and I have shot roughly 2000 subjects and have amassed a pretty large database of images.
But lately, as I’ve been learning more and getting exciting about photography I’ve been trying to refine these headshots and have been trying to squeeze some education out of them, especially considering that they are one of the opportunities for me to shoot almost every day. I’ve been playing around with lighting and setup etc, and have come up with a pretty good looking headshot – for what it is.
And what is it? Grade school Olan Mills portraits.
Seriously, I was looking at my photos and it looks exactly like those photos you used to get every year on the sheets that you had to cut out yourself, 4×6s, the 8×10s, and the ubiquitous wallet sized ones that you would give to all your friends with yearbook style personal notes scribbled on the back.
And then, the day after I made this realization I read that Olan Mills has gone bankrupt. Oh god, what will the grandparents of the world do without school portraits?! Unfortunately for the employees it sounds like a bad situation:
The staff have been told they will not be paid for this month, and the area managers have been told to lock up the stores and go home. There have been reports of some store employees taking equipment home (cameras, computers, studio lights, etc), holding it as ‘hostage’ against unpaid wages.
Give me my money, you corporate bastards or the camera gets it! Seriously, this sucks for the photographers and all the other employees. I was stiffed out of a paycheck when the bookstore I worked at went bankrupt and the whole thing just sucks. Of course, people could come to my Times Square studio if they’re jonesin’ for some cheese-tastic portraits.
Update: Looks like the liquidation is only the UK Arm of Olan Mills, the US version appears to be up an operating. But given the way they treated their UK employees and customers, I’d say steer clear.
Lull
I’ve reached a lull in my photography education, mainly because I’m between shoots – at least as far as studio shooting. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and a lot of research, along with a lot of existing photo analysis, but very little shooting. The problem is that even though all I want to be doing is photography work, I need to find paying clients at work to charge my time too – despite my new career aspirations in the photography arena I still need to fill my days with my design work.
I’ve been so busy outside of work too, that I haven’t been doing much shooting at home either – so overall I’m feeling very ancy to get behind the camera again. I have a shoot scheduled for Monday, but I’m so excited about this stuff that I want to move move move!
One other reason I’m not shooting as much as I’d like is because I’m interested in studio work – and without a studio and subjects to shoot, it’s a bit tough. I set up a still life shoot in my apartment on Sunday with mixed results, mainly stemming from the speedlight issues that I’m having. I got some interesting shots, but mostly by accident. As a designer, I’m pretty skilled at taking boring, ordinary photos and making something decent out of them – this comes from a career working with a lot of stock images. It is easy for me to shoot a bunch of photos and salvage something. But right now I really want to learn how to get the shot that I’m trying to get, not a cool shot that happened by accident. This isn’t to say that “happy accidents†aren’t an important part of the creative process – they are. In fact, these accidents are exactly what I need to learn. But I need to get to a point where I’m not relying on a magical accident – I need to be able to deliver quality based on my skills, with the unexpected work as a bonus.
Regardless, I feel like I’m not shooting enough.
After the holidays I need to start working on a workflow that gets me behind a camera more days that not.
Speedlight Trouble
One of the largest problems I’ve been facing thus far with my own personal studio photography set up has been the inability to trigger my strobes remotely. As just about anyone who has used a camera should know by now, on-camera flash usually results in overexposed, harsh photos that look like they were taken by a point and shoot, no matter how good your camera is. The best way to avoid this look is to get the flash off your camera, put it at a different angle and go to town.
This, however, leads to the problem of how you trigger your flash when the camera doesn’t do it automatically. There are three ways to trigger an off camera flash: a long sync cord, a radio trigger, or a slave function triggered by another flash. Sync cords are the cheapest route, but they are a pain because they are very sensitive and frequently malfunction. And at $50-60 a pop, they aren’t that inexpensive, especially when you figure you have to buy several of them in case one stops working. Radio triggers are the best option for reliability and ease of use, but your options there, as I’ve mentioned before, are to spend about $400 for a set of Pocket Wizards
Which brings me to the third option, slave triggers. This basically means that a strobe can be triggered when another flash goes off. This usually works great, unless you have more than one photographer at an event, in which case competing flashes could cause you some grief.
Most studio strobes have a slave function built into them, and while some speedlights have proprietary radio/slave functions built in, most do not have optical slaves functions. However, for about $35 you can buy an optical slave sensor to attach to the bottom of your speedlight, pair it up with a second light and you’re golden. Except in my case, of course.
After some research, I purchased a Canon 580EX
Then I discovered Alien Bees, which although a little more bulky and less portable, will give me more options, easier to use, and have an inexpensive radio trigger. But I still have this expensive speedlight which I’ve now had longer than the B&H return policy of 30 days. So I figured I’d pick up the optical slave attachment, and figured I’d finally get some use out of it. Guess again.
The optical slave attachement didn’t work on my Canon speedlight. I couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong, and thought maybe the attachment was defective. So I slapped it on an old speedlight that we have at work, bingo, flash so bright I was seeing a colored rectangle in front of my eyes for the next hour. So the attachment wasn’t defective. So I go home, try it on the Canon speedlight, using my camera’s built in flash as the trigger, and it works! Excellent, so I must have been doing something wrong before, right?
So I pull out my Alien Bee, fire it up, hit the flash…and the speedlight doesn’t fire. Shit. Switch the attachment to the borrowed speedlight, and it works. Back on the Canon, doesn’t work. For some reason, the Canon does not recognize the Alien Bee flash as a trigger. RAH!
I am very frustrated with the Canon speedlight at this point. It seems to me that their built in proprietary firmware doesn’t want me to use anything but Canon products. I wouldn’t have thought that would have extended to flash light frequency or whatever, but it appears to be the case. Gar.
Anyone need an overprived speedlight?