It winds down and it winds up again...

Wedding guest at the Mean Eyed Cat, a bar in downtown Austin.


It's been one of those wild weeks in a busy month that's starting to remind me of the way this business was before the recession made people generally skittish about spending money.  I started the week with a sense of elation by signing a contract to write and photograph a new book.  This time I made it all the way through the contract signing instead of getting bogged down in the minutiae of the contract as I did when I was considering doing the Road Trip book with a different publisher.  What's the difference?  Well, my current and future publisher sent me a three page contract with no ambiguous passages.  And, oh my,  they actually share the proceeds in an equitable manner.  If you're about to sign a contract to work on a book and your prospective publisher hands you a twenty pager and all the stuff protects them and nothing protects you......you might want to re-think who you're planning on dealing with.  Just saying.

So, after the momentary elation of the new project wore off I was left with the frightening realization that I would, once again, be spending months sitting in quiet rooms writing about things I've learned and am learning.  And I will spend just as much time convincing friends and acquaintances to drop by and be photographed in the service of my project.  I always learn so much when I write a book.  Enforced class time for 50 year olds.....

I spent a full day on marketing this week.  I discovered all the new templates for folded, five by seven inch greeting cards in iPhoto and played around for hours.  You probably already know this but it is now possible to do a number of different four color images on the inside of your cards.  Very cool.  I designed a card with a cool photo we'd done of a highway construction worker on the outside and six fun portraits on the inside.  I love the templates.  I love the look of the Apple graphics.  I ordered a couple hundred onlne and was pretty amazed when the Fed Ex guy delivered them to the studio today.  Literally a four day turn from start to finish.  I loved the whole process and the final quality of the cards so much that I sat down and designed two more.  I did it because I like to have stuff in the vault for those days when I panic and realize anew that marketing never sleeps.

On Wednesday I got up early (for me at any rate) and drove a fully packed Honda Element to the far north side of town to set up in a conference room and shoot portraits of the senior staff of an addiction treatment center.  New CEO and about ten others.  It was a fun thing for me because the newness of shooting with LED lighting hasn't quite worn off yet.  I used two ePhoto LED 500 units diffused through a 4x4 foot Chimera Panel, positioned close to the subject.  I brought my own posing stool because I like it and I brought an Apple box so my subjects could do fun stuff with their feet.  On the opposite side of the diffusion and light set up I used another Chimera panel with a white cover to bounce in fill light.  The background was a simple blue paper on background stands lit by two joined DLC 60 LED panels.  These are little ones.  About four inches by six inches and they run off inexpensive Sony Li-on camcorder batteries.  Mine lasted for the entire session even though I wasn't particularly good about turning them off between sitters...

I used a "1/4 minus green" filter on all the lights to get rid of a little green spike that rears it's ugly grass stain self from time to time.  I shot at ISO 400, 1/60th @ f4.5 on a Canon 5dMk2 with a tripod mounted 70-200 L lens.  Everything looked great.

I headed home, stopped for lunch and got a phone call from the marketing director of the organization I just shot for asking if I could send over a head shot of the CEO right away.  I got home and fed the memory card to my computer and started downloading.  There's a lag in the time it takes to fully ingest a large card into Lightroom 3 so I also stuck the little LED panel batteries on their chargers.  Didn't anticipate needing them for a few days but you never know, what with Murphy's Law and all.

After sending the needed file I started on my next task.  I set up a gray canvas outside (with plenty of sandbags) and I set up all three of my ePhoto 500 LED fixtures with Rosco diffusion material on the fronts of each.  I was supposed to shoot an image of a doctor with his Ducati Monster motorcycle for use in an ad and on a website.  We thought it might be cool to use the gray canvas outdoors.  I'd seen Michael O'Brien do an outdoor shoot with canvas years ago and figured I'd just steal a concept from one of the best.  So now I have all this stuff set up outside my studio, with extension cables heading out from the studio and the whole deal.  It's getting near 4 pm and I get a call from the doctor.  His motorcycle started smoking and cutting out on his way over.  Could I meet him about a mile away in the parking lot of an office building and maybe shoot something over there?  And could I bring him a bottle of water?  And, by the way, the wrecker truck will be there in about 45 minutes......

I'm looking at all this expensive stuff set up in front of the house and studio and I'm wondering when I'll be able to tear it all down and how I'll still be able to meet the ad subject and get the shot when my kid, Ben, comes riding home from school on his bike.  I ask nicely and he goes into assistant/clean up mode while I grab the small LED panels, the batteries and a few accessories and go off in search of the crippled piece of Italian motorcycle sculpture.  Good kid.

I find the doctor and we do an old favorite standby technique.  I put a diffuser over his head, put some open shade in the background and then punch in fill light from four conjoined LED panels.  It works great.  We shoot for while and then talk about motorcycles till the wrecker comes.  I head back home to download again.  I'm working at the computer when I look up and realize that I'm supposed to be at a presentation by Jack Reznicki at Austin Community College.  I'm on a departmental advisory board and I like to be an active participant.  Besides, there's a rumor Jack might want to use my Commercial Photography Handbook in one of his classes back at SVA.  It's the standard book for the "business of  photography" class that ACC requires for all photo students.

Jack is incredible.  He knows his stuff and there's none of the ego nonsense you sometimes have to wade through with other photographers.  He convinces by the quality of his photos, not the quality of his BS.....which is also really fun and interesting.

Thurs. becomes a long post processing and gear recovery day.  Lunch with Paul, recharge all the stuff that needs recharging.  Burn DVD back ups and do accounting.  Pizza and wine  with novels for dessert.

Today was blocked off for post processing of a fun job.  I'd shot the entire 30 person staff of an ad agency and I finally got all their selections this week.  I set aside today to do the work.  Take out wrinkles, make em look smarter, stronger, taller and angelic.  I think I got close.  I was about to shut down and do something non-photo related when my favorite art director called with a new project.  Cast, scout and shoot an ad by Tues. or Weds. of next week.  I put down the phone and went out to scout.  I called the talent agency I like and told them what we needed.  They're on it.

Last thing to do before I leave the studio for my fifteen step commute to the house is to write a blog.  Box checked.

We offer portraits. It's a fun part of the business.

    ©2010 Kirk Tuck.  All rights reserved.  


I was originally drawn to the business of photography because of portraits and I've always wanted to run a little storefront studio that would cater to well-to-do clientele (who would pay me very well)  who would also be wildly beautiful.  Instead I pursued advertising and corporate work.....were I mined the niche that was all about taking portraits of beautiful people as representatives of their companies and those company brands.  Now I do both things.  I do advertising assignments and I also provide portrait services to private individuals.

On good days I have stunning people in front of my camera and a crew of helpful people who make the work better and more productive.  On my best days I have an enormous space with a wonderful, liquid-smooth background, a huge, directional light source and I'm sitting across from someone interesting.  And by interesting I mean both the way they look and the things they are able to talk about.

Quiet listening is a wonderfully productive thing.  Being in the moment is the best......when you can pull it off.  My idea of Nirvana?  A big, cool room,  a twelve by twelve foot scrim as close to a subject as I can get it,  a gray background many yards back and time to really get to know the person in front of my camera.  And a nice lunch.

The Benefits of Shooting for Yourself.

When I speak to college classes about the business of photography it's inevitable that someone will bring up what they call "The Catch-22" of portfolios.  The premise is that the student (or person making the switch from another field into professional photography) is stymied from looking for photographic work by the idea that his portfolio must be filled with photographs from advertising shoots in order to get advertising shoots.  "How" they ask, "do I get the work if I don't have the work in my book to show?"  They seem to think that everyone in the field walked into an art director's office carrying a portfolio fully loaded with images from Vogue Magazine shoots and projects hot off the printing presses for IBM and Apple.  But that's just not true.  The first time every photographer walks into an agency or client office he or she will be showing work that didn't come from a commercial job.  So what to do?

The solution is really very simple.  Invest time and energy into doing shoots for yourself.  You no longer have the fixed costs of film, processing, and Polaroids so there are few financial barriers involved.  All you need to do is assemble the props and the people you need and get to work.  If you can't make it work on your own then you really aren't ready to go out after commercial work.

Throughout my career I've logged a lot more time doing experimental shoots for myself than shooting actual, paid work for clients.  I'll meet someone whose face is interesting and I'll invite them over for a shoot.  I'll give them a display print in exchange for their time.  If I use the photo for a commercial purpose I'll get a signed model release and pay them a fee each time I get to use the photograph in a commercial stock application.

This is how I met Renee (above) and also how I met and photographed many of the other people on my website and in my portfolios.  Many times I'll think of a style or a lighting technique that I want to use and I'll self-assign a series of images in that style.  Then I'll use the images as the core of a new portfolio to get people to assign me the same kind of work......for money.

The problem with only doing work when there is a client and a payment involved is that you have, at that point, entered into a collaboration.  You compromise your vision to incorporate the client's vision.  The piece you end up with might be totally different that the vision you might have if you had been shooting just for yourself.  And, generally, the images from commissioned shoots entail less risk taking and less experimentation.

Doing it for yourself means giving yourself permission to push the envelope.  It gives you permission to try something and fail and then to try it again in a different way.  And sometimes it means just practicing your style exclusively, which may bring you more work than you realize.

I'm working on a book now and I'm committed to including all new images.  Nothing I've used in a previous book will get recycled.  This means I'm doing a lot of self-assigning.  I love it when I can include client work but I know I'll need a lot of variations and some images that reflect niches I don't really market into.  I'll self assign.  Then at least I know I'll get stuff that I'm happy with.  And that's the whole reason to be delve into this craft in the first place.

Plus, you meet interesting people when you walk up to strangers and propose that they help you realize a vision.  The ones who accept are more open to art and risk.  And usually they're the most fun to be around.

Don't get suckered into doing free work.  If you want something that will look really great in your book you know that you can go out and shoot it for yourself.  It's really about the art not about the "access".

Don't call the therapists in just yet. He does smile most of the time.

Poor guy.  I'm always dragging my son out into the studio to sit in front of my camera while I test stuff like lighting for the next morning's shoot, or to see how a Canon 60D handles high ISO settings.  Or lately in front of a bank of LED lights that were way too blue and way off color.  I started hearing from concerned friends.  "Kid looks gray!" "Does he ever smile?"  etc.

So here's a quick post of the guy with a smile on his face, getting ready to head off to school.  He's generally pretty happy.  Really.  I swear.  And I'm sure he'll pay me back.....he's doing a film production class this semester....

The constant lure of continuous lights.

This is a scan from a print.  Sarah is a painter.  She has a wonderful face.


Since the very early days of my photography I've been drawn to continuous light.  There's something wonderful about seeing very clearly exactly what the camera will end up recording.  And it worked really well in the days of black and white film.  I abandoned hot lights during the infancy of digital because the weaker blue channel in most cameras (pre-2005) caused a high degree of noise when confronted with light that was strong in red and yellow but deficient in the blue spectrum.

After working for a number of years with studio flash and portable flashes I started to push back toward my earlier techniques.  By 2008 digital cameras were so good that they handled incandescent light with relative ease.  But until recently I had a very hard time making good black and white files.  Now, with the combination of PhotoShop CS5 and a new infusion of constant light sources I've started to venture into work made specifically to be shown as black and white.  And I've come to realize that I make important decision about how I'll shoot and how I'll light depending on what the final form of the image will be.

I like strong, deep shadows when I shoot portraits for black and white.    I also like much higher sharpness and more contrast.  But the general feel of the light; the soft quality of big sources, is a given.  Almost all the time.......

This is a scan from a print.  During the printing I used a device called a Pictrol between the enlarging lens and the paper.  It had plastic blades like the blades of a lens diaphragm and where the blades overlaid the image it created soft zones.


But the image of the rancher, above, was taken while I was deep in my first exploration of cinematic lighting.  I assembled a collection of spots and fresnel fixtures and even broad softlight fixtures and mixed and matched them for the effects I wanted.  In this instance I used a small Lowell ProLight with a four way barn door to come in from my left, right under his hat.  The barn doors narrowed the light beam and helped the light drop off across the front of the jacket.  I threw several spots of light on a gray seamless background and added a backlight, also from the left side.  The style worked well for character portraits and I kept the lights in my bag of tricks for sometime.  But it didn't translate well in the early days of digital.

Now we've come full circle and I'm testing the waters.  The Canon 5Dmk2 seems like a good match for this style.  The real trick is to find the right conversion parameters for black and white.  I have friends who swear by SilverFX but I'm busy making my own presets to mimic the look and feel I've always liked.  I want to understand better how the various light channels can be intermixed to get the effects I want.

Same general information as the image above.  All done with Hasselblad cameras on Tri-X film.


The next step is to figure out how to duplicate the look I had with tungsten spot lights with the new generation of LED lights.  I am drawn to them for both the softness of the larger banks but also for the idea that one can use LED lights very, very close to the subject without worrying about heat and discomfort for the subject.  LEDs are a technology that seems to be in its infancy right now but is spreading quickly.  I recently purchase three 500 LED panels that are AC powered.  They measure about eight inches by fourteen inches and they put out a nice light.  The cool thing about them is that I can use them so close in to my subject that the fall off (inverse square law) means that the light once again becomes contrasty and dramatic.

I've also been experimenting with the small, battery operated units because I can take them anywhere.  I kind of feel like a vampire though.  I like shooting at dusk or at night in the studio where I can have total control of the lighting ratios, unfettered by the ambient light that always acts as a degrading fill.

The next step in my process of LED exploration is to find a source of affordable fresnel or spot light fixtures to use.  I want to be able to have the same precise controls I once had with the tungsten fixtures.  There are companies out there that make fixtures that fit the description but their target markets are the large production companies that do feature films.  And their products are priced accordingly.  Built to incredible standards in order to survive the daily grind of movie production without a hiccup.  For an example search for NilaTV  (I can't make the link work on here for some reason......)  You'll find incredible LED fixtures with prices that rival small, new cars.  But the technology is already in the process of trickling down.

I remember when I had my friends pose for me in the days of hot lights.  In Austin.  In the Summer.  That's why I excited to play with LED's this time around.  No heat.  No discomfort.  Lots of control.  Remind me to take the flashes out every once in in a while....if for no other reason that to keep the capacitors formed.  More to come.

Looking back in the time machine.

Love this clip from the 1960's movie, Putney Swope.  Let's us know that there's been no big paradigm shift.  Photographers as a group have always worked against their own self interests.

Negotiate wisely.  Know the value of your work and the value of their project.  Learn to say "no".

Kirk Tuck and the Butthole Surfers.

They couldn't say the name of the band on the radio here in Austin so they referred to the band as the "BH" Surfers.  I photographed them for Spin Magazine.  And again for Rough Trade Records.  They came to the studio and we shot for a while and then we headed out to do the largely cliched railroad tracks and urban downtown shots.  Later I did the album cover for Paul Leary's,  "The History of Dogs."  Just came across these photos and thought I would show them and try to dispel the notion that I've only shot stodgy, corporate work.  Loved the 1990's.  Everything was up for grabs.

That's all for now,   I'm going to go find "Hairway to Steven".   One of my BHS favorites.

Shot mostly on a Pentax 67 with a few rolls of 35mm thrown in.