Balance, Counterbalance. Going overboard and then getting back into the boat.

 

It was such a wildly excessive portrait week last week. All portraits all the time. Exterior portraits in the wind. Fluorescent lit portraits. Flash lit portraits. HMI lit portraits. Even little flash portraits. So, after additional time in the post processing/retouching trenches I emerged this morning ready to shoot just about anything else.

One of the problems with doing lots of portraits for group medical practices or high tech companies is that even after you've carefully explained all the steps to your direct contact you still end up administering more than you should. For example, I make it really clear that when it comes to portrait selections for retouching I'd like to have everyone's selection on one list before we get started. If you've done a job with 10 or 20 different people for one company you know that they are looking for consistency. After all, these portraits are generally going to sit right next to each other on the website. And the best way to ensure consistency in a project is to sit down and edit all the images at once in one long, clean session.

When too much time elapses between edits you start to go "off the ranch" (at least I do) and toss in the results of experiments in processing that you might have done in between batches of erratically delivered file numbers. You might think to automate the process so all the retouching looks the same but you'd be barking up a strange tree as almost every face needs its own combination of fixes and enhancements. The major things to get right when you're looking for consistency are getting the color and density of the background right, hitting a pleasing and reproducible skin tone, and keeping the contrast and sharpening/noise reduction all in the same ballpark. Toss in cropping as well because you really should be matching head sizes. If you leave that up to some web designers you run the risk of getting a really rocky checkerboard of images in the final layouts.

Another issue we come across on a lot of shoots (and something I hear from other photographers) is that clients just can't make up their minds. I had one client recently who was supposed to select one image that would be used in an ad. His admin sent me a list that included selections from: His wife, his two daughters, his business partner and, of course, his admin.  In all there were nine different image files selected, and on one his admin wanted to know if I could change the color of the man's tie...

So, how do you pare it down and make it manageable? We lay a lot of stuff out in advance of the job. If we're doing a directly commissioned portrait; and by that I mean the person we're photographing is hiring me and paying my bill, I'll offer three to five variations which are included in the price of a session. If it's part of a larger set of people and images or it's part of an advertising project I'll cap the included file retouching at two images per person and then charge a set fee per additional file retouch. In the new year I'm moving to a stricter policy of doing one great selection retouch and then charging $25 per image for each additional file selection. When I say "basic retouching" I'm talking about doing basic color correction and tonal correction, making sure the skin is right color and hue, that we have taken out normal pimples and blemishes, dealt with normally bloodshot eyes and soften rough skin. If we need to do more stuff or more complicated stuff then I'll hand it to an outside retoucher and mark up their fees or do it in house on an hourly rate.

If you've been working with PhotoShop for a long time and you've been shooting portraits for a long time you should be able to do a "standard or basic" retouch on a file in five minutes, ten minutes tops. This does not include clipping paths, masking out backgrounds or any other graphics/production work.

With the rules firmly in place when a direct client comes back with a laundry list of files they "might" want it's easy to add the number of files all up and present a price before you begin the retouch process. If that list of ten means adding $250 to their final bill, and they are okay with that, then you win---kind of.  I think it's better to help your client narrow the list down a bit and keep the charges in a comfortable ballpark but at the same time you have to be wearing your business hat right under your artist hat so you don't give away your time. It's pretty much all we've got...

So last week I just went overboard on portraits. Like a customer in a Mississippi buffet line. Earlier in the fall we (assistant: Amy Smith) did a giant shoot with 100 portraits done over two days. This past week was a bit more difficult because of the daily change of landscape, usage, locations and style expectations. On several jobs we were trying to match previous work (which I hate because I dislike doing anything the same way twice) and sometimes I no longer have access to a distinct background or a quirky lens that I thought I hated and sold only to realize I liked and couldn't replace it.

The counterbalance to spending full days with people right in front of your face is to go out for a long walk with a different camera and no people anywhere near your face. I did that this morning. I was dragging around a Nikon APS-C camera with a 50mm lens and just banging away whenever I saw anything I liked. Nothing moved, blinked, squinted, flinched or frowned. Everything just sat there begging me to photograph it. I spent a couple hours in the brisk morning air having a great time with a mundane and unimpressive camera. But it did a nice job.

The final part of the walk took me past the original Chuy's Restaurant. The chain is pure Austin Tex-Mex food but the owners have a flare for crazy decor. There's an assortment of drive in intercoms and reflective balls out front. All of these images are from a space of about ten square feet in front of the restaurant. Sometimes shooting stuff in Austin is like shooting fish in a barrel.

I've polished the reflectors and light stands in the studio and wrapped cords with an unusually graceful touch. I've sent invoices and thank you notes. I've been on the non-portrait cleansing walk and now I'm ready to jump back into making portraits. Good think I've recharged, we've got one coming up tonight and three more before the end of the week. It's nice to be back in balance. Now I'm waiting for chance, luck and destiny to send me a really great annual report....  That should keep the fates (and the studio) busy for a while.

The Rumors have begun. What can we expect from an Olympus EM-6 ( or EM-52, or EM-5pro)?

The rumors are starting to swirl like a light dusting of snow. The people who divine such things are pointing to a February announcement of a new camera from Olympus to replace the three year old EM-5. It's important to note that the EM-5 is, in many people's opinions, the prime driver of acceptance for high end micro four thirds cameras. It upped the ante in image quality, image stabilization and physical downsizing in smaller cameras aimed at professionals and advanced enthusiasts. This make the introduction of its successor seem more important to me than just another upgrade.

I know that a lot of people will point to the EM-1 as the logical successor but they are really two separate products; the EM-1 being bigger and fully equipped with chubby handgrips while the EM-5 is svelte and can be configured to taste. My hope is that they'll keep whatever the call the successor to the EM-5 equally svelte and allow users to add just the right combination of grips and extensions to personalize the camera for the customer's individual hands.

I'm expecting to see the following fixes and upgrades to the new model:

1. The eyecup. While the EP-11 (the bigger optional eyecup) fixes the "random falling off" problem of the stock eyecup it's not that great. The original eyepiece works well for me when it's on the camera. I hope Olympus has figured out how to reliably keep it in place.

2. I fully expect to see a new EVF that's as good as the one in the EM-1 and also adds more processor speed to the mix to cut down even more on any perceptible, visual delay. While they are at it they could slightly widen the entire faux pentaprism hump to make the EVF bigger and get a greater eye point stand off for people who wear glasses while shooting.

3. Since the EM-5 was introduced Sony has made much headway with the one inch sensors that we current find in the Sony RX10 and the Panasonic fz1000. I would like to see more pixel density in the EM-5. A step up to 20 megapixels while keeping the same high ISO noise performance would help ensure that users aren't as tempted to migrate to higher res options outside the brand. And we'd all welcome an increase in resolution as long as it doesn't come with any performance hits. 

4.  I don't necessarily want 4K video in the body but it would be nice to change the current codec to something like the XAVC-S codec in some of the new and firmware upgraded models, like the RX10. The new codec would go a long way to solving the less than stellar look of video from the camera and the newer processors should be able to handle the increased throughput with no problems. While some might feel like we need the addition of microphone and headphone ports I'm thinking that a new SEMA-type attachment that fits into the current accessory port (and could spill up into the hot shoe) would be the logical place for those attachments.

5.  I'm certain that whatever new sensor ends up in the EM-5x will have phase detection AF points. At least it should...

6. Finally, I'd like them to change the exterior wrapping of the camera to something thicker and rubberier. The camera is small, which is good, but I still want to keep a good grip on it. 

Push this camera out at $999 and maybe we can see Olympus profit and loss numbers at least start trending back into positive territory for their camera division.

The icing on the cake for me would be one more lens. I'd like to see a 38mm f1.4. Close to the 75mm Summilux that I enjoyed shooting with back in the Leica film days. Olympus made a manual focus 38mm f1.8 back in the days of the film Pen cameras and it was a great focal length there as well. It would nicely fill a certain hole that I keep stumbling across when I take the system out for shoot.

The rumor was mentioned on DP Review so I do give it a bit more credence than usual. I'm not sure about the February introduction but it certainly would spice up a boring time of winter and might make just the right Valentine's Day present.....