Jaston Williams, photographed for his one man play, "Tru."

©2012 Kirk Tuck. All Rights Reserved.

Texas actor, Jaston Williams, is frequently cast in productions at Zach Theatre and I've gotten to know him from my vantage point as the photographer. It's not like we go out for drinks or play golf together but I think we've developed a good and insightful rapport with each other and have established, through long history, mutual respect for each other's talents. 

I took this photograph at the end of a quick, marketing shoot for Zach Theatre's production of "Tru." "Tru" is a one person play about the writer, Truman Capote. We had already gotten all of the shots on the marketing director's wish list and everyone was moving off to whatever was next on their schedule. I asked Jaston if he would linger for a few more minutes so I could make a few shots exactly the way I envisioned them. 

I know that this somber rendition won't appeal to all of my readers but it is one of my favorite portraits because I know it as part of Jaston's rich range of characterizations. I also enjoy the tonalities and the range from small pools of black to detailed, but on the edge, highlights. 

I did this image with a Sony a77 and the 16-50mm f2.8 Alpha lens.  It's a lens that I've always appreciated and now miss. 

Jaston and I photographed together a few weeks ago for his role of "Scrooge" in "A Christmas Carol." A totally different characterization. I'll post a few of those soon.

Portrait of Fadya using HMI lights. One on the background and one into an enormous umbrella.

 ©2015 Kirk Tuck. All Rights Reserved.

I am setting up the studio to make a portrait today at 2pm. Before I do anything with the lighting or background I look in a folder I keep on my desktop called, "My Favorite Portraits." There are a little over 100 images that span dozens of intended uses. While the portrait I'm making today is a headshot for an attorney that will be used on a corporate website I find that just looking at previous work informs my approach to new work.

Today my eyes settled on this image of Fadya and stuck. Different days bring different choices.

What I take away from looking at this image is the reminder that I really need to connect with my subject. I need people who look at the portrait to feel attached to the person in it in a warm and comfortable way.

For every project there has to be a starting point. Some parameters to aim for.

It helps to look at your own work from the past and to see what might have worked and what didn't. Both success and failure can exist in the same image. My usual task is how to maximize the first attribute and minimize the second.

That, and to make sure the restroom is clean and has fresh towels...

Marketing in the time of e-mail overload. Buying stamps.

©2013 Kirk Tuck. All rights reserved.

In one person businesses the ebb and flow of financial success has a tendency to either make marketing seem superfluous or mission critical. I hate getting behind on basic marketing for my business but it can be hard to keep up with day to day keeping in touch when big projects loom. In the best of all possible worlds I'd have a marketer on staff and we'd be relentless but I can't stand the idea of having employees anymore so....

Because of all the turmoil in the USA recently we've had a number of projects delayed and some cancelled and now my attention is where it should be: on marketing towards the kinds of projects of which I would like to see more.

The perennial question is, how to best market in today's web centric environment?

Let me step back for a second and set out what I'm looking for. Two weeks ago I did an event photography assignment for AmeriCatalyst. We did a thorough reportage of their private conference on banking and finance at the Barton Creek Conference Center. It was a three day program with very interesting speaker and good stage design by Media Event Concepts. I had a blast learning new information, shooting a variety of cameras, and hanging out with lots of smart folks.

This reminded me that I've always enjoyed being invited to drop into the middle of conferences about subjects outside my areas of expertise and becoming a temporary part of much larger teams. Sadly, I haven't done a good job of marketing these services in the past two or three years. I have been more or less focused on advertising and portrait projects. But can an assignment to photograph metal gears in a factory hold a candle to photographing former presidents giving speeches? Are the sandwich platters from Jason's Deli any match for the delectable lunches and dinners served at the best restaurants and hotels? Maybe not.

So, when I woke up this morning I had two plans. The first was to go for a run around Lady Bird Lake and the second was to claw my way back into the event photography market. I can clearly identify the 30 or 40 locally headquartered companies I want to work for here and I can make good assumptions about the 60 or so on the next tier. I have a number of contacts at some of the companies and also a good collection of names via LinkedIn connections. But how to reach them with a sticky message?

I could try buying advertising on social media but there's really no way to micro-target the message to the right audience on the e-media that I know about. I could try an e-mail campaign but my perception is that people are overwhelmed with the sheer amount of daily e-mail they already receive.

I've decided to go decidedly "old school" and craft a direct mail letter, on stationary, with a printed sample, and make a direct contact through the U.S. Mail. A well written letter can be a great vehicle as it allows for a quick marketing message in the first paragraph but also gives readers who want more detail additional paragraphs that make the case for using me as an event photographer.

My business has had much support over the years providing images to Dell, Inc. and the city of Austin is full of people who've become financially secure working for that company. I've decided to select an image from one of the big events we covered and to use that as the sample image for the e-mail.

The first mailing will go to 90 select prospects and, if the response is good, we'll send to 90 more in a second mailing.

The nice thing about first class mail is that you are pretty much assured that it will get to the addressee and there is a more than even chance that it will get opened and at least lightly read. If my mailing list is less than accurate I'll get back the undeliverable and that's helpful too.

I like getting letters. It's different from getting more e-mail. Perhaps the difference also differentiates my message to the prospective customer. I guess we'll see. At any rate, the budget for a targeted mailing like this is relatively low. Less than $100. And except of the very top executives there are no real "spam" filters for regular mail.

I'll let you know how it all works out.

P.S. Nice run this morning. 56 degrees and thick fog everywhere. It was a nice, slow run; 10 minutes a mile, at best. But we didn't have swim practice today so what are you going to do? One of two goals accomplished. Now on to the writing segment of our day. KT

Just a Monday Morning portrait from book #2.

💣💡💠💐👜👓👑🌴♧🌀☂🎤🎩🎩

Wow. Blogger now has emojis.

Staying on the topic of gear catastrophes and close calls I thought I would share my Leica M3 story.

Many years ago, here in Austin, Texas, I was working the night shifts as a short order cook at a diner/restaurant called, Kerbey Lane Cafe. I worked the Thurs., Fri., and Sat. night shifts because they were the busiest and those shifts paid the most. They also left my days free to go out and show my portfolio to the handful of magazines and advertising agencies sprinkled around our (then) small town.

The time period was in the waning years of the 1970's. At the time all of my photography heroes, Garry Winogrand, Alan Pogue, Ralph Gibson and William Klein used Leica M series rangefinder cameras and I was certain that if I could just get my hands on a nice, clean Leica M3 with a 50mm, dual range Summicron that I'd be equally famous in no time at all. With the fame would come lucrative assignments and I would finally be able to quit my job in the restaurant and become a full time photographer. I'd never have to come home smelling of gingerbread pancakes and bacon again.

I finally lucked into a few small writing jobs for the healthcare industry and for a home builder (I'd shown a portfolio of photographs but they liked the writing better....) and I scraped up enough cash to buy a used, but minty, Leica M3 (single stroke) camera and an un-cloudy seven element, dual range Summicron, for the princely sum of $345. It took every cent I made from the writing I'd done over the course of several months. But, at last, I had the tool of the imaging demigods. I too would enter their rarified Pantheon and take amazing images that would cause the users of lesser cameras to gasp in astonishment. Or, at least that was my hope...

In the first few weeks I took the camera everywhere. One evening I went to a pizza place at the corner of 19th Street and Guadalupe St. and my (then) girlfriend and I had a large cheese pizza, and we split a salad. I was new to the art of carrying a camera everywhere and since I was focused on the pizza I carelessly hung the camera over the uprights of my chair. Since I was a camera-carrying neophyte in the presence of an attractive young co-ed I quickly forgot all about the camera as I looked into her big, sparkly, hazel eyes.

We finished our pizza and walked, hand in hand, to my old, beat up, blue Volkswagen Fastback automobile and headed back to my place. When I walked in the door of my apartment I immediately realized that my prize camera; the M3, was no longer attached to my shoulder. I was devastated. I thought of the money I'd spent and the time it took to accrue that money. I headed back to the pizza place more or less certain that I'd be met with blank stares and NO camera.

I went straight to the table we'd been sitting at. No camera. I looked on the floor but no happiness was found there. Finally, I walked up to the front of the house and asked for the manager. "Did you happen to find a camera in the last half hour?" I asked. I was nervous and distraught.

"Actually, we did." the manager said. "Can you describe it?"

I said, "I think it's probably the only Leica M3 camera in your lost and found."

He smiled, walked into the office and emerged with my camera in hand. I was so happy. So absolutely happy.

And you would think after this experience I would never leave a camera behind again, right? But many years later, when Ben was a young child, we all went to eat at a restaurant called, Asti. I'd upgraded cameras by then and was toting a Leica M6 .85ttl with a 50mm Summilux on the front of it. We sat at a banquet and I took numerous photos of my young son during the course of dinner. We always requested the table next to the front window because the late Summer light was so good....

We had a delightful meal and headed home. When I walked into the house I noticed the answering machine had a blinking light on it indicating a message. I pressed the button to hear it and there was the voice of Asti's owner telling me that I'd left my camera behind, on the banquet, and that it was safely awaiting me at the hostess's station. That camera didn't seem as precious as the older M3. It was less of a struggle to buy. But I was still very happy not to lose it. There was a photograph on that roll of film that has been one of my favorites now for at least 15 years. That one frame is worth (to me) the entire value of the Leica and lens I had carelessly left behind.

Absent minded, but that's how I roll.

Tales of catastrophic gear loss...

VSL reader and now contributor, Kurt Hansen, suggested that automatic file transfer from cards in cameras to alternate storage, while shooting, traveling, having coffee, etc. would safeguard valuable files from loss in the field. He used as an example the scenario where a camera is accidentally dropped overboard on a ferry crossing. A few literal minded readers immediately went to the position of, "I've never dropped a camera overboard from a ferry." I suggest they take a wider view and assume that a ferry accident is "stand-in" shorthand for any kind of camera-tastrophe. And I imagine we've all had one or two, at least.

Thought I'd share one of my most depressing. I was working with an assistant on an annual report for a company that does water and waste water treatment plants in cities and regions across the U.S. It was early days for digital so we were supplementing our digital camera gear with a few well chosen pieces of film gear that still seemed better suited to outlier shots. One day our team of client, ad agency representative, assistant and myself found ourselves at a plant with a large, primary wastewater intake tank.  A catwalk stretched about 60 feet across the tank, about 35 feet above it. For some crazy reason we decided that it would make a great image if I climbed up the ladder and walked across the catwalk to the center of the tank and then shot directly down with a super wide angle lens.

Wide angles weren't as wide on the APS-C sensors of the earlier cameras so I grabbed a Leica M6 rangefinder camera with its usual 50mm and, in a small shoulder bag, a 15mm f8.0 Hologon lens along with a circular, graduated neutral density filter on the front and a (not very accurate) bright line finder. I kept the expensive 15mm in the bag as I climbed the ladder so it wouldn't accidentally bang around.

I've never been particularly comfortable in high places but we used to push through our lesser phobias on a routine basis in order to get the shot for the client. The catwalk flooring was made of metal deck plate with the usual diamond shapes on it and it had metal railings on either side that camera up waist high. I slowly edged my way across to the center and surveyed the scene. My assistant and some of the others would be in the final shot unless I moved them. I pulled a small Motorola walkie-talkie off my belt and toggled the talk key to get my assistant's attention. We spoke and she moved the group out of the shot. I put the walkie-talkie back on my belt and started to prepare the camera.

I took the 50mm lens off the front of the camera and tucked it into the bag. Then I pulled the 15mm out and started to put it on the camera. I can't remember if it was a gust of wind or just a momentary lack of courage but I felt a bit of vertigo and, in a panic, grabbed for the railing. But in order to grab for the railing I had to ..... drop the lens. It all seemed to happen in slow motion. The lens turned over and over again as it rushed toward the churning contents of the tank. It hit with a plop! wavered for a second or two and started to sink. By this time I'd regained whatever composure I had left and pulled the walkie-talkie off my belt again. I yelled to my assistant, "Quick, jump in there and grab the lens before it sinks too far!!!" Of course, I was kidding. She grabbed her walkie-talkie and replied, "I quit."

While the lens would not have been saved by an automatic back-up I think Kurt's approach has much merit. I am reminded of a first world tragedy that struck one of my peers. He placed his new, super deluxe camera and zoom lens on the roof of his car as he took a cellphone call. He became so engrossed in the call that he got in, started up the car and drove off. The camera finally slid off as the car was negotiating a turn at around 45 MPH an it hit the pavement with lethal impact. My fellow photographer didn't realize what he had done until he pulled into the driveway of his home and went to unload his gear.

He would have been well served with an automated, remote back-up system for his files....

But I am assuming that none of my readers have ever done anything nearly as zany with their cameras, right?

A VSL reader takes issue with my diminution of workflow as an issue for camera buyers. I think he's on to something. Well thought out.

VSL reader, Kurt Friis Hansen schools me a bit in response to my comments about workflow not being  important to camera consumers. I liked his e-mail to me, and the fact that it educated me, so I asked his permission to publish it as a "Guest Blog."  Here's what he had to say....

**********************

Hi Kirk Tuck

I decided against including this in my comment on your web site, but I think the old saying: “What you don’t know is possible, you cannot ask for!" - or something to that effect. 

I think you need to visit and review the camera-image workflow from another viewpoint. You wrote:

"Thom Hogan repeatedly takes Nikon to task for "workflow." To summarize his position he seems to think that the main issues holding Nikon back are a paucity of APS-C lenses (side issue) and the inability to push one button on the back of a Nikon camera and instantly send images directly the social media or other sharing applications. I'm too old school to appreciate this point of view and disregard it just as I disregard GPS on cameras. Since this tech doesn't require much in additional hardware costs I'm all for its inclusion but… I think a much more important impediment to Nikon's success, even with existing cameras, is their foot dragging approach to video."

I think you simplify the things - especially in lieu of what modern software already delivers to milllions and millions of people in all walks of (professional) life. Let me try to describe one - my - future scenario. My dream..

1. Camera design as such is not affected, but enhanced with a communication interface (standardized, fast, not slow and proprietary as today).
2. Camera can use memory cards as today (a kind of a belts and suspenders solution - especially intended for pro's).
3. Your preferred "talk to" device is selected by powering on the device and the app (iOS, Android aaand Windows, macOS). Once paired, connection is automatic in the future - unless blocked by camera setting.
4. Capabilities, configuration,  storage targets, behavior etc. is defined in the app/program - any camera settings required is handled by the app/program as needed.
5. If no connection exists, camera behaves as normal.

Now we have "intelligence" in a place, where it is easily handled, extended and modified. Imagine named custom settings for your camera.

In theory any number of custom settings, not just three,  that need redefining on a frequent basis. Imagine customized prioritation rules regarding aperture preference and range, shutter speed and range balanced to ISO, focal length of lens, and situational requirements (sports, landscape, walkabout etc.).

Camera side

When a connection is active, and sync is activated (not just remote control), the camera saves any image/video on card. When save has completed, whether a new image/video is made or not), the camera starts transferring/syncing recent data to the connection controller (smartphone/computer) and so on for new images/videos.

Running in the background - selectable mode to sync only when camera inactive, concurrently or manual only. Akin to the workings of Google drive, OneDrive, iCloud etc. with an extra twist.

Optionally, data acknowledged as received by the controller can be deleted as required (oldest first), leading to "unlimited" camera memory.

Optional streaming and streaming quality can be activated by controller.

Whatever happens to the data in the connection controller is of no concern to the camera.

Until connected (or paired), the camera behaves as a standalone camera.

Connection controller

The last connected controller is active. To switch from i.e. computer to smartphone only involves stopping connection on computer and starting smartphone connection (no re-pairing is necessary second time and onward).

In addition to remote control and camera configuration, the sync behavior is controlled. I.e. (Examples) as one or more simultaneous options:

1. Data is saved locally on controller.
2. Data is saved (backup) to one or more connected resources (i.e. USB 3 HDD or SSD)
3. Data is saved to one or more resources (NAS) on local network.
4. Data is sync'ed to one or more configurable cloud storage providers.
5. Configurable/pluggable extensions to other targets (i.e. Facebook etc.) may activate a manually "clickable" touch-button on camera screen, allowing targetable sync of individual images to special targets on an individual basis (one-click push to local press/media account possible).

Combinations and implementation is controlled solely in the controller app/program (and options allowed by the camera).

Whether you use the camera by hand or remotely is of no consequence to performance.

The general view is, that the camera can be activated as a controller extension - a specialized image/video extension delivering special powers and capabilities to i.e. a smartphone. Similar to an AirPlay device, that can be controlled and/or extended in scope by an iPhone.

I'm not naïve, but I still have the dream, that the communication protocol would be an open standard. Alas…

I have the impression, that camera companies prefer to risk their own future for even a remote chance of making life difficult for a competitor. The camera industry would never, ever have invented web and mail protocol standards, and the web and mail based internet we have today, would never had existed, if camera manufacturers had been in charge.

But… maybe the "camera makers" will begin to learn to sow - otherwise they cannot be helped, and deserve their self-inflicted decline.

Real life

Imagine you have been shooting all day. On your way back to base, you accidentally drop the bag with your camera over board on a local ferry. Properly set up, your images and videos - all of them - would have ended up on your phone, and optionally also on your home server, your cloud service, and the one special image or video you kicked along would already be visible online at your business connection. Whatever. Depending on preferences and options.

Camera, gear and memory card with contents may be lost, but without any extra effort on your part, your data, your income and livelihood, would be safe and sound. No affordable insurance would help on that front.

You have worked just as you usually do - except for kicking one image along to the right receiver - and you've lost no work. When you arrive home at your base, all your data is already stored as expected, ready for work. Accident or no accident.

Now you only have to handle the insurance company.

Addendum

A similar solution could have been in use today, if camera manufacturers had had the slightest interest in the well being of their professional and consumer users. It's nothing like rocket science; just intelligent use of known and working technology.

Venlig hilsen - Sincerely - Mit freundlichem Gruß
Kurt Friis Hansen