What do commercial photographers do when they go to family weddings?

My niece got married to a really nice guy last weekend.  Do I think the whole marriage thing will work out for them?  Well, yes.  They're both sweet, practical and they like each other very much.  They threw a really nice wedding with a tasteful and happy reception.  They did so many things right that it didn't surprise me when they didn't ask me to do the wedding photographs.  They both work in the ad business and they seem to know that there's a difference between species of photographers.

My niece asked my advice and then selected a San Antonio wedding photographer.  And judging by his unflappable attitude and his assured camera work, not to mention taking great advantage of the really nice available light,  I think he and his second shooter did a hell of a job.  

If you've read my blog before you know that I take a camera with me everywhere.  If I were on the edge of death and rushing to the emergency room a priority question would always be, "Leica M with film? or Canon 5d2 for low light?"  So, of course I dragged my camera with me.  I did make it a point to stay far from the real working professional.  I didn't bring a flash.  And I mostly kept a "nifty fifty" (the Canon 50mm 1.8) glued to my camera at all times.

I did the obligatory grown up wedding things.  I made sure my kid had his suit on straight and his tie tied.  I made small talk with the relatives and relations.  I congratulated the couple and the families with great sincerity.  I smiled lovingly at my wife.  It limited my Champagne consumption and didn't dance on the tables.  But there was still a lot of dead time to fill.

So I kept my camera with me and tried to shoot some "in between" moments.  I always enjoy the "media press" at social functions so I tried to get some of that........

And, of course I needed a shot of the real photographer and his second shooter directing the group shots.  But I stayed pretty far back and didn't try to scalp any of his or her set up shots.  I figured that they were doing the hard work they should reap the rewards.  No outrageous gear on display.  Just Nikon 700D's and the requisite 24-70 and 70-200's.  Little SB-600's in the shoes but not used very often.  These guys were good and it's obvious that they had a well oiled mental checklist working in their heads.  Just enough direction to pull everyone together and make great shots, not so much direction that they got in the way of the socializing.....A real photographer makes it a real event.

I took a lot of photos of my kid, Ben because he wasn't on the other photographer's radar even though he grew up with his cousin and they are pretty close.  Ben is very patient with me but he quickly gets tired of the "paparazzi" treatment.  I couldn't help it.  I thought his suit looked cool....(24-105mm Canon 5d2)

And I wanted to put the "bokeh" of the 24-105mm zoom to the test so I had to grab a few shots of Ben with the bride's-brother's-girlfriend out of focus behind him.  Looks  pretty okeh-bokeh to me....

But then I felt a little guilty using my niece's wedding as a lens testing laboratory so I took a shot of my nephew's girlfriend as the primary subject instead of the "bokeh baseline target".    And I've decided that anyone who doesn't like the 24-105mm is pretty daft.  It's a good lens.  Pretty sharp wide open and the IS is really good.  Specially if you're going for the available light thing.

This niece is from my wife's side of the family so my wife decamped from Austin and headed to Comfort, Texas the day before to help get everything ready and to visit with family coming in from all over the place.  Ben and I were more economical with our time.  We dropped the dog off at the lux kennel and headed out in the mid-afternoon on Saturday.  Comfort is a two hour drive down some bouncy country roads so I put in a little extra time for surprises in the low water crossings.  Ben read novels on my Kindle.  (We both have found that one can read faster on a Kindle......burning through books....).

Around 10 pm, after dinner, the cake cutting, and toasting, and the inception of the dancing, Ben came over and asked the  "14 year old" question:  "How long do we have to stay to be polite?"  We were back on the road and back in our Austin house by midnight.

I'm anxious to see the professional photos.  There was so much fun stuff to shoot.  It was hard keeping my camera on the strap and out of my hand.  But I figure that if you hate having folks leaning over your shoulder.......you better do things the way you want your karma to flow.

A fun video project. Kids are always fun to work with....

You can see it much bigger on Vimeo:  http://vimeo.com/15334802

Will van Overbeek and I were hired to do a video project last week.  Several organizations here in Austin were being awarded by The Austin Children in Nature Collaborative and the videos will be used as showcase introductions at a special program at the Austin Four Seasons Hotel.  We needed to make an introductory piece for the award program.  The only problems we had were:  No script, no actors, no direction and a lot of rain.  Since the program celebrates getting kids outdoors the rain was kind of a major issue.  The rest just go with the territory.

We made it to the Austin Nature Center just in time for the big rain.  But it let up after a while and we got to work.  For this project we used a Canon 7D with a 24-105mm L lens, a Rode Videomic and the Rode Stereomic,  a Gitzo tripod with a Manfrotto fluid head and a small, LED light (more about that later....).  For this project I operated the camera and Will did the sound.

I think we were all pretty amazed at how well the sound turned out.  The center is located near a major, elevated highway and there's random noise coming in from every direction.  Our method is to put the microphone on a "fish pole" and get it in as close to the speaker as possible without getting an image of the mic (or its shadow) in the final video.  We found the ALC (auto level control)  on the 7D does a pretty good job on its own.

Our biggest challenge was to get interviews with four and five year old kids.  They're not really good at hitting their marks and they don't "do" lines.  But with a smile on your face and a big enough memory card you're sure to get something.....then all you have to do is edit it all together.  I like sound effects but I don't think Will is as enthusiastic about them.  He did allow me to add a few "dinosaur roars", "chimpanzee chatters" and "jungle" noise from the sound library.  I think it's fun.

Since we're all about keeping things simple and fun we jumped right into editing this thing with iMovie 09 from Apple.  We used an old laptop and a calibrated, 23 inch Apple monitor to do our edit on.  We did add a firewire 800 outboard HD to the mix.  No stutters in the editing or the output.  The edit took about an hour and fifteen minutes this morning.

We did some interviews with grownups in order to get information across.

While we were waiting for the rain to stop we did an interview with the program director from the Center.  I was happy to have the new little LED light with me.  We needed a bit more light to brighten up our talent's face.  The light is called a DLC DL-DV60 and it's the perfect light to keep in a side pocket of your camera bag.  It uses 60 individual LEDs to provide a fairly small, bright source.  You won't be overpowering sunlight with it but it might be just what you need in a pinch for a little more punch.

I first played with a light like this one when I was writing my book, Photographic Lighting Equipment.
The one that was available at the time was a LitePanel Micro from LitePanels.  It was about the same size as my new DL-DV60 but it put out significantly less light.  It also sold for somewhere near $300.  The one feature that the LitePanels Micro had that I did like was the ability to turn the light down with a control knob.  It was also cool that the color temperature of the light didn't change as you turned down the power.  The DL-DV60 doesn't have any control other than on and off.  But here's the deal:  It's a little bit shy of $100.  The one "feature" it does have (and I'm still not sure if I like it...) is this:  it comes with a rechargable Li-ion camcorder battery for power.  It's a common Sony battery so replacements are widely available and it does have enough power to punch out light for about an hour and a half.

In the video we used the light about seven feet away from the program director and about three feet above her head.  It was enough to minimize shadows on her face and bring her a bit forward from the tungsten lit room.

I liked the DL-DV60 enough to buy a second one.  They can be clipped together to make little light banks and I think that's a fun thing to have in a pinch.  I've also order some bigger ePhoto panels that plug in the way and use hundreds of individual bulbs.  I'll let you know how those work when they arrive.

Will and I are starting to get into a groove with our little video projects.  It's different than still photography but in some ways the same.  Directing is always fraught with peril that mostly becomes obvious at editing time.......

This is the DL-DV60 as it sits on top of my camera.  It's too bright to aim directly at innocent people indoors without some sort of diffusion but it works well in conjunction with other light sources.  It also works well as an accent light in the same way you might use a flash on an off camera cord, over to one side.  The benefit is that you don't ever need to sync it with the camera.  It also doesn't get too hot and it doesn't flicker.  It's pretty perfect for a combination/crossover photographer/videographer.

More to come.

I'm accepting more and more video projects and finding that I like the process pretty well.  I try to stay away from clients who want to micro-manage projects.....it's almost a given that they will slow the editing process down to a crawl.  So far all of the clients have been perfect.  And the Canon cameras are working well.




    

Just some street photography from Lisbon.

I put on my cloak of invisibility one day and went out to shoot in the streets of Lisbon, Portugal.  I like these photographs.   Simple camera and lens.  Lots of feet action.  Lots of moving around.  I like being anonymous in a foreign city.  I think it's all  about the "blend in".  And a little practice.  Not great art, just snapshots that remind me of a pleasant day.  And that's a decent use of photography as well.

I went through a stage when all I used was hot lights. I think I'm going back....

I trouped up to Dallas to take this shot.  It was many years ago.  It was the first time I worked with Anne B. as my assistant.  Maybe that's why I remember this particular shoot.  Anne and I are still close friends over a decade later.  But what really brought this image to mind is that I've been getting back to real lighting control and I remember going thru a period when I shot almost everything with "hot lights".  I may be going back to that style because it offers such tight control for the kind of work I light to do.

This image was done to accompany a story in Prevention Magazine.  The story was about how and why to stop smoking.  The woman in the portrait above had kicked the habit and the magazine was doing a story about her experiences.

In those days I travelled with a box of interesting "hot (tungsten halogen) lights".   The box had a few Lowell Totalights,  some Lowell Pro Lights ( small focusable lights with "peanut" bulbs that put out 250 watts for light), and a couple of small, 125 watt, fresnel spotlights.  I'd use a small Pro-light shining thru a layer of Rosco diffusion gel about two feet above the subjects head in order to get the little butterfly shadow under the nose, and the flattering shadow under the chin.  I'd use another light, bounced into something flat and white, right behind the camera position, about 2 and 1/2 stops down from the main light.  Maybe a carefully snooted back light and then, finally, a "sprayed" light on the background.

The benefits of working with the hot lights were threefold.  First, it was so easy to focus the camera accurately as the image coming through the finder was much brighter than that given by the diffused and reduced light coming thru a big softbox from a modeling light in an electronic flash set up.  Second, everything about continuous light is WYSIWYG.  You can see the effects easily as you build your lighting.  Very nice change from the vagaries of flash.  Finally,  you have total control about which f-stop to use.  I used something like f4 with a 150mm lens on a medium format camera.  You can see what that gives you in terms of depth of field.  

Another thing that's nice about using smaller lights, closer in is that the inverse square law works for you beautifully.  Look how quickly the light falls off from the subject's face to her arms and mid torso.  This serves to naturally keep the attention on her face.....the lightest thing of interest in the frame.

I thought about this today on my job.  I was shooting portraits for one of the hot public relations agencies in town and I was using Westcott nets and Westcott flags to control light spill and to keep the light levels on people's hands a few stops darker than the light on their faces.  More control means a more three dimensional photograph.  And that means more return clients for me.  While I was using flash I was thinking about the creative control of hot lights and how the use of flags was really only getting me half way there.

Looks like the remainder of the month will be a search for the Holy Grail as expressed through tungsten lighting and flags.  Stay tuned.

Kirk

Blending Passions. Blending Expertise.

Image ©2010 Kirk Tuck.  Cover ©2010 Swimmer Magazine.  Featured Swimmer:  Tyler Blessing.

I haven't made much of a secret of the fact that I love swimming.  I love the sport.  I love the swim workouts.  I love competing.  But what's really fun is when two passions collide.  Three years ago I was approached by Swimmer Magazine with the assignment of shooting the Indoor Short Course Masters National Meet here in Austin.  Three days of non-stop, best in the world swimming by dozens of gold and silver medal Olympians,  hundreds of NCAA All Americans, and thousands of swimmers who were solid contenders.

I had a ball.  I saw lots of people I'd lost touch with over the years as well as lots of fast young swimmers.  (Masters swimmers are mostly made up of people who swam competitively in high school or college and who stay with the sport.)  I sent along the images and an invoice.  The photos ran, people were happy.

A few months ago the editor of Swimmer Magazine assigned me a project to work on with world champion and gold medal winning Olympian, Whitney Hedgepeth, it was a technique article for a future issue.  Whitney recruited one of her top masters swimmers from the University of Texas at Austin,  Tyler Blessing,  and we headed to the swim center for a morning of aqueous fun.

Whitney has been my coach from time to time and was also my kid's coach for the last two Summer seasons.  Since the coach, the swimmer and the photographer had all spent pool time together it was easy to communicate: 1.  What she wanted to show for the article.  2.  How I needed to position myself and what sort of actions would work best for the camera.  And, 3.  How we needed Tyler to go through various "right" and "wrong" actions to show the common stroke errors and how to fix them.

The shot above was taken from the three meter tower in the diving well.  Canon 5D2 at ISO 800.

We shot a lot of stuff over the course of the morning and the editor ran 22 photos over six and a half pages.  And he used one of the images on the cover.

It's so much fun when hobbies  and jobs and jobs and hobbies all collide together.

Well.  I got nice photo credits.  I got great exposure (pun intended).  I got access to a cool Olympian in the sport I adore.  So did I do this all for free because it made me feel warm and fuzzy?  Hell no.  The second thing the editor and I talked about, after the basic nuts and bolts, was rates and usage.  Nothing moved forward until there was a signed CONTRACT.   The cover will look good in my portfolio but just as importantly the check will look good in my bank account.

This is how photography should work.  It's how it can and does work.  Just because something is fun and fulfilling doesn't negate the fact that it brings value to the person who needs to use the images.  It's called a win-win-win.  If the images were worthless no one would want to use them.....

Confused about pricing?  Get a book.  Try John Harrington's.  Get my book.  But the fundamental way to look at it is that if someone wants to use your image it has value.  You don't have to trade anything for access if you have a talent someone needs.  You can have access and the appropriate fee for usage.  If you give it away you screw yourself and diminish the market for everyone else.  Try to be like a Boy Scout.  Always leave your campground cleaner than you found it.

This is the camera everyone's been wishing for. I can hardly wait. (wish it was a longer focal length)....

Fuji Finepix X100.  Finally.  A camera manufacturer with some cojones.

This just got announced by Fuji.  It's the camera a lot of people have been waiting for.  It's a super high quality, fixed lens, large (APS-C) sensor camera from a company that builds exquisite (and very low noise) sensors.  It's 12 megapixels and the MTF charts that they published on DPReview.com are just incredible.

Note that the lens is an f2.  You have a choice of using an optical viewfinder or imitating aunt Myrtle and holding the machine at arm's length to compose on the rear screen.  I'd assume that, with no mirror, the shutter sound will be......demure.

Small, light, fast, super high quality imaging, incredible styling (with many nods toward the old Leica M's) and so much more.  The only real questions are:  How much will it cost?  And,  When can I get my hands on one?

What does it take to succeed in photography? I'd say discipline is near the top of the list.

Copyright ©2010 Kirk Tuck.   All rights reserved.


When I was six years old I decided that I wanted to be a swimmer.  This was in the days before goggles were in wide use.  It was a time in which Doc Councilman was the most famous swim coach in the world and his swimmers at the University of Indiana won just about everything under the sun.  Doc Councilman wrote an enormous tome entitled, The Science of Swimming.  The book was a must read for swim coaches from California to East Germany.  He was a proponent of getting the technique right and he was a BIG proponent of getting your yards in.

I swam year round.  Beginning in high school we practiced twice a day.  I remember the cold January mornings when my best friend's older brother, Steve, would pick me up, along with three or four other swimmers, and we'd be at the pool and ready to hit the water at 5:30am.  Five days a week.  We'd swim four or five thousand yards and then, at 7:30am we'd hit the showers and head to class.

In the afternoons we'd hit the pool right after our last class and put in our two p.m. hours of practice.  During the holiday breaks, while our friends were skiing or at the beach or just slacking off and sleeping in till noon, we'd keep up the same schedule.

Now, as a 54 year old person,  I still get up six days a week and make the pool my first stop.  This morning my master's team hit the water at 8:30 am.  Most of us were hoping that we'd see Olympian and world record holder, Aaron Peirsol, again today.  He'd come to several practices during the week and we were all thinking the same thoughts, "Maybe I'll learn some technique that will make my swimming better."  He didn't show but that didn't stop us from swimming hard and getting a little over 3200 yards in before breakfast.  That's around 160 lengths of our 25 meter pool.

About the same amount of yardage we did yesterday.  Why do I mention this when, statistically, you don't give a crap about competitive swimming?  I mention it because the underlying thing that makes swimmers show up, stay in shape, compete and excel is......discipline.  And that discipline gives you quality time in the water.

Discipline is often the missing key in photographers' businesses.  It's the mental element that keeps one on task even when there's more exciting stuff going on over on South Congress Ave.  or in your neighborhood pub.  Discipline is the juice that drives you to finish each segment of your master marketing plan on time and with good follow ups.  Discipline is the thing that keeps you constantly working on your chops.  On your style, on your delivery, on your eye/hand skills.  On the big picture.

So you have a cold, the flu, a hangover, a set back.  Discipline says, "Tough! Get out of bed and get to work."  "Stop feeling sorry for yourself and finish your post production."  "Pick your self esteem back up off the floor and get on to the next big chance."

Swimmers know that every work out missed means a slight dilution of their feel for the water and a physical and mental click backwards when it comes to endurance and focus.  LIfe sometimes intrudes and swim practices get missed.  But discipline is the thing that drives you back to the pool and gets you back into peak shape.

Copyright ©2010 Kirk Tuck, All rights reserved.


I constantly hear photographers bitch that focusing manual focus lenses is hard.  Yes.  It's different than AF.  You actually have to practice and get used to recognizing the moment of highest acuity during the focus ring rotation.  Your hand and your brain have to work together.  It's not an instant thing it's a practice thing.  You do it over and over again until your hand has muscle memory of the process and your brain has tuned into the parameters of sharp focus as a moving target.  It takes discipline to practice manual focusing.   The pay off is that you have access to a wider selection of tools in that optic tool kit.

I see photographers in workshops and on locations that seem very uncomfortable with their gear.  They seem hesitant when they set it up and hesitant about where to place lights and how to angle them.  It's obvious to me that they spend very little time working with the gear.  It only gets trotted out when they have an assignment.  But what they really need is what my swim coach always called, "Time in the water."  And that's because there is no short cut to physical mastery.  Physical master of cameras and lighting gear comes from setting it up and using it over and over again.  Learning iteratively from your mistakes.  And if you do it over and over again you'll find a side benefit:  Your own inimitable style will emerge.

Just as all great swimmers learn from the same coaches and swim in the same workouts, if you were to stand on the pool deck and watch you would see that each of them has a personal swimming style that's different from their competitors and teammates.  It could be the angle of their arm entry, the pattern of their kicks, even the way they roll to breathe.  But it all comes from trying techniques over and over again until they find the one that suits their mentality and body characteristics.

It's the same in photography.  Dan Winters didn't read a book and go out, fully formed, ready to take his own style of celebrity portraits.  He worked and worked on the styles.  He assisted Chris Callis who assisted Jean Pagliouso.  And after each of them assisted they worked and worked and worked on their technique.  On their equipment handling.  And they learned how it influenced the way they saw things.  Which influenced what they shot and how they shot it.  They spent their time behind the camera and in the darkroom until their "photographic muscle memory" was deeply ingrained.  And they still do.

Richard Avedon felt that a day spent without shooting a photo was a waste.  And, as for time in the water, you have over six decades of his work to look at to see just how prolific he was and how much time he spent in the photographic water.

Behind every "rocket to success" like Joey Lawrence there's a backstory of a guy who lived, night and day with his camera until he understood what he wanted to show and how he could get the machine to do his bidding.  He might have compressed his "10,000 hours" by working around the clock from the age of 14.  He didn't just roll out of bed one morning, meander over to the local camera shop to pick up a camera and say to himself, "I've got nothing better to do, I guess I'll be a world famous photographer today."

Behind nearly every artist I can think of the secret weapon they all share is discipline.  And the better the artist the more ingrained the sense of discipline.

I'm used to swimming my yards outdoors in the freezing rain, before the sun's come up or in nice weather.  I'm used to swimming when I didn't get but a few hours sleep the night before and I'll make it to practice when I'm already sore and tired.

But I carry that discipline with me into the photography business and you should do the same.  This is a freelance undertaking.  We set the schedule.  We set the bar.  We set the goals.  We succeed by following thru.  We succeed by being better than the other 100 people who want to push us off the hill.  The practice informs the style.  The style differentiates the photographer.  The differentiation gets us noticed by clients.  The clients buy the style.  But the client depends on our discipline to make work perfectly each time.

I have the same nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach each time I head out the door to start an advertising project that I used to get when I stood up on the starting blocks before each swim race.  That's because the outcome of the race will be based on the net result of all your discipline and planning. You will win or loose based on how well you execute technique, how much endurance you have and how strong your drive to complete the race or the job is.

Discipline is mastering the camera in your hand.  It means reading the owner's manual until you understand every function.  It means backing up your files right now at three in the morning instead of some vague time in the future.  It means reaching out on a regular schedule to market to your clients.  And it means getting up and doing it all over again every day.

Photography and competitive swimming are so much the same.  The products of right thinking, much practice, and commitment.  In each, time in the water is critical to creating success.

I've said before that no one can expect to be a good photographer unless they constantly practice.  Non professional photographers sometimes opt themselves out.  They think they have an excuse.  They have other stuff to do.  But in reality as long as they can dog paddle they think they're swimming.  Wrong.  They are just wet and keeping their heads above water.  There are very few swimmers who make a living past their 20's from the sport.  But that doesn't keep 40, 50, 60 and 70 year old swimmers from practicing, racing and breaking records left and right.  The ultimate reward of discipline might be nothing more than proving to yourself how good you can be.  And if it pushes you to excel then that's enough.

Don't miss practice.
Practice good technique.
Don't cheat yourself.
Don't give in.
Don't give up.
Don't settle for less.
Work through the pains and disappointments.

You'll be a better photographer or a better swimmer.......or both.