Mythology versus the Real World. A Painted Background.

The mythology of our business is so darling. Reams of pie-in-the-sky magazine articles from decades past would have every one believe that photographers can quickly get anything they want from a bevy of ready and waiting suppliers and that clients are standing by with their checkbooks open, just ready to satisfy our aesthetic procurement wishes. I wish that it was so. And I'm sure the stories evolved from some diamond studded studio in Manhattan where a kingly photographer was surrounded by anxious-to-please staff just waiting on the kingly photographer's barest utterance before they flung themselves into action and created props, backgrounds, sets and even models to his exacting parameters. I'm equally sure that, in this far off world, jovial (pre-bubble, pre-recession) clients stood ready to toss gold talents into whatever embellishments to the enterprise the kingly photographer might suggest. Happens in someone's world just not mine or any of the worlds of the scores of professional photographers I know.

Let me walk you through my latest project. We haven't done the photography yet but I've already gotten a lot done.

Since I live in the middle of Texas it was inevitable that I'd eventually be asked to shoot a bunch of cowboy boots for a cowboy boot maker's website and catalog. These aren't nasty, cheap boots that are glued together in a factory in some third world country. No sir. These are hand made custom boots done in an august Texas tradition. Fifteen hundred dollars a pair and up. Booked up for the next year already.  I bid the job based on the parameters given and my bid was accepted. That's when the "extra credit" work generally comes to the fore.

The comps for the campaign have a nice, non-descript, warm background and I was pretty sure we could find that in our own selection of backgrounds or from a rental house. But nothing I could find was exactly what we (the art director) wanted. I looked and looked but the fates refused to comply. As the shoot date drew nearer my art director understandably started to grow nervous. He'd no doubt sold the client on the look and feel of a computer created background and now it was kind of imperative that we deliver. No....the budget and delivery deadline didn't include clipping paths and dropping backgrounds into 80+ images of boots...

What does a commercial photographer do? We get ourselves over to the art supply house and get the stuff we need to make our own custom backgrounds. Like a nine foot long piece of beautiful oatmeal raw canvas that's 54 inches wide, along with some tubes of acrylic paint and a handful of wide brushes. I soaked the canvas so it would accept the very dilute paint into the fabric and then I laid it out on the floor of my studio, soaking wet. And then I started painting. And painting and painting. 

I used a high dilution of water to acrylic paint and the background, which appeared very saturated at first, is now drying to a much more subtle color palette. But that's just the first step. Once the acrylic wash is dried in I'll go back and hit the whole thing again with a spritzer filled with strong tea. I am hopeful that the tea will shift the overall color into a more sepia range and give me a look of something like a weathered parchment. Once the entire piece is exactly the color and pattern I want I'll go back and iron the fabric flat and then roll it around a core to transport it to San Antonio. 

Why go to the extra effort? Well, mostly because I am sure that the AD and I are on the same page and this is what we both wanted to see when we started looking at the comps and talking about the overall feel of the shoot. Would I have loved to pick up the phone and called a set maker in LA, spent some time giving him my vision, having him do some comps and send them back to me before meticulously hand painting a final background? Well, I guess so but I would worry that the background may not work and that by the time we receive his work it might be too late to punt.

As I'm writing this I'm watching the first application of paint dry and I'm loving what I'm seeing. Of course I don't have a studio entourage here to "ooh" and "ahhh" with me. No one to get me a plate of fancy Twinkies and an espresso... No one to fire up the hot tube. And clearly, no one to do the "behind the scenes" video.

I guess I really do suffer for my art... :-)  at least by the standards of the media/internet/photographer's mythology....

A few more hours of dry time and then we'll be ready for the tea....

My Albert Watson Phase.

I've been talking about my favorite lenses lately and I thought I would be remiss not to mention my all time favorite portrait lens, on that I may re-buy and have adapted to the Sony a99, if possible.  That lens is the 90 mm Summicron for the Leica R cameras. Sharp and yet flattering, it is a chameleon of a lens. I used it almost exclusively when I (rarely) shot 35mm film portraits back in the 1990s.

The initial images were wonderfully detailed on film but the overall look of the file was of lower contrast that some of the other system lenses, like the 80 Summilux. The images from that lens (especially portraits) came into their own when printed on slightly contrasty papers. Now, in the age of scans and digital optimization I find the lens's rendition the perfect starting point for portraits. The slightly lower contrast does a great job retaining both highlight and shadow detail and, as you build constrast it reveals a strong set of bones under the surface. You can go a fair distance in raising contrast without blowing out highlights or blocking up details.

And for me the 90 on a full frame is just heaven. Perhaps it is having used a 90mm focal length that keeps me from warming up to the 85s as portrait lenses. That may be why I like the old 60mm so well on the Nex cameras.  I think that by the time we are photographers we've developed an unconscious predilection for certain focal lengths and our allegiances forever lie there. In situations where commerce and profit are removed I have no desire whatsoever to shoot with a 35mm or 28mm lens. Wider is less appealing still.

While I come back again and again to the 50mm lens for situations that reward context the focal lengths between there and 90 are like "no man's land" for me. Vague and fruit-less.  Ah, but 90 to 135 is so sweet. I often fantasize about a future time in which I'll retire and walk the earth with a camera and a small back of lenses. From 85 to 135mm. Nothing wider, nothing longer. Because, that's the way the world looks best to me.

A psychiatrist and I discussed this very issue over coffee one day. He suggested that wide shooters were unable to commit. Commit to a framing. Commit to essential elements and to commit to a disciplined use of space. Longer shooters, he suggested, were decisive and loved cutting down a frame to the essentials. Whether he said this to ease my fevered brain, knowing my choices, or whether it was an epiphany of his years of practice, I take it to heart and now harbor yet another photographic prejudice.

Doesn't matter. No one is keeping score. Just thought I'd trot out my favorite...

Soft Core Lens Porn. The Thing Olympus Gets So Well.

Olympus 75mm 1.8.

Okay. I've been shooting with Sony stuff for almost a year now and I'm pretty happy with it but.....every time I have coffee with my friend, Frank, he (unintentionally?) brings along some little Olympus jewel, the allure of which is absolutely undeniable. Yesterday it was the absolutely, drop dead gorgeous, Olympus 75mm 1.8 lens, If you shot in the 1970's or the early 1980's one of the lenses that everyone had and used frequently was the 135mm focal length on a regular 35mm camera. That focal length, coupled with a fast aperture, does some really nice stuff. It compresses compositions so you can "stack" stuff in the frame in a very pleasing way. If you are focusing on subjects in the 6 to 10 foot range and using apertures faster than f4 you get a deliciously sharp subject and a background that is wonderfully soft and devoid of distracting detail.

This lens is about 10% longer, relatively, than the 135s on 35mm but it's certainly in the ballpark.

I've owned the Pen 70mm f2 for years and used it on my Pens and now on my Sony Nex cameras. It's a very useful focal length and an antidote for all the endless wide angle crap that seems to be today's over riding style.

From all reports the new lens resides in a whole different world than the older optic. Sharp wide open and sharp right down. Silent and speedy focus on a Pen OMD. And since it's sharp at f1.8 you get the same basic look that we used to get with our big, heavy 135mm 2.8's but without all the dimensional sturm und drang.

If you are a Micro Four Thirds user you might want to read what DXO says about this lens. Spoiler alert: It beats the Leica 25mm in their tests!

http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/Publications/DxOMark-Reviews/Olympus-M.ZUIKO-DIGITAL-ED-75mm-f-1.8-Is-this-the-best-Micro-Four-Thirds-lens-available

If only Sony made lenses like this available. The Nex system would be an incredible value proposition. As it stands now the bodies are really great but the lens selection? Not so much. This lens, along with the 12mm, the 25 Leica, and the 45mm 1.8, goes a long way to cement Olympus's ascendant position in the new world order of cameras. Every other camera maker should take note.

Time for a photography refresher blog. The most popular one I wrote in 2011.

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2011/10/lonely-hunter-better-hunt.html

The last wooden metro steps in Paris. 

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2011/10/lonely-hunter-better-hunt.html

33 Variations. Beethoven, Theater, Photography. Always learning new things about Music and my Sony a99.

The place: A new Theatre on the banks of the Colorado River. The play: 33 Variations. My purpose: Get great images from the play for use in public relations and advertising. My primary tools: Quick reflexes and the Sony a99+70-200mm f2.8 G lens.

The premise of the play: Musical publisher, Diabelli, comes up with the idea of composing a small piece of music (four different note to begin with?) and then having the best music composers of the day create variations on the theme. Then publish the variations in a book of music. The other thread of the play revolves around a musicologist who is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease and has been studying Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, in the present. The play is funny and warm and dramatic all at once. And woven throughout are renditions of various segments and pieces of Beethoven's 33 Variations played by world renowned concert pianist, Anton Nel.  So here we go.....

There was a "family and friends" audience in the house for this first, post dress rehearsal, performance. I guess the restaurant business would call this a "soft opening." I wanted to be in the orchestra area, center, about five rows from the front of the stage. This would get me close enough to capture some intimate groupings while giving me enough leeway to go wide enough when I needed to. As the house last night was "open admission" I asked the house manager to reserve me five seats across the middle of the row and to block the two seats directly in front of me. I did this so no one would be disquieted by the noise of the camera shutters, or my movements, as they tried to enjoy the show. The added benefit of not having the two people directly in front of me, combined with the rake of the seats, was not having heads in the wider shots.

I got to the Mort Topfer Theatre about forty five minutes early, checked the seats and dropped off my camera bag on the middle seat. I went to the first floor bar and acquired a very nice cabernet sauvignon in a plastic cup, with a lid and a straw, and then went back into the theater to go through my camera pre-flight.

I don't know about you but I make it a point to zero out the things that routinely change in menus on my cameras and then re-enter them. I never want to take settings for granted only to discover that I've been shooting small, normal jpegs at 3 megapixels when I really need something else. Ditto with focus settings, ISOs, etc. I start at the left side of the Sony menu and work my way to the right.

I set the camera for super fine jpegs @ 24 megapixels. I turned on steady shot. I presumed it was already engaged but as soon as I entered my pre-flight routine I remembered that my last use of the camera had been on a tripod and the SS had been turned off. My camera will (with the help of an eyepiece sensor) toggle between the back screen and the EVF if you bring the camera up to your eye or bring it down from your eye. Since I could read all the menu items in the finder and never like to push bright light into a theater setting I turned off the auto select and manually selected the EVF. I usually keep the review on and set it to 2 seconds but it slows down the process when shooting theater so I turned it off entirely, knowing I could rely on pre-chimping just as well.

Here's an interesting thing I learned about the a99: The camera is capable of making 14 bit raw files. In fact some experts say that the camera has one of the truly great raw files on the consumer camera market. But here's the rub. It is only available in the single frame mode! If you set your camera to single frame shutter release you get 14 bits of wonderful color and detail. Set it to 3 or 6 frames per second and you get 12 fps. What did I care? I was shooting Jpegs. But it is interesting to know how you can operate your gear for best effect, when necessary.

I'd worked on some video for this show in a dress rehearsal on Sunday and knew that the prevailing stage light was neither daylight balance nor tungsten (3200K) so I looked back in my little camera bag Moleskin notebook at my color settings from before. The optimum for most scenes was 3900K with just a nudge of magenta correction. I set that manually. The final menu setting adjustment was to set the high ISO noise reduction to "low." 

At this point I formatted the 16 gigabyte SD card in the primary shooting camera and then turned my attention to my back-up/wide angle camera and duplicated the settings on that menu as well. That meant I could pick up either camera and shoot with the need only to change exposure settings or, in limited situations, ride the color balance a bit.

Next I turned my attention to the function menu. All the parameters get set here. I used ISO 1600 all night long. That generally got me 1/200th @ f3.4 or f4. Just the way I like it. I used the "standard" creative setting but I dropped the contrast down one click. Stage light is contrasty. Honest. I set the focusing to AF-S and used (creature of habit) the center AF sensor.

Since I was pre-chimping I never considered bracketing. And really, in fast moving situations and when doing portraits I don't think you ever should because Murphy's Law will bite you on the rear. The expression you love most will be in the lightest or darkest of your brackets. But because of Moore's Law than blown out frame will at least have gobs and gobs of resolution.....

When I go to the theater to shoot I take along a few little things to make my life easier. I take chewing gum because it's actually a goud cough suppressant. I talk laundered, cloth handkerchiefs, because a gentleman should always have a clean one to offer to a beautiful woman.....(day dream sequence), to blow his nose with and.....because a freshly laundered hanky can be pressed into service to clean a lens. I also take a tiny flashlight with a deep red gel taped over the front. It puts out just enough light to help you find that dropped memory card on the dark floor without ruining your night vision or annoying everyone around you. Finally, I bring a lead lined bag in which to drop my cellphone after I turn it off......just to be certain that I am never that person! (goes with the tin foil hat...).

While I shoot a ton of images I don't do any of them in bursts. I try to see and time every image I take. It's a good exercise because it helps you create your own luck instead of trying to get lucky. Besides, not much changes during 6 or 8 or 10 frames per second. It really doesn't.

The a99 tossed off about a thousand frames last night and did so with one battery. The battery had about 39% power left on the meter when I wrapped up the cameras and tossed them into the old, weathered, black canvas Domke bag. What would I do differently next time? Not a damn thing.

It all worked fine. The files look good to me and the client was thrilled to get them this morning since live theater has a definite marketing shelf life. The images you see here are my quick and quirky selections, I am sure the people at Zachary Scott Theatre's marketing department will make a different set of choices.

If you are in Austin you should definitely go and see this production. The music is wonderful. It's the first totally acoustic show in the new theater (no sound amplification) and the venue has a sweet sound. The lighting is wonderful and more than enough to keep a photographer engaged. If you love piano music you'll probably already have your tickets in order to see Anton Nel in such a  different styled performance. If you love a good musicology story the play is also for you.

Go here to see more: http://zachtheatre.org/

Finally: Could we have done this with an Olympus OMD system? A Nikon D6oo? A Canon 6D? or some other kind of camera? You bet. We have for years. But the pre-chimping is especially nice for stage lighting and the 24 meg chip yields some good files for those (frequent) times when the theatre gets into its "banner" thing and starts printing really large. The camera that yields the best results will be the one you enjoy having in your hands. 

What's up tomorrow? No new blog tomorrow. I'm spending the day making portraits for a healthcare company and I'll be using LED lights. I'm wrapping this up now so I can go back into the studio and cut fresh gels and then pack. Hope everyone is doing well. And doing good. -Kirk

A really good day at work.

Pres. Bill Clinton and Kirk Tuck.

I did an assignment that makes me remember why I love being a photographer. The critical part of the assignment was to photograph former president, Bill Clinton, with about 60 VIPs, individually. I set up a small studio at the location and made images of Mr. Clinton with each of the guests. At the end of the session Mr. Clinton was heading toward the door and he stopped and  turned around. He called over to me and asked me if I wanted to do a photograph as well. I quickly said, "Yes! Thank you."

I was impressed that he took the time to include me. I'm used to always being on the other side of the camera. I wish I did not look like a deer in the headlights. Don't care what side of the political spectrum you subscribe to, the man had big time charisma.

Sony Camera. Elinchrom Light. Startled subject/photographer.

A Video Test using the Sony a99 Camera.

Anton Nel. An interview done with the Sony a99. A snippet. from Kirk Tuck & Will van Overbeek on Vimeo.

I'd read a lot of stuff on the web about the Sony a99 being "soft." The contention is that the new camera doesn't render details and sharpness well. Here we come to the nasty part of the web. Everything gets compressed and re-sized when it hits the web in a way that lends itself to mass distribution. That means the images I saw from the full resolution HD files (1080p @ 24 fps, lowest compression) had to be sized to 720 HD for uploading into Vimeo, which I use as sharing source.  Then Vimeo does some file processing as well. And God only knows what's really happening when our ISPs rush all this stuff down the pipes.

All of that to say that the embedded video is only 500 pixels wide but if you click on the "HD" symbol in the bottom right corner of the video frame you'll be presented with the option of seeing the 720HD version at Vimeo. Just click on the link.

I'll never be able to settle everyone's concerns about video sharpness. Not without inviting them over to the studio to watch the footage before we transcode the ACVHD files into Final Cut Pro X. But if you want a verbal take here is is: It looks a bit better than my files did from my Canon 5D mk2. It has lots of detail for the application I was using it for. While I don't like the ACVHD files and wished there were more options I do know how to convert the files to formats that are easier to edit. It just takes time.

Where the camera really excels is in the ease of sound recording (and live monitoring) and the quality of the sounds recorded.  It's the first DSLR video camera I've used that has a headphone jack and it's the right way to monitor the audio. Yes, I heard the door slams and the cars outside during some of the sample takes.

This is not a finished video product and has not been "graded" (video cinema lingo for "post production").  It is presented here and on Vimeo as a controlled, real world sample. That's all.

Hope it's helpful.  Kirk