Phantom Hack's Photoblog

Busy Summer - a word about customer service

2010-10-06T18:47:00.001-07:00

Trashdress-1-2, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I've been working - a lot.
Don't get me wrong, I love the work, but one thing has disturbed me, I picked up two additional weddings this year because the photographer that was booked originally canceled with little warning.
Now, I understand that sometimes really horrible things happen and they simply cannot make it, but both of these persons canceled because they simply didn't want to do wedding photos anymore, they found out that there was too much work involved.
Yes, there is a lot of work involved, which is one of the two reasons we can charge for, and get paid for the work we do - the work involved and the quality of the product.
Without getting preachy, I'm starting to understand why some of the veterans have so much pent up rage about how 'everyone with a dslr thinks they are a pro photographer'. I'm also starting to appreciate the groundswell of support for the certification of professional photographers, and I think I'm going to be attempting to get my certification sooner than later.
There's an upside to all of this though, is I got two additional clients, and they are pleased with my work, and the level of service I provide. I didn't charge them extra for the short notice, I wasn't booked already and I don't see the need in taking advantage of someone who is already in a stressful position, so at the end of the day, I came out looking like a super-hero.
So, a word about customer service, if you say you're going to be there for your clients, BE THERE, I mean really be there in every sense of the word. Show up on time, be professional, be focused, and do the best work you can possibly do. If you deliver as promised, you'll do well. If you don't, well, you won't be around long, and the herd will thin itself out naturally.
Happy Fall, and I'm Back, Baby!

Inspired by others

2010-03-07T20:27:00.001-08:00

Cosplay Fun, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

This shot is my favorite from today's shoot at the university.

I want to talk about some of the influences on this image, because like so many my work is inspired by other people.

David Hobby - the Strobist (www.strobist.com) who's online tutorials and DVD set are a wealth of information.

Joe McNally - Author and another online tutor for budding photographers (www.joemcnally.com/blog)

Trey Ratcliffe - (www.stuckincustoms.com) an amazing HDR travel photographer & author.

These three gentlemen take the time to share their techniques, tips, tools and tricks with guys like me, so that I can pull off shots like this that are so warm, rich, full of detail and have so much feeling that the only way to express it is to show it off.

Guys, your work has been inspirational, your books are great, your DVD's are a wealth of information. I hope you know how much guys like me appreciate what you do.

Topaz Adjust 4

2010-03-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

Upgrades, they're much less expensive than full installs, but they usually still cost money - Usually.

Topaz labs has provided a free upgrade to users of Topaz adjust 3, free like no money, and it's worth the effort.

I've become pretty fond of Adjust, it pulls some otherwise ho-hum photos into the realm of WOW, and lets you do good things to your good shots, and version 4 is a decent improvement over version 3.

First of all, they somehow made it faster, not sure how because my 64 bit system is pretty quick already, but this is much faster. When you apply changes on any of the sliders the changes are displayed in near realtime. Colour me impressed.

There are a host of new presets, some of which I still have to play with under the right circumstances, and the addition of a wonderful "I'm feeling lucky" button, which when your creativity has hit a slump is always good to kick start your juices.

Lastly, of course is the new interface. Gone is the old grey CS4 plugin look, hello Lightroom clone. That may seem superficial at first, but for those of us that do much of our work inside of lightroom, the transition is nice and comfortable.

And let's not forget it's a free upgrade for version 3 users, so go download it right away at www.topazlabs.com. Go ahead, we'll wait for you...

People Practice

2010-02-07T21:23:00.001-08:00

Regal and just, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

February in Winnipeg is not a pleasant month. It's cold, the days are short, people tend to hibernate and not get out much.
...And I get rusty...really rusty.
So, to keep myself in shooting form, and to get out of the house I reached out to some people who do a lot of Cosplay and said "hey, why not get together with some other photographers and overrun Level 3 Studios for a night?'
They jumped all over it, and by the end of the evening, a full 5 photographers, 8 models, 1 Make Up Artist and 1 willing assistant were taking photos, having laughs, and snacking on munchies. The event was so much fun, that Angelica here, proclaimed as we were packing up, "I can't wait till the next one, there's going to be a next one, right?"
Of course there is, everyone had fun and we got some great photos, why would we not do another one?
When I first got back into photography it was to shoot landscapes. Landscapes are great, but putting people in front of the lens is much more fun, the only problem is, it can be a little intimidating finding strangers to put in front of the lens.
However, if you really want some neat, creative ideas, sniff around and find some cosplay people in your area, and reach out to them. Cosplay people love doing photos, and they're the most fun you'll ever have in your studio. For them, time for prints is a double bonus because they have an excuse to get dressed up AND they get photos out of it. You get some really great and original shots and you might just make some new friends.
So, even thought I've already done it on Facebook, I'd like to pass out a big thank you to everyone who was involved in this great photo mixer:
Angelica
Katie
Sam
TJ
Erica
Amber
Chantel
Trevor
Doug
Tom
Nicole
Nadine
Logan
(and even that Jerk Rahim the Photographer showed up)

Thanks for a great night, everyone, and we will be doing this again.

Event shooting - Level Up

2009-11-08T19:03:00.001-08:00

C4-279, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Last weekend was the Central Canada Comic Convention, a huge event that I volunteer to shoot every year.
To improve the quality of many of my shots, I carried around a single strobe inside a 24 inch soft box on a really lightweight stand.
I had the strobe manually set to 1/4 power, and set my camera accordingly to have the strobe about 2 meters away from the subject.
Knowing this, I could simply park my stand wherever, and catch much better lit subjects, like this reproduction of a WW2 uniform.
The really great thing about this kind of setup is once you set your light, it doesn't really matter where you shoot from. I shot this fellow full length and up close and personal, and I didn't have to change the settings on either my light, or my camera.
The final result is my floor shots, which would have normally had all the ambiance of a school gymnasium, instead had great directional light, and I could create drama and much more interesting shots.

Bad ideas when marketing yourself

2009-10-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

I use Facebook to market myself as well as the website and the blog, haven't quite gotten into twitter yet.
These social mediums are great ways to make contacts and for causal communication to keep your customers and potential customers in the loop with what you're doing and what you can offer them.
There's a dark side to this though, not only can the customers see the positive things you can do, they can also see the negative things you do, those hidden actions that give away your true intent. This morning on Facebook, for example, I got two notices that a couple aspiring local photographers I know have joined this Fan Group.
I was kind of flabbergast at the idea, as one of them works at a retail photographic store here in town and has marked not only myself, but multiple other professional photographers in town as friends, meaning we all see exactly what they now think of the customers that they serve, which isn't very flattering.
Some time ago, a 'new idea' started making the rounds in the world of big business, a concept commonly referred to as 'the waiter rule'. Loosely summarized, the idea is that if you're out to dinner with a customer or vendor, and they treat the waiting staff poorly, then this is probably a person who you may not wish to do business with. The logic is that everyone puts their best foot forward when they want to impress someone, but when they think no one is looking their true nature comes out, and someone who is disrespectful to serving staff will be disrespectful to you when you're not looking.
Back to the groups within Facebook and other social network sites, these particular items are much like a digital date, you get to see what your potential business associate is like when they let their guards down. Certainly, if you have a consultation meeting with the client, they'll be on best behavior, but if you have skeletons in your closet (Halloween reference) on your online presence, well, customers may not be so keen to work with you.
Granted, this particular group is a little less offensive, and anyone who has worked retail, or food service, knows that it can be a very trying experience, but this is no secret to anyone. Revisiting it regularly, and in particular participating in publicly mocking or complaining about it casts a poor light on you as a person, and a glaringly bad light on you if you're trying to market yourself. It demonstrates to the customers that you're only going to be as professional as you need to be, and beyond that you don't feel a need to care.
There are worse groups to join than this one, anyone on Facebook sees them come up from time to time, groups that actively promote hate, distrust, arrogance and social discord, but for the sake of professionalism in this blog I'm not linking to any of those.
The next issue that should be addressed, while I'm here speaking to the point, is netiquette. There are certain rules for posting on the net that are similar to how one communicates in a business environment. Some rules should seem obvious, but they're often ignored, and doing so may cost you credibility in your business venture. In particular, two that are most overlooked are the use of vulgarity and poor spelling.
It's pretty easy to spot the difference between a seasoned Pro online and a young passionate start-up simply by the language chosen. Professionals will keep the language conversational and upbeat, and most importantly, unoffensive. Spelling, which I struggle with, is also important, take the time to try to get it correct, at least that shows an effort to be professional. The worst thing you can do is completely ignore it in hopes that everyone out there will think you're too cool and savvy to care. Keep in mind that often your clients (particularly in Wedding photography) are getting financial help from family members, and if their aunt who has offered to pay for the photographer sees posting where you cite things in text slang an vulgarity, she may be offended or insulted and insist another more professional shooter be contracted.
In summary, online networks are great, they are inexpensive and reach far more potential customers, but they must be used with intelligence and professionalism. Keep in mind that the waiter rule works both ways, as well as the fact that because you and your friends may think it's okay to slap about vulgarity, not everyone feels the same way. These are small details, but as the saying goes - 'the devil's in the details', and ignoring these simple rules could be costing you credibility, respect, your reputation and in the long run, money.

Year one...

2009-10-25T20:38:00.001-07:00

Wedding highlights, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

My first season as a professional is drawing to a close, and it's been a very good learning experience.
My work has developed a great deal, and the learning curve continues it steep grade, but not as steep as it has been.
If I have any pointers for people out there who are thinking of getting into this professionally they are:

Practice, and vary what you shoot. Taking the same kind of shots all the time hones your skills to a fine edge on that particular style, but practice other things on the side. A specialty is good to have, but you need a range to be competitive, and the broader the range the better.

Work with someone else - get on with a seasoned professional and learn from them. They've seen and done a ton of things, and they know tricks to make your life easier.

Don't get hung up on the quality of your gear - fancy expensive stuff does not equal creativity, but soaking too much money into hardware before you can be profitable is a quick road to a failed business.

Set reasonable prices that are profitable for you and fit into the budget of your clients - if you do this, both parties benefit and come out ahead in the long run.

Keep it fun - when it stops being fun and starts being work that you don't want to do, it'll show in your work. The best photographers I've had the pleasure of meeting all enjoy it, even after years of doing it.

That's about it for me for now, I have a few more projects to wrap up in the next few weeks, and then I can turn my sights on next year, which is already starting to shape up to be another productive and fun season.

Color Photography

2009-09-17T18:14:00.001-07:00

I’m a Pentax shooter, make no mistake about it. The reason I shoot Pentax is simply because it was the line of camera I was familiar with.

The End of that argument.

Fact of the matter is it really does not matter what brand you shoot with, but how you shoot that accounts for your photo’s success. Granted, better lenses and gear give you more range of options, but if you never master the basics, dumping money into expensive gear is pearls before a swine. But back to the brand argument, brands in photographic equipment is an argument that will rage eternally, like the competition between fans of one brand of automobile versus fans of another brand of automobile, or Windows OS versus Mac OS, it’s pretty much just a waste of time to discuss it.

The simple truth is that any competing products will be similarly featured to those of another maker in the same price range with some very minor differences, the kind of differences that can usually only be seen in a laboratory on equipment that’s far more sensitive than all but the most acutely trained individual, and frankly even the experts are sometimes fooled.

So manufacturers have to come up with different options to set their product apart from the others, and one very easy way to do this is by changing the appearance of the product.

Enter the new K-x from Pentax. Aimed at entry level shooters and designed to compete with the entry level cameras from Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, Sigma, etcetera etcetera. Without doubt this camera will hold it’s own when taking shots, and it’s got the added juicy goodness of shooting HD video through nice 35mm lenses which give a look to short videos that most hand held video cameras simply cannot match.

Beginning and casual shooters are tired of the endless arguments about brand and models, the megapixel wars are over and moot, the HD video battle will be over shortly and there are a lot of people who simply do not want to be bored comparing endless minor details.

So what has Pentax done to set these cameras apart from the pack? The simple yet ingenuous move of giving the consumer a choice of 4 colors – Classic Black, White, Red and Navy Blue.

I fully understand that color on the body and lens in no way impact the performance of the camera, but it will give people a sense of individuality, allowing them to break from the traditional black and silver bodies (colors chosen mostly from practical reasons than design) to being the only person at the event with a bright red DSLR, or the only one on the slope with a white DSLR who can stealth the camera around.

Arguably, Panasonic had this brainwave first with the Lumix G1 line of DSL cameras (not DSLR, no mirror) but they opted for more muted red and blue, nothing as striking as the primary red hue or blazing white chassis of the K-x. Pentax did offer a limited supply of K-m cameras in white and olive green last year, and to no one’s surprise, they flew off the shelves. I never saw a single one in any of the camera shops here in town. This one might do exactly the same thing.

It won’t take the other big names long to figure this out, and I fully expect to see a rainbow of entry level cameras from all makers within 12 months, sooner if these little K-x units start to be the camera of choice to show up under the holiday tree. A lot of this will have to do with the salespeople at camera stores now, many of them are shooters and loyal to their brand, and may attempt to poo-poo the shiny red DSLR. This may sound like a good idea, but these customer service people are supposed to be objective, and if they start dumping on the competition and pulling out technicalities when the customer really just wants something different, they stand the chance of getting a brisk talking to by the managers.

Anecdotally, I remember several years ago a friend of mine was looking at a new camera with his wife. He wanted to go SLR, and spent nearly an hour pouring over the cameras available. His wife got bored and started poking around and found a bright red point and shoot unit. On the way home, while reviewing his opinions with her, his wife finally said “let’s just get the red one, it’s cute.” He approached me with this information and asked me what he could tell his wife to get her to change her opinion, to which I replied “nothing, you’re getting a red camera.”

He did wind up getting the red camera, but there’s hope for him now. It’s been a few years, and if you’re out there John, I think it’s time to head back to the camera store and show your wife the new line of cute red cameras. With a price tag of about 600 dollars for the kit, maybe you’ll both be happy.

Make Family time Learning time

2009-09-10T19:07:00.001-07:00

New gear takes a while to get used to. With the arrival of my super wide angle lens, I need time to get used to the way the lens works, how to think about framing something that really exceeds what we normally see when we look around. Mastering new gear means building new skills, no matter how much skill we already have, and this takes time.

There’s a few ways to make the time to get intimate with your new stuff, for me there’s pretty much 3 choices.

1: Use it with a client: sometimes you have to use the trial by fire method, most of the time you don’t. This is by far my least favourite way of getting to know gear because the pressure is on, you have deliverables due, and if you miss the mark paying clients do not want to hear excuses like ‘I was getting used to the new gear,’ for the obvious reason that they are the ones with money and time on the line. This makes the photographer look very unprofessional.

2: Wander off by myself or a friend and get used to the equipment by playing around. This works, and it’s good to spend time with friends, no one has money on the line. Photographers who are single or don’t have families, this is the better, and more probable choice.

3: Dress up the kids, and make a day trip somewhere to have some fun and try out the new stuff. This is my favourite choice because it gives you time with the family, makes family involved in your business (huge with little kids – I’m helping Daddy/Mommy) and lastly, you may wind up with some great family photos for your own album or wall.

It’s a simple thing to do, it creates good memories, maximizes your productive time, and it prevents a situation that harkens to the old axiom ‘the cobbler’s child goes without shoes’.

Finally, who can resist cute kid photos?

Live Writer

2009-09-09T20:16:00.001-07:00

For a while now, I’ve been looking for a new tool to keep my blogs up to date. I know there are plenty of tools out there, but I wanted something simple, clean, and bearing a familiar look and feel to what I’m used to on my workstations.

Today, I discovered Windows Live Writer, and I have to admit, I find it pretty much dead easy to use.

I think the biggest advantage it has for me is the fact that it allows me to update both my blogs from the same interface, this one, and the one for my photography website.

I don’t really have a lot to say tonight, but I’ll certainly be putting it through it’s paces in the near future.

Lens Lineup complete - One more goal complete

2009-09-05T08:53:00.001-07:00

Chapel of the Virgin, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Then I got into SLR photography, I had no idea which lenses to get.
Luckily for me, the good folks who make cameras thought about this and came up with the Kit lens, which is probably one of the most versatile lenses you've got in your bag, and more than once it's saved my bacon. Of course, figuring out what lenses do and how to use them takes time and a lot of knowledge - you'll make some mistakes along the way, but eventually you'll figure out exactly how to design and build your lens lineup for what you want to be shooting.
About a year ago I finally hit this point, and I was lucky in the fact I had not bought a ton of lenses that did not fit into this lineup, so I wasn't stuck trying to offload a bunch of lenses and taking a financial hit there too.
A couple days ago, the final lens for my lineup arrived (after a 9 month manufacturing wait) to round out my lens lineup - I now have a range of lenses that allow me to shoot from 10-200mm with speed relative to the shooting style, or more precisely, MY shooting style.
I do a lot of people and object shots in ambient light or artificial light, with a bit of environmental and telephoto, mostly under daylight conditions, so I built my lineup to match this. To this end, I have built my lineup to put the heavy lifting tools into the range most used to shoot people, that is wide to medium telephoto. The 3 key lenses here are f2.8 from 16-135mm, with a 50mm 1.4 for those really low light conditions.
Sometimes, though, you do need to go super wide or super telephoto, so I've got two additional lenses to cover this range, more or less. These lenses are much slower, 4.5 for the super wide 10-24mm and 5.6 for the 28-200mm telephoto, but since I don't use them a lot, and mostly under daylight conditions, I can escape with slightly slower lenses, as I usually find myself shooting at f8 or higher anyway.
So now, I'm really ready to go, I've got my stuff all in order, I know what lens to use for what conditions, and I can shoot all the stuff I like to shoot with a lot more confidence in my gear. Now the pressure is on me, and me alone to get the shot. This may seem at first blush to be not a less stressful situation, but it's actually a pretty nice place to be in, as I'm sure other pro shooters can attest to.

Ringflash revisited

2009-08-30T16:10:00.001-07:00

Shooting with Shannon, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Knowing I had nothing on the docket this morning, I sent out the call to some of the talent I know saying "hey, anyone else want to just go out and monkey around a bit?"
Happily, Shannon was up to the challenge, and we met up downtown around noon.
A few coffees later, we were just wandering up the block on Albert Street, and looking for some graffiti to use as a background, and we found this wall, the whole thing was tagged, so there was lots to work with.
The alley was in shade, with lots of light coming from the street, and in all reality I could have shot all afternoon just like that, it was that cool. However, never knowing when to leave well enough alone, I decided it was time to pull out the orbis and use my ringflash as a fill light.
You know what, I'm glad I did. Granted it does not have a lot of range, particularly when using it against the sun, however it does a great job of giving a nice fill to ease some of the shadows without creating new shadows of it's own.

Let your subjects Frame themselves

2009-08-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

Framed Kids, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Couple weeks ago I picked up this frame, my wife thought I was insane spending nearly 90 dollars on a frame I was never going to put a canvas in, but as usual, I had a different plan for this frame.
I made sure I got a nice sturdy frame, but one that still looked classy and slightly ornate, but easy enough to grip. Next wedding I shot, I put it to use.
I'd like to say this was entirely my idea, that I was brilliant enough to come up with this on my own...I'd like to say that but I know I've seen other photographers do this, so I used their great idea. And it is a fantastic idea, it worked better than I ever expected.
One of the hardest things to do at the reception is to get good candid shots of the guests, far too often we wind up with candids that wind up never being used, or just included in the batch of photos and languish away on some forgotten CD somewhere. The reason is because they are usually boring, people sitting at a table, or just standing in a corner in their nice clothes smiling without purpose.
However, if you hand them a frame to poke through, and hold at an odd angle, people have something to do, and they all become actors. I had bunches of people, 4-5 adults suddenly crowding close, making faces, posing and generally having a great time making these bits of art for the album, and these images will probably not be forgotten.
The best part is you don't even have to tell them what to do, they come up with it all by themselves, they just need that little catalyst. They also stop being shy, and you can get great photos of almost every guest, because the minute they get the frame, they know exactly what to do with it, hold it up and grin, make faces, act sassy, steal a kiss, or act out a little scene. Even little kids get it, and give smiles that look decidedly un-school photo, beaming and having fun because kids love neat ideas.
It also does something to the photos themselves, because it...well...it frames the subject, making composition a lot easier and more fun for everyone, and I mean everyone. I managed to get shots like this of almost every guest at the wedding, and although some of them are at tables, the photos are not boring in the slightest.
A simple and highly effective way to make really fun memories of a very special day.

Cool Cars, cooler Models

2009-07-26T08:00:00.001-07:00

Driven-1, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

The Driven auto show was happening in Winnipeg yesterday afternoon in the convention center. You could find it upstairs, past the Anime convention on floors one and two.
I got to work with a load of new models for the event, and lots of owners. I expect my inbox to be overflowing soon.
This shoot went particularly well thanks to some new ultra portable hot shoe softboxes I recently purchased. If you're doing off camera flash gun lighting, I highly recommend them. They soften the light nicely like an umbrella, but without that nasty spill around the edges. They're also slightly smaller , so they are easier to carry around, but they are heavier, so you have to take that into account. Also, because the lining is silver coated, they give a slightly creamy quality to the light too, so it seems to wrap a little nicer.
I tested them with both my radio trigger set, and with a Nikon CLS TTL setup thanks to Trevor Johnson (can't wait to see his photos, we had some serious Mojo going on)
The models I got to work with were all amateur, like Cathy here, this was her first car show. Cool ladies, all of them, and very confident because when you shoot at an auto show, you don't just shoot with the photographer you're working with, but with everyone else that sees the lights popping off and attractive ladies in bikini's draped over a performance vehicle. Like I said to Andrew, who got concerned about the crowd we were gathering, it means we're doing it right.
That's about all for today, I've got a BBQ to plan for, so I have to do some running amock and pick up ice, drinks, and the lot yet today.
Cheers!

8:28 AM

2009-07-09T09:52:00.001-07:00

8:28 AM, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I was almost at work, with a couple minutes to spare, when I look across the street and see this old building lit up by the reflections off the glass of a new building, giving this old building this weird blue and gold light paint job.
Hmmm...be on time, or get this shot....
Anyway, I took one frame, and played with it a little. The result was weird and kinda abstract, the bricks, depending on how much light fell on them, almost seemed to fade in and out of focus, which was needless to say, really weird.
The point here, if there is a point, is that my new habit of carrying a camera almost all the time does have it's benefits. I walk by this building 5 times a week, and although I've seen this pattern before, it never really registered with me. Now that I carry my little camera (that is, my original dslr, I've done some upgradification) I have the tool to take a pretty neat shot whenever and wherever they happen.
Heck, I've almost convinced myself to do a 365 project, but I'm not sure if I'm disciplined enough for that.
There's about 9 or 10 readers a day that hit this site, sound off for me, you can be anonymous but let me know, should I try a 365 Project (that is, take at least one original photo, every day, for a full year)

Topaz Adjust

2009-07-05T12:41:00.001-07:00

Topaz Adjust, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Hey, how would you like HDR type photos without having to spend all that time mucking about with HDR?
Better yet, how about some very cool and dramatic enhancements on action shots? Kinda hard to get the whole world to stop while you bracket 3 images.
Topaz labs has a stopgap, a plugin called Topaz Adjust that nicely fits that bill.
I've been using the trial version for a month, and decided it was worth the 50 USD to get a liscence key to call it my very own.
Topaz is easy to use, and pulls a lot of detail out on raw files, not so awesome with JPG, but I tend to shoot almost everything raw anyway, even with my "little" camera which is my K110d with the kit lens on it that I have taken to dragging around with me pretty much everywhere I go.
Granted, I can be known to let the saturation get a little out of hand but it's hard to resist those candy-bright colours and electric skies. Sometimes, though, that's what you want, the world of photography is about making people see things the way you want them to see them.
Topaz adjust is just part of a whole suite of plugins available, and I may go back and get more, but for now I've come to rely like the looks I can get out of adjust, especially when I want emerald green cotton candy grass and leaves like this.
Adjust is only 50 USD, and the whole suite is a very affordable 135 USD, plus the trial version is completely functional and free for 30 days, so it's worth a bash.
Available for Photoshop on both Windows (32 and 64 bit) and Mac.

Ahh...unity!

Stobist Boot Camp II Assignment 2

2009-07-04T08:49:00.000-07:00

For years I have referred to technology in casual conversations with my peers as "Amish Porn", as electronic blinky things are forbidden by that particular community.
David has served up, to turn a phrase, what I would like to think of as "Dietitian Porn" for the second assignment within the Strobist Boot Camp II exercise for this summer.
I get to play around with two of my favorite things, cameras and food to enter this one, and my idea hamster has been spinning the wheel for a couple days now trying to figure out exactly what I should shoot.
Of course, my first instinct roars in my belly, literally, a single word that carries so much passion, so much love that it is almost deafening, "Pizza". However, because it's summer, and I'm coming off a week of holidays with my kids, I think I'm going to do something a wee bit more emotional.
For the sake of nostalgia, I'm going to find, and shoot one of my favorite treats from childhood, something that I still enjoy as an adult, but was a really big deal when it hit a the table when I was growing up; Watermelon. I used to be absolutely bonkers about it as a kid, would burrow into huge slice after huge slice while my parents would bark something about leaving something for someone else. I'm also going to do it for the sake of my middle boy, who has taken up the flag of watermelon fiend and was so horribly wronged last week at dinner when the server removed his plate of 2 precious pieces when a bathroom break called him from the table, resulting in a look of pure sadness that nearly broke my heart.
So now I get to find a suitable candidate melon, one with a rich pink flesh and dark black seeds to serve two roles: model for my project and prey for my kids.
Be vewy, vewy, quiet...I'm hunting mewons.

Doing the Classic Head Shot

2009-06-21T17:11:00.001-07:00

06-19-2009 Holly-8, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

So what exactly do you need to have at your disposal to to a really good looking head shot?
Well, if you subscribe to the ideology of Joe McNalley and David Hobby, all you really need is a camera, and the ability to fire a couple hot shoe flashes off camera.
That's how I got this shot of Holly Fossen, an aspiring model. I used one flash through an umbrella just off to her right, and a second bare one off to her left just giving a wink of light to make sure she wasn't too dark on the left side there.
To pull that outlandish blue sky off, I used your other best friend, the CTO filter.
CTO have become one of my favorite tools as late, as I have recently really learned how to use them. Basically, you chuck the CTO onto your flash heads (by means of the super expensive dollar store tape) and then set your camera into tungsten white balance. The CTO's make your flash the same color as a tungsten light, that is warm and orange, and that means the camera's white balance shifts to the blue spectrum.
The result is that your lit subject is now nice and warm, and your background, in this case a cloudy sunset, it pushed into the blues much more.
This does a couple nice things to your photo. First of all, it makes your subject look nice and warm, like they are lit by the golden glow of a beautiful sunset, like a nice artificial magic hour going on. The other thing it does is by pushing the background into the cooler spectrum is creates a sense of perspective, known as temperature perspective, making your subject stand well out of your background.
I've recently just discovered the concept of temperature perspective whilst reading one of my books, so I'm knot just making this up.
Turns out there are three very good ways to provide a sense of perspective in a photo. The first being linear perspective - this is what we all think of when we say perspective, parallel lines converge into infinity, closer objects look larger, the stuff we all learn in middle school art class.
The second is called Atmospheric perspective, and landscape shooters use this a lot. You know how on those especially great mornings if you are lucky enough to live in an elevated location, you look out your window and the distant hills get more and more hazy? That's atmospheric perspective, a sense of distance is provided by atmospheric haze, the more haze the more of a sense of perspective, fog can do this too, giving the sense to relatively close objects.
And finally, there's temperature perspective, which is what I exploited here. Basically, if you warm your subject more than your background, the mind separates them and says "oh, I like warm things, so that must be closer" or something like that. If you cool your subject, and warm your background, they will seem to be much closer together. To be honest, I don't really get or care about the psychology behind it, all I gotta know is that it does in fact work, so I use it.
Yay for books!

How much editing?

2009-06-14T17:39:00.001-07:00

Before and After, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Sometimes, a whole lot.
I said in my post last night that this shot was very boring out of camera. I did want something more memorable, but right out of camera I couldn't pull it off, this one needed editing in photoshop and lightroom.
Now what's really interesting is that it looks like I may have spent a long time on this image, when in reality I only spent a few minutes. Now that I really understand how the orton technique works in the digital realm, I've gone ahead and created an action to perform it automatically. To create the dream like quality in some of my other portraits now only takes a few moments of my time, and to blow it over the top like this only takes seconds more in lightroom.
The result is an image that the client will look at and think "wow, that's amazing" without knowing that it's actually a combination of techniques the photographer uses every day.
Still, saying that it's simple now betrays the fact that getting a really good handle on the orton technique takes some time. I've been messing around with it on and off for about six months, only recently getting a good grip on it. It's simple to do this now because I've done all the work already, and now I know what works.

Orton + Lightroom = Unearthly

2009-06-13T20:50:00.001-07:00

Orton + Lightroom = Unearthly, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

So, I have this ho-hum photo of the bridal gown from a wedding a shot a few weeks ago. It was hanging in front of a sheer curtain and wasn't doing much for me.
I decided I'd try a few things with it, using the Orton technique to see if I could bring some life to this otherwise drab and very ordinary photo.
So I take my boring photo into Photoshop, make my layers, overexpose them, add the blur and blend them.
Okay, so that worked pretty well, so I take it back into lightroom, crop, straighten...much better but still not really amazing.
Then I start playing with the presets. I mouse over the cold tone and WOW! Now that's what I'm looking for!
The straps hanging the dress disappear, the window blows way out, and the detail in the corset becomes a magnificent pattern of cool blue tones, all with a near angelic feel courtesy of the Orton Technique.
Oh ya, this one is going in my portfolio now.

Details

2009-05-31T10:23:00.001-07:00

Details, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Here's how my week goes:

Sunday - Multiple model and photographer shoot in a downtown studio. Got some great shots, but have not had time to process them. Got some engagement shots done, have to get them to client.
Monday - Thursday: Day job and Soccer in the evening.
Friday - Company Golf Tournament - spend all day shooting that. Evening event: Winnipeg Caribbean Carnival fundraiser & fashion show - I'm a sponsor so I was there all night. Great group of people, BTW.
Saturday - 10 AM phone call from my friend Jerry, frantic that his second shooter has called in sick hours before a wedding. I really enjoy shooting alongside Jerry, so of course I jump in with both feet.
Back to Sunday. The sun is shining, and I'm going out with the family to do some geocaching...

Can it get any better than this? Don't think so.

Timbit #24: Fenton

2009-05-20T20:54:00.001-07:00

Soccer-1, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Sometimes it's just enough to have a camera with you to catch moments like this.
Half time in the Mini Soccer game, and my guy was heading in for his traditional snack.
Fenton is almost 5, and loves to play the game. As you can see, the skies were pretty clear, and there was only a mild breeze (by Winnipeg standards) tonight, so faces were rosy from the game and laughter, not from biting cold wind.

Oh, and they scored big at snack time, someone brought Creamsicles.

Hot shoe flashes in the Studio and Death of a favorite tool.

2009-05-14T10:45:00.001-07:00

Lighting Workshop #2 - small strobes, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I recently attended a lighting workshop put on by my friend Dan Harper. It was a good session, and excellent for those new to off-camera light and using Hot Shoe flashes for lighting subjects.

Of course, I'm not exactly new at this, but I've always professed that it's never a bad thing to get a refresher on what you already know, just in case there's something you've forgotten.

As it turns out, the one thing that I really picked up from this is the knowledge that I could really make use out of a small HSF softbox. These particular little units have a front baffle size of only 15" per edge, which may not seem like a big light source, but in reality, it's a very functional size.

Your average flash has a window of about 2" X 3", giving a total of 6 square inches. Not a really big working space, no matter what kind of diffuser you put directly on the camera. This is why I use umbrellas a lot, because they expand the light surface from 6 inches to around 800 square inches, almost 100 times the surface area. However, umbrellas have a flaw, particularly shoot through, because they are not enclosed, and they spill light around the edges. This is a real pain....

Now, a small 15" softbox has 225" of surface, which is still nearly 40 times as large, but the real advantage is they are enclosed, and have no spill. It may not be quite as soft a source as a large umbrella, but as we all know you can control that by controlling the relative size by moving the light source in closer.

There's another big plus that became apparent while I was at that workshop, softboxes are more rugged than umbrellas. About a year ago I had the wind catch one of my stands and yank my umbrella down, it bent the arms a bit, but I forced them back with my hands, and got another year of use out of it. Sadly, though, when I opened this particular brolly at the workshop, it folded as fast as it opened, the arms had lost all strength. Luckily, I had two with me, and a bunch of grids so I could still pull off a good shot, but I was down to a single brolly.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still keep the brollies as part of my everyday drag around gear, they're cheap and light, but a softbox would be great, and I think that might be my next little gift to my mobile gear.

Oh ya, so getting back to the workshop...so what did I learn? Well, it may not have been technique or vision, but I did learn something, and the really great news about this is that my axiom about always leaning something still holds water.

Getting my Mojo Back

2009-04-08T19:52:00.001-07:00

St. Ignatious HDR, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Something bad happened to me over the winter months.
Aside from the fact that the short days and very cold weather keep me away from shooting environmental work, which I think is my best stuff, I started getting far too technical.
Now, don't get me wrong, being technical is great, but when you start fretting over the math more than the final feel of the shot, you loose something in the creative aspect.

That was bad....

The good news, I'm starting to swing myself back into more creative mode, letting the light talk to me more, and worrying about what the light meters say less. Seems my images look better when my light meter isn't so happy.

The funny part is that about a week after my revelation that I was getting too hung up on numbers and whatnot, I borrowed the Strobist DVD collection from a buddy of mine.

And what does Mr. David Hobby say right in the first half hour? Pretty much the same thing.

So, here's what I gotta do, I have to have fun with my camera again. Last summer and fall I was having a blast, I didn't know as much as I would have liked, but my images were fun and exciting. I was happy, my clients were happy, and my images were happy.

The weather is starting to break, I have some new contacts that want to work with me, and I plan to have some laughs.

Please stand by, fun stuff is gonna start happening real, REAL soon.

As you can see, I kinda have my hands full...

2009-03-29T21:07:00.001-07:00

Rolling Thunder Talent, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

3 Fashion shows...check
1 wedding..check
1 private portrait session to edit...check
1 lighting workshop to attend...check
1 more private portrait session to set up...check
1 kids birthday

Oh, and maybe an early spring rainstorm to find out if the downspouts are frozen...oh good, they are.

Yep, that was 7 days.

Vista 64 - 48 hour Later

2009-03-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

So, after a five year run as my main workstation, I finally retired my old friend, my P4 2Ghz Gateway machine.

....Good times...

Okay, on with the new...

I've been watching the prices on Dell Studio computers for close to a year now, keeping a keen eye on things like processor speed, included ram, and last but not least, the OS. A friend of mine picked up an XPS system last year and it came with Vista, it was pretty fast, but it really started to perform when migrated the machine to XP64, plus it started using the RAM more efficiently. I wanted to go 64 bit at well, but I wasn't so sure I wanted to have to track down a version of XP and go through the whole compatibility thing with drivers.

Dell stepped up in the last few months offering more of their mid range models with Vista 64, and a couple weeks ago a pretty much ideal system went on sale. Armed with my firm's Employee purchase program's code in hand, I called Dell and ordered my new system, a rocket machine with a quad core processor, 6 Gb of RAM and a whopping Terrabyte of storage - I'm one of the people that actually has the ability to back up a Terrabyte because of my Network Attached Storage devices, so that saves me a large chunk of issues.

Since I phoned in the order, and had time to speak with my representative, Sai, I made some minor alterations in what I purchased, mostly removal of stuff I didn't want, trial antivirus, MS works, and so on leaving myself with a system that was pretty much just the hardware and the OS.

From there, the tweaking and setting up began. I had fully backed up all my data earlier in the week to external drives and NAS devices, so there was very little to the process of importing that data to my new machine (except, of course, I still have not gotten a Gigabit switch, which is on the map for today). Beyond that, installing my own antivirus, productivity tools, and of course, communication tools.

The biggest complaint people have with Vista is all the popups and security warnings. Since I know all my software is reputable, it does get a little annoying fast, so I jumped over to Lifehacker.com and turned that off pronto.

I did run into a minor snag when I tried to install my monitor calibration system, the Spyder 2 Express that I got from a very good friend for Christmas, does not come with the 64 bit drivers on the CD. A few minutes of downloading later, I had the newest 64 bit supporting software on my drive, and a quick reinstall allowed me to continue. That was probably the biggest frustration I had. Seriously.

A few other minor preference changes like disabling the Dell Dock and the Side Bar tools because they just get in my way, and I was off to the races.

And race this machine does, no question about it. The Vista Home Premium 64 is quick, but when you load software that is also 64 bit, like Lightroom, strap in for an amazing ride.

Lightroom opens and is ready to work in about the same time it takes to say "Adobe Lightroom version 2 64 Bits". I don't just mean the splash screen loaded, I mean it's up, the library is ready, and I can start working. Since lightroom is my main workhorse for processing photos, I was delighted to see the rocket speed it runs at. I'm having to adjust to the performance, no kidding, having to get used to jumping from tool to tool rather than having that couple seconds to think.

There are a lot of complaints about Vista, and let's face it Apple's Vista bashing campaign has not helped. Primarily, though, the complaints have come from people who like to game a lot, which I don't have a problem with, but I just don't game a lot which eliminates that issue for me. Another thing I don't do is download a bunch of desktop enhancements and media sharing tools (Ahem: Limewire) which rob you of system resources and clutter up your machine like a 3 year old with a crate of lego in a small room. Left clean and optimized for productivity and output, Vista is a performer, and the pure advantage of 64 bits just adds an aggressive edge to that fact.

There's one more little detail that I'd like to put on the table in defense of Vista to the Apple bashing campaign. Adobe and Apple have had strained relationships the last few years, not sure why, but Apple has managed to step on Adobe's toes enough that when the new shiny version of Photoshop with 64 bit support was released which promised (and delivers I might add) 6 to 10X the performance of the 32 bit version, it was only released for Vista 64. OSX may be a full 64 bit OS, but Mac users are running at 32 bits in Photoshop, and now having seen it run full speed, you guys are seriously missing out, sorry.

Concept shot

2009-03-05T19:25:00.001-08:00

Contrast Exercise 2, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Yet another concept shot.
I do this kind of thing to my poor family all the time, come up with an idea and have to test it to see how well it actually works before I try it with a client.
As with many of my ideas, the initial attempt was not bad, but now I have an idea what to do with it in real application.
Most of the real magic in this kind of high contrast photo happens in post production, there simply isn't nearly this much contrast in camera. Lightroom works very well doing this kind of simple post production, and the nice thing is that if you shoot in manual as I did, you get a bunch of different poses and simply synchronize the same settings onto each image to get the same look at the end.

See, really I am back!

2009-02-22T20:10:00.001-08:00

Fibre Optics, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Sometimes you walk by your kids room, and suddenly you think that hey, that dollar store fiber optic lamp they picked out really is cool!

My photo club is having a contest this month for Macro work, anything small or close up is the theme. As a judge and moderator of the club, I'm not eligible to enter, but I chucked this into the gallery none the less.

Everything, save the camera, in this shot was picked up at a dollar store, the lamp, the batteries, even the cheap foamcore background.

How much fun can you have for 3 bucks?

I'm Back, Baby!

2009-02-21T17:19:00.001-08:00

Manitoba Ledgislative Building Dome HDR, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Ya, ya...I know I've been slacking, but now that the weather isn't nearing absolute zero on a daily basis, and the sun is in the sky for more than a few hours a day, I've been getting out and having some fun.
Today had nothing on the agenda, so I decided it was time to go some place I had never been before, and I visited the Manitoba Legislative Building. It's still kind of a thing for me to live in a provincial capital and have access to buildings like this, I've never been inside a legislative building before.
I was not disappointed. The building is grand, ornate and the air hangs heavy and thick.
Sadly, the widest lens I have at the moment is only 16mm, which is complicated by the fact that my 10mm is still on back-order. Man, I could have used that lens today.
Also, I made a major faux-pas and forgot to bring my tripod with me. Not so bright since I wanted to do some HDR shots like this one, and a tripod just makes it all so much easier to do. I still managed to pull off this particular shot handheld by jamming myself into a corner and using the stone to support me, minimizing shake.
All that said though, I had a fun few hours at the 'Leg, and I got some interesting shots, even if some of them are the standard touristy-type snapshots.

I'm still alive, honest...

2009-02-02T13:44:00.001-08:00

Miniature?, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I am alive, very much so, just been really busy as late, and the old Blog has suffered.

To patch things up, I offer you a present. www.tiltshiftmaker.com is a great online tool that will convert your landscapes or aerial photos into seeming miniature scenes quickly and easily.

People have been doing this in Photoshop for a long time, but not everyone has Photoshop, and maybe you'd like to try it for free. Well, here's your chance.

Enjoy!

Back to the Grind

2009-01-11T20:17:00.001-08:00

S'now much fun, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I have not been posting much as late, because now the holidays are over, and we're all getting back to more mundane things.
Today, for example, was not super-arctic cold, so first order of business was getting those poor kids of mine out of the house for a few hours and playing in the snow.
I remember as a kid just loving to play in snow, but when it's -25-30 outside, it's just not safe for little kids. Sure, they don't seem to feel the cold, and that's the real problem, they don't know when it's time to come in, nor if they're having any ill effects like frozen noses.
Anyway, I was out goofing off with the kids, so I didn't have time to do anything significant.
Now I gotta go and dry out my boots and gloves.

Celebrate the new year by bouncing photons.

2009-01-02T21:52:00.001-08:00

I gotta be creative..., originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I'm doing lots of small image shots these days, getting tons of practice and exploring new theme ideas and textures.

Now, let me just clarify, by textures, I actually mean physical textures, not the photoshop kind...not that I have anything against the photoshop textures.

When working with small objects, you want to try to keep the object as the center of attention, this is pretty easy to do if you're just shooting it against a light or dark field. The problem is, those get boring, fast.

Eventually, you find that you need to spice up things around your subject, while keeping it the star performer. This means adding props.

For this particular set up I wandered to the nearest dollar stores and picked up a few goodies, a sack of dark river stones (yes, I bought rocks - they are hard to find in Manitoba in January), a small wooden box with a nice design, and lastly, for the padding in the box, a 4 pack of cloth floral dinner napkins.

Okay, so that's the easy part, now to light each of these surfaces without overloading the subject, and without driving myself insane with a zillion different lights and shadows. The solution: bounce your photons!

I used only one light for this, a single hot shoe flash through an umbrella positioned over the subject and slightly off to the right. this umbrella was about a foot above the subject, giving a huge relative source. Because it was so close, and the area was confined, I was able to pull this shot off with only 1/4 power, and still shot the images at ISO 400 and f9.0. Remember, light falls of at an inverse square of the distance, so if I would have moved the light back another foot, it would have only given me 1/4 as much light on my subject (not to mention reducing the relative size by about 1/3)

To fill the shadows on the left, I simply placed a white foamcore card on that side and it filled in the details nicely without creating hot spots. That's bounce number one.

Once I started shooting, though, I found that the stones seemed to lack dimension, and since I was shooting from a high angle looking down, I simply taped a second bounce card directly under the camera, where it filled just enough to give a nice wrap around the front of the stones. Bounce number two.

Behind the whole setup was a blank white wall, which added just a smidgen of edge to the back of everything, rounding out the project with Bounce number three.

The whole shot was simply staged on a small posing table topped with some black foamcore, that took care of any spaces between the rocks.

So, there you have it, one light, three bounce surfaces, and an absorption surface. The result is a nice, luxurious photo with an interesting feel that does not subtract from the subject.

When the Light works for you.

2008-12-29T23:03:00.001-08:00

When the Light works for you., originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I know that I often go into great detail about how much I use artificial light, and I do love working with it, but I often don't spend enough time pointing out the advantages of natural light, and some of the amazing tricks that it can do all by itself.
This particular image, another one from Paul and Dagmara's set, was probably about the easiest setup I could have imagined, we were walking by this beautiful maple paneled wall that had several beams of sunlight striking across, and I just had the couple step a few feet forward until they were out of the direct light, and used the ambient light to shoot this magnificent shot.
That is the technical part of the shot, like I said, very simple.
What's a lot more difficult is recognizing opportunities like this. Paul and I actually had a conversation about this, he commented that he would not have seen that himself. What Paul didn't know until I told him was that two years ago, neither would have I.
A good chunk of making a striking image is to recognize when you have something different in front of you, and this is a perfect example. This particular location probably only gets this particular pattern of sunlight for a couple weeks each year, when the sun is very low in the sky, and only at a particular time of day. We happened to be walking by right at the exact time to see it.
For two years now, I've been studying the way light works, the way it interacts with objects, and how to capture that particular moment. From my point of view, I didn't think I was making that much progress, but when you get a chance to have someone point out to you these little things, you realize how much you've actually trained your eye to look for interesting things.
Technically speaking, these lines of light are almost perfect, they lead from the top left to the bottom right, directly through the subject, in this case, a wonderful happy couple. The lines are sharp and directional, but not distracting, and even thought the polished maple background would have been nice to begin with, the bright stripes give it a real pizazz.
Several months ago I spoke about looking around you as you move for interesting things to photograph, and this is a classic example. I'm glad I was in the right frame of mind when we walked by, and that these shots turned out so well.

While I have your attention...
A big thanks goes out to Theodore Baschak for coming to my rescue at the last minute. A scheduling snafu with my wife and son's work almost put the kiabosh on the whole shoot, but but Theo stepped in to hold reflectors and other assorted goodies for the day.
I know the other landscape and cityscape shooters tease him when he helps me out with my portrait sessions, but I don't know if he knows how much I appreciate his help. It's good to have an assistant that just knows what you're trying to achieve, and moves gear to the right locations. Thanks again, dude.

Thank You Orbis!

2008-12-29T12:37:00.001-08:00

Paul And Dagmara, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

A couple weeks ago, I decided that I really wanted an Orbis Ringflash for my arsenal. Last night I shot a small family wedding, and let me just say I was so glad I had that tool with me.
The reception for this wedding was held in the family home, it's a good sized place, but any home gets tight when about 15 people try sharing the kitchen at one time.
there's a ton of tricks on can use, bouncing flash, diffusing, you name it, and they all work well, but you're constantly fighting with shadows. There are tricks to drop the shadows behind the subject and directional light can sometimes leave harsh contrast on faces, when what you really want is a healthy, pure glow.
I ordered my Orbis specifically for shooting events, and in this case it was an absolute treasure. The even, flattering light produced by a ringflash was just the ticket to make these shots warm and fun, lighting the subjects nicely even in close quarters like the narrow end of the kitchen. I also loved the way that I didn't have to worry about weird reflections or unexpected shadows can interfere, and composition suddenly becomes a snap, even goofy guys hanging out shots like this one.
Is this a tool for event shooters? you bet, and if you want to add some dazzle and pop to your event shots, get online and order one up quick!

Happy Christmas Morning

2008-12-25T10:51:00.001-08:00

Fenton on Christmas Morning, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

A quick note to say hello to everyone and hope your day is filled with joy and love.

Ring Flash Goodness

2008-12-19T18:41:00.001-08:00

The Orbis Applied..., originally uploaded by ted.sali.

24 hours is all it took to order, ship, cross the border into Canada, and get heated up on my little siggy flash.
I'm talking about the Orbis Ring Flash adapter.
Like many other adapters, this unit is designed to slip onto your existing flash and turn your standard flash gun into a small scale TTL ring flash unit.
Let me talk about the order process first, because that was the first thing that impressed me.
I ordered this thing yesterday online around noon, and chose the standard 3-5 day shipping rate. I thought "well, maybe it'll be in time for the holidays..." Was I ever surprised when the thing showed up today about 1:00 pm, and no, they didn't actually upgrade the shipping or charge me extra, it just came through that fast.
Usage is simple, simply slot your flash into the bracket on the unit, attach a TTL (or in my case a pTTL) cord to the unit, hold it in front of the camera, poke the lens through, and shoot away. It sounds a little awkward, and it is at first, but the unit hardly weighs anything, and there are homebrew plans for DIY brackets to mount it to your camera, making it much easier to use.
The results are pretty nice, considering I was just all excited and jumping around shooting whatever without much thought to composition. Like any ringflash, there are almost no shadows, skin textures are nice and smooth, and the light falls off nicely from the center of the image.There is a bit of a trick to holding it nice and straight, but a home brew bracket should fix that.
It's going to take some getting used to, but I have no problem playing with it until I get more proficient.
So far, I'm happy, and it's fun to use.
I can't wait to use this thing at an event, I think the results will be exceptional.

Teen target marketing for DSL cameras: Avril and Ashton

2008-12-06T20:26:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks you may or may not have seen the new Canon camera advertisements on TV and print, and to appeal to a younger market, they have Avril Lavigne and Ashton Kutcher hawking the new lineup.
Does celebrity marketing work? Well, my experience says yes. I had the good luck of having one of my people at work show me her 15 year old daughter's Christmas wish list. About 3/4 of the way down the page was the following;

"Canon digital camera (professional kind with the focus thing)"

Okay, so maybe Canon is just pushing their products at younger markets to flog cameras, but there is a silver lining in all this, maybe some of these kids will genuinely get into photography, and that pink infused Lavigne advertisement or even the laughable advert of Kutcher gleefully taking casual candids at a wedding (I guess Punk'd got old) might just be the inspiration to venture into it.

...and then there's the ones who want a focus thing....

On that note, I have gotten myself a new focus thing specifically for candids and wedding shooting, I'm now the proud owner of a DA* 16-50 2.8 focus thing. As far as focus things go, this one is a flagship, loaded down with all the features a K-mount shooter could want. Ultra-sonic focus motor, manual focus clutching, SMC glass and dust and weather seals to match those on the K200 and K20 body making this a fast, accurate and fun loving focus thing that isn't afraid of a little rain or snow.

I've used it a lot over the last week since I got it, and it performs nicely. As with most fast focus things, it's a bit soft when it's wide open, but shooting at 2.8 allows for tons of light, and yes, I can actually shoot portraits by candle light now - Hand Held!

Also in the last week I helped another new shooter take his first tenative steps into the world of professional cameras with focus things, as I helped my friend Geoff pick out his first DSLR, which happens to be the same make and model as I use. I swear to all that is holy that I tried not to be a Pentax fan-boy, as some of my very best friends shoot with Canon and Nikon professional cameras with focus things, but the bottom line is when he finally got round to asking me what I liked most about my camera, I started to gush, and my empassionate oratory of all things Pentaxian won him over.

Off we went, bank cards in hand and by the time we were done he had a full kit, a K200d, kit focus thing, memory cards (probably memory things), rechargable batteries, bag, and lens pen. Back to my place where I rounded out his travel kit by borrowing him my DA50-200mm lens and my 50mm 1.4 for his winter trip to meet up with his family in Scotland. We rounded the day off with an afternoon of explaining how to use many of the features, and a hearty Pizza dinner washed down with Bacardi Breezers.

So, that's my photographic week in a nutshell. Odds are good I'm going to head out tomorrow with my new focus thing, and my friend with his new professional type camera with focus thing, and really test drive them both at some of the downtown photo-friendly locations.

Cheers to all, and happy shooting.

Understanding the Quality of Light

2008-12-01T19:29:00.001-08:00

More Simple bounce portraiture, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I was having a conversation with my friend Geoff last night, he's interested in his first DSLR camera, and we started talking about lenses and ambient light and artificial light.

It came to my attention that the Quality of light is a pretty abstract thing to grasp, yet once you start to get a handle on it, you can do so much more with your photos.

So, to that end, I will give the whole concept of Quality of Light my description.

The quality of the light used ranges from hard to soft, hard lighting having strong, sharp edges to the shadows, while soft lighting has more subtle, gradient shadows and more of a wrap around feel. Both produce contrast which is essential to a portrait, but they have a huge impact on the mood of your photo.

The quality is controlled by the size of the light source relative to the subject, with the key word being relative. Simple terms, the larger your light source is relative to the subject the softer the light is, but a large light source alone is not the end of the equation, it's that whole 'relative' term that seems to trip people up.

Time for a thought experiment. Let's say you have two objects, a page of letter paper, 8.5" X 11" and a large white wall across the street that just happens to be 8.5' X 11' in size. Obviously, both of these have the same dimensions, but the size ratio is 1:12. Now, if you take that sheet of paper and hold it at arms length, it will appear about the same size or perhaps even larger than the white wall across the street. Why is this? Perspective of course, closer objects look larger than further objects, but this means that both objects appear to be about the same size relative to the viewer.

Now, imagine that these objects are actually our sources of light for a photo. Because the wall is so much larger than the paper, the brain which deals with perspective all the time, automatically assumes that the larger wall would just automatically be a larger light source, ergo it would produce a softer light. However, since the wall is further away, and the same size relative to the viewer, the quality of the light it would produce would in fact be exactly the same as if the paper were used as the light source.

That's where the term relative becomes critical to lighting a photograph, the physical size of the light source in comparison to the the subject is not as important as the relative size to the subject.

Soft lighting is used in portraits much more than hard lighting, generally because it's more flattering and appealing, so you want to get your source relatively as large as possible, and this means moving the light source in closer, or getting a much larger light source. That's why I use bounce, shoot through umbrellas and large scrims and fill cards so much.

To achieve good soft lighting, you have to keep in mind that it is the relative size, not the actual physical size of the source, that is critical.

Another Award

2008-11-24T17:39:00.001-08:00

Corydon Style, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I'm pleased to announce that this image will be gracing the pages of the new Destination Winnipeg calendar.
Destination Winnipeg is a business group that promotes the city as a tourism and business hotspot.
For those of you keeping count, as I am, that's two wins in as many weeks. I'm very excited.

One light, many uses

2008-11-22T21:51:00.001-08:00

Easy Portraiture, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I had to travel for work again this week, this time to Toronto.
I had a chance to meet up with a peer there who used to work in my office and transferred. She's been watching my photography since I started, and we kept on talking about if/when I go to Toronto, we'll have to try to connect and take some photos of her and her daughters.
Since I was going there for work, I couldn't really drag all my strobist stuff along. I took my small camera, a couple lenses, and one hotshoe flash.
The great thing about good flashguns though, is you can swivel the head around, and use all kinds of neat things as reflectors, in this case, a nice big white wall in Tanya's apartment. I turned the flash head 90 degrees to bounce it off one white wall, and because the space was fairly small, I got the added bonus of additional light coming back from the opposite wall to act as a fill.
Lacking a background, I simply had Tanya seated on the floor and shot down and used the parquet flooring as a background, plus since the light from the flash fell off going back, it gave me a nice shadowless gradient background, with soft loop lighting on the subjects.
What does this mean? Well, simply put, you don't always need a big complex multi-light setup to get good results, in fact, a single light can often fit the bill quite nicely. It's all about just getting a good setup and good directional lighting.

Contest Winner

2008-11-19T08:14:00.001-08:00

Hecla: Ansel Adamized, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Hello to all!
One of my recently edited photos has won a position is a gallery showing!
Every year, the wpgphoto.com club hosts a 'best of Manitoba' contest with a gallery showing at Photo Central. I submitted this image, as well as a couple others, and this one has made the showing!
Horray! My first Gallery showing!
The showing is open to everyone, as well as my image, there are 39 other fantastic examples of photographic talent from the Winnipeg area. Last year's show was a huge success, and this year's promises to be even better.
The event particulars are:

Photo Central
499 Notre Dame Avenue
Winnipeg MB
Friday, November 28 2008

I will see you there!

Picasa 3 beta, new feature added

2008-11-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

A new version of Picasa 3 beta came down the pipe a couple weeks ago, and a sweet new feature has been added for those of us who like to make step by step tutorials...instantly editable screenshots.
It works like this, all you have to do is have Picasa running, and when you press the print screen button, it captures the entire screen, writes it as a jpg within your My Pictures folder, and adds it to a set in Picasa. From there you can crop it, edit it, do whatever Picasa normally lets you do to a photo, and it's just a little bit easier than trying to fuddle the image into some other program. Slick and simple, just how I like my applications to be.
Yay, Picasa!

Winnipeg Strobist Facebook Icon

2008-11-12T09:34:00.001-08:00

Proof of concept two, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I was searching around facebook for Canadian Strobist groups, Toronto has one, Montreal has one, but Winnipeg simply did not.
I got on the email to a couple fellow wpgphoto.com members and announced my dismay, and volunteered to create the group, adding them as officers and admins.

That was the easy part, the hard part was coming up with a suitable image to represent the group.

Since it's all about small, off camera hotshoe flashes, I decided to use one of the many I bought off ebay as a subject, and I wanted to mimic the other shots I've been doing as late (blatantly copied off DIYPhotography.net) but the flash is black, so it wouldn't work so well on a dark background.

I wanted something a little more exciting that a white background too, so I just substituted and used a little creativity.

Rather than a black background gelled, I simply used the white wall in my basement.

Rather than just black fabric under the plexiglass, I put some nice silver mylar to add a little extra light to the bottom surfaces, and I moved the reflector card in really close, just out of camera frame in fact.

Also, I stacked two blue gels on the gridded light behind the setup, and imagine my surprise when I got this weird 2 tone effect going on, not just gradient blue, but there's actually 2 tones of blue going on here, which is an extra cool bonus! Not really sure why, but I think I'm going to have to play with that a bit..

The result made me say 'cool', and it's up as the group image for the Winnipeg Strobist group on Facebook.

Great Lighting for small objects

2008-11-09T14:12:00.001-08:00

Gort, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Over at diyPhotography.net they've perfected this neat method of lighting small objects and giving a cool gradient background by using two hot shoe flashes and a reflector.

Since I'm always on the lookout for a good product shot setup, I went ahead and duplicated the process and did a few experiments of my own.

This shot of a small toy robot, Gort from the motion picture 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', was my subject for the first series of test shots.

Eventually, I switched out the background from this nasty 'needs to be ironed' sheet to a bit of black foamcore, and wound up with a nice smooth background.

The lighting rig is pretty simple.

Set your table up with a bit of plexiglass on top of a black fabric surface to give that nice black shiny surface.
A single light provides the key, and fill is simply provided by a white chunk of foamcore used as a reflector, all nice and close to the subject.
A second light, jelled and gridded is fired up from the bottom towards the background, providing a nice gradient background color on the otherwise black backdrop.>Easy, peasy, actually. I love simple effective setups.

Once again, for more examples of how to do this and tons of other good ideas, go to www.DIYPhotography.net.

Shooting Fashion

2008-10-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Photography takes you places.

For me, I've recently found it's taken me into the world of the local fashion scene, and no one is more surprised than I am about that fact.

Last night I had the opportunity to shoot a fashion show at the Graffiti Gallery in downtown Winnipeg in front of a sold out crowd, probably close to 200 people.

Shooting a show like this has some decided benefits. Not least of which to a photographer is that the models are relatively well lit, or at least lit as well as they would be in your average living room. This of course translates to you don't actually need flash to shoot them, if your lens is fast enough.

Enter my f1.4 50mm lens and my kit lens once again.

At f3.5, the kit lens is okay for getting nice wide shots like this with ambient light, where there may be some motion, but not a model you're trying to freeze as she struts the runway, or in this case, the Catwalk. As with any event, you want some encompassing shots like this to set the scene for your photos, establish a location, and this location is pretty cool.

But for the real show, it was all the 50mm's job. Running between f1.4 and f2.8 (to mimic other longer lenses so I could get a feel for the speed) the lens really shone on the catwalk, I was just far enough back that I could full frame the models as they hit the mark and posed, but not too far that they got lost. By far the best thing about using that speed of lens is that I was able to keep the shutter firing, and not wait of a flash to recharge. Had I been working with strobes on this, I would have maybe gotten a single shot of each model in each outfit, and if that didn't work out for whatever reason, it would have been too late, fashion shows run fast, and you have got to be ready with the lens.

The only issue I had was with the location, I had two choices, too high shooting down at the models making them appear short, or too low so that I had to include the catwalk rail in each shot. Deciding that a bit of environment encroaching on my shots was preferable to making my subjects look like muchkins, I opted to shoot through the rails and make it more or less a theme of the images.

Also, this kind of event is a goldmine for networking, you get to meet other shooters as well as designers, hair and make up people, and everyone wants to trade digits. I never really planned on shooting fashion, I just kinda fell into it, but it's a riot, and I enjoy every minute of it.

Wet Cleaning a sensor: Before and After

2008-10-25T09:24:00.000-07:00

If you change lenses, and you probably do, eventually, nasty little bits of dust are going to get on your sensor's hot mirror.

There's various ways of cleaning it, you can use a blower bulb, this works great if the area you are in is really dry and the dust just puffs off.

You can use a dry brush, which is what I do most of the time, and this will handle most of your sensor crud.

But every once in a while, a bit of dust attaches itself, decides it really likes life on your sensor, and sets up housekeeping. No amount of dry brushing or air puffing will remove it.

I've had some people tell me to use canned air, as long as you don't shake it or tip it, none of the propellant will come out and it works better than a blower bulb. Let me just say that this is a very bad idea, so bad in fact most camera manuals warn against it and go on to say 'this is not covered by warranty'

There are two good options left, a professional wet cleaning at a camera store once for about 75 bucks, or getting a good quality set of wet cleaning swabs and fluid and doing it yourself, about a dozen times, for about 60 bucks.

Well, with two cameras and lots of shoots going on, economics kicked me in the butt and I went out a full week ago and got the wet cleaning products from Visible Dust, and it's taken me this long to work up the courage to use them.

***WARNING***
I'm going to point out the obvious, if you're planning on doing this and don't like reading or following instructions, you stand a chance of damaging your camera. This may not seem like such a big deal if you're the kind of photographer who still lives at home and has your parents or grandparents foot the bill for your gear, but if you're responsible for your own stuff, take the few minutes, read the instructions, watch the videos, and do it Exactly As Instructed!

So, after reading the instructions for about the tenth time to ensure I really, really understood what they said, I took it upon myself to clean the sensor in my backup camera, my little K110D which seems to attract dust like bacon attracts household pets.

Before I got going I used my dry cleaning system and then took a before image. I used my standard method, I set the camera to F11 and shot at a blank white wall while moving the camera, to ensure any spots were on the sensor, not on the wall. I then heavily processed the image, pushing the contrast all the way up so that the dust is very, very visible. To really make it easy, I photoshopped a nice red circle over every bit of dust that could ruin a nice blue sky shot.

BEFORE:
Ouch! 13 spots that could ruin my whole day.

Well, no time like the present, I pulled off the lens, opened up a clean swab and the Visbledust+ cleaning fluid and did what the instructions told me to do. Because I don't want anyone trying this based on any abridged instructions, I'm not going to even mention any of the steps or give any pointers, just follow the instructions.

Once done, I took an after shot, and processed it the same way:
AFTER:
One spot...just one. Wow, what a difference! I could go back and burn off another swab cleaning this again and probably get it, but this is my backup camera, so I'm leaving well enough alone, I can live with one spot of dust. Frankly, when I took my camera in for professional cleaning, I even had one spot as soon as I got it back.

Also, I took a series of shots to check if the fluid had seeped in anywhere, because I have heard of that too, and even after half an hour, there's no evidence whatsoever of damage to the camera.

Now, there are cheaper swabs and fluid out there, I saw one pack for about 30 bucks, but since I had never heard of them, and because they were so cheap, I didn't think I wanted to risk a couple grand worth of cameras to save 20 dollars (Canadian dollars at that, for my US Readers).

Even at the price I paid, it still works out to about 4 dollars a cleaning, which is very inexpensive compared to having a commission shot ruined, or having to spend an hour photoshopping out dust specs on each photo. Consider this, if I regularly cleaned my sensor, say every month, on both cameras, for 50 bucks I could have six months of sparkly clear shots, that's a real bargain!

Obviously, if I don't use my camera so much, say the case of my backup unit, I won't have to clean it as much, but it's a good to know that as I get more and more commissioned work, I can keep up with good images free of nasty dark blobs.

My verdict, Wet cleaning is scary as all get out, but it's worth it. Anyone who's pro, or considering going pro, should learn to do this, and invest in the right gear to do it well.

Digital Workflow: Form Follows Function

2008-10-22T21:27:00.001-07:00

Nice Wares, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Okay, so this particular product may not have much function other than looking great, but generally speaking, most things in life the form does follow function.

Take a hammer for example, despite the fine details of it's use, a hammer will always follow a general design, the head attached to the handle, to provide leverage for the strike.

The same is true for a photographer's digital work flow.

I recently attended a session on digital work flow put on by my local camera club. I picked up a few gems, but overall I got validation that other photographers use almost an exact work flow to me, now that I've gotten comfortable with my tools.

Overall the process goes kind of like this:

Before you shoot, PLAN. if you're just playing around, you may have a loose idea of what kind of shots to get. If you're more serious, make a shot list. If you're getting paid for the images, make sure that shot list is complete along with notes and sketches if possible.

1. Import your images - bring them with whatever process you feel most comfortable with, and this will also depend on what tools you have at your disposal. Some guys, say the guy who was leading the session - Dan (see link-o-rama) simply copy them off the media onto a folder or drive. I'm partial to Lightroom now, so I use it to import. If you just use your camera for family snaps, an organizational tool like Picasa or iPhoto might be all you need to import and organize your images.
Tip: Make sure you name your folders so you can find things later. A good idea is to use the date followed by a description, as in "10-21-2008 Mom's birthday"

2. Cull your images - go through them and flag your top picks. You can use a star system, a color system, or a number system, whatever works for you, but grab those top picks, and make sure you can find them again.
Tip: cull them immediately, then come back a few hours or a few days later. The extra time will give you a fresh perspective.

3. Edit as necessary - if you're a casual shooter, maybe all you want to do is crop and white balance. If you're a super photoshopper, maybe you want to heavily modify every image. The bottom line is Editing should be done once your top images are chosen, so you don't spend all day editing photos you don't even like.
Tip: you don't have to heavily edit every image you like, sometimes, just a little bump in the saturation and contrast is all you need.

4. Save and back up those images. Keep them separate from your originals or digital negatives, so that you can go back to the original later if you need to, but you want them saved. Another thing you really want is for them to be backed up. My other life is in Information Technology, and there's no such thing as too many backups, so besides saving them to the internal drive, also save them to CD/DVD and another hard drive. If you don't have a spare hard drive, go out and get one right now! Don't worry about me I'll wait...
Okay, now that you have an external drive, copy your photos (and other important information) to it, and update this every month. Remember, the external drive is your back up, not your source, so don't delete the ones from your drive just yet. Back those up to CD/DVD, then make copies of those and get them out of your house.
Tip: The 3 most important rules of computers are: Backup, Backup, Backup!

5. Back up those photos. Seriously, you need to back them up, they can't be easily replaced, so go get backing up!

Okay, with all that said, those are the 4 basic steps of the digital workflow, each one can be broken down and customized to suit your personal tastes, but from 10000 feet, your workflow should mimic this to one degree or another.

...Oh, did I mention how important backing up data is? I did? Oh good, you can never be too careful.

Shooting Public Events - when to, and when not to use strobe

2008-10-13T07:27:00.001-07:00

Raven, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I spent the weekend shooting a public event, the annual Manitoba Comic and Sci-Fi convention, and tested out a lot of theory. With great joy, I can say all my ideas worked out well.

Conventions like this are loaded with cameras, everyone's got one, and there's lots of photo opportunities, so as a sanctioned photographer of the event, how do you make yours stand out?

Use flash when you've got special access to special areas, and set up to make sure it's done well.
Keep in mind that as a sanctioned shooter you have access to places other people don't, exploit those privileges to your advantage. When the costume contest was going on, for example, flash photography for the event viewers was forbidden, but I on the other hand was behind the scenes with my strobes and wireless triggers set up, I would catch each contestant as they came off stage, pose them up or just let them have some fun in costume, and fire off about four or five shots before the next contestant was done. The result was that I had nice well lit dramatic shots of the contestants without the hubub of lots of other shooters crowding around me.

Take lots of candid shots that no one else thinks of without using flash.
This fact that you have special access leads to the next concept, since you can get the shots no one else gets, the rest of the time get the shots no one else is thinking about. Outside of the contest, I didn't use flash, ever, and despite the fact that I was using a fairly slow lens, I still got lots and lots of candid shots, while the rest of the visitors were busy waylaying anyone in costume and shooting them with on camera flash. What I actually found myself shooting a lot of was people taking pictures, how's that for juxtaposition? Anyway, the fact is while everyone else is trying to take photos of the costumes and whatnot, you have lots of subjects for candid shots, the little girl dressed as wonder woman who's whooshing around her balloon, the artist basking in the warm feeling that comes from having complimenting fans, the vendor who's just unpacked a ton of product and is taking a couple moments to regroup his thoughts, or the patient spouse standing to the side while the significant other is meeting a celebrity, or the example below is a shot of one of the volunteers in full costume making his way to the main doors before opening. Those are the images that will set you apart from the general photos from the thousands of other cameras.

I got a little confirmation that my approach was the right one when the convention made the front page of both of the city's newspapers, and the shots they published looked a lot like the ones I was turning out, a whole lot like mine...in fact I think the shooter from the Sun and I were cut from the same cloth, because even though we never ran into each other, the shots published in the paper were almost identical in composition and theme to four of the images in the set I am handing over to the convention organizers. How do you know I wasn't the cheater? Well, partly because when the paper came out, the people in a couple shots were not there the second day, so I didn't have the chance to go ape the paper's shots.

There are a few things I would have preferred, of course, I would have preferred a faster zoom lens, which is why I'm saving my pennies for a couple nice 2.8 lenses, and next year I'm making sure I actually have more visible ID, a Convention Staff shirt and business cards worked, but a highly visible pass or a shirt distinguishing me as a pro shooter would have cut down on the whole 'no, I'm not just some creepy guy with a camera' conversations, although I did managed to turn most of those into a marketing opportunity.

This was my second sanctioned event shoot, and it went very well. I got the cool 'official photographer only' shots and lots of candid photojournalist style shots that tell the story of the weekend. Everyone is happy!

The big event!

2008-10-11T22:05:00.000-07:00

The crowd goes wild!
Spent the entire day shooting at the Comic convention, amassed about a thousand images so far, got another day to shoot tomorrow.
My feet hurt, but my new SDHC cards are great!
I've used some of the things I learned about shooting with just ambient light, and combined that with my strobist techniques to really get some fun shots!
Yay! Bedtime now!

Gearing up

2008-10-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

I have a couple large events coming up, one very large this weekend, so I'm preparing my equipment. One thing about event shooting is that you can never be too prepared. Being ready is key.

Here's how I get ready:

2 weeks before:
Yes, 2 weeks, that way if something is amiss, there's time to get it repaired or replaced...

Make a list of all equipment you will need and prepare a contingency plan if something is not working right.
Verify main and backup camera bodies work.
check each lens you plan to use for proper function and ensure that all filters and optical surfaces are clean and dust free.
Verify all flashes and triggers are working correctly.
Check sensors for dust and clean if needed.
Check batteries to see they are still holding charges.
Verify location and schedule with client.

The Week before:

Double check everything on the 2 week list.
Verify that all documents you may need are printed and readily at hand. Pack these in your road kit.
Pack heavier gear (lighting) if applicable and ensure you have room on your Laptop/external drives for images.
Pre-format all your cards and ensure they are working correctly.
Charge all your batteries again.
Double check the location, scout for any recent changes.
Verify times with client, again.

Day before:

Check sensors and optics again.
Check both camera bodies for proper function again.
Neutralize cameras (that is, set them to the default settings you normally shoot with)
Format cards again
Ensure all batteries are fully charged
Pack all gear and verify all equipment is where it should be.
Double check list of gear.
Double check documents
Verify with client, one more time..
Plan your time well to ensure you get a good night's sleep.

Day of Shoot:

Arrive early
Have fun
get great shots...

Obviously, this is the ideal way of doing it, sometimes you simply don't get that much warning, but most major events are planned well in advance, and you are usually booked months, if not a year before hand.

New Website and the other, other blog!

2008-10-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been a busy little camper, haven't I?

I finally got my website off the ground, and I've created another blog to use as a news section for said website.

Now, let me clarify, the two blogs will be linked together, but the new blog exists to handle news and events for tedsaliphoto, while this page is, and will remain the more blog I keep by a photographer for photographers.

So, now you get to choose, you can come here for the technical stuff, or you can jump over to the other blog for event news!

Or is the other blog 'the' blog and this blog is 'the other' blog?

It doesn't matter, the fact is that the Phantom Hack photo blog isn't going anywhere, it just has a fun new sibling. Be sure to check it out!

Now, about the website itself, Yes, I finally put up a commercial type website. It's a pretty fancy looking place hosted by Bludomain, which are well renowned for their excellent service, uptime, and killer templates. There was a slight hiccup in the launch, that being that Blu doesn't register .ca domains, so I had to manually do that, and they still have to get the whole .com thing forwarded, but it's all coming along, nicely. I still have some work to do on the galleries, and obviously I need to expand my portfolio even more, however it looks good, slick and professional.

I chose this particular template because it had two things that would have been horrendous to try to do myself, a live calendar, and the client proofing section. Those two tools alone made everything worthwhile, and the rest is rich, dark gravy.

So, the new website, and the blog both go on the permanent link list. Check them out, I'll be updating as often as I can, so things will change.

Cheers!

Going Faster

2008-09-28T07:44:00.001-07:00

f1.4 lens test, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Recognizing the need for faster glass to really pursue more light control, I picked up a nice little Pentax 50mm f1.4 prime last night.
Faster lenses like this are fantastic for low light shooting, I played with it a bit in my home on my poor family, and was able to take nice, bright shots with just ambient light, but by far the best demonstration of it's ability to gather light was this image.
Sure, I cranked the ISO all the way up to 1600, but it was effectively already dark, with my unaided eye I couldn't see this much light in the sky, but the camera was able to snag it with this lens, and it did so in 1/20 of a second.
Looking forward, there's a couple other lenses I want to pick up so I can expand my low light range. I think the Tamron 28-75 will be my next purchase, but as anyone in the photography business knows, faster glass costs more money.
So, it'll be a while before I get my next lens, I have to fritter away some money without killing the family budget.

Here's another sample from last night, converted to High Contrast Black and white, with all the noise left in from shooting at 1600. The only light for this shot came from my lights on my deck and the lights on the school behind Kim. Notice that at 1.4 she even got a little hair halo going on from the lights behind her.

Lightroom

2008-09-26T06:20:00.001-07:00

The Wild One, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

We've all heard wonderful things about lightroom, and I've tried it before, but just couldn't get the idea of how it fit into the workflow.
Sure there's lots of tips and tricks out there about how to do individual tasks, but unless someone really explains the workflow to you, or demonstrates it, it's pretty difficult to see how it will improve your performance.
I was lucky enough this week to get exactly that, an effective demo of the product, which prompted me to try a little experiment of my own.
I popped the camera into simple JPG mode, and turned on the drive.
I hammered out about 200 images of the little ones playing in the back yard, running, goofing off, the works. I thought that would give me a good basis to start with.
The work flow now goes like this:

Step one: Import the images.

Lightroom will import them directly from your card in almost any format, and adds a couple nice options. It will rename the files on the way in, which is nice, as it removes a step in my normal workflow of using a renaming tool. It will also make a backup copy to an external or network drive while it does this, which is really exceptional because it eliminates yet another step from the process.
Also, while importing them, you can select a default development, say you want to bump the contrast and vibrance a little bit, grab one of your presets and do just that. This does not impact the original files, Lightroom instead creates virtual copies of each file to work off, and this means your RAW, JPG or DNG originals are still perfectly intact, in fact, they stay that way through the whole process.

Step Two: Organize and rate your photos
While in library mode, go through the images and rate them from one to five stars using the number keys. Fives are your hot images, fours and threes are keepers, twos and ones are the unusable images.

Step three: Filter the photos
Using the rating filter, grab your photos at whatever level you wish, most obviously the 5 star ones. Now you're only working with the pick of your litter.

Step four: Develop them
Into the develop tool, you can select individual or all images and do some nice little adjustments. Here's where things get really cool...
If you select all the photos, you still only work on the one on screen at a time. Once you get the look you want for the image on screen, if you want to apply those effects to all the photos you've filtered out, simply hit the Syncronize button at the bottom of the develop pane, and it will apply the same settings to all the images. Boom, processed...

Step five: Custom effects
This is purely optional, you can now go through the images and do other changes to images on a one-off basis. This particular shot, for example, I cropped and ran a high contrast BW process on, which gave a cool effect. If you check my flickr stream, you'll see about 5 more images that all had a different process applied, using the process described in step 4

Step six: Export and save.
Enough said, you want to save the work, this way it's ready to go. Again, you can choose the export folder and even rename the images again.

Seems easy doesn't it? Actually, it really is that easy. I spent more time taking these shots last night than I did processing them, which is a nice change of pace from my usual routine.

Lightroom, now that I actually know how to use it effectively, will become part of my permanent arsenal. I can see it's value at events and large volume events. Of course, you can still open any image in the library directly into photoshop at any time, so for those photos that really deserve some treatment, it's easy to get back to the heavy artillery provided by CS3.

So there you go, if you're kind of fumbling with lightroom not knowing exactly how to get it flowing, that's the process overview.

Enjoy!

Last day of Summer

2008-09-21T21:50:00.001-07:00

Christy Portraits, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Sigh...another summer wans...
On the upside of things, now fall colours will start to come out with a vengance.
I just have to make sure I get out and really shoot them this year. The trick is, since I'm not all that for just plain old landscapes, I have to find something with colors, and a spiffy subject focal point.
I'm sure I'll locate some things....

Speaking of some fall colors, I was shooting these portraits for a friend of mine today, and I wanted to get some of the foliage behind her that had already begun to change. Solution, simply light the background separately. I used a single light to light my lovely subject here, and softened it with an umbrella, like I always tend to do. But for the background, I threw a second strobe onto that bare, and it lit up the foliage for a short distance, falling off as it got closer to her face, which is actually kind of a neat effect.

Oh ya, one last thing, I'll be launching my full on 'here I am' website on October 1, so I'll be linking into that as well. I'll have a full post just about that once it's up.

Tick... Tock... Tick.... Tock...

Picasa 3 Beta: What's New?

2008-09-13T21:40:00.001-07:00

A Month of shooting..., originally uploaded by ted.sali.

The market is filled with software packages that help people manage photos, it seems like there's a different one for every camera on the market. When I first saw Google's (FREE!) Picasa, I was pretty skeptical, but I tried it out on a friend's recommendation none the less, and found that I quickly fell in love with it. Version 2 was even better, and this week I noticed that a beta of Version 3 was available.

I'm not normally the type to try betas right away, but I needed something to work with my raw images quick and dirty while I was on the road (see my last post) and decided to grab the Beta of V3.

Let me point out that I do use Photoshop for all my editing, however I do use Picasa to import, manage, and archive my photo collections because it is lightweight, efficient and easy to use. I also recommend it to people who need something simple to use for managing photos, and the deal is usually done when they realize the ease of burning photos using the 'make a gift CD' button.

The new beta of Picasa 3 looks like it'll be a fine replacement for the aging V2, with a host of new features and integrations that will allow me to do even more day to day image tasks with it.
Here's some of the improvements:

A text feature has been added to the edit area. This allow you to put text easily into a photo, adjust it's size, color, outline and rotate it, a task that many simple management tools simply lack.

A retouch tool has been added: a simple cloning tool that allows you to remove unwanted overhead power lines, blemishes on skin, or if you really want to work with it, family members from your photos. It's no where near as powerful as Elements, but it adds the ability for basic users, a feature that will probably be well used.

The Collage tool has been overhauled and upgraded significantly, allowing you to really work with the collages. Also, more options for the collage have been added, and you can control individual image locations, sizes and angles in the photo pile mode. They've added a collage frame mode that'll be particularly useful to those crafty and scrapbook types, now you can create a single photo for print that has your favorite image in the center, surrounded by as many other snippet photos as you would like.

Photo Slideshow Movie tool added. This tool is very similar in function to Microsoft's Photo Story, with some differences. It will pan and scan photos in the slideshow, however it will only use a single transition through the entire show, you cannot control the transitions image by image. It will also embed audio, and has a nice feature that will match the length of the show to the length of the song you choose, let's hope not too many people decide to use Paradise by the Dashboard Lights.

Instant image viewer added: This does what Microsoft Image viewer leaves off, and does it very well. You can simply click on any image file in any folder, and the viewer immediately launches, dimming the rest of the screen and putting the image front and center. Any other images in the folder appear as scrolling icons along the bottom, and you can flip through them with ease. The scroll button on your mouse works as a magnifier, and to pan around in a zoomed up image, you simply click and drag with the mouse. Escape closes it in the blink of an eye.

MIA: The timeline button is gone, but the tool is still there. You can now find it under the View menu.

Create Poster: a new tool that allows you to scale up an image up from 200-1000% larger, then chops it up to print out on individual pages for you to tape or glue back together later. Ever want a life size poster of your favorite celebrity? Now you can make one at home quick and easy.

Filtering: you can now click a single button and narrow all your photos down to only ones with faces in them, so finding that photo of the cute chick from the beach will be way faster, errr...I mean finding the photos of your girlfriend, right?
Also, a nice slider for narrowing the date range displayed is available, as is a button for only showing starred photos or movies only.

I could keep going on, but overall my first impression of the new version is good. Like it's predecessors, it's going to be an excellent tool for those who are not really image management savvy, and want to do some simple creative tricks with their photos. It's still small and nimble, and can handle huge numbers of images without a sweat on even an older machine. If you're already a Picasa user, or you're looking for a nice simple system to keep your images in check, Picasa 3 looks like it's going to really be a good product for you.

Try it yourself, download it here.

Oh yeah, it's still free.

Work trips are no fun for Photographers...

2008-09-13T20:46:00.001-07:00

Empire State Building, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

If you're like me and have a day job, sometimes you get to travel for work to great photographic locations. That's the good news.
The bad news is, you're there to work, and you usually don't get a moment to take any decent photos, which makes me sad.
However, there's yet another silver lining to this story, which is that you get a little exposure to the locations, and get an idea of the scale and scope of the location.
This particular shot, for example, was simply taken out of the top floor window of my firm's Harmon Meadows Plaza office with my inexpensive 55-200mm lens @ 200mm. The empire state building is miles away, and the sheer size of the thing even at that distance is something that a photo simply cannot convey.
Also learned on this trip was the fact that I had some really strong misconceptions about the city and it's inhabitants. I'm partial to smaller towns and cities, and I have been quoted as saying 'why would anyone want to go to a crowded nasty place like that?'
Well, for anyone thinking about going but not so sure about it, there are about 45 million reasons to go see the city, I'm talking about the people.
Sure, you run into less than great people anywhere, but I'm guessing I interacted with about 50-100 people in my two days there, and one and only one was the stereotypical 'New York Hustler' type, and he was just a cabbie looking to fleece an out of towner for a few extra bucks.
Everyone else I met and interacted with were wonderful people, friendly, helpful, informative, intelligent, quick to laugh or with a joke, just good people. In particular, the 6 people I was in a room with for 2 full days were outstanding, and they alone made the trip worthwhile, and increased my odds of returning to really absorb the city by tenfold.
After my initial shock of arrival, I settled into it and really began to enjoy myself, and I now honestly want to go back there for a few days and shoot the place, the people and see the sights.
My thanks to Antonio, Richard, Patel, Toby, Beatrice and Ken. You guys completely won me over, and I really do love New York.

First blurry shaky photos proove I've made it to New York

2008-09-09T19:13:00.001-07:00

Manhattan, or at least what I can see of it, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

The turkey has landed...in New York. New Jersey to be precise, I arrived after sunset and I was tired, zombied from traveling all day, and totally disorientated by the time I got to my hotel.
Once I relaxed for a bit, I realized my room was facing exactly the wrong way for me to see anything cool, so I took a walk towards the Turnpike, figuring I could maybe see something...
Nope, big line of trees, that's all..
Then I spotted my last hope, a 4 story parkade. After climbing the stairs, my first impression was DAMMIT, I can't see squat...
but then I came around the stairwell, and BEHOLD! My first shaky grainy photo of the empire state building!
This has about as much artistic merit as a brick, but it's functional, it proves that yes, I am in New York baby, and I even had a run in with a crappy cabbie to prove it.

Museums: How I love/lothe them!

2008-09-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

Avrocar 1, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Few things have interested me my whole life, it's a short and distinguished list.
Two things that are tops on that list are Aircraft and Museums, yep, I was one of them nerdy kids that loved going to museums.
To that end, yesterday I took the boys to the Western Canadian Aviation Museum here in Winnipeg. I've been here for 6 years now, and this was the first time we went, partly because it's on the other side of the city, and partly because I didn't even know about it.
I was really up to the visit myself, because I checked out the website Friday evening, and found out they had an Avrocar on display, not a replica, the real thing.
If you've never heard of the Avrocar, a bit of history. Avro Aircraft was a cutting edge developer of commercial and military aircraft in the 1950's. The organization became legendary with the development of the Arrow, a supersonic fighter aircraft that would have set the standards until late in the 1980's to early 1990's. The aircraft was fully developed in Canada, but became part of a political snafu and was not only canceled, but ordered destroyed. Of the handful of aircraft completed, the legend says one was spirited away hidden by someone internally.
Anyway, the company also developed the Avrocar for the US military, it was a flying saucer, no kidding, that seated two and was capable of vertical take off, hovering, lateral movement in all directions, etc, similar to the designs of some of the newer unmanned robotic scouts, only much larger. Eventually canceled as impractical as well, it's a really cool looking aircraft, and only a few were ever built and flown.
Having only ever seen photos of the craft, I was very exited to get close to one and take photos of it.
That's why I love museums, they have cool stuff like this that you'll never see anywhere else.

On the other hand....
We got to the Museum and found the Avrocar within minutes. There it was, in all it's glory, sitting squat on the floor tucked under the wing of a commercial airliner from the 1940's. Directly under the wing, with about 4 feet of clearance around it....
Roped off...
in shadow...
Which brings me to the lothe part of museums, which is a fact the world over, with the huge collections they have, everything is jammed into small spaces, protected from the public by ropes, barriers, glass and lexan walls, lit poorly, and just generally the worst possible locations for photographers to shoot.
The simple fact is that unless I go back and get permission to cross the ropes, and set up some artificial lights, which would probably be fairly easy to do, there is no way to get a decent photo of the whole Avrocar the way it is on display now.

The third part of the story
I've been to a few aviation museums, some better than others, and I have to say that this one has a pretty good collection. Sure, it's crammed in hard, they lack the legendary Lancaster Bomber which was so prevelant in Alberta museums and an aircraft I am also quite fond of, but the collection is large.
Also, it's family friendly, very much so. We spent 3 full hours there, with a 3 year old, and he didn't want to leave. This is because of a section called Skyways, the kid's interactive area. It's large, has a good collection of fun things for kids to play in and on, and is located right next to the observation deck which is filled with large comfy chairs and has a view of the local International Airport. this means the kids can tear loose in Skyways, and those of us who are not so much into just hanging out in the play area can kick back on an overstuffed armchair and watch the activity on the runway through huge windows.

In the final analysis, I know I'll be back to this museum. It's beautiful, the collection is great and well cared for, and I'm pretty sure that they would give me permission to go in and strobe up some of the collection. It's got great facilities for families, and the volunteers and staff love what they do. If you have kids that are fascinated by aircraft, be it jet fighters, flying saucers, old prop driven bush planes, or whatever, this museum is worth the pittance they charge for admission several times over. If you're a photographer, they welcome you as they love having the collection shot, but without special arrangements, you'll leave a little cranky about the way things are laid out. I'm sure, though, that with a couple phone calls, an offer of free prints of the better shots for their archives, and some good relation building, special permission to go behind the ropes and set up artificial lights would be easily granted.
Heck, I'm going to suggest this to the local photo clubs, maybe we'll make a night out of it...

Ready for the client

2008-09-01T20:09:00.001-07:00

Last samples, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Well, I got to work today and finished the edits on the images for the client.
Paring the session down from nearly 400 images to a scant 130 images to begin with, then to edit the levels, exposure, crop, heal small problems, etc... Whew, I'm done.
The good news is, the images are ready to burn to disc for the client, less than 5 business day turn around, that's what I wanted to get to and maintain.
Also, I hope everyone had a great Labour Day weekend. The weather here was cold and rainy, so I didn't miss much editing photos all day.

Fun Stuff!

2008-08-29T22:07:00.001-07:00

Nom...nom...nom..., originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Oh Ya!
This image got selected as Photo of the Day on CBC Radio3 for Friday, August 29 2008.

This is not a paying image, but it means that I get some recognition and my name out there. The timing is perfect as I'm going to be launching my website very soon, and this will add some more legitimacy to my work.

Permalink here.

Also, in October I will be shooting the entire long weekend at the Manitoba Comic And Sci-Fi convention. I'll be out on the floor, shooting candids, costumes, vendors and flogging my stuff.

So, I'm going to try to drum up as much business as possible, and shamelessly flog the convention here.

See you at the event.

Bite into Professional work

2008-08-28T08:58:00.001-07:00

H&M Samples, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Paying Gig #3: Fantasy hair and make up.

I've done a couple promo stuff for the folks at Splurge Beauty (www.splurgebeauty.com) and I got a callback to do a session last night for a fantasy Hair and Make up session that one of the artists did with his team. With my good friend and trusty cohort Theo to assist me, the van got loaded up and off we went for a 4 hour shooting session.

I was not the only photographer there, and I have to admit the work the other guy was doing was fantastic. He said the same about some of my work, so it's really a great thing to collaborate with another shooter.

The project was to get website material for the launch of a new group and service who specialize in this kind of high end aesthetics. I got to work with the models themselves, as well as some portrait stuff of all the members of the team in a more urban setting to try to bring out the eclectic spirit of the group.

They like working with me, and they'll be keeping me in their stable of shooters for events they contract to. Yay for networking!

Now, I have some 400 images to cull through and process for the client.

Got Fog?

2008-08-25T22:18:00.001-07:00

Round and Round, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

This shot of the stars at Spruce Woods Provincial Park was nearly obliterated by lens fogging, I was lucky it turned out as well as it did.
To that end, Theo and I have been looking at ways to keep the lenses from fogging as the weather turns cooler.
The two most common methods we have heard about are small fans and hand warming packs.
The small fans idea sounds like it takes a lot of rigging, and the hand warmers are usually only out in stores in the winter.
So, this weekend while looking for hand warmers, with no luck again, I suddenly had an epiphany.
Thermacare wraps.
Yep, those little strappy/tensor/velcro things for sore muscles would do the trick quite nicely, and they come with built in tensor bands and velcro, excellent for strapping to your lens to keep it all nice and toasty.
The bad news is, I then promptly forgot all about it for a couple days, and while out on the deck watching the evening dew form on my hand rails, it suddenly reminded me of the thought.
A quick phone call later, and Theo is also clued in, and now thanks to the magic of technology, you're all in the loop.
Up to 8 hours of relief, sounds like a plan to me...

On Line

2008-08-25T10:15:00.001-07:00

On Line, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I am on line, I really am, I just haven't posted in a while.

You'll have to excuse me, it was my first week back to my day job after two glorious weeks off, and things have been a little, well, busy.

The good news is I've got some things on the go for the next week. I get to do another shoot with Splurge on Wed Night, and there's a couple events coming up this weekend I'll be poking around at.

Interesting side story, really relates to the business side of photography. I've been working on my price listing for a while, and like so many others, I under-value my work. I had a seasoned pro look at my prices, and he advised me to 'double them, at least'.

I flinched on doubling, but after a long discussion with him, I did raise the numbers substantially.

So, when I did roll out and speak to a client with my new prices in hand, I was really sweaty and nervous when the issue of price came up. They looked at my work, liked it, and when I handed them the price on my list, they glanced and said 'okay, that looks good...'

That's it? No haggling? No sticker shock?

Apparently, other people place more value on my skills than I do. I really have to work on that.

Things I need but never thought of...

2008-08-16T09:37:00.001-07:00

Meep! Meep!, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Shooting a car show at dusk is fun, I use my strobes and get some cool effects.
However, I discovered I need a bogus plate.
I think I'll get one of those novelty ones done up with must my name on it and get a couple magnetic strip stickers, then I can simply pop it on over the car's real plate, shoot my shots, and take it off with no fuss, no muss.
It'll be a simple solution that will work well, and a damn sight better than this Pshop blurring I had to use.

Union Station

2008-08-12T21:20:00.001-07:00

Union Station, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Holiday update: it was raining all day, so shooting outside was, well, it wasn't very probable.
Headed downtown to Union Station, a beautiful historic active train station with a museum inside. Spent two hours there.
Tomorrow is going to be spent with the kids at the Children's museum which is filled with tons of fun stuff for kiddies.

They have no idea.

Bwaaaaa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Back to the Desert

2008-08-10T11:11:00.001-07:00

Desert witness, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Took the family out camping to Spruce Woods this week.
Part of the reason for that particular location was a return to the Spirit Sands Desert.
Now, as I've said before, I'm not much of a Landscape guy, so why would I travel 170 KM to shoot in the desert?
Well, first of all, the desert was only part of the reason, the Provincial park is perfect for families. The campsites are clean, the beach is well cared for and shallow which is great for my little goons, there's a ton of stuff to do there, and it's far enough out that the weekend rowdies tend to not make the trip.
Back to shooting in the desert, and my thing about landscapes...
A landscape, as I said before, can act as a fantastic backdrop for your real subject, and it does not even have to be in focus, like in this shot for example. The sun was just setting, giving the orange colors, and I laid down on my belly, risking sand in all my favorite bits, and shot this single tiny sunflower.
I would have preferred a human subject, but oh well...
The point is that you can do different things with a landscape than just shoot the landscape. Certainly, background is important to any subject, but using the natural environment makes any photo more dramatic.
Of course, I'm not the first person to say this, there's many articles about using landscapes as a backdrop, and I'm just finally starting to do this kind of thing naturally, instead of having to sit there and try to think about it.
I didn't take a lot of photos out there, most of the time was actually spent with the wife and kidlets enjoying the park. Kind of glad I did that too, the kids had an excellent time of it, and can't wait till we go back next year.
The summer camping trip is starting to become as big a deal as Christmas to this clan. I'm glad of that.

Ya, it's cliche

2008-08-05T18:19:00.001-07:00

Sunflowers II, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Ya, I know it's a cliche, but a field of sunflowers just begs to be shot, especially when there are nice fluffy clouds and deep morning skies.
Not so much a contributing post, more just a 'ohhhh! Pretty!' type of post.

Also, today I took the kids to the zoo, and intentionally left the camera at home. We had a great time, and I got no photos.

Sometimes, you just gotta go watch the monkies at the zoo with the kids, you know?

Corydon Style

2008-08-04T12:40:00.001-07:00

Corydon Style, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I'm on holidays for the next two weeks from my day job.
Yay!
So, I'm planning to take advantage of the situation and get out and shoot more of the city, and some of the wonderful sights available.
Shot this little image last night, Corydon Ave here in Winnipeg. Corydon Ave is similar to any market street in any major city, lots of little art shops, bistros, cafes, clubs, salons, etc. It's open late, so there's always activity, and it brings out the cruisers, rodders, modders and racers.
Also, photographers....
My buddy Theo and I parked the van and on the very first block I saw this beautiful old Impala lit by streetlamps and cafe windows. I got down on the curb and shot this handheld, and then chilled the image in photoshop turning the whites white again, while keeping the vibrance of the street behind it.
This was almost exactly the shot I was looking for, the hot car, the busy sidewalk with motion, the active street beyond, almost exactly what I was looking for to submit as a local calendar entry.
Oh, I'll probably head down again and see if I can get something even more descriptive, when you have a location this active, things continually change, and there's always another opportunity to shoot.
Yay for Holidays.

Bubble Planets

2008-08-02T14:24:00.001-07:00

Bubble Surface, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Inspired by an article in Creative Review, I decided on this rainy Saturday afternoon to try my hand at shooting bubbles to capture the surface elements.

Not as easy as it looks.

First of all, I don't have the awesome studio the original artist has, and secondly, well, it's just plain hard to do, lighting is difficult, the subject is fragile and tiny, and there's a million things that can go wrong.

We set up a black plate full of bubble fluid in the light tent, a couple CF daylight bulbs provided the light, and we used a combination of my Tamron 28-200 lens and my MacGuyver macro lens, that is a 50mm stuck on macro tubes. The macro tube rig works well, the problem is getting in close enough to the bubble to focus.
Using the Tamron at about 135mm, we got good results, but we were too far back to really get that super detail that the macro rig provides.

The solution, of course, is an expensive 100mm macro lens that gives a 1:1 sensor size, but I don't have one of those, and because I shoot so few macros, I doubt I ever will get one.

Feeling Blue?

2008-07-27T20:22:00.001-07:00

Tungsten Balance, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I love the color blue, and I've often wondered how some sunsets have such amazing blue skies and rich colors.
Sure, you can do HDR and saturation and half a dozen other tricks to pull it off, but one thing I've always forgotten to do was play with the white balance.
Once upon a time, film was balanced for different white settings, Tungsten, Daylight, Florescent lighting, and by using the different films in different ways, photographers were able to change the mood of a shot.
Tungsten light, for example has a lot of orange in it, so tungsten balanced film had extra sensitivity to blue, this offset the oranges.
Enter the digital age, our fancy-schmancy cameras have all kinds of tricks up their collective sleeves, not least of which is the ability to change the white balance to, well, how about tungsten balance, and mimic those effects.
This is great if you are shooting in raw format or DNG, because you can change this balance after the fact in post processing.
However, for those of you shooting with Point and shoot cameras, or shooting in JPG be warned that you cannot undo a manual white balance.
What this translates to is that digital photographers don't have to carry a ton of different film with them, they can change it at will later on and get more pleasing results.

Tiarra's Memorial

2008-07-26T09:41:00.001-07:00

Tiarra's Memorial, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

A sad day around my home today, an old friend and companion left us this morning, after years of affection.
A registered Miniature Shellie, Tiarra's Delight was recovered from a home that was unable to care for her by my sister in her first year. Tiarra spent several years in the care of my sister, and then came to live with my brother because of a conflict with the other dog in the household, Tiarra being the gentle animal she was would take the brunt from her family mate.
She moved to my brother's home, as we lived in a pet free apartment at the time, and learned a great many tricks at the hands of my brother, and developed a taste for long walks along the Red Deer River.
By age nine, she was begging to show signs of age and was having difficulty remaining alone for the 8 hours a day while my brother and sister in law worked. We wanted a dog for our growing family and hoped for an animal as gentle and good natured as Tiarra.
She came to us 5 years ago, and has been a fine addition to our family since. She has been with us while our youngest son learned to walk, and patiently bore the baby years as he tugged on ears and tail. She minded the children as they played in the yard, and often slept at my feet as I worked on my night class assignments, edited photos, and scratched my head over projects at work. With a fondness for treats, she would spontaneously roll over for even the baby, offer her paws, and would always be ready to lick a little extra barbecue sauce of a child's face.
She accepted an abandoned kitten into her home, and even allowed Jinx to share her bed, bowl, and attention from the family. Although she and Jinx would act rather indifferently to each other during the active hours of the day, when the family went to bed, their playful antics were often heard through the house, and we knew they enjoyed playing chase with each other.
We will miss out small companion, her gentle ways, and the adorable traits that only a dog can portray. From her fear of cameras because the Flash was like lightning, to the attempts to sneak out of the yard, she was a fine family pet.
You will be missed, my friend, by all of the family, and those many friends that came in contact with you.
May you rest well, little friend.

Bend it, Baby!

2008-07-24T21:29:00.001-07:00

Bend it, Baby!, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I gots me a FUN toy!

I heard about Lensbabies about a year ago, looked into them, thought they were really cool, but a little pricey, so I shelved the idea as one of those "maybe one day..." wishlist items.
Imagine my surprise earlier this week when one of the local club members was selling her Lensbaby (with the sexy Pentax mount) for about half of retail.

Baby, let's do some BENDING!

So, I emailed her immediately, and bless her soul she was willing to wait until today when my wifey person wasn't working late so I could pop over with some cash.
Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the version 2.0, which means it has the cool magnetic aperture business, meaning that I can buy a creative aperture/bokeh kit, or pick up blanks and make my own! How cool would star or heart or even alien heat bokeh distortions be? Very cool, that's how...

The lensbaby works by compressing the flexible diagram between the optic lens and the camera, which is pretty hands on and hearkens back to the grand old days of bellows on a camera. Also, the lens is ground in such a way it mimics the Lomo lenses with lots of wonkey distortion, and a limited sweet spot. Difference is, the sweet spot moves around.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, selective focus, and some really cool effects.
Granted, you can do radial blurs in Photoshop, and get pretty close to the same effect, but not quite. There's something really neat about manipulating the lens with your fingers, as well, gives a fun tactile feel to the process.

Anyway, it'll be a while until I master this unit, which means lots of playing and kagiggering about, which is why I got into this in the first place. This lens will keep the process fun, and that's what keeps me moving forward.

Cross Processing crazyness...

2008-07-20T09:44:00.001-07:00

F for Fringe Festival, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Imagonomic produces some really neat plugins for photoshop, not least of which is the Real Grain plugin.
Recently introduced by my friend, this plugin can mimic the color curves of many classic film stocks, and even mimic the effects of Cross Processing.
One of the interesting things about shooting digital is that with a good camera the color curve is almost completely flat. This produces incredibly accurate images, so accurate in fact that often they seem lacking along side their analog film brothers.
As a result, we saturate, balance and tweak them like crazy to try and get the same vibrant colors associated with film.
Real Grain is loaded with a host of color, black and white, and cross processing curves that simply plug into your photo, and change the look and feel of it. The results are striking, and technically very accurate.
Also, outdoor arts festivals are lots of fun, and everyone should immediately locate the nearest one and head out with their cameras, you never know who is going to pop out to smile at you...

I'm Sick and Grumpy

2008-07-13T08:36:00.001-07:00

Planet La Barrier Crossing School, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I'm fighting off a summer cold, and I didn't sleep well last nigh, nor very much.

I'm rather in bad spirits, and I was up early on the first beautiful morning we've had in a week. I decided to try a little photo manipulation project I've been reading about, and made a tiny planet out of the school next to our house.

This process is well documented, so I'll just give you the brief overview. Take a bunch of photos to stitch into a 360 degree panorama. I've actually found that more photos taken in portrait orientation works better than fewer photos taken in landscape, you get more ground and sky, which is critical for this kind of project.
I was not feeling up to pulling my DSLR along this morning, so I grabbed the old Fuji 2800Zoom out and a tripod, no flash, no nothing...just a 7 year old 2 megapixel point and shoot camera.
About 10 minutes and 23 photos later, I had the raw material to generate my source panorama.

To create the panorama I used another old tool of mine, an ancient copy of MGI PhotoSuite4. Of all the panorama creation tools I have, I still like working with this one. It does very nice blending and it's been in my arsenal for years, so it's pretty much a no-brainer to use.

The only thing to keep in mind when doing this, is you want to have a perfect 360 degree panorama, no more, no less. Luckily for me, Photosuite4 takes care of this nicely.

Once that's done, you simply bring the photo into photoshop, modify the image so it's perfectly square, rotate it 180 degrees so everything is upside-down, and then use the Polar coordinates distortion filter.

A couple minor tweaks later, and we're all done, one tiny planet, floating in a bright summer morning sky.

A few things I would have liked, maybe some clouds in my photo, and next time I do this I'm using the DSLR so I got LOTS of data to work with, and afternoon light would have made the school itself look brighter, but overall, it's a cute effect.

UPDATE:

Following up on the 'few things I would have liked" comment, I went back a couple days later with Theo, and we re-shot this with our DSLR's. I have not yet had a chance to play with the images, but Theo got his processed already. The difference in quality going from a 2mpx p&s sensor to a 10mpx 3/4 format sensor is blatantly evident in the quality of the final image.

His post is here.

Time to revist some old ideas with new knowlege

2008-07-11T09:05:00.000-07:00

When I first started working in the studio and doing high key, I was all about light, and lots of it. Lots of light on my background, lots of light on my subjects, more light on my background...it turned into a frenzy of strobes and insane levels of light.

Because I didn't fully understand at the time how the different levels related to each other, I often had less than desired results. I would pour far too much light onto my subjects, and this would cause the background to require more light, and often I could not get enough on my background to make it totally white, giving me shades of gray in post production.

Fast forward to now, about a year after I started, I now have a much better idea of what I'm doing. I now better understand that I don't actually have to pour that much light onto everything, I've learned how to throttle and control light more and this should allow me to take much more crisp high key photos.

So, to that end, I'll be re-visiting my little high key setup, and now I'll be doing it a little differently. I won't be shooting everything at F9 or F11, and I should be able to get that really slick nice uniform white background, with minimal shadows.

I just have to wait a few more days, until my father in law heads back home, because right now he's living in my 'studio space', and it would make things just too crowded.

Cap'n Jim

2008-07-07T20:59:00.001-07:00

Cap'n Jim, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

My Father in Law is in town for a bit, he's been a volunteer firefighter for 22 years, and I offered to take some portraits for him.

I struggled with the lighting for a while, I was using a couple lights and it just wasn't working for me.

Suddenly, I remembered the Strobist.com single light technique where you light your subject and a semi-reflective background with a single light.

Bingo, a nice portrait, good colours on the uniform and background, with excellent separation.

So, the process is as follows:

A single speedlight is set up shooting through an umbrella slightly higher than the subject, this illuminates the subject, but also illuminates the surface behind the subject. You then move to the side opposite the speedlight until the subject basically falls directly in the middle of the flare on the surface.

The pitfalls to this is if your subject is too close to the background, or if the light is too high or too low, as this will cause potentally nasty shadows you probably don't want. You have to use a pretty large source for this, so get the umbrella in close.

The original lighting idea and diagrams can be found Here.

Damn Chainlink Fence

2008-07-04T21:58:00.001-07:00

Europa, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

For tonight's 'let's get out and enjoy the evening' project, I was going to do a shoot of a beautiful steam locomotive which sits in Assinaboine Park. I've driven by the place a dozen times, and though I was aware of a fence near it, I always kind of had it in my mind that it was just a fence around the park.

Imagine how annoyed I was to realize that it was just around the locomotive, not the park proper, meaning that no matter what I would have shot, there would have been this nice 7 foot chainlink fence in the way.

However, undaunted, we headed over the Leo Mol Sculpture Garden, and I spent the better part of an hour shooting one of my favorite pieces.

This massive full sized bronze entitled 'Europa' has been a challenge for me to shoot any other time. With the failing light, I fell back on my old friends, the twin Sigma speedlights and radio triggers. A bit of kagiggering with the lighting finally came to fruition with this shot, which captures the piece nicely against the failing light of a summer evening. Some not so subtle photochopping brought out not only the bronze colors, but also the light prismatic effect normally lost in the surface, which only reveals itself on the brightest of summer days.

The mosquitoes were starting to come to life, and they were getting ready to lock me into the garden, so I never got a chance to break out the umbrellas and really have some fun with softer lighting.

Star Trails Attempt #2: Success!

2008-07-02T11:31:00.001-07:00

Star Trails Attempt #2: Success!, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Taking what I learned with my first attempt, I tackled the issues again the following night. Finally had the time to sit down and work on the image.
Success!
Instead of taking a single image of many minutes that results in noise like mad and current leak on my sensor, I set the camera to take a series of 30 second exposures in drive mode *Thanks for the idea, Theo!*. I processed them in raw filter, then opened them in a stack. Here you see the result, a 29 minute exposure, complete with a satellite, probably an irridium unit, crossing the sky agains the stars.
Now, I just have to fine tune the process, and figure out how to do it with a subject in the foreground!

Failure!

2008-06-30T12:39:00.001-07:00

Star trails attempt number one: FAIL!, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

So, I decided to try some star trails last night, and I failed.

Why? Because I had not read up on the technique recently, and in my horribly unreliable monkey brain, I confused shooting star trails with shooting city lights.

There were two fundamental things I did wrong.

I used too high of an F-stop

I was zoomed out too far

A third thing I had no idea about, that was the IR noise kicked up by my battery pack, but that can be resolved.

I managed this one only half baked sample to prove my lack of success, however, I have the week off, and the skies are clear again tonight, the stars are not going anywhere soon, so I'm going for it again.

Here and here, on the other hand is someone who knows what they are doing...

Important Addition:

more reading, I discovered discovered even more information. Most notably the rule of 600, which is effectively as follows: the time it takes for star trails or streaks to appear is roughly 600 divided by the focal length. That means that with a 200 mm lens (600/200=3) it only takes about 3 seconds for trails to appear. At 50mm (600/50=12) it will take 12 seconds. Most of my exposures last night were way longer than that, but I was shooting at f9-f11, which killed the starlight.

I have GOT to try again tonigh.

Film Vs Digital

2008-06-28T23:54:00.001-07:00

Grampa came to visit, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Oh boy, the big showdown.
There's about as much talk about which is better, I was even starting to wonder. While out looking at a few other goodies at the local camera shop, I came across an excellent (as in nearly stole it) price on a complete consignment MZ60 film SLR.
I did splurge a bit on the film, I didn't import Velvia from Europe, but I did buy some Reala which is a nice superfine film.
So I went out and shot a roll of the stuff today and got it processed, just to see how it stacked up against the ISO100 setting on digital.
So, I sat down with some prints from both cameras, and tried to decide which was better.
I looked for a long time
scratched my head...
Looked some more....
...finally I came to this conclusion...
Again, like the head to head between the K110, and the K200, the bottom line is, both shine under specific circumstances.
The digital is fast and economical, and gives instant feedback. The memory cards can store the equivalent of many rolls of film, and are easily manipulated and stored. The camera costs more up front, but the lifetime cost of ownership justifies it.
Film is reliable and doesn't suffer from heat and associated noise issues that can plague digital sensors when used on long exposures. The unit is much less expensive (much much less) but the cost of film and processing drives that up over the life of the camera.
Of course, there are other points to consider, generally speaking film can be blown up much larger, however any DSLR on the market will pop out an image size large enough to print to 24X36 inches without degrading, and frankly I don't know if I've ever planned to print anything larger. Digital has the advantage of being able to switch ISO speeds nice and fast, and shoot IR by the simple addition of an IR filter, where film requires the change of film.
However, the MZ60 does have a shutter timer that stay open for up to 32 minutes, my digital would never do that without the batteries dying, not to mention how much noise would be generated in the image.

Okay, so now that I'm done rambling, here's the final word. The technology of film and digital is now so easily on peer, that for most practical applications, there is no discernible difference.

Golf Digest

2008-06-26T21:57:00.001-07:00

Golf Digest, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Well, time to up the ante. I can pull off a single portrait with some moderate degree of proficiency, All I need now is a chance to start working with groups.

As luck would have it, an opportunity presented itself....
Here we have a golf team. Often events like this one, being a company golf tourney, result in team photos that are pretty much just four guys standing in a line.

Well, I wanted to try something a little more robust, and as I went through the teams, I started getting more and more confident, and more and more relaxed with what I was doing.

This one is in my opinion, probably the best, and these three fine gentlemen were kind enough to give me permission to use the image.

The morning was spotty clouds, and the sun drifted behind them as often as it was out, so I didn't have the luxury of waiting for the sun to ensure a nice light. I broke out the speedlights and poverty wizards and started making good use of them to light my subjects well, provide some depth and dimension to them, and separate them from the shady, often flat natural light of the background.

Just to add more to the images, I posed the guys not so much as to how they stood, but more as to where they stood, then kind of just let them ham it up a bit.

Accountants, by the way, are pretty good at hamming it up.

Lastly, I changed my angle, that is, I got down on the still wet morning grass and shot up a bit, to give the guys some height and presence.

The result was pretty much what I was after, a strong, more memorable photo, and not at all 'yep, 3 guys standing in line.'

Some of the other really good shots I can't post because some of the people are gone for holidays already, and I can't get their permission right now, maybe later if I remember.

Simple lighting with great results

2008-06-21T18:15:00.001-07:00

Christy on the river, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

You don't actually have to pack a ton of lighting to yield an excellent portrait, as has been outlined by many before me, often a simple single light placed correctly will more than do the trick.
Image composition and location do the rest for you.
This shot, which was actually a test shot to see if my setup worked properly, was done with a single bare strobe placed off to the side to give good lighting on the subject, without the flattening effect of having it directly on camera.
There's no doubt that on camera light produces nice even light, but it often also tosses nasty halo shadows in distracting ways, as well as flattening all the features on your subject.

I'm Not Ansel Adams

2008-06-16T21:11:00.001-07:00

Lighthouse at Hecla, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I like Ansel Adams' work, I truly do. He was a visionary in the field of photography.
However, I've recently come to realize that even though I greatly admire his work, I would never try to emulate it, partly because I don't think I have nearly as much talent as the man, but mostly because I'm not a landscape guy.
It turns out for me landscapes are there to provide mood, atmosphere, and drama to my subjects. My two favorite shots in the last few days have been the one with the truck and this one I shot at Hecla on Friday.
Both are effectively landscape or sky shots, but the environment does so much more to add feeling behind my subject, a 100 year old lighthouse, than it would do on it's own.
So, rather than fight it, I'm going with it. If exploiting the landscape to add a feel to my subject is the way to go, then that's what I'll shoot. It only makes sense to go with one's strengths.

It's Digital, just take the shot!

2008-06-12T21:04:00.001-07:00

Sunset Highway, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

So, when the sun suddenly came out after a short rainstorm, it turned the sky a blazing fire red. Amazing.
As I stepped out of the car, a tractor-trailer was coming along the highway. I knew Id had to wait anyway.
I had about two seconds to think about 'Oh, should I try to catch the rig or not?'

Well, as you can see, I decided to press the shutter. The camera was in program, and dragged the shutter a bit, image stabilization kept the background sharp, and the rig entered frame just right, blazing trails with it's marker and headlights.

So, bottom line is, if you're not sure if you want to take the shot or not, hey, It's Digital, just take the shot!

Worst case is, it turns out to be recycle bin fodder...

Best case is you wind up with something amazing.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression

2008-06-10T11:26:00.001-07:00

Floodway HDR vertical, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Several months ago I had an advertisement up for models in exchange for images.

A (kind of) local photographer contacted me offering to meet and discuss me coming to work with her as a second shooter in the wedding business. Couple problems caused me to hesitate though, my poor old van was starting to give warning signs of needing some love, and my wife had just recently started a new position, and I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work out.

End result was, I wound up dragging my feet a bit and the photographer lost interest. I blew it.

Well, they say that fortune favors the foolish, and as luck would have it, one of my acquaintances got a position with this photographer. I was all busy congratulating her, and told her how I totally dropped the ball. She urged me to contact the photographer again, as the photographer is a pretty understanding person.

So, I spent some time through lunch composing a very respectful and apologetic email to this photographer, and sent it several minutes ago. Hopefully, she recognizes I realized I made an error, and is kind enough to speak to me again.

Crossing my fingers & hoping for the best.

Strobist Meetup Winnipeg

2008-06-08T18:23:00.001-07:00

Strobist Meetup Winnipeg, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Well, it finally happened.
After weeks of talking about it, a bunch of guys and gals from the wpgphoto.com club met this afternoon for a couple hours of awesome strobism.
With only 4-6 people confirming their attendance, we actually wound up with about 15 people there, plus a few people wandering by wondering what 15 people with flocks of umbrellas were doing in one of the old covered alleys.
We had some issues with lack of equipment, so I wound up loaning out my transmitter and receivers a lot. This meant less shooting for me, but more shooting for more junior members, or those with little to no experience with off camera lighting.
Dave Lipnowski brought his homebrew beauty dish and ringflash, and I brought my grids, half a dozen other people brought gells and optical triggers. It was a cacophony of crazy flashy bits, but we wound up with some incredible shots of charming model Hoanglan.
Check out the photostream to see some of the group photos, as well as more samples.

A weekend Off - sorta

2008-06-07T13:33:00.001-07:00

Floodway HDR1, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Well, I don't have anything really scheduled for this weekend, so I'm spending a little time processing images from past outings.
I figure, the blog needs some additional colour, so here's a very nice HDR image of the sunset on June 2 at the Red River Floodway.

Draggin' My Camera Around

2008-06-04T21:55:00.001-07:00

Pride Glam, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Pride week is coming up, and this led to a different kind of Glam shoot for me. The model was in drag, with professionally done hair and makeup. The model looked good, so good in fact that my poor sixteen year old son did a double, then a triple take, and finally just out and out admitted that ya, he looks pretty hot.
I used the same kind of lighting I would have on any glam shoot, a nice soft key light, and a gridded hair light. The key was set up almost directly in front of him, and the hair was lit from about 45 degrees and slightly behind him. The result was a nice effect, and considering the shop where we were shooting had pretty limited space, it was about all that we could do. Much of the shooting was to showcase the incredible makeup job done by www.splurgebeauty.com so there were lots of up close shots, and then just for fun we tried some shots in the hallway of the building.
The model isn't that open yet, so he wasn't ready to take his look out of the building into some of the very cool locations close to the shop. Pardon the pun, but that was a bit of a drag, because there were some pretty cool locations, and the sun had finally come out after a couple days of overcast and rain.
Regardless, I'll be doing more work with splurge, and the artists there do amazing work, as you can tell from this shot. I'm looking forward to doing more work with them and their clients.

Like any shoot, though, I learned something important, and in this case I learned it before the shoot, and it made life a lot easier. Today's lesson was make a comprehensive list of things you will need on the shoot in advance, and make sure you pack that stuff. I made my list on the bus while commuting to work on Monday, double checked it yesterday and packed my gear, and went over it again this morning before I left. I had everything I needed to pull off the shoot, which is one less thing to worry about when the lights go on.

Update:

Now that you mention it, yes, it is kind of distracting.

The beauty of digital images, though is that once I get back to my main workstation I can simply clone/heal that sucker out.

The danger of digital is, well, rather than re-inventing the wheel, here have a nice link...

http://photoshopdisasters.blogspot.com/

Time to Sell myself

2008-06-01T10:12:00.000-07:00

My last post was about the business of photography, and how I will be spending more time on that than actual photography work.
Well, today is no exception. It's a Sunday, so one would think it's time to kick back, and maybe play around and just have fun. This is not so much the case when you want to build your business.
After a nice breakfast of pancakes, I scurried around the house getting things done that needed to be done, like replacing the latch on the back gate, then I started getting ready for today's meeting schedule.
I have two full blown meetings today, two different potential clients and both of them high pressure. The first is an up and coming beauty shop in one of the more artistic parts of town. I'm cashing in on some catalog stuff I did a while ago, and hoping that this pans out to be some cool promotional collaboration stuff. I have to really wow this gal, because being in the arts district, there will be lots of other photographers happy to jump in if I blow it. Directly after this, I meet with the planning committee of a large 3 day event that happens in fall. I'm vying for the position of 'official event photographers' and will have exposure to some 15k guests in October, so again, big pressure.
On that note, I'll be tucking my portfolio book under my arm, grabbing my bag and laptop, and heading out in a couple hours. I need to scope the sites before hand a bit, and I want to have some juicy ideas on hand.
Lastly, as soon as I'm completed this post, I'll be touching base with the co-coordinators of a couple community sports programs via email, and getting them my pricing list.
So, what did you do this weekend?

What's Next? The business of photography

2008-05-30T07:18:00.000-07:00

Everything I've studied up on so far has told me that when things really start rolling, you wind up spending much more time and energy on the business of a home photography business, and less time looking through the lens.
I'm starting to see this happen already, as the coming week has me splitting my time between meeting with clients and scheduled shoots. This is a far cry from several months ago when I spent most of my time playing with lights and peering through the eyepiece.
There's other things I have to consider over the next short while as well, I have to purchase and get a domain set up as well as a website, which I'm probably just going to buy a template and go with that because I do not want to spend days playing with and learning flash. There are certain providers out there who cater to photographers, and can provide a very nice website template, online proofing, hosting and domain registration for $210 USD a year, for the cost/time investment, I'm miles ahead just paying the bill, and having a real site launched in a few days, rather than working on learning flash for weeks.
The problem with that is that this whole plan comes hot on the heels of a couple grand worth of automobile repairs. My nasty old family get around machine is getting up there in years, and needed some love, which translates to money. A few days of sitting with the wifey person and hashing out the cost of repairs vs. the cost of replacement, we decided to go with the repairs route and see if we can eek a couple or three more years of transport out of the old girl, and hopefully the little guys will be out of the 'let's fill the cup holder with slurpee and cookies' phase.
So, back to the business, I'm now to the point where I've got enough people looking at my photos, and liking my photos that I think I should really do the marketing thing correctly. Just as I must be willing to spend the time and money on the skills and the tools, I must also spend time and money on marketing myself and getting the word out that I am available for business.
To that end, I've spent most of my lunch hours and what would normally be my chillaxin' after the kids are in bed time working on a price schedule, I've gotten myself through the basics, now I have to come up with some good packages for specific things, such as Weddings, events, known portrait packs, etc. I have to complete this soon, as I have had some requests from some community organizations to provide pricing for sports team work, as well as some editorial type portrait work for publication and upcoming events.
Amazing, you know, it's just like my day job. Once upon a time, that was my hobby too, now it's my career, now my interest in Photography is starting to take baby steps into the world. Sure, there's still a lot of work ahead, and no guarantee it will be completely successful, still, I'm happy with where it's going for now, and I'll just keep putting in the work.

Oh ya, also I get a lot of support and encouragement from a lot of people in this process. That helps me through some of the rough spots, and I should take a moment to recognize that. No one ever goes into a business on their own, they go in with their friends, family, and others in the field. I've got some great people supporting me and helping me, notably my Wife, my Kids, the people who have posed with me, other photographers in the area who have critiqued my work, and without exception my cohort 'uncle dude' without whom I would have been still piddling about taking crappy macros.

Simple lighting

2008-05-27T07:32:00.001-07:00

Kim in Recline, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

It took me a while, a long while, but I've finally realized the power of a simple single strobe.
When I first started working in my little basement home-brew studio, I suffered a bit of tunnel vision and became fixated on the concept that more light=good, however somewhere along the line my monkey brain decided that it was actually more LIGHTS=good.
So, I struggled along trying to create interesting contrast, and low key images while pouring more and more equipment and light on my subjects. Another bad habit I got into was this strange fixation that 'shadows were the enemy, and must be eliminated in all photos'.
Well, eventually the lights went on, or out if you prefer, and I realized that it's not the number of lights that create the image, nor the presence or absence of shadow, but how the lights interact with the shadows.
By nature I'm a pretty spartan guy, less is more, Keep It Simple, but for some reason I really had to struggle with this idea. I would spend time setting up multiple strobes, reflectors, CF bulbs, all kinds of crazy, complex setups trying to get dramatic light and mood, not realizing I was getting further and further away from the answer I was after.
We're all familiar with the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words, this is true and if we expand on that idea, a video is then worth a thousand words every 1/10th of a second. After the simple 10 minute viewing of a section of the Strobist DVD on Youtube, it finally clicked, and I started to play with a single soft light source, and more importantly, one that had a power setting, forcing me to think of turning things down, rather than pushing them up.
The results, well, I'm finally starting to get the mood lighting I'm after, I've demonstrated the ability to learn. This image, for example, was lit using a single strobe through an umbrella softbox, and the strobe was only running at 1/8 power. Granted, this may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the image certainly demonstrates a good control of light, there are white whites, black blacks, multiple tones in between, the skin surfaces look nice and dimensional, the shadows fall off nicely without sharp contrast, basically all kinds of goodness that I've been after for months.
So now in light of that (heh, I love all the lighting puns), I've got to work on the KIS principle, and I should try to locate and purchase a real honest to goodness copy of that DVD to see what else I can figure out.

Cheesecake & Paint

2008-05-25T19:58:00.001-07:00

Cheesecake & Paint, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

First of all, I want to thank Don Giannati of Phoenix Arizona for the idea in the strobist pool. Don's one of those incredibly talented professionals who shares his knowledge with those of us still building our expertise.
I got to work with Kim (yes, another Kim) here today in my ghetto studio, we were hoping to do some location stuff, but thunder storms kept us inside.
Kim wanted a little something sexy to do with painting, and not long ago Don posted the shot in the strobist pool that served as the template and inspiration to this photo, and a few others I took of the client for the shoot.
I emailed Don a big thank you for the idea and for all the experience and help he shares, but I have to thank him here in public.
As for the shot, this deserves the poster sized treatment, and it's definitely going into the portfolio.

Update: Don has given me permission to link to his site permanently. He now lives in my Link-O-Rama!

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery

2008-05-24T20:46:00.001-07:00

Kim on Red, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Ripped straight out of the DVD excerpt David Hobby posted from one of his seminars, please meet my dear wifey person Kim, as she was kind enough to sit for me once again as I played with a couple new lighting ideas.

This was more of an exercise in creating a neat looking background and nice contrast more than it was about composition, however some of the shots were nicely composed, this one in particular.

The video that I linked to is a full 10 minutes, so it does take some time to watch, but once you see how it's done, you'll know exactly what I did to get this shot, as I copied the setup almost exactly, with the single exception that my background wall was white.

PS: These days UPS battery systems are getting really inexpensive, and I'm really glad I have one. Right in the middle of these edits, the power went out because of an electrical storm. It was only about 2 minutes, but I was unaffected. Thank you, batteries under my desk!

1000 visits!

2008-05-20T20:51:00.000-07:00

Well, not sure when it happened officially, but I've logged over 1000 visits to my blog since Jan 1!

Thanks everyone! I'll do my very best to keep it interesting!

Showdown: HDR vs Traditional

2008-05-20T07:14:00.000-07:00

It's voting time again!

I'm trying to decide which I like more, HDR images or traditional processing, and so far I'm kind of waffling. I think it depends on the subject and the mood you're trying to create rather than a 'which is better' issue.
Here are the contenders:

In this corner, weighing in at 10 megapixels, shot with a Pentax K200d and a Tamron 28-200 mm lens with a CP filter on the end, processed with Photoshop alone to adjust the levels and saturation, it's the traditional processing image. This image was taken in full sunlight, and more accurately reflects the colors of the scene.

And in this corner, also weighing in at 10 megapixels, shot with the same camera but processed with Photomatix HDR tone mapping. This image was not shot in full sunlight, but instead the details and different tones were pulled up via microcontrast.

Both images link back to the Flickr pages, so you can take a good look at them, get up close, and decide which image you like more!

Voting is up on the side bar of the blog, and will be open until Sunday Night!

Update: The votes are tabulated, all 5 of them (Awwww...come on guys!)
Traditional: 2 votes
HDR: 1 vote
It's a draw: 2 votes
Well, that's it then. The results are...well....inconclusive at best.

Seek thee thyne own S Curve

2008-05-18T10:20:00.001-07:00

Whiteshell River, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

It's always good to keep oneself well versed with the basics of Photographic Composition.
When shooting landscapes, I tend to break a lot of rules, for example I like to shoot in portrait mode a lot, however whenever possible I do seek S curves in my photos to make them interesting.
The Whiteshell River provided a nice S curve for me to shoot yesterday on a nice little day trip. The sky, as you can see was spotted with clouds, and the light went from nice and bright to flat and shaded.
Shaded is nice for portraits, as it prevents harsh contrast and shadows, but it's not a lot of use when you're shooting an early season shot like this.
To get this one, I perched myself on top of a high shield rock, set my Circular Polarizer, and waited...and waited...and waited some more, until finally after about 20 minutes the sun came out and suddenly light the whole scene like this. The sun was to my back, which eliminated any glare off the water, and brought a rich fresh color to all the plant surfaces. The fluffy clouds and polarizing filter did a nice job on the sky, giving the nice blue shades.
Unfortunately, the wind was very strong all day, so I could not get any reflections in the water, which would have made this shot very nice, however, there's a whole summer ahead of me, and it's only about an hour and a half drive to this location.

Look around while you walk

2008-05-14T10:08:00.001-07:00

Samurai 2, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Another skill I'm forcing myself to do is make sure I look around a lot when I wander around.
Basically, my drill is every minute or so I stop, look back where I came from, look up, look down, and pan quickly around 360 degrees.
Does it work? Yes, it does.
I was wandering around the Exchange district and I noticed this in the window of a games shop that I had already passed. I went back, stuck up a conversation with the owner, and got his permission to shoot in the store. It turned out to be one of my favorite shots from the day, and, all the lighting in this shot is from the open window camera left.
Again, this is not so much to do with photographic technique, but with what you shoot, and how you find interesting things to shoot. If you are in Rome, for example, everyone snaps a shot of the Coliseum, it's huge and you can't miss it. However, not as many people tend to take the time to look for a chink in the wall where the red brick, one of the architectural innovations that made that building possible and is still used 2000 years later, is visible and takes a photo of that.
So, let your eyes wander, stop and look around you, maybe you'll find something interesting that you might have otherwise missed.

Take a Hike!

2008-05-11T19:29:00.001-07:00

Loading Docks, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Well, more precisely take a walk. One of the best things we can do when we want to get some neat photos is to simply get out and go for a walk. Amazing what you can find.
Today, for example, I found these brightly painted loading dock doors, as well as a store selling replica Samurai armor, a girl named Giselle practicing her ballet for her friends, and some hard riding cyclists and skate boarders.
No tricks, no techniques today, just wandering around, enjoying the warm spring weather.

Update: The blog chops off part of the image, which is too bad because there is a great purple fourth door. Click on the photo to see all of it. The purple door is my favorite.

Fun with Levels...

2008-05-08T19:17:00.001-07:00

Elevator in Domain MB, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

Okay, raise your hand if you think that I managed to snap this shot with those exact colors visible?

Anyone?

Well, if you said 'Probably not', you would be correct. Yes, this image was taken at about halfway through the golden hour, but no, it was not this rich and lustrous, I cheated my face off with levels.

Normally I use the levels control to get a nice, even histogram, correct any exposure problems I may have created for myself. But while working on this shot, the nice histogram just made the image look bland.

So, just as an act of desperation, I decided to pull the bottom end up and leave the top end under exposed. As I yanked the bottom up, the colors darkened, intensified, and suddenly the slight hint of orange that was barely there in the original exposure became the rich burnt orange you see here. As an added bonus, the slight shadows became dark rich tones, and the sky became a velvet blue.

Not that kicking the levels all over the place can save every image, this one it certainly did some magic on.

For those of you who have never seen an old grain elevator, the center part, the bit that kind of looks like an extruded wine bottle, is the original unit. These monolithic structures of wood used to dot the prairies all over Canada, but are now being torn down to make way for more efficient, easily maintainable concrete silos. The end result, part of the prairie landscape will sadly never be the same.

Why do I make things difficult for myself?

2008-05-04T09:59:00.001-07:00

Quarry Lake, originally uploaded by ted.sali.

I was playing around with aperture yesterday when I shot this image. Thought I'd go hyperfocal and cranked down on the aperture all the way to f22.

Mistake...

You compare the sky in this shot, which has been heavily photoshopped, to the one in the previous post which was not even touched, and you can clearly see that it really didn't pay off.

Seems the magic focal lengths, which I already knew, are f9 and f11. Those shots I took at f9 look great, while this one, well, not so much.

Mind you, there were other considerations too, for example, the sun is just off frame left on this shot, while in my previous post it was almost directly behind me, and there is some haze in the air, which didn't help. It was a sunny day yesterday, but not exactly clear to the west, we had a weather system coming in and it was kicking up crap in front of it, while east the sky was much clearer.

Ah well, I'll eventually learn. Maybe I should just make a little label for the back of my camera that simply says 'f22=NO!"