edward olive edwardolive posted a photo:
Fotos de boda 2010
Edward Olive
File: img946v3-22-09-10
www.edwardolive.info/
info@edwardolive.com
« Archives in September, 2010
Same shot different wedding
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Just some street photography from Lisbon.
Just some street photography from Lisbon. – by Kirk Tuck
I put on my cloak of invisibility one day and went out to shoot in the streets of Lisbon, Portugal. I like these photographs. Simple camera and lens. Lots of feet action. Lots of moving around. I like being anonymous in a foreign city. I think it’s all about the “blend in”. And a little practice. Not great art, just snapshots that remind me of a pleasant day. And that’s a decent use of photography as well.
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution.
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I went through a stage when all I used was hot lights. I think I’m going back….
I went through a stage when all I used was hot lights. I think I’m going back…. – by Kirk Tuck
I trouped up to Dallas to take this shot. It was many years ago. It was the first time I worked with Anne B. as my assistant. Maybe that’s why I remember this particular shoot. Anne and I are still close friends over a decade later. But what really brought this image to mind is that I’ve been getting back to real lighting control and I remember going thru a period when I shot almost everything with “hot lights”. I may be going back to that style because it offers such tight control for the kind of work I light to do.
This image was done to accompany a story in Prevention Magazine. The story was about how and why to stop smoking. The woman in the portrait above had kicked the habit and the magazine was doing a story about her experiences.
In those days I travelled with a box of interesting “hot (tungsten halogen) lights”. The box had a few Lowell Totalights, some Lowell Pro Lights ( small focusable lights with “peanut” bulbs that put out 250 watts for light), and a couple of small, 125 watt, fresnel spotlights. I’d use a small Pro-light shining thru a layer of Rosco diffusion gel about two feet above the subjects head in order to get the little butterfly shadow under the nose, and the flattering shadow under the chin. I’d use another light, bounced into something flat and white, right behind the camera position, about 2 and 1/2 stops down from the main light. Maybe a carefully snooted back light and then, finally, a “sprayed” light on the background.
The benefits of working with the hot lights were threefold. First, it was so easy to focus the camera accurately as the image coming through the finder was much brighter than that given by the diffused and reduced light coming thru a big softbox from a modeling light in an electronic flash set up. Second, everything about continuous light is WYSIWYG. You can see the effects easily as you build your lighting. Very nice change from the vagaries of flash. Finally, you have total control about which f-stop to use. I used something like f4 with a 150mm lens on a medium format camera. You can see what that gives you in terms of depth of field.
Another thing that’s nice about using smaller lights, closer in is that the inverse square law works for you beautifully. Look how quickly the light falls off from the subject’s face to her arms and mid torso. This serves to naturally keep the attention on her face…..the lightest thing of interest in the frame.
I thought about this today on my job. I was shooting portraits for one of the hot public relations agencies in town and I was using Westcott nets and Westcott flags to control light spill and to keep the light levels on people’s hands a few stops darker than the light on their faces. More control means a more three dimensional photograph. And that means more return clients for me. While I was using flash I was thinking about the creative control of hot lights and how the use of flags was really only getting me half way there.
Looks like the remainder of the month will be a search for the Holy Grail as expressed through tungsten lighting and flags. Stay tuned.
Kirk
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution.
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A fun video project. Kids are always fun to work with….
A fun video project. Kids are always fun to work with…. – by Kirk Tuck
Will van Overbeek and I were hired to do a video project last week. Several organizations here in Austin were being awarded by The Austin Children in Nature Collaborative and the videos will be used as showcase introductions at a special program at the Austin Four Seasons Hotel. We needed to make an introductory piece for the award program. The only problems we had were: No script, no actors, no direction and a lot of rain. Since the program celebrates getting kids outdoors the rain was kind of a major issue. The rest just go with the territory.
We made it to the Austin Nature Center just in time for the big rain. But it let up after a while and we got to work. For this project we used a Canon 7D
I think we were all pretty amazed at how well the sound turned out. The center is located near a major, elevated highway and there’s random noise coming in from every direction. Our method is to put the microphone on a “fish pole” and get it in as close to the speaker as possible without getting an image of the mic (or its shadow) in the final video. We found the ALC (auto level control) on the 7D does a pretty good job on its own.
Our biggest challenge was to get interviews with four and five year old kids. They’re not really good at hitting their marks and they don’t “do” lines. But with a smile on your face and a big enough memory card you’re sure to get something…..then all you have to do is edit it all together. I like sound effects but I don’t think Will is as enthusiastic about them. He did allow me to add a few “dinosaur roars”, “chimpanzee chatters” and “jungle” noise from the sound library. I think it’s fun.
Since we’re all about keeping things simple and fun we jumped right into editing this thing with iMovie 09 from Apple. We used an old laptop and a calibrated, 23 inch Apple monitor to do our edit on. We did add a firewire 800 outboard HD to the mix. No stutters in the editing or the output. The edit took about an hour and fifteen minutes this morning.
We did some interviews with grownups in order to get information across.
While we were waiting for the rain to stop we did an interview with the program director from the Center. I was happy to have the new little LED
I first played with a light like this one when I was writing my book, Photographic Lighting Equipment.
The one that was available at the time was a LitePanel Micro from LitePanels. It was about the same size as my new DL-DV60
In the video we used the light about seven feet away from the program director and about three feet above her head. It was enough to minimize shadows on her face and bring her a bit forward from the tungsten lit room.
I liked the DL-DV60 enough to buy a second one. They can be clipped together to make little light banks and I think that’s a fun thing to have in a pinch. I’ve also order some bigger ePhoto panels that plug in the way and use hundreds of individual bulbs. I’ll let you know how those work when they arrive.
Will and I are starting to get into a groove with our little video projects. It’s different than still photography but in some ways the same. Directing is always fraught with peril that mostly becomes obvious at editing time…….
This is the DL-DV60 as it sits on top of my camera. It’s too bright to aim directly at innocent people indoors without some sort of diffusion but it works well in conjunction with other light sources. It also works well as an accent light in the same way you might use a flash on an off camera cord, over to one side. The benefit is that you don’t ever need to sync it with the camera. It also doesn’t get too hot and it doesn’t flicker. It’s pretty perfect for a combination/crossover photographer/videographer.
More to come.
I’m accepting more and more video projects and finding that I like the process pretty well. I try to stay away from clients who want to micro-manage projects…..it’s almost a given that they will slow the editing process down to a crawl. So far all of the clients have been perfect. And the Canon cameras are working well.
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution.
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Cuban girl
edward olive edwardolive posted a photo:
Edward Olive
Portrait photography on film. swimming against the tide
File: img970v32-27-09-10
www.edwardolive.info/
info@edwardolive.com
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Blending Passions. Blending Expertise.
Blending Passions. Blending Expertise. – by Kirk Tuck
Image ©2010 Kirk Tuck. Cover ©2010 Swimmer Magazine. Featured Swimmer: Tyler Blessing.
I haven’t made much of a secret of the fact that I love swimming. I love the sport. I love the swim workouts. I love competing. But what’s really fun is when two passions collide. Three years ago I was approached by Swimmer Magazine with the assignment of shooting the Indoor Short Course Masters National Meet here in Austin. Three days of non-stop, best in the world swimming by dozens of gold and silver medal Olympians, hundreds of NCAA All Americans, and thousands of swimmers who were solid contenders.
I had a ball. I saw lots of people I’d lost touch with over the years as well as lots of fast young swimmers. (Masters swimmers are mostly made up of people who swam competitively in high school or college and who stay with the sport.) I sent along the images and an invoice. The photos ran, people were happy.
A few months ago the editor of Swimmer Magazine assigned me a project to work on with world champion and gold medal winning Olympian, Whitney Hedgepeth, it was a technique article for a future issue. Whitney recruited one of her top masters swimmers from the University of Texas at Austin, Tyler Blessing, and we headed to the swim center for a morning of aqueous fun.
Whitney has been my coach from time to time and was also my kid’s coach for the last two Summer seasons. Since the coach, the swimmer and the photographer had all spent pool time together it was easy to communicate: 1. What she wanted to show for the article. 2. How I needed to position myself and what sort of actions would work best for the camera. And, 3. How we needed Tyler to go through various “right” and “wrong” actions to show the common stroke errors and how to fix them.
The shot above was taken from the three meter tower in the diving well. Canon 5D2
We shot a lot of stuff over the course of the morning and the editor ran 22 photos over six and a half pages. And he used one of the images on the cover.
It’s so much fun when hobbies and jobs and jobs and hobbies all collide together.
Well. I got nice photo credits. I got great exposure (pun intended). I got access to a cool Olympian in the sport I adore. So did I do this all for free because it made me feel warm and fuzzy? Hell no. The second thing the editor and I talked about, after the basic nuts and bolts, was rates and usage. Nothing moved forward until there was a signed CONTRACT. The cover will look good in my portfolio but just as importantly the check will look good in my bank account.
This is how photography should work. It’s how it can and does work. Just because something is fun and fulfilling doesn’t negate the fact that it brings value to the person who needs to use the images. It’s called a win-win-win. If the images were worthless no one would want to use them…..
Confused about pricing? Get a book. Try John Harrington’s
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution.
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Boats, Paignton, Devon, 2010 by Paul Cooklin
Boats, Paignton, Devon, 2010 (Paul Cooklin) http://bit.ly/bvS3Bt
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Just thinking about the role of photography in branding and marketing non-profits.
Just thinking about the role of photography in branding and marketing non-profits. – by Kirk Tuck
Promotional shot for a Zachary Scott Production of “Spelling Bee of…….”
I recently had reason to pause and reflect on my relationship with a non-profit theater that I do a lot of work with. A fair amount of the work is done as a donation. Every once in a while some staff member does something mindless and venal that really tweaks me and it set into motion a weird calculus wherein I sit back with the mental transactional calculator we wish we didn’t have in our brains but all do, and I calculate the benefits and detractions of donating the work I do.
In the plus column are many things: 1. The actors don’t make a lot of money and put a tremendous amount of time, talent and heart into each performance of each play. 2. I generally work without impediment or undue direction when I’m shooting a dress rehearsal or similar project. When we work on a bigger project, like a season brochure, the collaboration is generally friendly and intelligent. 3. The sets and stage lighting are very competent which gives all of my reportage style photos a big head start. 4. We’ve won numerous ad industry awards and have been published in many theater publications. 5. Everything I produce has a big credit line adjacent. 6. In theory, I get all the comp tickets I would ever want for every show. 7. Every year I have the option of getting the entire house for a private show. I’ve generally chosen their superb holiday production of David Sedaris’s, Santaland Diaries, and it’s been fun to ring in the holidays with 150 of your best clients and dear friends with a first class, classic comedy. 8. I get to try out the latest gear in highly complex situations without the fear that momentary failure will end my career. That means I get to take more risks and really come to understand the capabilities of the equipment I’ll be pressing into service for national advertising clients.
There is, of course, the benefit of hundreds of thousands of advertising impressions of some of my best work. Delivered to the best household demographics in the best market in the entire southwestern United States, with my credit adjacent to every image.. And, 10. I really, really enjoy the live theater ethos.
Occasionally I’ll run afoul of a mal-adjusted designer or technical person and I’ll get my feet stepped on. In most cases it’s because they are myopically focused on their section of the production and really don’t get how the creation and maintenance of a visual brand make such a huge difference in motivating subscribers and individual ticket purchases, which are a large part of the funding for the theater.
I can only suppose that they think I’m being paid enormously well and they resent it. The truth is much different. And that’s where the other side of the calculus comes in.
Most of the work I do is shooting dress rehearsals. In these intensive shoots I’m always attempting to distill the play into fragments that tell the whole story. Snippets that translate the emotional character of the work, and vignettes that give potential audiences a whiff of the sweet or tangy texture of the work.
This requires a heightened vigilance, very quick responses to changes in lighting and composition, the best gear, the best lenses, the best reflexive responses to the action in front of me.
I’m generally coming in to the theater after a full day of work with advertising clients; a demanding situation in itself. I arrive around 7:30 pm to be ready for an 8 pm curtain call. I’m carrying two Canon 5D Mk2′s and an assortment of lenses. There’s a 24-105 glued to one body and a bunch of fast primes that leap on and off the second body. I’ll shoot between 10 and 16 gigabytes of imagery over a three or four hour time frame. Sometimes technical issues will push the start times back to 9 or 9:30 pm and often we aren’t out the door till long after midnight. A tough schedule when you’ve been up since six a.m. and you’ve got a 7 am call at a location for an ad client the following morning…..
Occasionally, the marketing director will want to set up a shot and will request that I bring lights and softboxes. I bring along a set of Elincrhom Rangers and heads for these times. We’ll shoot the entire dress rehearsal and then shoot what we call set up shots.
The drop of the other shoe is the scheduling. Many times we’re right up against the publication deadlines for the only local paper and the theater marketing staff will desperately need images the next day. If we’re already scheduled with clients on that day it means that we download, edit and burn to DVD anywhere from 800 to 1500 images and stick them on our studio door for an early pick up the next day. By the time the photos are picked up we’re off in another corner of town, making happy faces at corporate executives and their handlers.
This doesn’t include the time spent on special shoots for season brochures and all the other attendant marketing projects that we get roped into. And, as I’ve said, most of the work is donated. Just as the time of the board of directors is donated.
I’ve been doing work for this client for nearly 18 years. The board of directors loves our company and recommends us broadly in the community at large. And that’s nice but the flip side are the numbers that come when we add up the services we’ve provided. If we charged our full rates for all of the projects we’ve delivered we will have created between $200,00 and $360,000 worth of intellectual property. We are the visual brand, the institution’s visual memory, and the day to day photographic content of all their advertising, marketing and public relations collateral.
Is it all worth it? Is it worth my time? It’s hard to say. At times, when the images look astounding and the accolades come rolling in, and you share in the spirited euphoria of the actors and creators the answer is a resounding “yes!” When someone drops the ball on the comp tickets they promised your big client or when a tech person pushes you out of the way during a shoot in order to get bad snapshots for their personal portfolios you have to wonder just what the hell you’re wasting your time for.
Like I said, it’s a big and complicated calculus. An intertwined and conflicting matrix. But in the end the fact that I’ve been doing this work for nearly 18 years provides the real answer. I love it and I’d be sad to abandon it. I do it for the images and for the actors. And the actors do it because they love their craft. Nobody is getting rich here but in many ways the impact in the community is both contagious and worthwhile. And isn’t that what art is all about? Doesn’t real art explain what it is to be human?
What sweet power to be the visual translator of a rich, rich creative community……
(All the images in the above composite were shot with Olympus digital cameras and lenses…)
©2010 Kirk Tuck. Please do not re-post without attribution.
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Dark, lines, lines & curves, dark
edward olive edwardolive posted a photo:
Negative space and c41BW blow outs
Wedding phootgraphers:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Yo3FRPeQw
They haven’t changed much
Edward Olive
Fotógrafo de Madrid 2010
File: img755v2-10-09-10
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