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Wizard Trails: Home of a wandering wizard

 

The very model of a modern photographer

I am the very model of a modern photographer
My skills honed daily, I’m an insatiable pixel peeper
I know the laws of phyics, and I quote the zeiss formula
C is d over one seven thirty, but only in the raw
I am an expert too, at spotting luminance and chroma noise
I see it at high iso, from small sensory camera toys
As a master of my art, I’ll always get the next new model
Since outdated gear makes my photography forum cred toddle,
I’ve studied in much depth the intricate law of equivalence,
And must say I approach it with a great deal of ambivalence
Because though you may in ignorance call it true hypocrisy
I’ll take full frame, for I can’t afford MF aristocracy
In short, on forums they call me a relentless pixel peeper,
I am the very model of a modern photographer

I know the essential seven secrets of the range dynamic
And have downloaded software for stitching pictures panoramic
I know all the acronyms mystic: FF, A and HDR
Even though I must admit, the results I’ve seen are quite bizarre
I’ve known for years all there is to know on exposure bracketing
And can blindly change almost ev’ry obscure but useful setting
I have a special gray card and my monitor’s calibrated
If I find a fault somewhere I’ll always upgrade unabated
I pity the poor fools who use the other manufacturer
They’ll get no better photographs than does the wedding caterer
In short, on forums they call me a relentless pixel peeper,
I am the very model of a modern photographer

In fact, as soon as I can find out what is meant with golden hour,
When I have the skills requir’d to take a picture of a flower
When I switch from auto to A-mode and turn off auto-iso
And remove from pictures the nasty lens flare that is an eye-sore
When I’ve found out how to use my camera photographical,
In times when the light is grey and faded and less than optimal,
In short when I’ve a smattering of experience practical
I will change my worry from gear to composition tactical
For my photographic knowledge, though I’m one of many preachers
Stems not from picture taking, but rather has blogs as teachers
But still, on forums they call me a relentless pixel peeper,
I am the very model of a modern photographer

Upcoming shoots: weeks 25-26

I'll have the weekend off this week, which will give me some time to catch up with friends and family. Not to say I won't be taking any pictures though: I'm halfway planning on going by a local zoo (there's been a litter of lions and snow leopards and another zoo has a baby hippo)

I do have an appointment for a shoot on monday: a young woman and her friend want some nice pictures together. I think during this shoot I'm going to focus more on directing and pay special attention to facial expressions. I figure with a couple this will be easier than with a solo model as here I can direct them to look at each other.

On tuesday I have a completely different shoot: a coworker of mine wants pictures from his band and I'll be attending one of their rehearsals with my studio lighting kit. This should be an interesting experience. I've previously shot his earlier band, but that was with my old camera and without the lights.

What people get

So, what do people actually get after a photoshoot? Well, pretty much this:

That's a DVD, a dvd case and a couple of prints. The number of prints depends on how much time and paper I have. Occasionally I'll also toss in some business cards.

Photoshoot #7: Yentl

Last Saturday's shoot brought the youngest model in my studio yet: 8 or 9-week old Yentl with her parents and godmothers. The brief for the shoot was to get some pictures for the baptism card, and then add some various pictures.

After running out of white background paper during the previous week's shoot, I went to get a new roll and also got a roll of light blue. It's this latter roll that was used most, and I'm actually quite pleased with the results. The light-blue near-sky colour seems to work well with the yellow light from the gold umbrella reflector (after some white balance tweaking) and it was quite easy to light. Fortunately the clothing colours of some of the models worked quite well with it as well. The only minor gripe I have about the blue is that it looks a bit weird in full body shots when there's blue below people's feet. I'm sure I can find a way to adjust.

Speaking of paper rolls, the people were kind enough to take off their shoes for this shoot which meant the paper survived without any marks on it. A big save for me :)

Also new during this shoot were relatively tall people and groups. The former was a bit problematic because the white paper roll (rolled up) came in view on several pictures when the father was standing up. Nothing I can't fix in post, but something to be aware of. The group was easier: all 4 adults + baby fitted on the picture (albeit with the father on the second row). One issue here is how to cope with multiple skin tones under artificial light. White balance is tricky here and getting natural skin for all involved proved tricky.

Oh, and this time I'm allowed to show some of the pictures, so here goes:

Photoshoot #6

Photoshoot #6 last sunday was originally meant to be a fashion-centric shoot with one model, but turned into an all-round one with two. Sadly I don't have permission to show any pictures so you'll have to make do with my description.

I messed up a bit this time around, and after I'd cut the white paper background I found out that I didn't have enough left for another shoot. I "solved" this by taping the back of an older cut onto what was left and fixing the seem in post-processing. In the future I'll have to keep better track of how much paper I cut off so I know exactly how much I have left.

For most of the shoot we then used the black background, which was good practice. The black seems more reflective than the white, which means that the bend in the paper between wall and floor is more visible. I'll have to see if I can solve this in the future, maybe by putting more light onto the ground. I'll also have to add a little more light on the models in the future, especially if they are wearing dark clothes.

I also tried a couple of new shots with the models leaning against one of the walls. This is possible now because earlier I removed the big white radiator. The results were decent, but I'll need to experiment with this angle some more.

Having some fashion/glamour magazines around helped a lot, with the models paging through those to find poses to copy. A lot easier than me having to come up with anything :)

Finally I ran into a rather big problem with focussing that I only noticed later: a rather disturbingly large number of the pictures were out of focus and I don't know why. Looking at the camera data, the camera seemed to think the models were as far as 10-40m away at times, which in a room that's less than 4m is an impressive achievement. Either I have done something dramatically wrong (and done it wrong quite often) or there's something wrong with the camera. Obviously I hope the former, but either way: there's some blurry pictures in there.

Photoshoot #5: Luka

Yesterday I had two coworkers come over for a photo session for their son, Luka. Luka is 7 and turning 8 soon and his mother wanted some pictures to treasure for the future, as well as some shots to put on the invitation for his birthday.

The photoshoot itself went quite well with Luka proving very cooperative. I brought out some of my hoard of weapons again, and I used my new black paper for the first time (unfortunately I selected that just when he changed into very dark clothes, just my luck :P)

This time around I do have some samples to show you:

Photoshoot #4

I've done two more shoots recently that I haven't talked about yet: last sunday was photoshoot #4 and yesterday I did shoot #5. I'll discuss the former one here.

As all shoots so far, both were in my little home studio. The sunday one was a set of three children kidnapped by their aunt and brought to me to take some pictures as a surprise for their parents. This is why I haven't discussed it before: I didn't want to risk ruining the surprise in the unlikely event their parents happen to read this blog (which is not as unlikely as you might think since I'd done a photoshoot for that aunt just a few weeks before). The brief here was pretty vague: they just wanted some pictures the parents would like.

The kids were numbered three and aged 15 (male), 8 (female) and 6 (male). The younger boy was a bit of a handful, but the other two were very cooperative, which made the whole thing a lot easier. I successfully persuaded the boy to stand in the spotlights by bringing out some axes and swords from my armoury. Suddenly taking pictures was a lot more fun in his mind :) Of course, as I'd noticed in shoot #3 giving a child something to play with for a picture is a lot easier than taking it away again.

The three children required quite different kind of shots and techniques. The oldest had pretty good ideas for some poses, and I'll copy those for future shoots. The girl was a fashion diva in the making and with the help of her aunt she struck poses straight from the glam mags. The youngest required shooting a bit more akin to what was needed with the younger children: letting him do his thing and taking the pictures when they came up.

All in all I learned quite a bit here, not least of which that my studio gets much to warm and that the fan I have is powerful enough to stir hairs a little bit if you place it close enough.

Sadly I have not gotten permission to post any pictures (the aunt could not give that for obvious legal reasons).

Using up paper

Now that the first few shoots are over, I got a better idea of the expenses involved in this project. They're not huge, but a bit higher than I originally estimated. The main problem is the paper roll. Where I thought I'd only have to cut off paper something like every five to ten shoots, it turns out the paper needs replacing after almost every shoot as the white paper gets dirty very fast (and the dirt shows on pictures). This is unfortunate because the paper isn't that cheap, costing some 70 EUR per 11m of white paper. Considering that per cut I lose about 2-3 meters, that means that at the current rate of usage it gets rather pricey fast.

Of course, I'm not planning to charge anything. I'm the free photographer, and free I'll remain. What I will do is find a way to clean the shoes of people before they go on the paper, to hopefully keep it clean longer.

Coming up

I got two shoots lined up for this week (and then no shoots at all anymore ... scary). The first, on wednesday, is for a coworker of mine who wants some pictures of her son to use on invitations for his birthday party. I don't have anything special planned for this shoot, we'll just go with the flow. If needed I'll get the axes and swords out as props again, as I did on another shoot last sunday.

Sunday will be more challenging as I have a fashion student coming over who needs some pictures for, I believe, a school project. This is obviously a rather important event for her, so there's some pressure on me to deliver good pictures (well, more than normal). Before the shoot she'll be getting her hair and make-up done by a third party, so this will also be the most elaborate shoot so far. The focus will be both on the clothes as on the model.

To prepare for this shoot I've been watching some fashion programs on TV and I'll be perusing some fashion magazines. With the previous shoots the biggest problem was not being able to tell the models what pose to use, so I want some reference material for that. Somebody on a photography forum suggested printing out a contact sheet of possible poses, which is exactly what I'll do.

I think this shoot will primarily use the white paper roll as I've been rather unimpressed with the cloth backgrounds. I might experiment ahead of time to see whether I can find a way to put tension on the cloth to avoid the wrinkles, but if not I'll just have to make do with white. I'd get another paper roll, but unfortuantely I can't afford that right now (I'm already using up the paper much faster than I'd like).