Warehouses Are Big (And Dark).
iPhone pic of yesterday's shoot location
Yesterday’s shoot location was a warehouse in Sudbury, MA. The shoot involved a wide shot down one of the long aisles and since the warehouse’s lights were pretty dim (even though it may not look that way from the iPhone image above), we ended up needing to light the entire length of the aisle.
- By the time we were done we were using nine studio strobe heads.
We ended up with nine Profoto studio strobe heads arrayed down the length of the aisle, powered by five packs.
My Thoughts on the Canon 5D Mark III Camera
Canon finally announced the long-awaited 5D Mark III camera body early this morning. My thoughts?
I’m sure it’ll be a nice upgrade when my 5D Mark II dies.
That’s right, I will not be rushing out to buy one of these. I was waiting with as much anticipation for this camera as anyone, and was ready to hit the “preorder” button as soon as the listing came up on B&H. But after reading about the camera it does not appear that its features will be worth an immediate upgrade.
There were a few things I was hoping Canon would include in this camera:
1) a faster continuous shooting still frame rate
2) faster video framerate(s)
3) a better autofocus system
4) higher-quality video recording
1) and 4) were improved slightly, but not much. The 5D Mark II’s continuous shooting framerate is 3.9 frames per second. The 5D Mark III’s is 6fps. This is an improvement, but only by about 50% and still doesn’t even match the 7D’s 8fps. As far as video recording, the 5DmkIII uses a new interframe compression scheme and additional processing which may improve the quality of the video, but it still uses the same old 4:2:0 sampling scheme. 2) was not improved at all (the 5D3 can shoot 720 60p, but so can the 7D and, for that matter, so can a $200 GoPro camera… I wanted 1080 60p, which I think is very reasonable*). 3) really is the only one of these four things that was significantly improved. The 5D Mark III was given the same AF system as the 1Dx, Canon’s flagship camera body. It is a 61-point AF system with something like 40 cross-type AF points (the best kind). Also, it uses a tiny, 1.5% spot metering area (the circle is only 1.5% of the total area of the frame) which is great if you want to expose the shot very precisely for a specific area of the image.
Anyway, again, all in all, not worth buying immediately.
*: The 5D Mark III is equipped with one of Canon’s newest, most powerful image processors, the Digic 5+ (the same processor that the 1Dx contains, except the 1Dx has two of them), so it is very possible that the good folks at Magic Lantern will be able to engineer some third-party firmware for the 5D3 and if so, it is possible that they’ll be able to squeeze additional performance out of the camera. We’ll just have to wait and see on that one.
Canon 5D Mark III in the wild?
As every professional photographer knows, the as-yet-unreleased successor to the Canon 5D Mark II camera body has been an immensely anticipated new product. For non-photo professionals, think of it as the “new iPhone” of cameras: everybody’s talking about it, what features it’s going to have, what it’ll be able to do, how much it’ll cost, and most importantly, when it’s going to come out. The 5D Mark II is now over three years old, and is overdue for an update. There have long been rumors that its replacement will be called the 5D Mark III, but pretty much everything else about the camera has been a mystery. Canon sponsors (read: pays) a number of high-profile photographers and allows them early access to new, unreleased equipment and the rumor has been that these photographers have had their hands on the 5D Mark III for some time. These folks are all under legally binding contract not to talk about anything they see early though, so the pro photography world is holding its breath in anticipation.
Well, we just got the biggest hint yet. A wildlife photographer named Stephen Oachs (who is NOT sponsored by Canon and is not under NDA) is currently on safari in Kenya and spotted a Japanse man using unreleased equipment. Oachs, being a wildlife photographer on safari, had a camera and a long lens on hand, and snapped a number of photos of the man and the equipment he was using. The most important image is here:
Photo by Stephen Oachs
Stephen was even so kind as to publicly post the raw file of this photo as proof that it was not faked or manipulated in any way. After cropping and rotating the image for easier viewing, it looks like this:
Stephen Oachs' image, cropped and rotated
A few things are clear from this photo:
- -The camera this man is using is not a 5D Mark II (the control layout is all wrong, among other things)
- -It also isn’t a 7D (no pop-up flash and the button directly above and to the left of the rear scroll wheel doesn’t exist on a 7D)
- -It also isn’t any version of a 1D (the battery grip is a screw-on attachment, not integral to the camera body)
So it is clear that this is an unreleased camera. It is possible that this is a replacement not for the 5D Mark II but the 7D (a “7D Mark II”?), but seems unlikely, since the 5D Mark II should be ahead of the 7D in terms of an update and since the optical viewfinder prism looks too big for the camera to be crop-sensor.
By the way, it is also clear that this unreleased camera includes substantial video functionality, since it includes a prominent still/video switch just like the 7D.
There are now inklings coming out about a Canon announcement on Feb. 7, so it sounds like photographers’ long wait for the mythical 5D Mark III may be about to end.
Snowy Day Post: Spectacular Mt. Rainier Sunrise
A quick little post on this snowy October Saturday (!?!):
Every so often we get to see a Mother Nature put on a spectacular display. Natural phenomena paint the sky and the world around us with colors almost too rich to be true. This is one of those instances:
The shot below is of Mount Rainier near Seattle, Washington. Every once in a while, when the light is just right and the cloud layer sits just below Mt. Rainier’s summit, early risers get the treat of seeing Rainier cast a shadow across the sky right at sunrise.
Image via http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/132629943.html
Check out more images at http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott/132629943.html.
Now to go find my snow shovels… (seriously, shoveling in October?? I think there might be some hot chocolate in my future).
Steve
I never knew Steve Jobs; I never even met him.
And yet I, like many other people, refer to him only as “Steve.” To lots of people it probably seems weird or silly to be on a first-name basis with someone you’ve never met. But to a lot of people who admired him, he wasn’t Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc., Steve Jobs, Founder of Pixar Animation or any of the other handful of titles he had. He was just “Steve.” He didn’t need any titles, because his actions, accomplishments and foibles spoke for him. If somebody talked about Steve you knew immediately that they were talking about the visionary who in addition to being a genius was also an uncompromising perfectionist and was so demanding that often he was a giant pain in the ass to the people who worked with him.
I never even met Steve, and yet my life, like many others, has been affected by him in many ways, both large and small, both superficially and fundamentally. Like millions of other people, I use his gadgets. Steve’s gadgets let me listen to music wherever and whenever I want, they keep me in touch with my friends and family, they entertain me when I’m bored sitting waiting in airports. Steve’s gadgets they tell me how to get where I’m going when I’m lost, they help me do my work creating photographs and they allow me to write this very blog post.
While these things are all important, they’re somewhat superficial. But my life has been impacted by him much more deeply as well. I started learning about Steve when I began to realize the incredible world-changing potential of the products that were coming out of Apple, mostly unnoticed at the time. I read as much about him as I could and I became convinced that there was genius there that was largely undiscovered. I invested heavily in his company when the rest of the industry was writing it off as a failure and suggesting it should be shut down, and the unbelievable returns that Apple provided me on my investment later allowed me to buy the home I now live in, which I would never have been able to afford to do as early as I did were it not for my prediction of Apple’s success.
The more I read about Steve the more fascinating he was; adopted by parents who promised his biological parents he would get a good education, he sat in on a calligraphy course in college before dropping out after one semester because it was costing his parents too much and he didn’t see the value. He lived on friends’ couches and floors returning empty bottles for food money before leaving on a spiritual trip to India, all before his twenty-first birthday when he founded Apple in his parents’ garage with his buddy Steve Wozniak. He talked about a lot of these things and many more in a Commencement address he gave to Stanford University’s graduating class in 2005. It may be the most inspirational speech I’ve heard and is certainly the best Commencement address I’ve ever heard. But the most fascinating thing about him was his absolute insistence on perfection. As the head of a multi-billion-dollar business where millions of dollars could be made or lost by even the slightest delay bringing a product to market, even then Steve was an uncompromising perfectionist. Steve was known for killing product ideas that had spent months or years in development because he didn’t think they were good enough. It is rumored that Apple engineers proposed three completely separate designs for the original iPhone, all of which Steve killed, because they weren’t up to his standards. He made the teams go back to the drawing board and do better.
It is through this uncompromising demand for excellence that Steve had what I believe will be his most important legacy. By demanding the very best and settling for nothing but, Steve inspired me through his example to challenge myself, aim higher, and demand more from myself and accomplish great things.
I am not the only person who was inspired by Steve to do great things, and as a result, each of us benefits not only from the many things Steve gave us while he was alive, but by the many things that will by accomplished by others who were motivated by his example.
The world lost a leader yesterday, someone who excited our imaginations and motivated us to aim higher than we thought we could. It seems like great human beings always die too early, but the world was lucky to have had Steve among us, for even the brief period time we did.
Rest in peace, Steve. You will be missed. The world is a better place because of you.
Kayak & Canoe Photo Shoot
Yesterday I posted a quick bit about the photo shoot I put together on the Charles River just out side of Boston. The focus of the shoot was recreational water sports like kayaking and canoeing. It was the first time I had worked with any of the five models we had that day, but they were all wonderful to work with.
I was shooting with my Canon 7D camera body and a variety of lenses, primarily the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM. I chose to use my 7D body for this shoot for a variety of reasons; as the newest of my cameras its autofocus system is arguably the fastest and best, which was important for this shoot since the models and boats, the focal points of the images, were going to be in constant motion. Also, the 7D has a faster continuous-shooting frame rate than my 5D Mark II body, for example, which better allowed me to capture the fleeting moments of best facial expression, body position, etc. on the models in a fully dynamic environment like the one in which we were shooting. An additional side benefit of the 7D was that its APS-C size image sensor yields a crop factor of 1.5, meaning that all of my lenses were 50% longer, which was nice for flattening the images and bringing the subjects right up close and personal even when they were a distance out on the water.
We were slightly hampered by the fact that some clouds rolled in the middle of the shoot and therefore the light was a bit flatter and less vibrant than I would have wanted (we were relying mostly on nature to provide our light for us although we were using some modifiers and artificial light for fill), although towards the end of the day the clouds began to dissipate and gave us some nice light again towards what turned out to be the end of the day.
A slideshow of some of the images is below.
Ultimately it was a pretty good shoot and I think everybody had fun.
After we had packed up and most of the models and crew had left, I saw one more shot that I thought was worth setting a camera and tripod back up again for. I thought it was a pretty fitting end to the day.
First Look – Kayak & Canoe Photo Shoot
A month or two ago I started working to set up a photo shoot focusing on recreational water sports like kayaking and canoeing. Anyone who knows me knows that there are very few recreational sports I don’t enjoy, and these types of outdoor activities are important parts of state & local tourism marketing and advertising campaigns in the Northeast, not to mention the advertising needs of outdoor equipment retailers like Eastern Mountain Sports, L.L. Bean and REI.
Anyone who has set up a shoot of this sort knows that between finding and booking models, scouting appropriate locations, nailing down assistants and negotiating contracts & coordinating schedules with all of the parties, setting up this kind of shoot is a fair amount of work. But good things don’t come easy, and all of the work was worth it. Last Sunday the crew and talent assembled at the chosen location on a river just outside of Boston and had a great day of shooting.
A full collection of images from the day will be posted here tomorrow, but here is one sneak peek.
Check back tomorrow for the full collection of images and the story behind the shoot.
Kayak & Canoe First Look - ©Chris Conti Photography
Powerful Photography
Today I saw another example of very powerful photography. I’ve heard on the news about the on-going drought in the southern central United States (particularly Texas), but until I saw the slideshow below from the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department, I had no idea just how bad it was.
The images below punch the viewer in the gut with the severity of the crisis (and some graphically depict its effect on wildlife).
This is another instance where photography won’t solve the problem (it seems that only nature can do that), but it can make people thousands of miles away who will never see the problem first hand understand just how serious the situation is, with an eye-opening immediacy that reading all the newspaper descriptions in the world never will.
Hurricane Irene As Seen From Space
The East Coast is starting to flip out about Hurricane Irene (I just read that New Jersey is ordering gambling halted in Atlantic City… the horror!) and since it looks like Irene has Boston in its sights, it looks like I’m going to be spending my Saturday getting a generator and moving things out of my basement in case it floods. In the mean time though, before it gets here, check out this image NASA created from one of its GOES geosynchronous orbit satellites:
Image courtesy of NASA
And here’s a closeup of the U.S. showing the storm:
Image courtesy of NASA
NASA is wonderful for this kind of stuff. I’m sure two days from now I’m going to be much less of a fan, but from 22,000 miles up, the storm is beautiful!
This is just more proof of what I’ve always thought – anything can be beautiful if you look at it in the right way. 
Back to a Favorite Spot
We’ve all got favorite places; places that for whatever reason we keep coming back to, whether it’s because they’re pretty, they’re comfortable, there are good people there who we enjoy spending time with, whatever.
The weather has been beautiful in Boston for the last couple of days (with the exception of that earthquake yesterday! Does that count as weather?), and I had some free time last night so I decided to go back to one of my favorite places in Boston for shooting at night.
The Longfellow Bridge connects Cambridge and Boston across the Charles river, and looks out on the part of the river known as the Sailing Basin, because as the widest, most open part of the river, the MIT, Harvard and other university sailing teams, as well as the public all use it as a great spot for sailing small boats. On any given afternoon there are dozens of sailboats on the water here.
This spot on the bridge is a favorite of mine because in addition to the great view of the river, from this vantage point there is also a great view of the Prudential building and the Hancock Tower, Boston’s two tallest skyscrapers, and the bridge faces southwest, meaning it is wonderful for shooting landscape photos at dusk.
"Charles River Basin": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/8, 17mm, 3.2 sec., ISO 160. ©Chris Conti Photography
For this image, because I knew I wanted both the natural light in the sky as well as the artificial lights inside the buildings to be visible with a nice balance between the two, it was important to wait for just the right light. I knew that would mean in this case that would mean a little bit after sunset, when the sky had dimmed sufficiently to not overpower the artificial lights (sunset photos can be gorgeous, but I’ve found that often the best light is actually after sunset, such as here). With the camera on the tripod and using a wide-angle lens (my trusty Canon 5D Mark II with the superb EF 17-40mm f/4L lens), I stopped the lens down to f/8 because shutter speed wasn’t going to be an issue (thank you, tripod) and I wanted the little bit of extra sharpness that comes with a smaller aperture. Using a remote cable release to fire the camera to avoid shake I fired a few frames to test exposure (the camera’s internal light meter here is a decent starting point but only a starting point) and play with a few different angles. Since I wasn’t using a tilt/shift lens and the camera needed to be angled up to get the framing I wanted, I had to do a bit of digital alteration in post (Photoshop’s “Lens Correction” function) to remove the distortion and make the buildings straight.
The result is what I think is a nice image, somewhat different than ones I’ve taken here before. It is by no means perfect though (if in fact an image can ever be), so I’m sure that I’ll be back to this spot again some time.
The Trifecta: Three Ingredients of a Beautiful Photograph
It is a very special and rare moment for me when I discover a photographer whose work I haven’t previously seen and which includes what I call “The Trifecta” – the three ingredients which I consider to combine to form stunning photography. I had one of those moments yesterday when I happened to see a National Geographic article about the Kermode bear (or “Spirit Bear,” as some of the indigenous people in Canada call it). The article featured photography by the Canadian nature and wildlife photographer Paul Nicklen. After seeing the images there, I found Paul’s website and, put very simply, sat in pure awe for the next 20 minutes staring at the images he has created.
I’ve spent enough time studying, appreciating and shooting photography that I can tell pretty quickly when someone’s got The Trifecta. And pretty much instantly, I could see that Paul has it. Below are a few of Paul’s photographs. While the photographs are so powerful that they elicit an immediate visceral response, try to appreciate them for a few extra moments; consider how all three elements of The Trifecta are present in each image.
So what is The Trifecta? Here goes – the three things that contribute to truly stunning photography:
#1: Interesting Subject
It goes without saying (so much so that it’s sometimes forgotten!) that when the subject of a photograph is interesting, it is a lot more likely that the photograph itself is going to be appealing. A photograph doesn’t HAVE to have an interesting subject to be appealing (a photographer who excels in one or both of the other parts of The Trifecta can make a great photograph of even a boring, unremarkable and commonplace subject), but it sure helps. A good subject is the most obvious and, frankly, the easiest part of The Trifecta.
Photo ©Paul Nicklen, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted With Permission
It is pretty obvious why the subjects of Paul’s images are fascinating to anyone who doesn’t live above the Arctic Circle (and probably even to a lot of people who do!). He goes to the ends of the Earth (literally) to find them.
#2: Technical Skill
Many modern cameras have been designed to require a lot less technical know-how in order to use them to make a workable photograph (i.e., the “program” and “auto” modes on many cameras). But unless you get lucky, that know-how is still needed in order to make a truly great photo with the appearance the photographer envisions: does the photographer think a slight bit of motion blur is going to enhance the look of the photo? Would the photo be more striking if only a small, specific part of the subject was in focus? Does one area of a photo need more or less light than it’s getting in order to show it properly? If so, how are these things going to be accomplished? These are considerations under the best of circumstances. In a challenging environment, under challenging lighting conditions, etc., the need for technical skill goes up astronomically.
Photo ©Paul Nicklen, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted With Permission
It’s easy to take a picture of a polar bear in daylight through the fence at a zoo; when you’re in the Arctic wilderness submerged under water that’s only a few degrees above freezing and there’s nothing between you and the bear but a few feet of that water, things get a bit more complex. For example: how does the fact that the photographer is underwater affect the shutter speed needed to achieve the swimming motion visible here in the bear’s feet?
#3: Creative/Artistic Vision
Ansel Adams famously said that he didn’t simply see a pretty scene and capture it; instead he imagined in his mind an image of how he wanted a scene to look, then used all of the tools at his disposal (the technical skill) to make that image in his mind appear on paper in the photograph. This creative or artistic vision is the most important ingredient in The Trifecta, and also the hardest to come by. Creative vision is how the photographer chooses to present the image through artistic choices like composition, shape, motion, contrast, texture, color, light, darkness, depth of field and many other variables to visually convey the emotions and the visceral, gut-reaction feel desired. It is how a talented photographer can take even a bland, unremarkable everyday subject and make a striking and visually interesting image of it, or an ugly scene and find the beauty in it.
Photo ©Paul Nicklen, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted With Permission
The photo above is a perfect example of how a talented photographer can convey emotion. Looking at that image, your first reaction would be one of fright, feeling like you’re about to become dinner to a ruthless and terrifying predator. And in fact, those were the emotions Paul was feeling when he shot that image. As he describes in this video, when Paul got in the water with the seal he was intimidated by its size. But soon, he saw that the seal wasn’t threatening, but was actually trying to care for him, bringing him food and trying to feed him, the way a concerned mother would care for its young. And this friendlier, nurturing feel is evident in another photo Paul made soon after:
Photo ©Paul Nicklen, All Rights Reserved. Reprinted With Permission
It is rare indeed to see a photographer with a ready command of all three parts of The Trifecta. Too often, photographers lean on an interesting subject as a crutch to disguise weak technical skill or creative vision (this kind of failing can be seen frequently when imagery of exotic people or places is shown without artistry or any emotion conveyed with the image… this crutch is sometimes used so extensively that, in the wedding industry for example, some individuals will take on a client only if that client’s wedding takes place in a beautiful location and involves only beautiful people). Photographers must avoid the temptation to take this easy way out, and consumers should take the time to appreciate not only the subject matter of photographs, but also how they are presented, and how much of the photographer’s emotions they can feel in the image.
Because as Paul Nicklen and many other masterful photographers have shown, while one strength or another can make a good image, it takes The Trifecta to make a truly great one.
Tips for Taking Pictures of Fireworks
Ah, it’s that time of year. In a couple of days, towns and cities all over the country are going to be having fireworks displays, and I have to say, cooking out on the grill with friends & family then sitting in the grass watching fireworks is one of my favorite things. Fireworks are beautiful and make for beautiful, striking and colorful photographs, but they’re also technically challenging to photograph well, primarily because there isn’t a whole lot of light.
If you’re planning to take pictures of fireworks this weekend, there are a few things you can do to make your pictures much better.
- “Fireworks, Portland Maine”: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM @ f/22, 100mm, 25 sec., ISO 400. ©Chris Conti Photography
#1: Camera Support. Because it’s nighttime and there’s very little light, the camera is going to need a very slow shutter speed (ie, a long exposure) to get enough light to properly expose the photo, and therefore needs to be held very still to prevent the picture from being blurry. It is very difficult to hold the camera steady enough in your hand, so you need to use something else to keep the camera from moving during the exposure. The most common kind of camera support is a tripod: if you’ve got one and are able to carry it with you, great. That’s your best option. If not though, there are other things you can do to steady the camera: anything you can rest the camera on can be used to steady it – this could be a backpack you put on the ground and then the camera on top of; a jacket you ball up, or even a fence rail, window sill or other fixed structure that the camera can sit on.
#2: The longest exposure you can manage! In the photo above, there are at least a half a dozen individual fireworks exploding. They didn’t all go off at the same time! By keeping the camera exposure as long as you can, you can pull off a trick: since the fireworks are so bright against the night sky, one going off after another after another will have the effect of “layering” the explosions on top of each other, and the single photo will end up having lots of explosions that happened at different times. The photo above was exposed for 25 seconds, so all of the explosions that happened during that whole 25 seconds show up in the photo. The flip side of this trick though, is that the camera needs to be help absolutely still for the whole time, or else the photo will be blurry, so the camera support above is that much more important.
In cameras that have full manual controls (SLR cameras and other high-end ones), setting a long exposure is easy (with an SLR camera you should also use a small aperture [high f-stop #] to gain a deeper depth of field and allow a longer exposure!). In other cameras like “point & shoot” types that can fit in your pocket, it can be trickier or impossible to set longer exposures (on some models, the “exposure compensation” can be turned all the way up to force the camera to take a longer exposure).
Fireworks, Somerville Massachusetts: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/16, 17mm, 30 sec., ISO 100. ©Chris Conti Photography
#3 Avoid the smoke. When fireworks go off they make a lot of smoke, and if the air is humid or there isn’t much wind, the smoke can hang around and obscure a clear view of the fireworks going off. If you can, try to pick a spot up-wind from where the fireworks are going to go off, so that the smoke gets blown away from you, instead of in your face. Photos look a lot better without a ton of smoke in them.
#4 Avoid extraneous light sources when you can (or at least figure out how to keep them from being distracting)! Extraneous light sources can be distracting in an image, especially since they’re going to be magnified many times in brightness by the long exposures you’re going to be using. In the image above, there were a bunch of light sources (street lights) that just couldn’t be avoided without really screwing up the framing of the image. I did work though to keep a really, really bright light that was facing straight at me out of the frame to the left. Even so though, you can see the light and lens flare that came from that light.
Good luck, and have fun!
Somerville Fireworks (& The Boston Globe)
So I walked over to my town’s local fireworks display last night (right around the corner from my house), and just for fun, I carried along a camera and tripod (of course… it’s just who I am). It was crazy – a much bigger production than I’d assumed: all of the streets were blocked off, there were thousands of people in the streets, food trucks, etc etc.:
The crowd for the Somerville fireworks display: iPhone photo ©Chris Conti Photography
No sooner than I had set up my tripod I was approached by a woman who introduced herself as writer for the Boston Globe, asking me who I was there shooting for (in other words, if I worked for another news organization). When I replied that I’m a self-employed photographer and was just there shooting photos for my own amusement, she asked if she could use one of my photos for her Globe article – apparently the Globe “didn’t have budget” to send one of their own photographers to cover the event.
Everyone knows that times are very tough for print media organizations – since everyone is getting their news online, newspapers’ subscriber bases are evaporating and with them go the newspapers’ revenue, which has resulted in terrible staff cuts at just about every paper. But it is a sad state of affairs indeed when a leading regional newspaper “doesn’t have budget” to pay a photojournalist to cover an event on which they plan to publish a story, and this was an example of why I am very, very glad that I am not a photojournalist.
In any case, I was there shooting photos anyway, and since they’d already decided they weren’t going to pay for photography of the event (that much was clear) I told the writer that provided I was given proper credit for the photo, I’d give the Globe one to run with their story*. The writer took my email address, and several hours later via email I sent her a few photos I captured from the evening.
For the Globe’s article, they picked one of the photos I sent, and the writer actually quoted me as well (which I didn’t know she was going to do! If I’d known I was going to be quoted, I’d have paid attention to my grammar!). The article can be seen here: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/somerville/2011/07/somerville_fireworks_light_up.html
Here are a few of the photos I shot that night (it really was a great display, and as Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone was sure to point out, the fireworks didn’t cost taxpayers a dime, since they were funded in full through private donations).
Fireworks, Somerville Massachusetts: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/16, 17mm, 30 sec., ISO 100. ©Chris Conti Photography
Fireworks, Somerville Massachusetts: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/16, 17mm, 30 sec., ISO 100. ©Chris Conti Photography
Fireworks, Somerville Massachusetts: Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/16, 17mm, 30 sec., ISO 100. ©Chris Conti Photography
*: I understand this issue may anger some professionals in the industry who rely on paying editorial work. The debate about shooting for pay vs. shooting solely for a credit is not an insignificant one, and it is truly embarrassing for the Globe that they have cut back so dramatically on paying editorial work that they didn’t send a staff photographer or editorial freelancer to shoot something that they thought was important enough to warrant a story. It is a bad time to be an editorial photographer or photojournalist indeed.
I Love My Job
I just spent the morning shooting on the campus of Phillips Andover for their admissions materials, and it was such a great experience. My staff contact is wonderful, the faculty we worked with were helpful, friendly and accommodating, the students are enthusiastic and vibrant, and the campus is to die for (it certainly didn’t hurt that we had the prettiest day of the summer yet!).
It was a reminder of why I do what I do. I love my job.
Memorial Day Timelapse in Maine
This past weekend I got a treat: I got to spend Memorial Day weekend in Maine in a gorgeous spot on the ocean. I had my cameras with me of course, so I shot some timelapse clips. This video doesn’t have any sound and is rough (the project was just for fun and was done quickly), but here goes.
(for best viewing, click the “HD” button to “on” and watch it full-screen by clicking the four-arrows button)
Websites Can Sell Your Stuff
Those pictures you took of yourself and your friends at that party the other night? How would you like to turn around and see them on a billboard for a product you’ve never heard of?
That, and worse, is exactly what can happen now when you upload your pictures to a lot of popular web services.
You know those unbelievably long “Terms & Conditions” that pop up whenever you sign up for a website or web service? The ones that are so full of legalese as to be incomprehensible? The ones that you never read, but instead just scroll to the bottom and click “I Accept”? You always know that’s a bad idea, and that you really should read them… and you always know, in the back of your head somewhere, that somewhere buried somewhere in those agreements is something you don’t want.
Well, in the case of TwitPic, the ubiquitous service for Twitter users to post pictures, that “something you don’t want” is giving TwitPic the right to sell your pictures and videos… to whoever they want, to be used wherever and however they want. And they won’t even tell you first (Facebook also has similar language that lets them use your pictures in ads, etc without telling you).
TwitPic changed its “Terms of Service” yesterday to add the following:
You retain all ownership rights to Content uploaded to Twitpic. However, by submitting Content to Twitpic, you hereby grant Twitpic a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and Twitpic’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels.That means anything you upload to TwitPic they can turn around and sell (without giving you any of the money, by the way). Who would they be selling it to? Well, it turns out that yesterday’s change to the “Terms of Service” isn’t a coincidence: TwitPic just signed a deal with the celebrity gossip content agency WEBB (yep, the people who sell pictures to the National Enquirer and other gossip rags) to have access to all of TwitPic’s (ie, your) pictures & video.
In reality, it is unlikely that TwitPic would sell your pictures of your less-than-sober friends to anyone… because, let’s be honest, while they’re interesting to you, those pictures aren’t really financially valuable to the rest of the world. But, if you happen to be at the right place at the right time and take a picture of something or someone newsworthy, or take a particularly striking or unique photo? You can bet TwitPic is going to turn around and sell it without even telling you, and your picture will end up on a website somewhere (probably a website of questionable integrity, since those are the places that buy content from places like WEBB) and you won’t even know it. TwitPic will make a bunch of money, and you won’t get a dime.
As I mentioned, these types of arrangements are becoming increasingly common with web sites and services recently – Facebook, Instagram, YFrog and most other Twitter photo services all have similar language in their Terms of Service. Basically, you have to assume that any web service you use has this type of legal language. For professional photographers, these agreements are particularly problematic: If, for example, I’m working for an outdoor equipment company and make a landscape photograph of a hiker on a trail and I were to upload that photo to Facebook, TwitPic, etc., I can’t legally give my client exclusive use of that photograph, because by using their services, I’ve already given Facebook or TwitPic the right to use it… and therefore, my entire agreement with my client is void. As a result, professional photographers know not to use any of these services with any of their work that they care about (which is why you’ll see very few photos on my Facebook or Twitter profiles!).
The moral of the story is, be really careful what you do with your photos. You may have agreed to something you don’t necessarily want.
UPDATED: A Thousand Words – The Mission to Get Bin Laden, As It Was Unfolding
Today was a significant day in world history, with President Barack Obama announcing just before midnight last night that after a 10-year-long search, the United States had located Osama Bin Laden and killed him in a military operation hours earlier. The announcement has sparked an avalanche of media coverage that has continued all day, and I’m sure the story will dominate headlines for weeks to come.
Among the countless pieces of media coverage today have been many photographs from all over the world, and for me (unsurprisingly) these have been the most powerful. From crowds of young Americans cheering in front of the White House to a somber and angry procession of radical militants in Yemen mourning Bin Laden’s death, the photographs that we’ve seen today will serve as the world’s memory of this day for generations to come. They are a reminder of the power of a photograph, and are an affirmation of why we as photographers do what we do.
One photo in particular that I think went largely unnoticed in the flood of coverage today crystallizes in a nutshell the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” The photo, below, by official White House photographer Pete Souza, shows President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other senior members of the U.S. leadership in the White House Situation Room watching updates on the raid on Bin Laden’s hideout live as it was taking place.
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, via www.whitehouse.gov
It’s rare that the public gets to see a raw, unposed look at our leaders, especially in as tense a moment as this, and the expressions on the faces of the individuals in the room couldn’t be more telling. From what we know, it seems likely that this assembled group was watching live video feed via satellite from the Navy SEALs as they were storming Bin Laden’s compound, and this photo would seem to support that – Look at the stone-faced concern on the president’s face; look at the expression of what can only be described as sheer horror on that of Secretary Clinton: photographs like this give us a rare glimpse into what our leaders face and feel behind closed doors. They let us imagine what it would be like to be in their shoes.
This is the power of photography: to tell stories and convey emotions – whether they are jubilation, love, anxiety or fear – that we could not convey any other way.
(Note: The White House has noted that a classified document in this photo was digitally altered to obscure its contents. A quick examination shows that the piece of paper on top of Secretary Clinton’s laptop has been obscured. It would appear that that document is an aerial photograph of the compound where Bin Laden was found.)
UPDATE: It seems that in the last two days this photo has become extremely famous. The White House uploaded this photo to its Flickr stream and it has apparently become Flickr’s “fastest viewed” photo ever, reaching over two million views in only two days. Flickr now predicts that it will become its most-viewed photo ever sometime tomorrow or the next day after passing three million views… in only 3-4 days.
Additionally, commentators other than myself have started started discussing the photo, and it has been suggested that this photo may well become one of the iconic, lasting images of Barack Obama’s presidency. The New York Times’ David Brooks and Gail Collins discuss this photo here. In their discussion, Brooks identifies many of the same issues I noted. Additionally though, Brooks very keenly notes that in the photo, President Obama is sitting not at the head of the table, but off to the side:
“The posture of the president is fascinating. Instead of occupying the power chair in the center of the table, he is perched on a low chair off the side, hunched over looking tense. If you just looked at this picture, you might think that Joe Biden was president or Bill Daley, who is standing behind looking imposing and grave. You’d think Obama was a midlevel aide. I think what happened is this: some sort of communication or technical relay had to be done, so the president got out of his chair and relinquished it to Brig. Gen. Brad Webb, who is the assistant commanding general of the Joint Special Operations Command. The president just slid over to the low chair off to the side, which one of the standers must have relinquished. Still, I wonder how many White Houses would have been confident enough to release a photo with the president looking so diminutive. I think it speaks well of Obama and the administration that they released this as the iconic image of the decision-making process behind the event.”
I agree. I think it shows confidence on the part of the president that he is willing to be depicted publicly in the manner shown in this photo.
In any case, I agree that this photo, which was initially nearly lost in the flood of media coverage around the event, could well become the central image of how history remembers Barack Obama’s presidency.
First Shot From Trip Out West
I haven’t had much free time since I got back from my trip out west, and today was the first chance I had to even look at the still photos I shot while I was there. I shot such a huge quantity of material during the course of the three weeks (in Utah, San Diego, Los Angeles, and finally Las Vegas) that there are a lot of shots that I don’t even remember taking. There are a few, though, that I remember very clearly, and this is one of them.
This photograph was taken in a remote section of the backcountry of Zion National Park in southwestern Utah.
"Unnamed Ridge, Zion National Park, March 2011": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ f/13, 17mm, 1/40 sec., ISO 160. ©Chris Conti Photography
Before I shoot any photograph I always try to have a picture in my mind of how the image will look when it is finished. There are certain scenes that just scream out to be displayed in black and white. This was one of those times – I knew before I even shot the photo that I was going to convert it from color to black and white when I got back to the computer (one of the conveniences of digital photography).
I don’t know why this particular scene was so striking to me – it had something to do with how the loose stones were strewn around on the slickrock, how their shadows contrasted with the unbelievably strong, bright sun.
P. S. – As a side note, this image illustrates both the advantages and disadvantages of digital photography. My digital camera gave me the ability to shoot the photo in color and convert it to black & white afterwards (whereas in the days of film I would have been forced to either A) shoot the image on whatever type of film I happened to have in my camera at the moment or B) pull the roll of film out and waste whatever I hadn’t used), which of course is a big advantage.
A big disadvantage with digital photography, though, is that I, as a photographer, have a lot less control over how you, the viewer, see my images. In the days of film, if I printed a photo onto a piece of photographic paper in a darkroom and then showed it to you, I could be pretty sure you would see it almost exactly as I did – the colors would look the same, the lights and darks would be the same light or dark. With digital photography, on the other hand, since this image is being viewed on a computer screen, I can’t actually even be sure if you, the viewer, are seeing the image the way I intended it. The reason for this is that computers (both through software and hardware) all display color and luminance (how bright something is) differently. So in the case of this image, I intended parts of the sky to be dark, but not completely black. But your computer screen might show the image with parts of the sky completely black, so you may not be able to see some of the detail that I intended.
I’m sure eventually technology will solve this problem, but for the moment it is just a weakness of digital photography that photographers have to live with.
Zion National Park Timelapse
I just got back from a three-week part-work/part-fun trip to California, Nevada and Utah and I have a ton of stuff I’m working on, hopefully some of which I’ll get the chance to post here. For the moment, here is one frame from an overnight timelapse I shot while on a backpacking trip in the backcountry wilderness of Zion National Park in Utah. This particular shot captures the Milky Way galaxy nicely in the center of the frame.
I’m working on the timelapse video now, and hopefully I’ll have it online sometime soon.
Never, Ever Use FedEx
This post is going to be part rant and part (hopefully) helpful information which will (hopefully) save somebody else the time, money and aggravation of going through what I have (it will also, it seems, be part legal primer as it appears I’m going to be taking FedEx to small claims court).
I had FedEx ship a camera lens from California to Boston on Feb. 16. Thankfully, it was an inexpensive one, a Canon Extender EF 2x II teleconverter, which retails for about $300, which is downright cheap as far as professional lenses go. When the box finally arrived here in Boston on March 1 (a week late), this is what it looked like:
I was home when the package was delivered, but the FedEx delivery person just dropped the box on my doorstep and left without ringing the doorbell (perhaps because they knew the package was damaged? I’d say it was a coincidence except that this is the second time they’ve done this, as I’ll explain at the end). So, I had no way of stopping the delivery person to note the damage at the time.
I opened up the package, and sure enough, despite being extremely well-packed, wrapped in many layers of bubble wrap, the lens inside was trashed: the rear lens cap was broken off, with little bits of broken plastic rolling around (these rear lens caps are extremely sturdy and durable… I can’t even imagine the amount of shock it took to break it), the front lens cap had popped off, and both the front and rear lens elements (pieces of glass) were scratched, and there was a dent in the metal body of the lens right where the outer cardboard box was dented.
The glass scratches alone would have totaled the piece of equipment, but the huge dent in the lens’s metal body made it completely unusable. So, I went online to FedEx’s damage claim webpage, filled out the necessary forms, and submitted all the necessary information (thankfully, when I’m shipping something important or expensive I always pay extra for the insurance, in case precisely this kind of thing happens. So for an additional $8.50 or something, I insured the lens for its replacement value, or about $300). After about two and a half weeks without a word of communication (not a phone call, not even an automated email), a FedEx guy showed up on my doorstep saying he was there to pick up the package. What? Pick up the package? Apparently FedEx wanted to inspect the damaged lens, but never bothered to tell me. I hurriedly went and got the lens and the box it originally shipped in, along with the ton of bubble wrap, packaged it up and gave it to the guy (thankfully I got a receipt).
I’m leaving for a long trip in a few days (mix of business and personal, should be some great stuff when I get back!) and would really have liked to have my lens, so today I decided to check into the status of the claim, because once again, I haven’t heard a word. In speaking to the customer service rep on the phone, today I learned that not only had the claim been denied (with no reason given and in fact without even having been told), FedEx has now LOST THE PACKAGE. It was supposed to be sent back to me when the claim was denied for no reason, but the FedEx person told me they don’t know where it is.
So my lens was destroyed, the claim for the destruction was denied without explanation, and now the evidence has been “lost.”
I won’t have time to deal with it until after I get back from my trip, but when I do it seems now my only option is to take FedEx to small claims court to get them to pay for a new lens.
This whole experience would be bad enough, if it weren’t for the fact that this is the second time in a row that FedEx has destroyed one of my packages. Readers of this blog may recall the last incident, in which the FedEx delivery person delivered (and by “delivered” I mean “dropped on the front steps and scurried away without ringing the doorbell” in a suspiciously similar manner) this package:
Those were prints made to be framed and donated to an auction to raise money for a local cancer patient.
So there you have it. Never, ever use FedEx. Both UPS and the US Postal Service are cheaper, have better and faster service, and don’t destroy the things you’re trying to ship.
Stealing Images (aka Copyright Infringement)
A few days ago I discovered that a few of my images from this very blog had been taken by a person I’ve never met and re-used, without my permission or even my knowledge, on that person’s web site.
The subject of copyright infringement has come up by coincidence a few times in the last several days, and it prompted me to write this post. In my case, some of my images were downloaded from this website and then re-posted by an individual, apparently located somewhere in Europe, to that person’s photography website, http://www.pafosphotos.com. What irked me most about the episode was that this person, whoever they are, appears from their website not to generate ANY content of his/her own, but instead simply posts content (images, text & video) that s/he has “scraped” from other people’s sites like mine. Further, it seems clear that this individual is fully aware that his or her actions are illegal since I subsequently discovered that s/he pays a 3rd-party company to conceal his or her identity.
Another, much more widespread recent example of stolen work is the story of Noam Galai and “The Stolen Scream,” as it has come to be known. Take a look at the video below about it.
This story raises a lot of really important questions, not just for photographers and other creative professionals but for the world at large, since Mr. Galai’s photograph was used (and misused) as widely as on a book cover in Mexico, a graphic design from a designer in Europe and even as an anti-government revolutionary symbol in Iran. As he alluded to in his interview, Mr. Galai is less concerned about the appropriation of his image for non-profit purposes like the Iranian resistance than he is about for-profit misuses like cover image that was sold to the publisher of the book in Mexico City or the graphic design that the designer sells for hefty sums. I think this kind of sentiment would probably be pretty common… many people would probably mind misappropriation of their work less for non-profit uses than for for-profit uses – but then again, Mr. Galai isn’t a professional photographer (at least that I’m aware of) and therefore doesn’t rely on his photographs for his livelihood.
The law is very clear that photographers (as well as writers, musicians, etc.) own the material that they author and that other people can’t take it and try to profit from it without the permission of (which of course usually includes payment to) the person who created it. The rights authors have over their stuff are inherent and not dependent on the creator doing any legal wrangling (such as writing “Copyright …..” underneath, or whatever), but these are added steps professionals have generally been advised to take as an extra precaution. One such added precaution that U.S. residents are advised to take is registering their work with the U.S. Copyright Office (www.copyright.gov). I make a practice of registering all of my work with the Copyright Office and from what attorneys tell me, this gives me an added layer of security in case people steal my work. But as case with my work being stolen by PafosPhotos (which I only ever discovered through a combination of coincidence and luck) clearly shows, none of these legal protections are terribly effective, both because of the varying laws in play (I know what the laws are here in the United States, but does that help me when the perpetrator is located in Italy and his or her identity is concealed by a company in Luxembourg?) as well as by the logistics of actually trying to enforce my rights.
Copyright infringement is a very complicated subject, but there are problems with it that I’m afraid are only going to get worse.
I Love Happy Clients
I just saw that one of my education clients, Riverdale Country School, a private K-12 gradeschool just outside of New York City, is using my images for most of their website photography.
(Their website is www.riverdale.edu… most of the images on the homepage slideshow, as well as the images under the other tabs, are mine)
I love happy clients!
My New Favorite Architectural Landscape Image
This blog has been really quiet for a long time, but it’s because I’ve been busy! Really exciting news is that there are going to be some big changes (additions) to this website coming soon. I’m really looking forward to it. Stay tuned.
Right now though, I just wanted to share this really quickly. I just finished this image, and I think it is probably my new favorite architectural landscape image. This image is actually a composite of three different exposures (which makes it undeniably an HDR ["high dynamic range"] image… this is significant for me because generally HDR, as it is typically practiced these days, is not my cup of tea… this is an example of a topic that passes for controversy within the photographic community, but nevermind that for now).
Anyway, the image is definitely not perfect (in hindsight a higher perspective would have been better, composition could have been shifted a bit, etc.), but I think it is pretty good and I like it.
"Villa": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @ 20mm, ISO 200, f/11, 3-exposure composite. ©Chris Conti Photography All Rights Reserved.
FedEx Fail
A few weeks ago I was contacted about donating a print or two to a charity, to be auctioned at a fundraiser for a young man who needs a very expensive medical operation not covered by insurance. I was happy to participate. I had the prints printed by Millers Lab (which did an excellent job, as always), and they were delivered today by FedEx, who crushed the package and destroyed the prints inside, which will now have to be reprinted.
I love how it says right on the box in bold letters, “PHOTOGRAPHS, DO NOT BEND”… right next to where FedEx crunched the box.
The best part? I saw the FedEx woman dropping off the package as I was on my way home from an errand. She dropped it on the porch and scurried away without ringing the bell or anything, clearly knowing the package was damaged and not wanting to get caught.
FEDEX FAIL. Next time, UPS!
Zaza Gallery Canvas Photo Print Review
So about a month ago (jeez, it’s been a month already…!) I wrote that a company called Zaza Gallery that makes canvas photo prints had offered to give me a free canvas if I would review the product here on the blog. The technology that drives many of today’s photo products is evolving so rapidly that I’m always interested in hearing about and trying out new vendors, so I was happy to take them up on it.
Their initial offer was for a 16″ x 20″ photo canvas. I shoot on Canon cameras, whose sensors are built with a 3:2 aspect-ratio frame (meaning the width of the image is 1.5x the height) and like many pros, whenever possible I use the entire frame when composing my shots (this is a good practice, as it maximizes the sensor area that you’re using for your final composition, thereby maximizing the image quality). As a result, the 16×20 canvas was a different aspect ratio (5:4) than my intended composition. I brought this to the attention of the company, and they generously offered to instead provide me with a 16×24 canvas, which matched my images’ 3:2 aspect ratio.
Zaza directs that for best quality, the image file that customers provide for printing have a resolution of 300 dpi in order to preserve detail in the final print. This is good, because in order to achieve the great detail of true professional-quality prints, high resolution is essential. For a 16×24 print though, this works out to 4800×7200 pixels, or approximately 35 megapixels, which is a higher resolution than even the best pro cameras widely used today (there are a small number of exotic systems that can achieve this resolution natively). What this means is that to make a Zaza canvas print properly, photo-editing software such as Adobe Photoshop or Lightroom is needed to increase the resolution of image files (known as “up-resing”). Since up-resing can result in nasty pixelation, artifacting and other image degradation if not done carefully, images that will be used to print high-quality prints such as canvases must be originally captured in the highest resolution possible.
In any case, for this test canvas, I chose to use one of my more recent photos (featured previously on the blog as the first Photo of the Day, here) which I called “Daybreak”. Here is the photo:
I chose to use this photo because it would really put the Zaza printing process through its paces: With its heavily saturated colors it would test Zaza’s ability to color-match, the absolute blacks in the silhouettes and sky would test the ability to achieve true black, and the smooth fade-to-black in the sky would test Zaza’s ability to print smooth gradients.
I prepared the image file according to Zaza’s specifications, with the appropriate resolution, format (Zaza takes standard JPG files) and embedded sRGB color profile (color profiles are essential for accurate color reproduction) and sent the image off. In about a week and a half (which is a normal turnaround time for canvas prints like this) I received the finished canvas. It was packaged well-protected, in a cardboard box in a plastic bag covered in bubble-wrap. Here is the finished canvas:
Zaza offers a number of different wrapping style options – a traditional “gallery wrap,” in which the image extends beyond the edges of the frame and continues on the sides, white and black wraps, in which image extends only to the edge of the frame and the sides are white or black, and finally “mirror wraps” and “blur wraps,” which are the best of both worlds: the image extends only to the edges of the frame (meaning the image is not cut off), but the edges are colored either by a reflection of the edge of the image or a blur of the edge of the image (which is nice so that the sides, if visible when hung, have some color and look like a real gallery wrap). I elected for the blur-wrap style. I haven’t seen this option with other canvas print vendors, and it is really nice. Your image doesn’t get clipped, but you still get nice coloration on the sides of the frame.
The quality of the final product is very good. The frame is sturdy and the canvas is stretched quite taut and stapled very securely. As far as the print quality:
-The color reproduction is very good. The colors matched the file I provided, and the saturation and vividness are excellent. Neither over- nor under-saturated.
-The blacks are truly black, the white truly white. Overall, contrast is excellent.
-Detail sharpness is average. On extremely close inspection I can make out a bit of fuzziness in the details, but this is to be expected from a file that was up-res’ed. And in any case no one viewing the print on a wall will get close enough to see the level of detail that I was inspecting. No complaints here.
-Like nearly all canvas prints I’ve seen, the print reflects a moderate amount of glare light, so care must be taken in regard to where the canvas is hung to avoid glare light. But again, this is common for canvas prints.
So there you have it, that’s my review! This canvas will hang proudly on my studio wall. Good job Zaza!
Fourth of July
"Fireworks, Portland Maine": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro IS USM @ f/22, 100mm, 25 sec., ISO 400. ©Chris Conti Photography
Final Photo of the Day for a little while! 6/28/10: “A Flower Grows in the City”
Hi all!
This will probably be the last Photo of the Day for a little while, as I’m getting pretty busy and I don’t think I’ll have time to post these each day for a little while. It’s been fun, I’ve enjoyed getting comments, and I hope you’ve enjoyed the images! Hopefully when things settle back down a bit I’ll be able to restart these.
For now though, I’ll leave you with “A Flower Grows in the City.” Have a great week everyone!
Chris
"A Flower Grows in the City": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100mm Macro f/2.8L IS USM @ f/2.8, 100mm, 1/640th, ISO 400. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/25/10: “Reece’s”
How about some adorable for today’s Friday Photo of the Day?
Have a great weekend everybody!
Chris
"Reece's": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ f/4, 105mm, 1/400th, ISO 400. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/24/10: “Shorebreak”
Hi folks!
Today’s Photo of the Day is one that I kind of like. We’ve all seen lots of “put the camera on a tripod and point it at rocks on a beach with a long exposure” photos before, and I’ll completely acknowledge that this shot is very certainly not an original idea. What I like about this shot though is the lighting – it was a very special time of day (actually a little bit after sunset), shot from a special angle so that the water caught some reflected light in the sky, and the rocks actually caught light from two sides. Plus I like the composition, with lots of empty space suggesting expansiveness… I guess I better like the composition, since I shot it!
Anyway, I digress. Hope you enjoy it. Happy Thursday!
Chris
"Shorebreak": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ f/9, 105mm, 4", ISO 100. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/23/10: “Wet Rocks”
Talk about a boring name, huh? Well, today’s shot really is some wet rocks! If you can think of a better name, let me know. If I pick your name, you’ll get… I don’t know, something cool.
Anyway, this shot was on a volcanic black sand beach. Just up from the sand there were thousands of smooth black pebbles and the way the water ran over and through them was very interesting to me.
Happy Wednesday!
"Wet Rocks": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ f/4, 105mm, 1/25th, ISO 200. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/22/10: “Remembered”
We’ve been very busy! Sorry about the skipped Photo of the Day yesterday! It’s nice to know that enough people are following these for me to get a number of notes when one goes missing.
Today’s photo needs very little in the way of explanation. The USS Arizona Memorial bears the names of the men who died on board when the Arizona sank after the attack on Pearl Harbor, whose bodies still lay inside.
- Chris
"Remembered": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM @ f/2.8, 200mm, 1/1250th, ISO 200. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/18/10: “Aftermath”
Happy Friday everyone!
This was my first year photographing the Boston Marathon, and I was blown away at the number of striking visual opportunities it provided; not just the stereotypical shots of runners pounding pavement, enduring mile after mile while pouring sweat, but more subtle, less-noticed details like this one. The marathon was a wealth of opportunity, and I’ll be going back next year.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Chris
"Aftermath": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM @ f/6.3, 150mm, 1/1600th, ISO 400. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/17/10: “Morning After”
New Orleans is a party town. I mean these people party. So it is no wonder that the streets are deserted on a Sunday morning. But, if you do somehow find yourself awake and about early in the morning, the city’ll treat you well.
Have a great day.
Chris
"Morning After": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L Macro USM @ f/2.8, 100mm, 1/6400th, ISO 200. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/16/10: “Lana’i Sunset”
Today’s photo is of the sunset over the island of Lana’i, taken from Lahaina, HI. The tree in the foreground is a “monkey pod” tree, which is a protected species in Hawaii. Apparently it was the preferred tree of ancient Hawaiians to use to carve their famous masks, idols, figures, etc. I composed the shot from under the tree because I thought it gave the image good depth.
Anyway, happy Wednesday!
Chris
"Lana'i Sunset": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ f/11, 24mm, 1/30th, ISO 200. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/15/10: “Bayou”
"Bayou": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 105mm, ISO 400, 1/800th f/4. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/14/10: “Want a Freeze Pop?”
Hope everybody had a great weekend. To ease you back into the workweek, how about a photo of the cutest kid ever?
Chris
"Want a Freeze Pop?": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM @ 95mm, ISO 400, 1/6400th f/2.8. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/11/10: Lahaina Mauka
Happy Friday everyone!
In Hawaiian, “mauka” means “toward the mountain.” It is used when giving directions as the opposite of “makai,” or “toward the sea.” So today’s photo’s name translates (very roughly) as “up the mountain from Lahaina.”
Have a great weekend!
-Chris
"Lahaina Mauka": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 24mm, ISO 100, 1/80th f/6.3. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, 6/10/10: “Empty Nest”
Hi All,
Today’s photo is one of my personal favorites. The title is aspirational, as well as motivational (for me at least!). I almost called this one “Glass” for obvious reasons, but this title seemed more appropriate.
-Chris
"Empty Nest": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM @ 200mm, ISO 200, 1/1000th f/2.8. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day, June 9, 2010: “Sliding Sands”
Today’s photo was taken inside the crater at the summit of Haleakala, one of the inactive volcanoes in Hawaii, elevation approximately 10,100 ft. It was a landscape like I’d never seen.
I couldn’t come up with a good name for today’s photo, so I originally called it “Alien Land”, but that was a totally lame name. I was just informed that the trail I’ve photographed here is the Sliding Sands trail in the Haleakala crater, and that is a much better name. So this photo is now called “Sliding Sands.”
Happy hump day, everyone!
-Chris
"Sliding Sands": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM @ 200mm, ISO 200, 1/250th f/11. ©Chris Conti Photography
New Canvas Printmaker to Evaluate
I received an offer the other day from a company called Zaza Gallery (www.zazagallery.com). Zaza makes canvas photo prints, and they’re going to give me a print in order evaluate their services. Then I’ll tell all of you what my thoughts are! I’m eager to see how well I like them, because I don’t yet have a vendor for canvas prints that I really like.
So keep an eye out for my review, as soon as I receive the print!
Photo of the Day: June 8, 2010
A little bit of fun today. Today’s photo I’ll call, “Don’t Do It, Man!”
Happy Tuesday, everybody!
-Chris
"Don't Do It, Man!": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM Macro @ 100mm, ISO 400, 1/60th f/7.1. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day: June 7, 2010
It’s Monday… back to work. For today’s Photo of the Day, my mother calls this one “Grace.” I suppose that’s as good a name as any.
"Grace": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ 65mm, ISO 200, 1/8000th f/6. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day: June 4, 2010
Today’s photo I’ll call “City of Water.” The back story here is that this is in the French Quarter in New Orleans, post-Katrina. Throughout my time in the New Orleans, I was struck with the relationship the city has with water. In the French Quarter, water seems to be everywhere, all the time. Residents live with water all around them in their everyday lives in a way that I haven’t seen before almost anywhere I’ve traveled. You can imagine the impact then that Katrina had (and still has) on people’s emotions. So I was fascinated with the city’s relationship with water.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
-Chris
"City of Water": Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM @ ISO 200, 1/250th f/4. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day: June 3, 2010
Its been a busy week for Chris Conti Photography, so apologies for the couple of days without a photo!
Today’s photo I’ll call, “The Commonwealth.”
"The Commonwealth": Shot on Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM @ ISO 400, 1/800th f/13. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day: May 28, 2010
Today’s photo of the day from the Boston Marathon a couple weeks ago. I’ll call it, “Runner.”
We’re heading to a wedding this Memorial Day weekend, so check back on Tuesday for the next Photo of the Day! Enjoy the long weekend everyone!
-Chris
"Runner": Shot on Canon 5D Mark II, Canon EF70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM @ ISO 400, 1/8000th f/2.8. ©Chris Conti Photography
Photo of the Day #2: 5/27/10
Late post… busy day today. For today’s Photo of the Day, I’ll call this one “Cattle Country.”
Photo of the Day #1: 5/26/2010
This blog has been very quiet for the last couple of months, and its because I’ve been very busy! I’ve been shooting so much over the past month or two, and I have such a big backlog of photos to share that I’ve decided that starting today (and going for who knows how long!) I’m going to be sharing a photo every day. It will be posted here, so check back each day for a new photo!
For the first Photo of the Day, here’s one I’ll call, “Daybreak.”
Enjoy!
-Chris
An Unusual Request
Take a look at this photo – does anything seem wrong here?
After shooting a portrait for a client the other day, the subject emailed me with an unusual request. Now, in editing portraits in Photoshop, I often trim a few inches off the waists of subjects, remove skin blemishes, etc. This client’s request though, was a new one for me: he wanted me to give him a thicker beard.
Apparently, he had given up shaving a week or so before the portrait was shot, and therefore had several days’ growth of stubble, but wanted a fuller beard for his portrait. In fact, the subject’s beard was pretty stubbly. Here is the original image:
I emailed the subject back that this kind of digital Rogaine would be tricky to do without it looking fake, but nonetheless he asked me to do what I could. I generally don’t like manipulating photographs to such a degree that it crosses the line in my mind from simple retouching (correcting skin blemishes, for example) into outright fakery (which this clearly did), but at the end of the day, my job is to make the client happy. So I proceeded. After my standard, basic Photoshop tweaks (slight Curves, Hue & Saturation and Color Balance adjustments in the form of Adjustment Layers), the image looked like this:
To give the impression of a fuller, heavier beard though, I was going to have to get creative… I decided that in order to achieve a realistic look I would need the texture of actual fibers and strands of hair. So, I identified the thickest part of the subject’s facial hair (which looked to be an area under his nose, highlighted in yellow below), selected it and Identified it as a pattern for the Pattern Stamp tool. Essentially, I was going to use the subject’s own hair to clone in additional hair.
I then used the Pattern Stamp tool to “paint on” the additional hair into a separate layer, varying the opacity from 90% where the appearance would be heaviest around the subject’s mouth, to 10% (in 10% increments) where it would be the lightest, on the sides of his face. The “mask” created by this process is represented below as a Quick Mask, showing the varying degrees of opacity. This process got me close, but didn’t give me quite the look I wanted, so I repeated the procedure using another pattern, this time taken from the subject’s head (highlighted above in green), rotating the selection such that the strands of hair flowed the correct directions. Again, I used the graduated-opacity mask shown below.
The end result came out pretty well – I was able to significantly thicken the subject’s beard, but don’t think a typical viewer would look at the photo and think anything had been altered. Placed side by side with the original, however, the difference is substantial:
As I said above, I don’t like altering photographs to an extent that constitutes fakery (the distinction of which of course is a completely subjective judgement, but which in my mind means going beyond simply erasing an unattractive pimple here and there)… I find it distasteful. But as a corporate headshot, the purpose of this photo is to make the subject look good (this isn’t a documentary or photojournalistic shot), and the job of the photographer is always to make the client happy. With this little bit of Photoshop creativity, I think I succeeded.
(By the way, this portrait was shot on my new Canon 100mm f/2.8L Macro prime lens using my Canon 5D Mark II body. This was the first time I used the lens for client work, and it is fantastic! The lens is so good I think I’m going to have to write another blog post about it when I get the time! For now though, great lens, highly recommended!)