Photo Contest Winner
A week or two ago I learned via Twitter (you can follow me at @chriscontiphoto) of a contest for “Best Snow Photo” being run by Lens Pro To Go, a national pro gear rental company that is based locally. I don’t have any snow photos that I think of as particularly great, but just for the hell of it I submitted a shot from back in the archives (from so long ago I don’t even know what it was for). Lo and behold, turns out that shot was picked as a finalist, and then in popular voting went on to win the whole competition (and not to brag, but won by a landslide, with something like 4 times the votes of the 2nd place finisher)!
The results are on Lens Pro’s website here.
For my First Place finish I will receive $100 in rental credit. Thanks Lens Pro To Go, and thanks to everyone who voted for me!
Here is the photo that got me the win:
Teamwork
This past weekend I was down on Cape Cod at a photoshoot organized by the amazing and veteran commercial photographer Jack Hollingsworth. Jack is a legend in the lifestyle and stock photography circles, and it was a tremendous opportunity to be able to come down to Jack’s studio and see him in action in person. Jack is an enthusiastic proponent of lots of forms of media, including both video and “new media” like Twitter, Facebook, etc. and his idea for this weekend was to put together a video about who he is and what he does, and showing him in action during a photoshoot.
The video is being produced by my good friend and accomplished Director of Photography Benjamin Eckstein, who makes some great videos. Jack, ever the uniter, brought together a group of vibrant and talented photographers, including myself, Brian Matiash, and Keegan Hobson, in addition to veterans Michael Skeggs and Glenn Bacci. Brian is an HDR (high dynamic range) expert, and Keegan is a wedding, engagement and portrait photographer who has his roots in landscape photography.
Ben and I arrived on Friday evening in Chatham, MA where Jack’s studio is located and he, Jack, Brian and I unpacked and set up a bunch of continuous lights and softboxes that Westcott Lighting had generously lent us to test out. It was a total photo-geek fest, as our friend Paul at Lens Pro To Go had generously lent us a whole pile of extremely high-quality gear (including a couple of 200mm prime f/2 monsters!) to use for the weekend, and on Sunday he even showed up with a brand-new, nobodys-even-got-it-in-stock-yet Canon 1D Mark IV body that we got to take for a spin (yes, I want one).
Yours truly with the monster 200mm f/2 prime from Lens Pro To Go (thanks to Keegan Hobson for the photo!)
Jack Hollingsworth's studio in Chatham, MA, full of lights, cameras, lenses, everything a photographer could ask for.
All of the weekend’s models came to us via the Tonn Model Management agency in Boston and they were all fantastic to work with. We brought them outside onto the beach and Chatham fish pier in 20-degree temperatures and whipping wind, and they handled it like champs.
Keegan tweeting in real time from the Chatham fish pier
Back in the studio, Jack had planned several ideas for themes, and he used a number of wardrobe and backdrop changes to keep up the variety. As good students of the digital age, we were rocking all the modern touches – tweeting and blogging in real-time, editing on the fly, processing and posting images as they were being shot. This is the future of photography, and we were in the groove.
The computer is as important as the camera...
I quickly saw why Jack is such an amazing photographer. His inclusiveness, his dynamism and his enthusiasm and obvious love for what he does almost immediately bring out the best in everyone around him. He is easygoing yet professional, and he gets results without making it feel like work. Everyone has a good time on his set. If ever there was a recipe for a successful photo shoot, this is it.
Moreover, he listens. He’s had a career of three decades, but it doesn’t stop him from paying attention to the thoughts and ideas of the people around him. Jack likes to say that he doesn’t actually know how to do much (take this one with a grain of salt… he does) but that instead he surrounds himself with good people. Again, if there’s a recipe for producing outstanding results, this is it.
Which brings me to the most lasting impression from the weekend. The Olympics are going on in Vancouver right now, and the thought that kept occurring to me all weekend long was the notion of how everyone (everyone) benefits from teamwork. Just like the hockey teams flying around on the ice, each of us had unique skills and specialties that, shared with the group, benefited everyone. As a team, we were all stronger than any of us were individually. I feel like photographers too often think of each other as competition, but the world of professional photography is so large, that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, I came away from the weekend a stronger photographer, and I believe everyone present did.
Everyone came away from the weekend with fantastic stuff, and I can’t wait to do it again.
Finally, I’ll leave you with some of the images from the weekend:
In Search of the Perfect Photography Gloves
I’m a pretty outdoorsy person. I do lots of activities outdoors, including during the winter months, which here in New England can be pretty cold and raw. My hands also get cold pretty easily (I think due to poor circulation), which means that I need to wear gloves pretty frequently. I’ve found a number of different kinds of gloves that are great for a number of different activities- I have gloves for skiing, gloves for hiking, gloves for biking, gloves for snowshoeing, gloves for just walking around town. What I’ve yet to find though, are gloves that are good for outdoor cold-weather photography.
The difficulty is that cold-weather photography presents a somewhat unique set of challenges for those of us with cold hands… it isn’t (usually, unless you’re chasing after your subject!) an aerobic activity, so the gloves need to be warm. But, given the ever-shrinking size and ever-increasing sophistication of digital SLR camera bodies, the controls on these cameras tend to be very small and require precision and dexterity with the fingers in order to operate them. So big, bulky, well-insulated gloves won’t do.
Bulky gloves just won't do!
So the cold-weather photographer needs gloves that are warm, but also thin and which provide good enough dexterity to still be able to use small buttons and dials. I was at my local REI recently and saw a pair of gloves called Seirus All Weather Xtremes that seemed to fit the bill perfectly: the advertising on the packaging said they were “as warm as bulky 200g gloves,” waterproof, windproof (good in New England where sometimes the wind is worse than the cold) and still provided great dexterity. I tried them on in the store, and they did in fact provide pretty good dexterity. For fifty bucks they certainly weren’t cheap, but if they would finally end my years-long quest for good cold-weather photo gloves, they’d be worth it. I bought them.
Sadly, after only a few days of use, it was clear that these gloves were not my answer. They did provide good dexterity, but they were not warm (my hands got cold almost immediately in 30-degree weather) and even worse, they made my hands feel damp and clammy even when there was no moisture around. They got returned. On returning them though, I saw another version of the same glove, this one called simply the All Weather, that was not waterproof but had one fewer layers and might be more breathable (was cheaper too, at thirty five bucks). Worth a shot.
Somewhat better dexterity with the Seirus...
Turns out these guys have better dexterity, feel somewhat warmer and give me somewhat less of the damp, clammy feeling. Better, but still not great. So while these gloves are okay, I’m still searching for my El Dorado.
Know of another glove that fits this bill? I’d love to hear about it.
UPDATE 02/18/10: This past weekend I was at a fantastic two-day shoot on Cape Cod with Jack Hollingsworth and a number of other awesome photographers (this shoot was so good that its going to get its own blog post… more on that later!). A good portion of the shoot was done outdoors, on a beach and fish pier in Chatham, MA. The temperature was in the 20′s and the wind was whipping (who knows what the wind chill factor was), and if ever my hands were going to freeze, this was it!
This time, in addition to the Seirus gloves I’ve mentioned above, I tried an experiment. I layered my EMS Polartec fleece gloves (don’t pay full price, they go on sale all the time!) underneath a cheap pair of Home Depot leather-palmed work gloves ($10 maybe?).
This combination was fantastic. Both pairs of gloves are snug-fitting and low-profile, so they offer really good dexterity (more than enough to operate the tiny controls of SLRs). The combination was also warm and very wind-resistant. I think I may have found my answer!
Harvard Yard Portrait
Yesterday I did a fun, quick portrait shoot for a young entrepreneur and businessman who wanted a professional portrait for his resumé and his personal website. Since earning his master’s degree from the Harvard Kennedy School, the subject has founded a number of consulting services doing business both in the United States and abroad. The client is young, dynamic and technology-savvy, so we wanted a portrait that conveyed these concepts. As such, a traditional head-and-shoulders corporate headshot was too old-fashioned for this application.
Since his experience with Harvard was a substantial part of his background, the client decided he wanted to use Harvard Yard as the setting for his portrait. This presented somewhat of a challenge because while we wanted to capture the overall aesthetic of the school, I very much wanted to avoid being boxed into the stereotypes that come along with many people’s perceptions of Harvard. So, we had to use the setting subtly, so that the image didn’t scream “Harvard!!”
I went down to Harvard Square the day before the shoot scout out a couple of locations and see what might work well. The architecture of the buildings in the yard is quite unmistakably Ivy League, and many of Harvard’s buildings, perhaps most notably its Widener Library, are iconic. Even so, the campus offered plenty of quiet, tucked away corners that could serve very well for my purpose.
The day of the shoot I arrived with a minimum complement of gear, because I wanted to be portable and I knew we would have only a short period of time for set-up. I brought my Nikon camera body, a number of lenses, a small external light unit and a translucent disc light softener with stand. As it turned out, the sky was very overcast that day, diffusing the natural light and making the softening disc unnecessary.
I had spoken extensively with the client before the shoot (something I always like to do, so that photographer and subject can begin to get comfortable with each other, a process that is so important in shooting a good portrait!) so I had a good idea of the concepts he wanted the portrait to convey, so we were able to get started very quickly. I knew that to prevent the image from associating too closely with Harvard I would want to achieve a very shallow depth of field and blow the background way out of focus, so I initially chose a 70mm f/2.8 lens.
We moved around the campus trying different compositions and chatting about the client’s business. I always enjoy talking with people I meet about their backgrounds and what they do. Everyone has got a unique story and I’ve found that if you listen you can learn something from just about everyone. We were on a very tightly limited schedule and as time was running short I wanted to try one last composition. This time I selected my 50mm f/1.4 lens (this is my favorite lens. It yields very sharp images, and has such a wide aperture that it allows extremely shallow depth of field). Usually for a portrait I like a lens longer than 50mm (in the 70-120mm range), but in the location we were working there wasn’t sufficient room to back up (besides, I liked the very shallow depth of field). By now both the subject and I were getting cold and starting to shiver, but we had established a good dynamic and we were comfortable with each other, so I wanted to stick it out a bit longer and see what results I’d get. Sure enough, it was these last few minutes when I captured what turned out to be the best images of the day.
If I had had more time I would have liked to set up a bit of lighting gear (a bounce reflector to fill in the subject’s eyes, etc.), but alas we were out of time. The client had wanted a head-and-shoulders portrait that portrayed him as competent and capable, but that also was a little bit edgy, and I think we accomplished that; both the client and I were happy with the results.
Doggy!
My girlfriend Wendy has wanted a Dachshund forever, and after a long application and approval process, she was approved to adopt a rescued puppy from a Dachshund rescue/shelter organization in Tennessee this past week. Last night we went to go meet the volunteer who was transporting the puppy and take him home for the first time. Of course, I brought along a camera. His name is Oliver, and he’s the sweetest dog I’ve ever met.
(By the way, if you’re getting a dog and you possibly can, please adopt a rescue dog instead of buying from a breeder! There are thousands and thousands of sweet, sweet dogs out there that need homes!)
The image above was shot with at 24mm at f/2.8 to achieve a shallow depth of field, to make my little buddy’s face really pop.
The Photograph That Almost Got Me Arrested
I think I’m a pretty normal person. A law-abiding citizen. Aside from the occasional speeding ticket here and there, I’ve never had any serious brushes with the law. But a couple of days ago, I almost got arrested. Why? For trying to take a picture.
You see, my father has worked in health care for his entire career. For the last fifteen years or so before he retired last summer, he served as the president of a hospital in Portland, Maine called Maine Medical Center, and for those fifteen or so years, he poured his heart and soul into that hospital. So as a sort of retirement present, I’ve wanted for a while to shoot a landscape shot of the hospital (it is a sprawling complex with many buildings, and sits very dramatically on top of the highest hill in Portland) for him to remember the place that was such a big part of his life.
For a few months I’ve been casually scouting out the area, trying to find the best angle from which to shoot the photo. I think I’ve found the best spot, a highway bridge that crosses part of Portland harbor offering an unobstructed view of the hospital buildings on the hilltop. This angle faces east, shooting from the west, meaning that at sunset, the buildings are lit up by a wonderful warm glow. So, a few days ago I set out with some gear a little while before sunset to take the shot.
I pulled over to the side of the highway on the bridge and began to set up. I pulled out my tripod, Nikon body and 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto lens. At the distance I was shooting from, I could fill the frame at 200mm, flattening the image and giving it sharp depth of field throughout the image. The sun was getting low and the light was wonderful. Everything was great.
Unfortunately what I had failed to consider is that the location from which I was shooting also happened to be nearly precisely in line with the runway of the nearby Portland Jetport, and was directly beneath the landing path of approaching airplanes. And in our post-9/11 world, somebody with a tripod and a big long black thing mounted on it right next to an airport runway can be cause for concern. So just as I was finishing setting up, reading the light for my exposure, I hear a voice behind me say, “What are you doing?” I turned around to see a Maine State Police trooper staring at me with his hand on his sidearm.
After I explained that I was a photographer and was merely trying to photograph the hospital, the officer very politely but sternly explained that because I was under the flight path of the airplanes, my presence had alerted the security people at the airport, and that since as a result of the proximity to the airport this particular section of road was designated “emergency stopping only,” I would have to leave or I could be arrested.
So I packed up my equipment, apologized to the officer and left, without having shot a single exposure. I searched for another appropriate place from which to shoot the image, but the best I could find was another point much closer to the hospital from which I shot the image below.
As you can see, the light is unattractive, the angle is bad (shooting up from below) and there are obstructions, including light poles, trees, chimneys and ugly distractions in the foreground. The image is worthless.
So I’ll have to keep looking for a way to get this shot. Moral of the story? In the post-9/11 world, photographers need to stay away from airports.
CD Cover Project
This was a fun little personal project. A friend of mine is a very talented musician, and recently asked a favor for assistance with a project he was working on. Brian is a big Beatles fan, and he had an idea that for Christmas presents for his family and friends he would record a CD of his cover versions of a number of his favorite Beatles songs (no small task, as Brian played all of the parts [lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums and vocals] himself!). Brian asked me to create the front and back covers for the CD.
Brian’s idea was that we would recreate one of his favorite Beatles album covers, and do a take-off on it. He decided to use the cover from the Beatles’ first U.S. album released in 1963, With the Beatles, which looks like this:
Cover of the Beatles' 1963 album With the Beatles
The idea was that we would substitute Brian’s face for those of John, Paul, George & Ringo. If I could get him in a studio in front of a black background with studio lighting this would be easy. Unfortunately Brian currently lives in Chicago, so not only couldn’t I get him in a studio, I couldn’t even shoot his headshots myself. Instead, I instructed him to set up his Point & Shoot camera zoomed all the way in to match the flattened look of the Beatles’ faces, with a single light on to his left, to light the left side of his face as the subjects on the real cover were lit. With the help of his wife Katie, he took those shots and emailed them to me. They looked like this:
A good start, but they needed a lot of work in order to make them look authentic to the original. In Photoshop, I outlined Brian’s head and shoulders, removed the background and replaced it with a solid black background. I then converted the image to black & white using various adjustment layers and masks to achieve the high-contrast lighting of the originals. I arrived at something that was pretty close.
I used a gradient to blend his shoulders to black to make them disappear, then used this file to create a composite image of four different Brians, laid out like the original image. For the four Brians, I layered the images one on top of another with their shoulders slightly overlapping to give the appearance of four people standing one in front of another, slightly decreasing the size and softening the focus each time to create the illusion of depth of field. After a few minutes in Adobe Illustrator to recreate the Parlophone logo and typeset a title bar, I then used Photoshop’s filters to add some noise and texture patterns to the image, to give it the look and feel of an aged, grainy, textured paper, instead of a 21-st century glossy digital print! The result:
I think it is pretty faithful to the original…
I also quickly laid out the back cover / track list using Adobe Illustrator, in the same style as the original:
All in all, a fun project.