The ability to roll with the punches (quickly) and diplomatically allows these veteran photographers to get the best out of their subjects and succeed when a high-pressure shoot turns difficult. Here they discuss their experiences creating great portraits in tough situations.
By Rod Mar
Football is easily my favorite sport to photograph. Combining peak action, great emotion and a sense of ritual and ceremony, football is not only a visual feast for the eyes, but also your camera. There’s a reason why up to 100,000 fans pack stadiums every weekend, planning days, weekends and even annual vacations around games.
Over the years I have played around using speedlights for portraits, but mostly in situations where I didn’t think I needed 5 lights and f/11.
Maybe it’s old age but lately I’ve started to use speedlights for the celebrity portraits that I ordinarily would be hauling — or an assistant on occasion — my “large lights”.
Professional photographers are quickly turning the iPhone into standard camera equipment, using it not only as a visual notebook and a method to free their minds from creative stumbling blocks, but also for their commercial work. Below are three pros who have integrated their cameraphones into their daily routine.
Link: State of the Art: How Pro Photographers Use Their Cameraphones
To get a better idea of these patterns, CPOY took the in-camera data for all 636 of the images entered in sports action and crunched it according to aperture, shutter speed and focal length (we added camera make and model just for fun).
The dpBestflow.org site will be going live on November 11. Everyone on the project team is excited and proud to bring this important resource to completion. We have high hopes that the information in dpBestflow will make your workflow easier and more efficient, lead to better cooperation within the larger graphic arts community, as well as, help the Library of Congress achieve its goal of preserving our digital cultural heritage far into the future.
Link to site: dpBestFlow
Link to announcement: Introducting dpBestflow at Strictly Business
NPPA has partnered with PhotoShelter to bring its members and exclusive series of five free Webinars for visual journalists, and the second Webinar is coming up on November 18.
Link: Next Free NPPA-PhotoShelter Webinar Set For November 18
video shoots require continuous lighting, which requires larger lights and a lot more power than strobe lights
Link: Video Lighting: Behind the Scenes of a Major Production
These days, as a photographer, one strives constantly to not become a data center administrator. What with endless upgrades, updates, revisions, patches, security alerts, subscription management, feed management and the like, it’s a wonder that we have an
via Luminous Landscape: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/backup.shtml
These days, as a photographer, one strives constantly to not become a data center administrator. What with endless upgrades, updates, revisions, patches, security alerts, subscription management, feed management and the like, it’s a wonder that we have any time left to actually take and create photographs. Consequently, subjects such as backing up one’s data usually fall to the bottom of the list in terms of priorities. Then, ensuring the integrity of the data is even farther down the list of things to do. As usual, one day we get the dreaded “can’t read Drive X”, only to throw up our hands in despair.
Of all the behind the scenes stuff we’ve showed in recent vids, the one techie thing that far-and-away led to the most questions from readers was the part in this video where I’m photographing X Games uber-skiers Simon Dumont, Colby James West, TJ Shiller, Peter Olenick, and Nick Heine in New Zealand using strobes at 8 frames per second. That’s right. Rail slides and 100 foot airs. 8 frames per second. Strobed.
I know why you had questions.
Link: Chase Jarvis Blog: Chase Jarvis TECH: Strobed Photo Sequences
Most photographers would now agree that proficiency with photo-editing software is also a critical skill. So we asked six photographers to tell us about their favorite image processing applications and add-ons as well as share their best tips for making and digitally refining images.
Link: 6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets | Mac|Life
Ever wanted to quickly show an art director or client a work in progress in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.? Here’s how to do it (1-minute demo): Be honest: you had no idea you could do this, ri…
via John Nack on Adobe: http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2009/10/share_your_screen_for_free_via_cs4.html
Ever wanted to quickly show an art director or client a work in progress in Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.? Here’s how to do it (1-minute demo):
So this is one of those topics Joe and I are asked about on a very regular basis. We usually just answer these questions one-by-one, but got an interesting email from one of our readers,
via Joe McNally’s Blog: http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/2009/10/20/the-mcnally-workflow/
As a disclaimer, and to cover my ass, I’ll be the first to admit that we as a studio don’t necessarily do things the “right” way. Are we entirely satisfied with our post-production/archiving process? Not exactly. The thing is, any busy photo studio is constantly producing massive amounts of imagery, and keeping up with it all isn’t always a walk in the park. On top of that, technology is one of those amazing things that we all are challenged to stay on the cutting edge of. Computer software, hardware, camera gear- it’s all evolving so quickly, that even if you know your best option today, in another week there’s something else out there that’s potentially better.
Since its release, the Canon 5D Mark II has become the de facto video camera for many photojournalists. Despite some technical challenges, like the ability to f
via MediaStorm Blog: http://mediastorm.org/blog/?p=1347
It’s not hard to understand why the Canon 5D Mark II, and now the Nikon D300, have become so popular. But to make these files Final Cut Pro compliant there remain a number of technical hurdles.
To help with this, MediaStorm has documented our workflow with each of these cameras in two separate PDFs. These documents detail the transcoding process in Compressor, demonstrate how to use Apple’s Qmaster to get the most out of your computer’s processors, and describe how to properly set up a default Final Cut sequence setting for your respective footage.
Link: Photojournalist Danfung Dennis: How I cover the Afghanistan war with the 5DmkII « DSLR News Shooter:
Danfung has been producing incredible work from Afghanistan where he works as an embedded photojournalist. His filming is both editorially and visually compelling – especially given the extreme conditions under which he works. He is currently working on his own documentary, “Battle for Hearts and Minds”, as well as having his footage featured on PBS Frontline. This is his first post about his technique for www.dslrnewsshooter.com
Link: in defense of a point and shoot | uncommons:
I’m editing my portfolio with the help of Sid Hastings, and in some sort of bizarre karmaic twist my jaw drops. Our portfolio edit stuns me, because for the first time in my career my portfolio is led with a photograph made on a point and shoot camera. And, I’m not ashamed of that…in fact I’m delighted. Would you like to see?
Link: NPPA & PhotoShelter Launch Free Virtual Short Course:
The National Press Photographers Association has partnered with PhotoShelter to bring NPPA members an exclusive series of five free Webinars that focus on bringing visual journalists the knowledge and tools needed to succeed in the online photography business.
Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols wanted to photograph a 300-foot-tall redwood in a dense forest with no clear lines of sight. So he built a custom camera rig to take tons of close-ups to stitch together.
via Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5372201/custom-camera-rig-allows-for-a-stunning-vertical-panorama-of-a-giant-redwood
Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols wanted to photograph a 300-foot-tall redwood in a dense forest with no clear lines of sight. So he built a custom camera rig to take tons of close-ups to stitch together.
Link: An Effective Workflow for Photographers – A Picture’s Worth:
What did I shoot and where? Where are my images stored and are they safe? Having a solid workflow keeps you organized, and allows you to focus more on the creative process than worry about the disposition of your images.
When Ed came to Stanford a few months ago for an Aurora Forum on the What Matters book, I was reminded how unsatisfactory the term “documentary photographer” is when applied to someone like him. Years before multimedia became a buzzword, Ed and his wife Julie Winokur were leading the way into “multi-platform” storytelling, including exhibitions, books, websites, videos, multimedia, and educational programs. Ed explains how they are now exploring “feedback loops” between documentarians, their audience, and the subjects, so that the people in the photos and the people looking at them contribute as much to a story as the person behind the camera.