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TWiP episode 384: Behind the Seen

In this episode of TWiP, I co-host with Matt Granger and Frederick Van Johnson to talk about ways to work with models, stay inspired, & what goes into planning a creative shoot.

Check it out at http://thisweekinphoto.com/twip-384-behind-seen/


Fill Your Creative Pantry

Filling the well, stocking the stream, feeding the beast, restocking the shelves, no matter what you call it, as an artist it is important to constantly consume other art to keep your creative juices flowing. The creative muse can be a fickle mistress and when she leaves you it is often because she has no raw materials to work with. If you are stuck creatively the best thing you can do is go consume other forms of art.
 

Visit a Museum

Whenever I travel I am always on the lookout for interesting photography exhibits, I have seen exhibits by some of the greats, Helmut Newton, Sally Mann, Dorthea Lange, Robert Frank, and many others, Sometimes it is just group shows by relatively unknown artists. If there are no photography exhibits in town I will seek out museums and galleries. It doesn't matter the medium. I have found inspiration for my photos from scultputues, paintings, glass work, abstract art, you name it. Looking at work of other artists is always inspiring and it is rare that I visit a museum and not come away with at least a couple of ideas for future projects.
 

Be a Couch Potato

I don't have to go somewhere to find this inspiration, I often get flashes of insight while watching TV. The Cosmopolitan Las Vegas has awesome ads that always get my creative juices flowing, as do the ads from the American Horror Story series. They have some great visuals in these ads and instead of skipping commercials I often find myself pausing them while I search for a piece of paper to write down some new concept for an image (I now keep a notepad next to the TV remote).
 

Surf the Web

Don't watch TV? Then surf the web and look at images; 500px is a favorite of mine, it is full of inspiring images. I also will go explore the images of the master photographers from the past. I can't look at Rodney Smith images without having at least 2 or 3 photo concepts pop into my head.
 

Take a Hike

Going for a walk is also a great way to fill my creative well. Whether I'm walking in nature, or down a city street, I am constantly seeing how the shadows interact with my surroundings, how a bright color attracts my eye. These go into my database of images which I can draw from in the future. Another important aspect of walking is that it causes my mind to wander, and it is when my mind is wandering that some of my best creative ideas appear.
 

Look at the Pictures

Coffee table photography and art books can be a wonderful source of creative fodder. Also photography magazines that are about showing the images, my favorite is Lenswork Magazine. I also like the Craft and Vision Photograph series. I always find each issue to be inspirational.
 

Let It Simmer

Creativity doesn't happen from a vacuum. It is the result of all of these visual stimuli that you collect throughout your day, week, month, they rattle around inside your head mixing together. It's like a giant puzzle that you are working on in your head....no wait...it's like a making soup, you put all the ingredients in a bowl and let it simmer on the stove until it is done....wait...it's like...like a blender of margaritas, swirling all these visual elements around...oh I know it's.... Alright enough with the metaphors, the reality is that you need to collect visual stimuli, and at some point there will be a trigger that will pull these visual snippets together and idea for a photograph will appear in your head. When that happens, thank your muse, make the shot, and then start collecting again.
 

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This Week In Photography Episode 380

I was co-host this week on the TWiP (This Week in Photography) podcast.

In this episode of TWiP Frederick Johnson, Evgeny Tchebotarev & I talk about the U.S. Forest Service and their requirement to have a $1500 permit to photograph on federal wild lands. Plus Adobe announces Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements 13.

Check it out
http://thisweekinphoto.com/twip-380-elements-photography/


Improve Your Travel Photography With Self Assignments

I have been travelling a lot this past month and while I tend towards photographing people in the studio I also take my camera with me whenever I travel. I use these trip as a way to expand my photography horizons., whether it is improving my landscape photography skills, practicing street photography or  just documenting my trip by taking my own "postcard" shots. I view every trip as a learning opportunity.

To facilitate this learning I give myself daily photography projects or assignments in any new location. These assignments are cumulative, meaning if I decide on Monday that I am going to shoot photos of doors, and Tuesday that I am going to shoot patterns I will still shoot any interesting door I might come across on Tuesday and through out the rest of the trip.Here are some of my daily self assignments I shot while in Rome and Florence, Italy.
 

People in  Windows

 
My original plan was to shoot photos of the windows and shutters because I liked the patterns, but often I would encounter  a person looking out the window.  I thought this made the image even more interesting, so the next day's assignment was people in windows.
 
 People in Windows People in Windows People in Windows People in Windows
 
 

Patterns and Shadows

 
This isn't a daily assignment, but an ongoing project for the past year. If I am walking down the street and a pattern or shadow catches my eye I will stop and photograph it. This often makes it a pain in the ass to walk with me. It's especially bad if I'm on a tour, I often fall behind and lose the tour guide.
Pattern Pattern Pattern Pattern
 
 

People Walking in Front of Interesting an Background

 
Photographer Jay Maisel as well as many other street photographers talk about this technique. Find an interesting background and wait for people to walk into the scene.  I thought it was interesting that when I got back home and looked at these images on my computer my favorites were the ones with people wearing red shirts. May have to expand on this on my next outing.
 
Walkers Walkers Walkers Walkers
 
 

Close-ups of Statues

 
While in Florence I went to see Michalegelo's statue of David. They have recently changed the rules and now allow photos to be taken. I took the obligatory wide angle full shots of David, but then I started zooming in and isolating a particular portion of the statue. I found these images interesting so the next assignment was created. I originally started doing close-ups of everything, but really liked the photos of hands, so by the end of the week I was focusing just on the hands of statues. This is a good example of how an assignment can morph into a more interesting concept where you might just find a new path or direction you never would have considered at the beginning.
 
Statue Statue Statue Statue
 
 

Domes and Ceilings

 
In both Rome and Florence you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a church or some other building with an interesting dome. I like these domes because of the patterns that they have, I find them very interesting and strangely compelling.
 
Dome Dome Dome Dome
 
 

Doors

 
This is another ongoing project. Every city has unique architecture and often very interesting doors. What I found interesting is almost all doorways I saw were based on an arch. That occurs in other cities but with nothing close to the frequency as it did in Rome.
 
Door Door Door Door
 
 

Conclusion

 
None of these photos by the themselves are a work of art, but occasionally a body of work can come out of these exercises. If nothing else it improves my ability to see and hones my skills for the next time I walk down the street with my camera in my hand. I highly recommend these assignments to improve your photography. Give them a try the next time you travel and tell me how they work for you.
 
I have compiled many of these images into a slideshow that you can view here

Gaining Experience

If you hang around me for any length of time you are going to hear my favorite quote, "experience is what you gain the moment after you don't need it". It is one of my go to phrases and I probably say it so much that my friends are sick of it. I don't know where the phrase came from, but as I was writing this I looked it up on Google and got a similar quote from the comedian Steven Wright, "Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it". I don't recall ever hearing Steven Wright say it, but it's close enough that I will attribute it to him.
 

So What Does It Mean?

I like this phrase because it can be interpreted in many different ways. It can embody the slogan of my alma mater Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, "Learn by Doing", it can also represent the old adage that we learn from our mistakes. The key point to it is that you need to take action in order to learn, and to gain that experience. You can memorize books, study the works of the great masters of photography, but until you actually take the camera in your hand and take a photo you will not be an experienced photographer.
 

Procrastination and Fear

I have written recently about how I'm afraid to schedule photo shoots. I postpone, I procrastinate, and I wait until the conditions are right. As I wrote, some of this is because of fear of failure but there is another type of fear that keeps me from scheduling a shoot and that is fear of the unknown. I often don't know how I am going to get the shot I have in my mind's eye. I don't know what I'm doing, I look around at the clients, models, and make up artists and wonder if they can see that I don't have a clue. But I power through it, I take some shots, I make some adjustments and 9 times out of 10 I get the shot I wanted. I didn't know what I was doing, but now I do. I'm now experienced and know what to do the next time.
 

Life is just a series of experiences strung together

Life is just a series of experiences strung together, so we should have as many experiences as possible. This is probably my second most used phrase. To me it means Carpe Diem, try new things, confront your fears, take bold photos, and create Epic shit! Jump into new experiences and you will become an experienced person. Try new experiences with your photography and you will become an experienced photographer!
 
So tell me about your new experiences in the comments below!
 

Take a Photo Trip!

Want a sure fire way to take better landscape photographs? Plan a photo trip. Every photo trip I have ever done has resulted in some of my top photos of the year.

Why a Photo Trip?

The reason I get such great photos on photo trips is focus, and I don't mean camera focus, mental focus. Because I am there to take photographs and nothing else I immerse myself into the task. I get up before sunrise and finish up after sunset; I take my time at the location trying different compositions and angles; I experiment with long exposures, panoramas, and HDR. I plan!

Planning

This is probably one of the more important aspects of a photo trip. Before the trip I will map out my destinations, look at tide tables, and sunrise/sunset times. But even when my plans go awry I still get good shots, because I have time, I have a purpose, and I have a single task. Take photos.

Dedicated Time

This is why photo trips are so successful. You have time to take photos, you aren't rushed. When I am travelling with my family they are somewhat tolerate of me taking photos, but they expect me to get a shot in a few minutes whether the lighting is right, or the tide is wrong. When I am by myself or with other photographers there is no problem setting up and spending an hour at a location waiting for just the right conditions and getting the best shot I possibly can.

It Doesn't Have to Be Far

A photo trip doesn't mean that you have to pack your bags and book a flight. It can be somewhere local, somewhere you can drive to in a day. It's not the destination that is important it is dedicating the day to photography that is going to allow you to take better photos.

Look for Opportunities

Do you need to travel for work? Perhaps add a day or two onto the end of the trip and go photograph the local sights. I recently did this on a trip to Portland. I was there with friends the beginning part of the week, after dropping them off at the airport I headed West and spent several days photographing the Oregon coast (where I took the photo of the Wreck Peter Iresdale at the top of this post).

I did the same thing when I went to the Palm Springs Photo Festival in April, after the festival I spent a day at Joshua Tree and then an additional day at the Salton Sea finishing off a project there. Airfare was already paid, the car rental actually went down because I was renting for a full week. I just needed a couple of cheap hotels for the extra night.


Book Review: Show Your Work

This is the second book by Austin Kleon, I reviewed his first book "Steal Like an Artist" back in April 2012. This new book Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered is tips and suggestions about how to share your work online.

Finding an Audience

As frequent readers of my blog know I write a lot about finding an audience for your work. In this day and age when there are so many artists sharing their work on the internet it can be difficult to get seen and find those people who will truly connect with your work. This gives a lot of tips on how to find this audience and while a lot of them are common sense, listen to your audience, don't hoard your work, don't spam, it never hurts to be reminded.

Motivation

More important than giving me tips on how to find my audience, this book provided me with motivation. It makes we want to get out there and share my work more, connect with fellow creatives, and just get out. This is exactly the sort of thing that also makes me more creative and want to create more. It's a self-perpuating cycle that happens to be going the direction I want to go.

This is an easy read and well worth the time. Pick up a copy and then let me know how you liked it.

 

 

 


Stop Reading This Blog Post!

I'm serious. Stop reading this blog post and instead go out and create! Take an epic photograph! Pick up your camera and take a photo!

It has been a while since I completed my last photo shoots which were shooting a model at Joshua Tree and then a day at the Salton Sea taking photos for my A Place to Sit project. Instead of going out shooting, or planning shoots, I have instead been reading about photography, watching YouTube videos about photography, updating my photography web sites, and a hundred of other things that are about photography but are keeping me from doing what I love most, CREATING PHOTOGRAPHS!

The Illusion of Photography

It is very easy to get caught up in reading about photography, looking at others photos, sitting on the toilet watching CreativeLive videos on my iPad, and feel like I'm still a photographer, but that is an illusion. There is the illusion that I am making progress when I am being creative and coming up with shoot ideas, however without execution it is pointless. I'm procrastinating.

There are a lot of reasons why procrastination occurs. But for me is comes down to laziness and fear. Perhaps laziness is too strong a word, it is rather I take the path of least resistance.

Path of Least Resistance

It is much easier to sit at my computer and dream about photography than it is to actually do the planning necessary to do for the shot. A lot of my concepts involve building/aquiring props, recruiting a model, scouting a location, finding time on calendar to actually schedule the shoot. It's often daunting for some of the larger shoots. It is so much easier to just sit and think about the project. My solution is to stop thinking about photography and go shoot a damn photo!

So Are You Still Reading? STOP!

Pick up you camera right now and go take a photo. Execute! Photograph! Then once you are done come back and share a link to what you shot!

 


Review - Tim's Vermeer

Tim's Vermeer is a documentary about Tim Jenison's attempt to recreate a painting by Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer. Tim's believed that Johannes used mechanical aids similar to a camera obscura to help him create his works of art. The movie follows Tim's quest to construct such a device and then recreate Vermeer's painting "The Music Lesson".

Although not a photography related movie, it is well worthwhile and I encourage everybody artists and not artists alike to watch this movie.

Highly recommended.


Tutorial - Sparks Photos

Whenever I post one of my Sparks photos I get bombarded with requests on how I achieved the effect. It is a relatively easy effect to but does take some planning and caution. In this post I'll go through all the steps I use in creating these sparks photos.

Disclaimer: This technique is very dangerous and I DO NOT recommend you attempting this yourself.

Concept

The idea behind the sparks photos are to bounce a shower of sparks off of the models body. This is accomplished by doing a long exposure shot and generating the sparks using an angle grinder.

What you will need

Safety

There are lots of ways to hurt yourself and your model when doing sparks photos and again I recommend you DO NOT attempt this. The dangers are fire, flying projectiles, burns, and getting particles in your eyes. If you are dead set in trying this technique be sure to follow some common-sense safety practices.

Fire

Area - Do not attempt this in an area where there is combustible material. All my shots are done in a concrete room with concrete walls and floors. This could also be done outdoors at the beach, but I would not attempt it around trees, or dried grass. Also have a fire extinguisher with you and within reach! Don’t use one of those small wimpy fire extinguishers, get a decent sized one, I recommend a minimum of a 10lb AB or ABC extinguisher.

Clothing - I only use nude models for these shots so there is no danger of any clothing catching on fire, do not use this technique on clothed models.

Hair - Hair also burns so be sure the models hair is up in a bun and away from the sparks. There should be no gels or other hair styling product in the model's hair as many of these products are flammable.

Flying Projectiles

The angle grinder is spinning very fast and can propel chunks of metal at high velocities towards your model. It is fast enough to penetrate the skin which is not a good thing. You want to make sure that no pieces of your cold-roll steel are going to break loose and be thrown at your model. You also need to have a large enough piece of cold-roll steel that you can safely grip it. I recommend flat bar stock at least 1.5” wide and 14” long. As you grind the metal it is going to get thin in places and can possibly break loose, so before each series of shots break these pieces off by hand (or grind them off)

Eye Protection

The sparks the grinder is throwing off are red hot particles of metal which can do serious damage if they were to get in your eyes. Everyone in the room should wear eye protection! If the model’s face is visible in the shot then they should close their eyes whenever the grinder is running.  If you want a shot where the models eyes appear open, take a shot without the sparks with their eyes open and then have them close their eyes and shower them with sparks. You can then merge the two images in Photoshop to make it appear that their eyes were open in the shot. Never throw sparks at the model while their eyes are open!

Burns

The sparks are particles of burning metal and can burn the skin. There are several ways to minimize this, one is to make sure you use cold-roll steel. The sparks that are thrown off are much cooler than other metals such as hot-roll or stainless steel. The sparks cool off as they travel away from the grinder, so they will be hottest close to the grinder and cooler the further away you get from the grinder, so stand back away from the model. I am typically 5-6 feet away from the model when showering them with sparks.

Alright, now that we got all that out of the way let’s move on to the setup.

Setup

 

Setting up your camera.

Use a tripod - Because these shots use long exposure your camera needs to be on a tripod. The type of tripod is not important as long it holds your camera steady.

Turn off Image Stabilization - If the lenses or camera you are using has image stabilization, turn if off.

Turn off Auto Focus - Because you are shooting long exposure you will want the room to be fairly dark. As a result of this the camera will probably have trouble auto-focusing, so I recommend setting your camera to manual focus. Compose your shot, focus on the model and you should be all set.

Interval Timer (Intervalometer) – If you are shooting with an assistant then an interval timer is optional. But if you are shooting alone is essential, since you cannot be using the angle grinder and pushing the shutter button at the same time. Here are the settings I use on my interval timer:

Initial delay: 10 seconds
Interval between shots: 1 seconds
Exposure length: 3 seconds
Number of Exposures: 6

The initial delay gives me enough time to start the Intervalometer and get in to position with the angle grinder before the first shot. I then start the grinder and will shower the model with sparks for 24 seconds (3 seconds exposure + 1 second interval) * 6 exposures. Some models can’t tolerate the sparks for that long, so I will stop when they tell me and let the camera take shots until the interval is complete and then delete the shots with no sparks.

Lighting

I use 3 types of lighting for my sparks photos and each give a slightly different look. I recommend you try all three methods to determine which look you like best.

No lighting – I make the room completely dark and just rely on the sparks to generate the light in my photograph. This often requires longer exposure times, or higher ISO which may not be desirable. The longer exposure times will often cause the model to be blurry because of slight movements. High ISO can result in noise in the image which may or may not add to the image. Give it a try.

Modeling Light – I setup one of my strobes with a large softbox  and turn on the modeling light and use the light from that modeling light as my only source of illumination. Because of the long exposures the modeling light will result in a pretty good fill light and will give a little more definition to the model’s body.

Strobe – Using a strobe will freeze the model in the image and can minimize any blur caused by movement of the model during the long exposure. I will match the power of the strobe to the aperture setting I am using on the camera, typically either f/5.6 or f/8.

Camera Settings

I always start off with the following camera settings

Shutter Speed: 2 sec
Aperture: f/8
ISO: 100 if using modeling light or stobe, 800 if using no lighting.

I will then take a few shots and adjust my settings as necessary. If there are too many sparks or the majority of the sparks are over-exposed I will lower the shutter speed to 1 sec. The faster the shutter speed the fewer the sparks, and visa-versa.

Taking the Shot

 

Posing Considerations

There are several things to consider with posing.

Because these photos are done with a long exposure you need to make sure the model can hold the pose for the duration of the shot. They need to be balanced and it helps if they arms are somehow supported. For the image where the sparks are bouncing off the models hands, she rested her forearms on the back of a chair so they would not move during the shot. For the photo below of the model appearing to drink the sparks, her elbows are resting on the back of a chair so that her hands don't move during the long exposure.

The most interested poses are ones where there is a contour to the body that the sparks much follow. Something that is going to block some portion of the sparks, or a nice curve to the body that the sparks can outline.

 

Sparks Slider-16

 

Grinder technique

Using the grinder to throw the sparks takes practice. You want to have a continous stream of sparks coming off of the grinder. This is not always easy because you are also sweeping the grinder back and forth to spray the sparks along the model's body. This sweeping movement tends to make the metal not maintain good contact with the grinder.

If your grinder has a shield on it, I often will use the shield as a pivot point for the metal bar. I will rest a portion of the bar on the shield and then lever one end into the grinder. This helps me maintain the stream of sparks.

Once you have a stream of sparks going you want to sweep your arm up and down (or left to right), to direct the sparks against the model. Again this takes practice and it is recommended you practice first without the model.

Multiple Exposures

I will often take multiple exposures and combine them in Photoshop after the shoot. I do this for shots where I want it to appear the model's eyes were open. I first take a shot with no sparks and the model's eyes open, and then will have them close their eyes and take another shot with the sparks. I then combine these two photos using Photoshop.

I also use multiple exposures when I want to have sparks coming from multiple directions (as in the photo at the top of this post). I will first take a shot with the grinder on one side of the model and then I will take another shot from the opposite side then combine the two shots in Photoshop.

Conclusion

As I said in the introduction, this is dangerous and I recommend that you DO NOT attempt it. But if you do, share your photos with me, I would love to see them. :)