Photo Notes A place to talk about making images.

March 4, 2013

Candlelight Home Tour #1

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,Indianapolis,Photographic Education,Photographic Equipment,Post-Processing — John Siskin @ 2:49 pm

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, Getting Started in Commercial Photography

I am involved with Candlelight Home Tour in the Old North Side of Indianapolis. The tour will happen on Halloween this year. I’ll add more information about the tour in later entries. I am also doing this with a few people from the Indy MU Photo Club. So I have a small audience for these shoots. The plan is that I’ll shoot one room, with my lights, and they’ll shoot the rest of the house. Yesterday was the first shoot, and it went very well, although more time would have been welcome, especially for the people from the club.

I started by looking around the house, and I settled on the dining room, because of the look of the room, and also because of the complexity. I was particularly interested in shooting into the two connecting rooms and the windows at the same time. The second camera angle was interesting because of the way the staircase was framed in the door. It was easier to shoot, first because the lights were set up and because there weren’t any windows.


You can see the position of the lights in this diagram, of course everything isn’t exactly to scale. The A light is a Calumet 750 Travelite set at 1/4 power. It creates the overall light of the shot, and is positioned near the camera so that the shadows are less visible from the camera. I bounced the light off a 60-inch umbrella, with a black back, to create soft shadows. Of course there is a lot of information about placing lights in my book: Photographing Architecture: Lighting, Composition, Postproduction and Marketing Techniques The B light is a Norman 200B modified with a 30-inch shoot through umbrella. I normally don’t use umbrellas in this way, but here I’m trying to add light quickly to a small ancillary room, and this is a quick way to do it. I used a 1/4 CTO filter over the light because I wanted the two rooms on the side of the shot to have different colors of light. Rosco makes these filters that enable you to modify single lights in a shot. Of course you can modify all the lights in a shot in the camera and in post-production. Light C is also a Norman 200B with a 30-inch shoot through umbrella, but it doesn’t have the 1/4 CTO filter so the color is cooler. This fits because there is a window this room. The light moved from the first position, which is shown to the other side of the room to keep the reflection of the light out of the mirror. In the first shot I placed the D light to open up the left half of the room. I used another Norman 200 B and a silver umbrella. The silver umbrella is a little brighter than the white satin umbrellas I use most of the time, but the light is a little harder. In this case the extra brightness helped. I also used a 1/8 CTO filter to add just a little warmth to the edge of the room. When I made the second shot I pulled this light back just a little and changed its direction so it lit the hall rather than the room, position D2. This wasn’t quite enough to create separation on the staircase so I added a Sunpak 120J light at about 1/4 power. I used the standard bowl reflector on this light, so it was hard light, and pretty bright. I like the sparkle it added to the staircase. I just got a couple of the Sunpak 120J units, they are similar to an older Quantum strobe, but use high voltage batteries I already had. I use a lot of older equipment mostly because I started buying strobes a long time ago. I spend a lot of time helping the students in one of my BetterPhoto classes identify the type of equipment that will work best for them. The exposure was f11 at 1/15 and ISO 200. The exposure needed to be long for the windows and the lighting.

 

I looked at the shots in Adobe Bridge, and of course it was easy to choose the shots I wanted to work on. When I do architectural shooting the last shots are usually the ones I want to use. Next I opened the horizontal version of shot 1 in Adobe Raw. I reduced the blacks to 3, and I moved the fill light to 12. The exposure was a little dark, so I increased the exposure using the exposure slide. Then, since the right wall was too dark, I opened two separate versions of the file. The second version was much brighter than the first, almost a stop. I mixed the two versions of the shot using layers in Photoshop. I also did a little sharpening and use the dodging and burning tools here and there. The result is at the top of the shot, and I think it worked really well. Oh, I also adjusted the perspective just a little to get the verticals right.

This version was handled the same way, except that I used a little vibrance and saturation to make the carpet a little more colorful.

On this shot I increased the exposure a little and added just a little fill light. I only needed one version of this shot, so it was quick to process. I didn’t have as much time to do this shot, so I’m quite pleased at how well it turned out. About the only thing I had to do in Photoshop was use the burn tool to darken a couple of highlights.

November 12, 2012

Shooting Large Format at Indiana Landmarks

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,Film Technique,Indianapolis,Large Format Photography,Photographic Equipment — John Siskin @ 1:13 pm


Since I’ve been writing about architectural shooting lately, I should start off by mentioning my book Photographing Architecture. Available at Amazon and other fine booksellers.

Of course my other book: is also available, why not get the set?

And my classes continue at BetterPhoto.com. I’d like to meet you in class.
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting,
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio,
Getting Started in Commercial Photography

I’ve been continuing to shoot architecture with the 8X10 camera, and I must say I am having a fabulous time doing it. I did a shoot at a building called the Indiana Landmarks Center, which was formerly the Central Avenue Methodist Church. After restoration the facility is just stunning. I did several shots with the big camera. Two of my favorites are reproduced here. These are scans of the Vandyke prints. As I mentioned in previous blog entries the reproductions are very different from original prints. I will be selling originals soon, so you’ll be able to have an original for yourself. I am going back to the Indiana landmarks Center, probably tomorrow, to do some more shooting.

I should add a few technical details, in case anybody is keeping track. Both these images were made with my widest lens: a 165mm Angulon. This lens has about an 85º angle of view, which is very wide for large format, but not quite as wide as a 20mm lens on full frame 35mm film. I’m continuing to process in a two-bath version of D-23. The first bath is 5 minutes and the second just 3 minutes. I’m pretty happy with this, but I do need to increase the exposure a little. I’m using HP-5 film from Ilford currently, but I’m looking at other options. A box of 25 sheets of 8X10 film costs almost $90, so I want to be careful about what I choose. I’m actually shooting two 4X10-inch images on a single sheet of 8X10-inch film. I use a dark slide I’ve cut in half to protect the unexposed side of the film in the camera. This works really well, but I have to be careful not to double expose.

The image on a Vandyke print is made from silver, like modern black and white photo papers. However the light sensitive coating is mixed by hand and the chemical reactions are very different from modern photo papers. The coating is then brushed onto watercolor or other fine art paper. I’ve been having some difficulty coating the paper, but I think I have it figured out now. If you’re interested in more information about hand coated papers and the chemical/mechanical history of photography you should check out The Keepers of Light by William Crawford. Since it is out of print a new copy can be quite expensive, but Amazon offers used copies at reasonable prices.

After shooting digital for the last few years it is really interesting to travel back in time to large format cameras and older printing processes. As always shooting a big camera makes me a more careful shooter when I return to shooting digital.
Please consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com:

An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio

Getting Started in Commercial Photography

If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

October 15, 2012

Updates and Light Opinions

Filed under: Basic Photo Technique,Film Technique,Indianapolis,Large Format Photography,Lighting Technique,Photographic Education — John Siskin @ 8:17 am

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, Getting Started in Commercial Photography

Updates on my project with the 8X10 camera: I went back to the Indiana Historical Society and made another negative. This didn’t have the defects on some of the last set, so I think it is time to go forward. Here’s the latest shot from the conservation lab:


I also made a Vandyke print of one of the original negatives. I need to stress that seeing this scan on your monitor isn’t like seeing the actual print. It never is. If you want to see original images you need to go to galleries or buy prints. At least look at well printed books made with the photographer’s supervision. Anyway, here is a scan of my print from the first shoot.


I wrote most of what follows for one of my students at BetterPhoto. I’ve said these things before in this blog, but that’s no reason not to say them again. The heart of the matter is: if you can’t make light, if you have to find light to take a picture, or if you believe that light designed by a photographer is inferior to found light, you will limit the pictures you can take and limit there quality. It is better to learn more skills, and get more tools, in order to allow yourself to be a better photographer.


I am aware that many people use the terms artificial light and natural light, but I don’t think that when a great number of people use a term that actually makes the term accurate. A photon doesn’t act differently because it comes from the sun or a light bulb. A given light source may have a different color balance, but that doesn’t mean that it is natural. Sunlight and lightning (note the word is lightning with an n. Instantaneous light from storm clouds) have a similar color balance, but a cloudy day, or a volcano or natural phosphorescence have very different color than daylight. People most often refer to strobes as being artificial, but call a light bulb is a natural light source. In fact a strobe is really a kind of controlled lightning, which is natural, while light bulbs doesn’t occur naturally. The real problem that people have with strobes is that they can’t visualize what the light will look like, so they find that their pictures look very differently from what they hope. This is why you need to practice with light in order to understand and visualize light, which will make it easier to work with any light source.


I do think that natural is a value laden term. Natural foods are assumed to be better than artificial food; natural fabrics are assumed to be better than artificial. I often hear people describe themselves as “natural light photographers.” I am sure they wouldn’t like to describe themselves as photographers who are handicapped by an inability to create and control light in their photographs. The term photography is from the Greek and can be translated as “writing with light,” and I do think a photographer is a better photographer when she/he can actually create a photograph by controlling the light. Lighting is not the only way to make better photographs, but it is one of the most important tools for creating better photographs. This is why I teach lighting courses, and write books and articles about lighting. If I can help more shooters learn to use this tool I can help a lot of people make better photos.


Some years ago I did a job for the Huntington Library in Pasadena, actually San Marino, at the same time [a well known photographer who I shouldn’t disparage on this blog] was shooting for them. He is known for using “natural” light. I talked to my contact about my shots and his after the shoot was over. My contact was much happier with my work because of issues with focus and light control and color, all the problems in the other photographer’s images existed because he had little ability to control the light.


People that I know and respect use the term natural light, which is too bad. The term has even slipped out of my mouth once or twice, which is unfortunate because natural isn’t precise. There, I am glad I got that off my chest, again. You might want to say: “I use ambient light” rather than “natural light” in order to be accurate.


The important thing is to learn to pre-visualize what the light will do. You can walk around hunting for good light outdoors, or even inside. But if you don’t understand the way light defines a subject you will be hunting for good light randomly, which may be a fruitless search. This is why I think that practice, with lights, is so important: it gives you a real sense of how light works. So if you think you need soft light for a portrait you’ll start with a large light modifier, perhaps the light panel. Then you might want to define the face a little more so you may add a hard light. Regardless you won’t have to just keep moving the lights around. The goal is to be able to see the portrait you want to make, or still life or architectural shot, in your head. This will enable you to make choices about the light. It is important to know there isn’t one right light that will fit everyone, or even a few lighting set-ups that will work in any situation. Lighting is not something you can set your camera to do automatically. Lighting requires you to take control and create the right situation for your subject.


Strobes create light by passing a spark though a tube filled with xenon gas. Both a dedicated on camera flash (say a Nikon SB900 or a Canon 580II EX) and a mono-light like an Alien Bee (http://www.paulcbuff.com/b1600.php) create light in exactly the same way. A dedicated unit (SB900, 580II EX) is better for work where you travel or cover events, like weddings. It is much lighter and will mount on the camera. It will expose automatically, but of course automatic light often looks bad, even when it is properly exposed. Mono-lights, or studio strobes will work all day without running out of batteries or taking longer to recycle because they run off AC power. They often have more power and better light modifiers. They are much better for studio work, and can be better for many location jobs.


The images I put into the lighting discussion are all strobe images. I’m aware that I use some images repeatedly in this blog. I am building a new portrait portfolio so I should have more shots where I can find them for the blog.


Please consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com:

An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio

Getting Started in Commercial Photography

If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

September 25, 2012

Project Begins!

Filed under: Basic Photo Technique,Film Technique,Indianapolis,Large Format Photography,Photographic Equipment — John Siskin @ 11:06 am

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, Getting Started in Commercial Photography If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.


I did my first shoot for the project I discussed in the last blog entry. These are the images I used in this entry. Of course these don’t really look like prints, they look like the way you balanced your screen. My working title is Interiors. This shoot went well, there are, however, some defects in some negatives. I did the shoot at the Indiana Historical Society. They were very accommodating about my large camera and tripod. Many of the people in the building seemed to assume that I was one of the displays. There was more light inside the building than I had expected so the exposures were a little shorter than I expected; ranging from 1 to 12 seconds. I shot at f32 or f45 and used my two Dagors; the 8.25 inch and the 14 inch I discussed in the last blog. When you use a larger image area you need a longer lens to create the same field of view. So a 12 inch (300 mm) lens on an 8X10 camera sees like a 50 mm (2 inch) lens on my full frame Nikon D800. When you use longer lenses and a larger capture area you also need to stop the lens down further to get the same depth of field. A 12 inch lens will need to be stopped down to f64 to get the same depth of field as a 50mm lens at f16. Of course this means the shutter will be open eight times as long.

I have to work out shutter issues on some lenses before I can use them in the field. When you use long exposures you don’t need a very sophisticated shutter, in fact a lens cap will do! The problem with a lens cap is that you may shake the camera when you remove it. I have used Packard shutters, which are air driven, in the studio. These work especially well with strobes, but I’m not sure I can mount them on the camera in the field. My Dagors are both mounted in leaf shutters.

I have been using a recipe for developing the film I got from The Darkroom Cookbook, Third Edition. I used a recipe for a divided developer: D-23. The developing agents are separate from the accelerators. There are several reasons that this is advantageous for this project: one is that I can process several types of film in the same way. As I may change films, or use older film, this will help me get printable negatives. I had processing problem with the second sheet of film I shot at the Indiana Historical Society. I think I contaminated my developer. You can see streaking in one of the images I’ve attached to this blog.

As I suggested at the top of this entry, the images I’ve attached aren’t really my goal. I will be contact printing these negatives onto watercolor paper using the Van Dyke process. This is the next step in this project. I may consider other processes, like Cyanotype or Kallitype, but I hope that Van Dykes will work out. More as the project evolves.

 

August 27, 2012

Making the Camera Personal

Filed under: Indianapolis,Photographic Equipment — John Siskin @ 2:33 pm

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, Getting Started in Commercial Photography If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

According to the Word Press program I use to post this blog this is blog number 100! I don’t know if that proves anything other than I can write lengthy note to myself without knowing if anyone reads this thing. So if you look at this blog please send an e-mail or something.

I went to Camp Chesterfield here in Indiana yesterday. The camp is a Spiritualist center that began in the nineteenth century, and an interesting place to visit. All images were made with the new Nikon D800.

I’ve been writing about my Nikon D800 for the last couple of blogs, but today I want to discuss making a camera your camera. Anytime you get a new piece of equipment you’ll need to learn about how it works, but it is also important to customize the camera to your way of working. I think most of this is quite simple: really just choosing the options you’ll use. For instance when I’m shooting for clients, I usually have the camera set to manual exposure. I evaluate the exposures using the laptop and the LCD which is why I spent time setting up Eye-Fi option I already wrote about. I also set up a couple of custom white balance settings for my strobes. These are things that make the camera work better for me. I also put a thin strap on the camera. I like straps that are about half an inch wide because, while I almost never put the camera around my neck, I do wrap the strap around my hand. When I am hand holding the camera I keep the camera in my right hand. The strap is wrapped three times around my hand, so I can let go of the camera without dropping the camera. I learned this from Nikon School in 1978 and I still like it. I can get the camera to my eye and shoot very quickly. By the way my left hand cradles the lens and braces against my body. This makes it easier to shoot hand held. When I am shooting for my self I’ll generally shoot with aperture priority, so, of course I will be able to find the M and A setting pretty quickly.

There are things I generally don’t use on any camera. My last camera had a microphone for taking notes about your pictures. I never used this on purpose, but I did turn it on by mistake a couple of times. I couldn’t tell you how to actually make it work. I don’t expect I’ll use the in camera editing features of the Nikon D800, so I may never really know how they work. It’s important to remember it’s your camera; it should work as an extension of your vision. If you need to look at the instruction book before every shot you should probably practice with the settings you use most often. If you’re shooting with a DSLR and you keep all the settings on auto all the time you’ve limited your control over the camera and your ability to express your own vision.

I think I’ve made modifications on every camera I’ve ever had. Sometimes it’s just the settings, like turning on the lines in the viewfinder. On my Speed Graphic I added extra infinity stops, added a filter to the range finder and changed the lens. For my Mamiya C330 camera I got prism finders, brackets, and built a custom Polaroid camera. I really loved the speed finder on my Nikon F, but it was really built for a Nikon F2. I think that it is important to examine all of the accessories that are available for your camera. While many of them might not help you with your shooting, they may inspire you with new ideas of how to shoot.

August 20, 2012

Low Light Shooting With the Nikon D800

Filed under: Basic Photo Technique,Indianapolis — John Siskin @ 9:10 am

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting, Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, Getting Started in Commercial Photography If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be giving a Photomicrography presentation on August 23 at Black Dog Books in Zionsville. Call 317.733.1747 to reserve a space. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

One of the biggest changes, for me, in working with the Nikon D800 is that the camera works in low light. My previous camera couldn’t make a good file above ISO 160 (yes 160, not 1600) and had trouble with exposures longer than about 1 second. The D800 will make a very usable file at ISO 6400, which is 6 stops brighter than my other camera. It will also make a good shot at an exposure of 30 seconds.

I always tell my students to test and practice, which is exactly what I’ve done with the D800. I made a test of film speed by shooting a five-dollar bill with different ISO settings. Money has a lot of finely printed detail, so I like to use it to look at resolution and noise. My evaluation of the test was that the camera worked exceptionally well to ISO 800, and had little noise at even higher ISO settings. I also discovered that long exposures were excellent, but take the camera considerably longer to process. Please note, these are my evaluations for the way I shoot, you should make your own tests and evaluations rather than accept my results. Besides testing is good practice.

I went back to the Indiana State Fair at night for some testing and practice in low light. I really haven’t done this kind of shooting in a long time, and I had forgotten how much fun it can be. As you may have figured out all the shots in this blog entry are from the night shoot at the fair. I did all my shooting at ISO 1600. I was very interested in allowing some motion blur into my shots. I shot everything in RAW. I was generally pleased by the auto-exposure and auto-color choices the camera made, but there were exceptions. The camera occasionally wanted to make things brighter, and often a little greener, than they felt at the site. It was easy to correct this when I converted from RAW to JPG, but I wouldn’t want to do this kind of shooting without making RAW files.

I should probably do some more night shooting soon. First because it’s fun, but also because I could use a little more practice.

July 14, 2012

I’m Showing in Indianapolis!

Filed under: Film Technique,Indianapolis,Large Format Photography,Looking at Photographs,Photographic Education — John Siskin @ 10:37 am


I had an opportunity to show a few images at a local coffer house, Lazy Daze, drop into my lap. If you’re in Indiana I hope you’ll check it out: the address is 10 S. Johnson Ave. Indianapolis, IN 46219.  The images on display are 16X20 inches, so these on line images aren’t really as effective, but at least you can see them. The text is the artist’s statement I included with the show. The images are on sale for $275. If you’d like to buy one I’ll get it to you for that price, plus shipping, after the show. All prints are silver gelatin, and are hand made by me.

Time and Shadow

Photography is an art form that is evolving. William Henry Fox Talbot realized that photography would become a means of communication when he created his first images back in the late 1830s. He used his camera to record household goods as buildings people and plants. When he published Pencil of Nature starting in 1844 he presented many of the ways the world would use photographs up to the present time. In the beginning photography was extraordinarily difficult to do. Exposures were long, so cameras had to be supported by a tripod. The chemical processes were almost as arcane as a witch’s brew, and sometimes more dangerous. It’s very important to remember that the photographs a person takes are always constrained by the limitations of the medium: the photographs a person could take.

The photographs I present here are from a certain time in photography. I used large cameras at this time to increase detail and reduce grain. I made prints by hand in a darkroom. I watched each of these images develop on a white sheet of paper under a safelight. It was a good time.

One of the most significant differences between working in this fashion and working with a digital camera is that each image you captured involved certain costs of time and material, so I would choose an image much more carefully. Now I more often shoot everything and edit, which is a very effective way to work with a digital camera. One more time the change in the technology of making pictures has changed the way we take pictures.

I hope these images will share not just how I see, but also some of the magic of making an image. These images were made with 4X5 film cameras. They were printed by hand with an enlarger in a darkroom. I enjoyed this way of fixing my vision onto paper. I hope you will find some joy in these images as well.

John Siskin

I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography
If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

July 9, 2012

About Perspective

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,Basic Photo Technique,Commercial Photography,Indianapolis,Uncategorized — John Siskin @ 3:51 pm


I hope you’ll check out my books: Photographing Architecture and Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. I hope you’ll get copies if you haven’t already. Of course you know that one reason for this blog is to sell the book and get you to consider one of my classes at BetterPhoto.com:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting
Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio
Getting Started in Commercial Photography
If you’re in the Indianapolis area there are other opportunities as well. I’ll be giving a lighting presentation at the Indy MU Photo Club on July 12.  I’ll be teaching a class in commercial photography next spring at Ivy Tech.

A short lens for portraits

A longer lens for portraits

I mentioned in my entry that a photograph is a two dimensional representation of a three dimensional reality. Since it is a representation you can change the way people perceive the subject. If you step away from the subject and use a telephoto lens then the subject will appear flatter, and if you get closer and use a wide-angle lens the subject will seem exaggerated. So the photographer’s position is critical to the way the subject looks. I see too many images where the photographer got lazy and just used a zoom lens, rather than considering the way the subject will be seen. Can you see the difference in the two shots of Jennifer? One is taken with a short lens and the other with a telephoto lens. I think the shot with the telephoto lens looks better. I would normally use a long lens for a portrait. These shots are from my book Photographing Architecture.


When I shoot a building my goal is to make the subject look more impressive. I start by using a wide-angle lens. I also look for a position that adds shape to the subject. One way to do this is to get close to the subject, and shoot just part of the subject. Another way to do this is to get above the subject. I did these images for a new client CRG Residential here in Indianapolis. You can see that I climbed the hill behind the building for one shot. I was also on a scissor light for a front shot. Lifts are incredibly helpful when shooting building. In this case I got stuck with one of the people from the company at the top of the lift for about twenty minutes. Photography can be so exciting

From the lift.

A straight look at the building

From behind on the hill

Close shot

Close Shot

Close shot

 

April 15, 2012

Blog Updates

Filed under: Indianapolis,Photography Communication — John Siskin @ 9:32 am


Amazon is shipping copies of my second book: Photographing Architecture. This is really exciting! Of course you can also get my first book Understanding and Controlling Strobe Lighting. You can download copies of most of my articles and some do it yourself projects. I teach three classes at BetterPhoto: Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio, An Introduction to Photographic Lighting and Getting Started in Commercial Photography. I hope you’ll check them out.


This isn’t really much of a post, but more of a note about my blog. I went through all the blog entries in the last few days and added categories. I hope this will make it easier to find things, but it did confuse the chronological order of the thing. The categories are on the right side of the page, at the bottom of the lists. Please let me know if they are helpful by sending an e-mail. I had to shut down the comments, unless you register, as there was too much spam. I added a few random shots this week; I hope you like them.


A couple of other updates: first I will be teaching for Indy Photo Coach soon.  I’ll be doing business consulting with them and a seminar class to start. Probably a lighting class as well. This should be a great chance to get back to live teaching! Also I’ll be teaching at Ivy Tech next spring: a commercial class. I may have a general photo class in the fall as well. One more local note: I got a local client from the walk through I did at the home show a couple of months ago. Now I just have to do more business promotion.


Of course if you’re not in Indianapolis you can still take a class with me at BetterPhoto.com. I hope you’ll consider these:
An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio

Getting Started in Commercial Photography
I hope you’ll check them out. I have been told that prices are going up this year at BetterPhoto, so you might want to sign up soon.

March 14, 2012

Shooting the Irving Theater!

Filed under: Architectural Lighting,Indianapolis,Lighting Technique — John Siskin @ 3:53 pm

I was talking about the workshop at the Irving Theater is the last blog as well. This week I’m going to show you the steps in the shoot.  This was the actual shoot for the Irving so the participants got to see the actual process rather than a staged version of the shoot. I’ve been teaching for a couple of decades and I’ve discovered that many students like to see the way shoots actually work, and the actual problem solving that goes into a shoot. This blog will help those who couldn’t attend. Of course not every moment in this kind of a production is good entertainment. Personally, I sometimes feel as though I’m making a bad landing in front of an audience. Especially if I’m shooting in a theater. I hate to start with a bad shot, but most things begin in the dark. This is the progression of shots that led to the final shot from the Irving Theater on March 4. More than twenty people were present for the experience. There is a short equipment list at the end of the blog. For more information please check out my books. The links are at the top of the page.

Irving 01: Ambient light, the place is a cave with little light. Exposure: 1/90 at F8, which was the exposure for all these shots. The differences are in the light.


Irving 02: Two lights, a Norman LH2400 with 500 watt seconds on the right side of the frame into an Alien Bee parabolic reflector, and a Norman 200B pointed at the back wall. Both of these are tests.

Irving 03: I added a 45 inch umbrella with a Calumet 750 watt-second Travelite near the camera. The Travelite is set to 1/2 power. I added two more Norman 200B units to the back wall with full CTO gels on each. The CTOs are filters to make the light warmer.


Irving 04: I put a Norman LH2400 in the front of the room, just in front of the first pew. The light has about 500 watt-seconds. I put barn doors on the light to control the spill. The spill is bad in this shot.


Irving 05: The Travelite and the Norman 200Bs are the only lights that fired. The CTO gels have been replaced by red gels, looks better. A shot with fewer lights makes it easier to balance the 200B units, but I didn’t plan it. I had problems with the slaves. The chairs appeared.


Irving 06: The Normans at the back and at the front fired. Better! I abandoned the Alien Bee Parabolic reflector and used a 60-inch umbrella on the Norman. This umbrella has a much larger and softer spread. I had hoped the Parabolic umbrella would give me some sort of spot on the stage, this was obviously way to optimistic.


Irving 07: More power in the Travelite and the Norman LH2400 at the right of the camera. Things look better. The red lights have been slightly repositioned.


Irving 08: Another bad slave shot, the light in front didn’t fire. I had radio slaves on the 200Bs and the Travelite near the camera; the other strobes had optical slaves. Slaves can be a problem.Here’s an article about slaves.


Irving 09: I kicked up the power on the strobes. The light at the front ended up with 750 watt-seconds. It has more in this shot. The Travelite was at almost full power. The LH2400 on the right had 1200 watt-seconds. The Norman 200Bs ended up at 100 watt-seconds, which was less then they started with.


Irving 10: The LH2400 in front of the pews was reduced in power to the final 750 watt-second. Norman 200Bs were added on the stage. The one on stage left has a 30” shoot through umbrella. This didn’t work: too much light out the back, 200 watt-seconds. The one on the right had  a metal 8” parabolic reflector to throw a spot on the chair, I25 watt-seconds.


Irving 11: The 30” umbrella on the stage was replaced by a shoe cover. Shoe covers are very useful. One of my assistants, Jeff or Jeff put a jacket between the speakers to help hide the light on the stage.


Irving 12: So we get the idea that slaves don’t work every time. This is particularly true with optical slaves in a room with dark walls.


Irving 13: Basically the final shot, but the fluorescent light is on. I think this is the same as #11, but without people.


Irving 14: The final capture! The fluorescent has been turned off, so we are in the dark.


Irving 15: The shot after retouching. For more on the retouching please see my last blog entry.

Norman LH2400: these are studio strobes. Lights have to be plugged into a power pack to work. The power pack is plugged into the wall. My lights are Norman’s 900 series. I have 8 heads and three power packs, 1-2000 watt-second and 2-1250 watt-second units.

Norman 200B: These are location strobes. The have separate power packs, both AC and DC so they are very flexible. Maximum output is 200 watt-seconds. I used DC packs on the wall and AC packs on the stage. I have 7 heads and 5 packs. This is a very flexible system.

Calumet Travelite 750. A 750 watt-second mono-light. This is a self-contained unit that plugs directly into the wall.

Alien Bee 86 inch parabolic umbrella: Let them describe it. They do a better job: http://www.paulcbuff.com/plm-silver.php.

Norman 8-inch parabolic reflector. This throws a very tight spot. For a little more information on Norman’s reflectors for the 200B: http://normanlights.com/battery_reflectors.asp.

Well that’s it. Back to a plug for BetterPhoto classes. Seriously folks take a class, please.
Thanks, John
I teach three classes at BetterPhoto:

Portrait Lighting on Location and in the Studio

An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

Getting Started in Commercial Photography

I hope you’ll check them out. I have been told that prices are going up this year at BetterPhoto, so you might want to sign up soon.

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