Shedding the layers of adult responsibility. Are LED's the next big thing?

rome.  Old cellphones.  Suits and ties.  


Just a random assortment of frazzle ended topics that, by themselves, don't add up to a blog but in aggregate may make sense.  Punctuated by photos I like.

First up:  Kirk is now officially fascinated with LED lights of every variety.  It started when I wrote my book about lighting equipment.  I did a small segment about a borrowed Micro unit from LitePanels.  I liked it but I thought it was pricey and didn't put out enough power.  Then I bought an inexpensive Promaster unit that came thoughtfully packaged with it's own A/C power supply, although it works well on double "A" batteries.  Then I bought the unit I wrote about recently, the DLC-DLDV60.  It packs quite a punch of photons in a very small and inexpensive package.

I was pretty happy with those two battery powered units and didn't think much about using them in the studio until I stumbled across a light from a company called ePhotoInc. that sells various inexpensive lighting stuff on an Amazon storefront.  They listed an LED unit that has 500 bulbs, supposedly puts out as much daylight balanced light as a 500 watt tungsten fixture and runs cool while only sipping around 100 watts of power.  It was right around $200 so I bought one on a whim.  Amazon shipped quick and I took possession of the unit last week.

A bad grab shot of the ePhoto LED 500.  But plenty spicy in use.

This thing is amazing.  It runs on A/C.  You can use the switches on the back to switch four different banks on, it weighs about five pounds, the actual LED section is about 14 inches tall, not counting the barn doors.  The unit is actually supplied with a little wrench you can use to tighten the barn doors if they come loose.  I switched it on and I was amazed at the light level that came squirting out.  I ran into the house and grabbed Belinda, put a small diffuser panel in front of the light and started shooting.  It's basically the same effect as sticking a tungsten movie light behind a diffusion scrim and blazing away.  But the wonderful things are:  No heat build up and no popped circuit breakers.  Wide open apertures if you want them.  Enough juice to stop things down.

I compared the light temperature with daylight and it's a pretty good match.  Pretty soon I  put the Elinchroms and Profotos back into their cases and I've started shooting everything with this light, using the two battery operated units as background lights and accent lights.  Yesterday I was looking at the results on the screen and I went back to Amazon and ordered another one.

Now I'm interested in sticking my toes into the world of LitePanels.  They make the pro stuff.  While the above ePhotoInc 500 is robust and mostly well finished metal the LitePanels seem to have taken the movie making and video world by storm.  And the range of their offerings is really incredible.  Their units include spot units, tungsten and daylight balance switching in some units. And a number of the units can be turned down with dials to almost zero without color shift.  They even have LED ringlights.

I don't shoot a lot of action.  I shoot a lot of portraits and I remember reading about Irving Penn making a giant wall of light bulbs behind white tracing paper because he liked the effect of a large soft wall of light.  Can you imagine a who interlinked assemblage of LED panels measuring six by eight feet with one layer of Rosco Toughspun diffusion over the whole thing?  It would look marvelous!!!!

So what pushed me in this direction?  Well, Will and I made another video and one of the smaller units came in really handy at one point.  I love the idea of WYSIWYG lighting and I like the idea of using one kind of light that would allow you to shoot HD video and still images with the same set up.  That obviates flash.  And like most photographers I like the trend of doing images with a very, very narrow depth of field.

And then there's visual differentiation.  I want to sell a look that no one else does.  Different lights might be part of that look.  The second panel should come tomorrow or Thurs. at the latest and I'm lining up a gorgeous model to shoot.  I'll let you know what transpires but I can already feel the desire for panels #4 and $5. A whole big bank sitting behind some diffusion.  I'll be around $800 into the LED big boy panel mix by then but it won't mean that I'm immune to the siren song of the LitePanels stuff.  Which I guess is a bit silly.  Like owning Nikon and pining for Leica......But we still do it.

Next up:  Shedding that adult responsibility.

Remember?  Remember when life was like that and you didn't have to care?


Ever wonder why we do it?  Why we go into the office every day and do the work thing?  You can lie to me and everyone else about how much you love your job but would you do it if no one paid you to do it?  Would you continue to go through the steps knowing that the primary cheese is gone?  Did you every set a number in your head for how much money it would take for you to retire and step away from the mind numbing madness?  Did you reach that number only to find that your spouse and your family moved the bar way up from where it was?  Are you paying for everyone's cellphone data package and the premium cable and the car insurances and all the other stuff that the people in your family expect you to supply?  Have you ever thought of just stepping away from it all and telling them to get their own stuff?

You can delude yourself that photographers are immune to all this.  That we love our jobs so much we'd do it even if no one paid us but the truth is that that's bullshit.  No one will knowingly shoot some stranger's wedding just for the thrill of exercising their shutter finger and their post production skills.  What photographers mean when they say they'd shoot even if no one paid them is this:  I would take out my camera and shoot the projects I've always carried around in my heart if I didn't have to shoot all the other stuff I shoot because I need the money.  I'd do my project shooting sensual portraits of the 50 most beautiful people I've ever met.  I'd roam the streets looking for those funny moments in between funny moments to shoot.  The kind of photographs that laugh at the vast silliness of culture.  I'd shoot stuff to see what it looked like.  I'd shoot and print to surround myself with beauty.

If I had a couple million dollars in the bank would I show up and shoot the puffy faced CTO at the drab start up offices of yet another start-up software company in an industrial center cloistered out near the airport?  Would I relish the moment when the receptionist hands me the temporary vendor badge and asks me to fill in my license number and make of car on the ledger sheet at the security desk?  Would I hunger to help my assistant drag the cart full of gear down the badly carpeted hall to the tiny conference room with the enormous, gothic conference table where I'll stand and ponder "how in the name of origami will I turn this turd of a room into a temporary studio?"  Naw.  And you wouldn't either.  No matter how much you love your new TurboFlex camera.

So, what to do?  I have a new process I call, "Shedding Adult Responsibility".  I start by asking myself if the task in front of me is something I really want to do.  If it's not I delegate it, ignore it or blow it off entirely.  If I can make good money for efficient projects I'll do those because I have a scale in my head that gives me the exact measure of the trade off.  But I try not to take projects that interfere with my morning swim or my yoga class.  I try to make sure that every project wraps up in time for happy hour and I try to spend as many evenings as humanly possible at home with my wife and kid.  I do what I like to do.  With the freedom comes the responsibility of saying "no" and leaving money off the table.

So, how do you make that work?  First you have to get very straight that people don't necessarily get rich because of how much they make but because of how much they save.  If your family has trained you to provide premium cable, business class internet service, gas for their cars, and available credit then you're screwed and you need to make some choices.  Shedding faux adult responsibility means only really paying for necessities.  No cable.  At all.  Rip the sucker out.  You'll save a fortune.  Stop paying teenagers to drive your cars by not providing gas or gas money.  Let them ride their bikes.  It'll do them some good.  Cut out buying all food trash.  No money for candy, soda, snack food or desserts.  Provide the basics.  Treats on rare occasions but only healthy food every day.

Everything else is discretionary.  The less you have to shell out the less you have to work.  The less you HAVE to work the fewer times you'll have to accept anything you don't want to do.  And the more time you'll have for reading novels and drinking coffee or red wine.  Or whatever you'd do if you were left to your own devices...

At some point you just have to realize that you only get one shot to do the things you want and then you get old and then you drop over dead. If you don't start doing what you really, really want to do right now you'll never get around to it.

What motivated this part of the blog?  Several friends my age who hate their jobs, pamper their families and live lives of desperate stress trying to keep it all together.  The young are resilient.  If they aren't they should be.  You are probably less resilient.  It's just like they tell you about the oxygen masks on the airplanes.....take care of yourself first.

On to another topic:  The Final Verdict on the Canon 7D.


I like it.  A lot.  It shoots well, the files are very nice and the battery lasts forever.  It is also an easier camera to shoot video with than the Canon 5Dmk2.  And so we see another counterintuitive proposition.  The Canon 5d2 is arguably better at generating the highest quality in the image files.  But in most cases you won't see the difference and you'll enjoy shooting with the 7D much more.  That's all I have to say about it.

If you want to live as an artist it's time to think like an artist.  Think different.  Be different.  Listen to the voice in your head.  Block out the voice of the neighborhood watch, the fear of failure, the paralysis of fear. Plunge in and do what you want to do.  I always remind myself not to wait until it's too late.  But then I also have to ask, "Too late for what?"

In the end it all boils down to one question:  "Are we having fun yet?"

ciao.

  

The random and ambiguous nature of the recovery.

It doesn't matter if the shoes are cheap.  If they are ugly she won't buy them.

It seems that people are embracing all sorts of new ways of doing business.  Most new schemes are predicated on offering more for less.  Many plans are predicated on "priming the pump" by giving away most of the farm and praying that people will become addicted to what you're selling cheaply so that they'll come back and buy more.  And the fleeting hope is that, while they came to you first for your low price, they'll come back to you because they liked the taste of the product and want more.  And maybe, at some mysterious time in the future you'll be able to raise the prices.... at least to the point that you won't be loosing money.  Is that really the new business dynamic for photography?  All driven by the intergalactic reach of "free" web marketing?  Barely keeping your head above water, and selling the mythical golden goose, cheap.

I think not.  And I am not alone.  I had lunch with a photographer friend who has been in the business for quite some time.  He's traveled the world for clients and.....still does.  As we sat in the fresh crisp air of fall, eating our Asian chicken and spicy tofu, we compared notes about the business.  Yes, 2009 sucked.  But we both have found that the economy for the kind of photographic images we offer started to make an earnest recovery around the beginning of the Summer.  And our recoveries have been snowballing ever since.

We both saw billings in September start to hit back into the range we'd come to expect before the recession.  And we both see clients understanding the value proposition of coming back strong with their marketing in the face of an almost certain business recovery.  The smart clients are revitalizing their marketing budgets with the strategy of being first in line and snapping up cheap market share.  None of these clients are anonymous, "over the transom" clients pulled in by websites or ferocious e-mail blasts, rather, they are traditional clients who've responded to measured and consistent, targeted advertising.  I'll spell it out:  direct mail, supported by e-mail, supported by face time and referrals.  Just the way it's always been done.

No behind the scenes videos of the "making of Kirk Tuck's executive portraits".  No BTS videos of my friend skimming light across the wall of the office space being photographed.  No price reductions.  No giveaways.  No endless fascination with SEO.  Not to say that we don't use new media to market but let's face it, when everyone leans on the crutch of "free" web marketing the only thing that's really going to break through the clutter is the mailer that's delivered to the non-virtual desktop, or some variation of that.

When people come back from their bunkers (always long after the start of the real recovery) and rejoin the market I think they'll find that having a good marketing plan, good capitalization (save some of the money you make for rainy days) and a good product will put them in the best position to enjoy a share of the recovering market for photography.

It's all in the book:

My brief flirtation with Monte Carlo.

My view from the Lowes Beachfront Hotel in Monte Carlo.

     "My head was pounding from the twelve very dry vodka martinis I'd drunk the night before at the Grand Casino.  Morning came blasting through the delicate white lace that coated the seaward windows like a fine spray of dust, lingering just so.  Through the fog in my head I started to remember some of the events of last night.  I should have stayed on the eight of diamonds but I had grown impetuous with drink and was determined to show Ernst Stavro Blofeld that the cards were a fickle and exacting mistress.  Damn my foolish pride.  Once again hubris had got the better of me.  I pushed the super model over a bit on the bed and stuck my hand under the pillow where I was comforted to find the cool and calming bulk of my Walther PPK pistol, cocked and ready to deliver lethal justice.

It was my second day on assignment in Monte Carlo.  I had already wrecked my Aston Martin DB-8 and been in two gunfights.  Oh the life of a foreign....."

Oops.  Sorry.  Too many James Bond books.  But,  let me veer away from photography for just a second and indulge a literary guilty pleasure.  If you've seen the James Bond movies but have never cracked one of the Ian Fleming novels that the movies are loosely based on I am very jealous of you.  You will get to savor each one for the very first time.  They are wonderful, elegant, funny, anachronistic, sexist, suspenseful and delicious.  I read them from time to time just to savor the descriptions of food that we'll never see the likes of again.  Especially if nutritionists and cardiologists have their way.....  Buy them all while you can get your hands on them and I warrant that you'll find it the smartest literary investment you've made in a while.  A cooler look into the 1950's and 1960's you'll not come across.  End of indulgence.

I was asked to go to a conference in Monte Carlo for a company called Tivoli, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of IBM.  I would arrive on a Saturday evening and the conference would start on Sunday evening with a cocktail hour reception and dinner.

The 50 meter swimming pool overlooking the bay and yacht docks.  My favorite memory of Monte Carlo.

The conference would last through until Thurs. afternoon.  Anyone who wanted could stay for the weekend and play golf.  There were helicopters to make the transfers between the airport in Nice and the hotel.  Everything was beautiful, the hotel had the patina of a place used to hosting dignitaries and heads of state.  And for true James Bond fans it was next door to the Grand Casino.  My job was to photograph all of the proceedings, the speakers, the speeches, the food, the carefully grouped shots of new acquaintances and the general ambiance of the event.  The dress was "business" and it was requested that I wear a dark suit and tie during all portions of the conference.  Packing was a pain as one doesn't wear the same suit or tie twice in a row.  This necessitated bringing along four suits as well as a few more casual sport coats for the times when I was "off the clock".  Strange how clothes are part of some assignments.

I've found that, when shooting pictures while wearing a suit, it never looks good to throw a camera bag over your shoulder so I would always find a corner behind the AV partition in which to hide my camera bag.  I'd carry a Nikon F5 and a medium zoom lens in my hand, complete with a flash in the hot shoe.  We shot ISO 400 Kodak print film at these events as it could be processed and printed just about anywhere, and quickly.  I carried three or four rolls in my suit coat pocket.   In the bag behind the curtain would be a back up camera body, a back up lens and an 80-200mm 2.8 zoom.  Extra batteries and film.

There were fun things to photograph including a very wonderful dinner in Prince Rainier's private car museum and speeches by Sir David Frost and Tom Peters.  But here's how it fell out for the client:  a number of anticipated guest didn't show.  The organizers decided to end each day's sessions at noon, serve lunch and then give the attendees the afternoons off to play golf or sightsee.  

Once my morning obligations were taken care of I headed on foot into the center of town to the Prince Rainier Swim Center, paid my two bucks and got a few miles of lap swimming in.  Rarely have I eaten so well, been so richly entertained and also been well paid for a job that included a recreational swim component.

At the end of the conference my client asked me to fly to Rome on another assignment.  Ah, the days of high tech's ascendency!  I spent the next five days in Rome before heading back home to Austin.  I still congratulate myself for taking along my favorite pair of swim goggles and a swim suit.  Nice pool.  Good view.  Some think these days will never come back but it's just not true.  All fun stuff cycles back into fashion with the utmost reliability.   In the meantime, have a few vodka martinis and relax.....

A love affair with Rome. And a flirtation with Monte Carlo.

Ferrari in Rome.  Your camera exposure should already be set, in weather like this the light isn't changing quickly.  You turn when you hear the roar of the engine, bring the camera to your eye, compose and then shoot.  No muss, no fuss.  If you look closely and are a car lover you'll note that all four cars visible in the shot are Ferraris.  Ahhhh.  Rome.  Nikon F100 with an 85mm 1.4.

I've been in and out of Rome a fair bit.  My first visit was with my parents in 1965.  Once with a girlfriend in 1978 and then over and over again either on business for various multinational companies or with my wife.   Usually I stay at the Hotel Victoria, about 400 meters from the Spanish Steps, just off the Via Veneto.  Working or not I always take a camera with a normal lens along for the ride.  A medium wide angle and a short telephoto also hitch along with me.

I've shot the city with an Argus camera from the 1950's, a Canonet QL17, a Canon TX, a brace of Leicas, a Nikon F100, a Mamiya 6 and a Canon EOS-1.  I've never shot a digital camera in the eternal city.   Just wasn't ready yet the last time I was there.

The thing that makes Rome so enticing to a good ole boy from Texas are the things that are different.  We don't have any buildings here in Austin that are much older than about 70 years old.  We have one or two like the state capitol that have been around longer but they've been modified over the years.  In the central part of Rome they don't really have any buildings that are under 100 years old and most are older still.

Again.  Turn and shoot.  If you've been shooting in the same light there's little reason to fiddle with exposure.   Rome.  Same camera and lens.

In Austin, with the exception of our giant outdoor pool, Barton Springs, and the seemingly endless outdoor concerts in the parks all of our social life in Austin seems to take place in cars and bars.  We're either going somewhere or coming back from somewhere.  And only the hippies and poor college students walk anywhere.  In Rome, at all hours of the night and day, people are walking, strolling, strutting and otherwise meandering down the ancient streets powered by nothing but their feet.  And when they do take to the cars the cars themselves are really worth looking at.

Do you think per capita income in the U.S. would go up if we stopped dressing like slobs who were about to go work on the yard and started dressing like serious adults?  Lawyers seen nodding "yes". Nikon film camera, 50mm lens.

We take food seriously here in Austin.  In Rome it's like life and death.  In Austin it's hot and everyone wears tee shirts.  In Rome it can get hot and people still wear their Armani and other fabulous stuff.  Which always looks better in photos than a big bellied redneck in a bright white Budweiser promotional shirt.

I just love the way the city resists change.  Here's my plan for 2011:  Shooting trip to Rome in March.  One camera.  One lens.  A million CF cards and a hundred batteries.  Who wants a very expensive guided tour of the world's coolest city?

Um.  Golly jeepers.  Do you notice how many people are out walking in the streets?

Addendum:  Zack Arias is wrong.  In his blog he states that people undercutting the market only hurt themselves.  I believe that all damage is cumulative and that photography as a business is dying by one hundred thousand small paper cuts per day.  Read his blog and decide for yourself.  Read it carefully.  It's right here:  http://www.zarias.com/cheap-photographers-only-kill-themselves-not-the-industry

I like Zack's work and his writing.  But I was a bit surprised to see that he confesses that he still can't afford to buy health insurance.....  I think he might want to reconsider his blog's point of view.  

Sometimes I cheat myself by believing things that just aren't relevant.

I really wanted to believe that the Zeiss 50mm 1.4 ZE lens for the Canon EF systems would be so incredibly superior to the Canon glass that I would see all kinds of brilliant optical wonders.  My images would be elevated to a new pantheon of photography reserved for the new blognoscenti and clients would flock to me, gushing, "How do you make the colors so rich and vibrant?" before shoving wads of currency in my photo vest.

But it didn't really happen that way.  I had the Canon 50mm 1.8 (type 2) and I bought into the big story. It goes something like this:  The Germans invented all this optical stuff.  They build the coolest mechanical things in the world.  Zeiss makes magic glass.  All the world's top pro's depend on magic lenses from either Leica or Zeiss.  So when my friend bought a Zeiss 50 and then decided it didn't help grow hair in bald spots or enliven his sex life I rushed in from the sidelines to buy it cheap.  "Like New In The Box."

I put it on the Canon 5Dmk2 and rushed around trying to shoot stuff.  The focus was off.  I did the whole micro adjust routine.  It was still hard to focus.  I got a new screen.  Now I could focus it.  And I shot and then waited for the magic to hit.  And I'm still waiting.

Don't get me wrong,  it's a very, very good lens.  The colors are wonderfully saturated, just the like the colors in the image above.  And it shows a high degree of sharpness, just like the sharp lines and detail in the photo above.  And the "micro-detail" is stunning.  Especially if you spend your life glued to your monitor at 100%.

But here's the problem:  The photo above was done with my $90 Canon EF 50mm 1.8 mk2.  And it's just as wonderful and breathtaking as the images from my Zeiss lens.  And did I mention that it cost one sixth the price?

Sometimes we want something to be true so much that we'll spend a lot more money on it and a lot more time convincing ourselves that we need this particular piece of gear.  We don't.  Not always.

I have two favorite 50mm lenses right now.  Neither of them are SEXY at all.  I have the 1.8 and I have the 50mm Macro 2.5.  I tested them recently against both the aforementioned Zeiss and the Canon 50mm 1.4 and guess what?  At f2 they all look equally bad.  At f4 they all look equally good.  At f7.1 I couldn't tell the difference with an electron scanning microscope.

I'm keeping the Zeiss around for the "bling factor", and to remind myself that the best gear isn't always the most expensive gear.

What do commercial photographers do when they go to family weddings?

My niece got married to a really nice guy last weekend.  Do I think the whole marriage thing will work out for them?  Well, yes.  They're both sweet, practical and they like each other very much.  They threw a really nice wedding with a tasteful and happy reception.  They did so many things right that it didn't surprise me when they didn't ask me to do the wedding photographs.  They both work in the ad business and they seem to know that there's a difference between species of photographers.

My niece asked my advice and then selected a San Antonio wedding photographer.  And judging by his unflappable attitude and his assured camera work, not to mention taking great advantage of the really nice available light,  I think he and his second shooter did a hell of a job.  

If you've read my blog before you know that I take a camera with me everywhere.  If I were on the edge of death and rushing to the emergency room a priority question would always be, "Leica M with film? or Canon 5d2 for low light?"  So, of course I dragged my camera with me.  I did make it a point to stay far from the real working professional.  I didn't bring a flash.  And I mostly kept a "nifty fifty" (the Canon 50mm 1.8) glued to my camera at all times.

I did the obligatory grown up wedding things.  I made sure my kid had his suit on straight and his tie tied.  I made small talk with the relatives and relations.  I congratulated the couple and the families with great sincerity.  I smiled lovingly at my wife.  It limited my Champagne consumption and didn't dance on the tables.  But there was still a lot of dead time to fill.

So I kept my camera with me and tried to shoot some "in between" moments.  I always enjoy the "media press" at social functions so I tried to get some of that........

And, of course I needed a shot of the real photographer and his second shooter directing the group shots.  But I stayed pretty far back and didn't try to scalp any of his or her set up shots.  I figured that they were doing the hard work they should reap the rewards.  No outrageous gear on display.  Just Nikon 700D's and the requisite 24-70 and 70-200's.  Little SB-600's in the shoes but not used very often.  These guys were good and it's obvious that they had a well oiled mental checklist working in their heads.  Just enough direction to pull everyone together and make great shots, not so much direction that they got in the way of the socializing.....A real photographer makes it a real event.

I took a lot of photos of my kid, Ben because he wasn't on the other photographer's radar even though he grew up with his cousin and they are pretty close.  Ben is very patient with me but he quickly gets tired of the "paparazzi" treatment.  I couldn't help it.  I thought his suit looked cool....(24-105mm Canon 5d2)

And I wanted to put the "bokeh" of the 24-105mm zoom to the test so I had to grab a few shots of Ben with the bride's-brother's-girlfriend out of focus behind him.  Looks  pretty okeh-bokeh to me....

But then I felt a little guilty using my niece's wedding as a lens testing laboratory so I took a shot of my nephew's girlfriend as the primary subject instead of the "bokeh baseline target".    And I've decided that anyone who doesn't like the 24-105mm is pretty daft.  It's a good lens.  Pretty sharp wide open and the IS is really good.  Specially if you're going for the available light thing.

This niece is from my wife's side of the family so my wife decamped from Austin and headed to Comfort, Texas the day before to help get everything ready and to visit with family coming in from all over the place.  Ben and I were more economical with our time.  We dropped the dog off at the lux kennel and headed out in the mid-afternoon on Saturday.  Comfort is a two hour drive down some bouncy country roads so I put in a little extra time for surprises in the low water crossings.  Ben read novels on my Kindle.  (We both have found that one can read faster on a Kindle......burning through books....).

Around 10 pm, after dinner, the cake cutting, and toasting, and the inception of the dancing, Ben came over and asked the  "14 year old" question:  "How long do we have to stay to be polite?"  We were back on the road and back in our Austin house by midnight.

I'm anxious to see the professional photos.  There was so much fun stuff to shoot.  It was hard keeping my camera on the strap and out of my hand.  But I figure that if you hate having folks leaning over your shoulder.......you better do things the way you want your karma to flow.