It's only Rock 'n Roll but I like it...

I did two shots this time for the Wolves vs Lions T-Shirt company. This is the band Sirens who use band shirts designed by the Wolves vs Lions folk. Here they are wearing Wolves vs Lions' own designs. We shot this image in the woods and a second in a garage while they broke up computer equipment (I'm not sure why). I got punched in the eye a few weeks ago as I shot this band by a whirling idiot. At least I was able to keep the camera safe. If you live anywhere near northern NJ, go see this band. They drive hard and I like it. Just watch out for the "dancers".

Commercial Photographers Can Light Anything

Jewelry photography like this takes a special lighting set up. It also takes some practice with hot glue and a BBQ igniter. However, when you are a true commercial photographer (commercial photographers differ from amateurs in that they will work when sick) the learning curve is not steep and you can be up and running in no time at all. What I do is look at my subject, imagine how I believe it should look and then move lights around until what I see matches my mind's picture. Keep this in mind: It can be a human, an animal or even jewelry it all needs a purposeful light to be shot.

Photo retoching

I just finished replacing backgrounds on 101 portraits for many Nestle Power Point presentations. I recognized many as those I have shot but some had trees and buildings behind so I assume they were scanned from prints. The one trouble I had was that they were all tiny 72dpi jpgs. I used Photoshop CS5's quick select tool and refine selection brush. That and an identical gradient made all of the power point images look the same.

I tell my studio lighting students that in 2011 each and every photographer has to know Photoshop so that they can pre-vision a shot and know how Photoshop can help them. I used to shoot Oreo's in ice cream. Oreos demand a certain light and ice cream needs something different, By knowing that one can light the ice cream beautifully and shoot first, then replace the lights for the Oreo and shoot secondly you can have both lit perfectly and put together in one final shot. Remember; you get paid if you light and shoot or retouch. Most of my earning this February has been from retouching. Thank God. Thank Adobe.

Panoramas

This job was nothing but fun. Akiva and I went into NYC yesterday to a Zales jewelry store. It was there that I shot some panoramas of the interior. The image above shows panoramas made in Photoshop. One was shot with a 20mm manual lens on my Nikon D700, the other was shot with a 28-75 AF zoom set to 28mm. There are programs that can take these images and turn them into very cool VR Panoramas for the web. It's all fun and after overlapping the images around 50% as I shot, Photoshop took over and did most of the rest. Here is a hint if anyone wants to try this: Each layer has a mask attached. If a layer is off slightly, unlink the mask and carefully transform the layer into place. Then re-link the mask. That seemed to work perfectly.

Snowboarding with the Nikon D700

My son William has a T-shirt business called Wolves VS Lions. It seems to be doing well.

As I do photography for his company, I am stretched beyond what the studio work I normally do and it helps to broaden my experience and test Nikon's D700 as well.

We did these shots at Mountain Creek in New Jersey. Two young ladies offered to be models and for light on this night shoot, I bought a Brinkmann flood light at Wal*Mart as I drove to the mountain. My son (since he was the client) was in charge of keeping the light on the snowboarders and I set the Nikon to ISO 6400, and continuous high shooting with a 28-300mm auto focus lens. I just focused at the end of the tube and hit the trigger when one of the girls got there and followed them along the very slippery tube.

I was amazed at this little camera. Out of 6GB of images (around 200) I missed focus on only one image! The Nikon followed and continually focused as the camera shot image after image. At ISO 6400 the noise looked like grain (I love grain) and was easily modified in Camera Raw. The battery only went from 100% to 85% even in the very cold weather. I have the MB-10 attached so I think I could have shot for over 4 hours but I got too cold out there.

Well, this photo thing is still fun and I am still learning. I think I prefer the warmth and control of the studio though.....

Photo assistants

I worked as a photo assistant for about 4 years before I set out on my own in NYC back in the late 70's. I always loved working as an assistant because I was good at it and the final responsibility always rested on the photographer, not me. It gave me tremendous freedom to think out of the box and focus on getting the job done. I have striven to continue in that mindset now that I am the one with all of the responsibility.

So it was fun to be an assistant once again. This time it was for my son William, a junior at William Paterson University. He has been doing a series of odd images involving inside scenes outside in the woods. In this one he was doing his own version of Norman Rockwell's "freedom from want" painting. William did all of the work, he held all of the responsibility and I just pushed the shutter at the appropriate time. I got to be the assistant and once again, I had a ball, just like the old days.

A note about who creates an image. I have never felt that it mattered who pushed the shutter on the camera. The creator of the image is the one who composes and lights the shot. Here is a shot I did for Milkbone. The Grinch arm is mine. My art director pushed the shutter. I consider it my image because I set it up and I lit it.

Now go out there and be the creator!

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Making money with a camera

I am a commercial photographer. That means that I trade images for checks. The only thing better about a client sending you money in exchange for an image is the client calling you back time after time for a new image and a new check. Wow.

I was asked by a client to shoot a three day conference a few years ago. I never really do that kind of photography. I am primarily a studio shooter and for my first 30 years in business never used an on-camera flash. I am now onto my 4th or 5th job like this and am finding them to be lots of fun. This image is of the 2010 Breast Cancer Walk in NYC. I was hired by the Sensible Portions company (I usually shoot food packaging for them) and got to spend the day in the sun, in Central Park and just look for interesting images that told the story of how Sensible Portions was helping the walkers.

This Thursday I will be driving for about an hour to get to a winery where I will be photographing people from the Post Foods company as they get to know each other better. I will be bringing a very nice Nikon SB900 flash with a Quantum battery (that I borrowed from my good friend Bernard) and will try to visually tell the story that is happening there. Wow again. Money with a camera and a new option for me. This is too much fun!