Troubleseeker

Once upon a time there was a wizard. Bearing an unpronounceable name, his devout fans affectionately gave him the name Knut. The grumpy old wizard he was, Knut did not like to leave his luxurious tower. Yet he was admired for his special talent to summon the finest apples. Once a year he would step out on his balcony, bathing in cheers by his loyal fans, the sheep people.

“This day,” Knut thought by himself “is going to be a good apple day”. He felt surprisingly vivid today on his two-hundred-and-fify-third apple summoning. “I have summoned two-hundred-and-fifty-two apples. Nothing can go wrong today because I know exactly how to summon the finest apple”. Knut stopped for a second. He suddenly remembered a nightmare he recently had in which one of his fans demanded that he summons an orange. In his dream he did not know the secrets of the orange thus wanting to strike the foolish peon with a fireball – but then he realized he did not know how to cast a fireball either. “All these years I’ve been summoning apples and that is all I do. Can I call myself a wizard after all?”

When he did not show up that day, the sheep people decided that it is time to move on and shortly after found the next great wizard that they could praise.

your experience cannot be expressed in time

“I am taking pictures for X years or I am designing web pages for X years” does not mean anything. You could be doing the same wrong boring unreflected thing over and over again – for years. You could be shooting five hundred graduate pictures every semester and still not learn anything in ten years.

James Jefferson & Frank Sukhoo are the creative geniuses behind Jefferson Sukhoo Couture and just celebrated their 3rd anniversary.

All of our samples are designed in black, which allows the client to focus on the superb cut and silhouette. Once the design has been selected, we will then construct the garment in the colour and fabric of the client’s choice.

James and Frank were so kind to let me use some of their garments in a photo shoot. After having worked with the clothes I must say I am deeply impressed by their talent: the gowns are sophisticated, the fabrics exquisite and they always flow and fall so nicely.

Let’s be honest: the majority of people look at a picture or listen to a song and then either like it or not. Only a few will question the how it was made and based on that judge on said piece of art. I heard people going aw and oh over a photograph and when they found out about the used equipment not being textbook-conform they would frown their ugly faces. The biggest offender for a fair amount of photography veterans seems to be Photoshop. In every photography contest I must read the following: “Is Photoshop allowed? If yes, to what extent?”

Let me comment on that: what artistic difference does it make whether to screw a yellow warming filter in front of your lens or change the white balance afterwards digitally? Why would dodging and burning in the darkroom on film be okay but not tolerable when done digitally? I had the pleasure to attend a presentation held by fine-art photographer Ron deVries. While I respect his photography I couldn’t help myself but develop an honest disgruntlement against his strong “contra Photoshop” bias. He started off making some valid points about the advantages of film cameras over digital cameras. In his next sentence he was implying that anyone who uses digital only shoots in automatic (I shoot 100% manual and even if I weren’t who cares anyways). But then came the best worst part: “Photoshop is a toy.” Well, those are not my words but his. To stress this, Ron showed us some prints each with a photoshop effect applied – and I must add that the way he applied the filters was quite poorly done. In fact I do not know why he would not stop talking about the filters in photoshop. It almost seemed as if he thinks that would be the only thing to do in Photoshop (and I never use those fancy effects – but even if I were, who would care?).

He says you can’t go wild with filters in Photoshop and just use them because they are there. There ought to be a concept behind it – and this time I fully agree. But that does not make Photoshop as bad as he wants it to be. From the sounds I thought I could sense a lot of bitterness.

So, in order to get a solarize effect in the darkroom, you got to flip the light switch. To get a similar effect in Photoshop you would be using the solarize filter. And then Mr deVries says the Photoshop way is not legit (because) it’s too easy (note to self: there has to be a physical effort, a labor if you will to make valid art, but then again flipping a light switch? I don’t know…)

Who doesn’t love new toys? Well, I surely do – so I bought a Nikon D300. This is going to replace my other camera. The camera doesn’t necessarily produce better pictures but it makes me happier and my life easier. All the improvements over the D200 are subtle but very thought through and since I dont even own a D200 (but the smaller D80) I welcome them all.

Oh I also updated my portfolio page. There are no pictures taken with the D300 yet but that’s only a matter of time.

Who would have thought that the Polaroid camera is still of significance in photography and in the fashion industry?

Polaroid has actually two meanings:

digital polaroid of Chad

For a photographer, Polaroid means instant film(Polaroid is just a brand name). For medium and large format cameras there are ways (e.g. Polaroid back) to replace the real film with an instant film. This allows for testing a light composition on set because it gives immediate feedback (similar to what you are used to with the screen on the back of your digital camera).

For an agent or client, a Polaroid is a picture taken of someone with the light quality of a Polaroid camera. Some agencies still use real Polaroid cameras, however, more often Polaroids are taken with a digital camera (these are sometimes referred to as “digital Polaroids”).

What makes a Polaroid so special then?

On a Polaroid camera, the flash is mounted closely to the lens. This creates hard but very little shadows on the subject’s face. A face completely revealed like this helps to make an objective judgment about it. The pictures are considered to be not edited and often, the results are not the most flattering. But the light quality of a Polaroid is always the same. In a way this is a very fair thing: a really good model might not be able to afford a good photographer or does not have the necessary connections.

Chad in front of the same wall just
two minutes later with positioned lights

• If you have no Polaroid camera and scanner, use a digital camera (use the built-in flash or an external one – important is that the flash always points at the subject).
• wear a bathing suit (2 piece) or neutral underwear
• Try to keep your hair off your forehead (you can hold it up)
• Avoid any facial expression
• Take 3 pictures frontal (full length, hips & up, shoulders & up)
• Take 2 pictures from each profile (full length & close-up)
• Take 1 picture from the back

If you don’t want to join the amateurs¹ at The Shot and receive the grand prize to shoot a campaign for Victoria’s Secret in return for being humiliated in public television then you need to get up there the hard way.

Melissa

make-up: Sommer Mbonu, hair: Allison Murphy, model: Melissa for Angies

Becoming a fashion photographer may seem a daunting challenge. You will be spending more time preparing shoots and post-processing your images than actual shooting. You need to have an interest in fashion. Expect to spend money and time as opposed to getting paid – if you’re in for the money: go become a wedding photographer! Seriously! There are a few fashion photographers who make a killing and earn tens of thousands of dollars per day but on average a bad wedding photographer makes more money than a good fashion photographer.

It is not enough if you snap 5000 pictures and eventually end up with one brilliant shot. You need to be able to recreate and you need to be able to do so on command. Not only that: you also need to always be able to adjust to suddenly changing environments, improvise a lot and think “out of the box”.

Jenna

make-up: Sommer Mbonu, hair: Allison Murphy, model: Jenna for Angies

I took the above 6 pictures in one session. 3 looks each. Every make-up demanded a different light setup and a different mood that wanted to be created. Because I had no idea what make-up and hair would look like until they got started, all the lighting had to be ad-hoc leaving little room for wrong decisions.

Even though my example shows Beauty photography pictures instead of Fashion photography pictures, I found it good to make this one point clear: you will need to deliver. Beauty photography is no fashion photography per se but every fashion photographer will want to master the skills required for beauty photography and most photographers in this field are required to offer both.

You are not alone

Unless you like taking self-portraits you will never work alone. The bare minimum is a model. If you are just starting out and don’t have friends who like being in front of a camera you may have to pay someone to model for you. By the time you get more experienced and have some of your work exposed to the public you will see that finding models is rather easy. At one point it seems a good idea to approach a local agency and offer test shots (they will most likely give you their new faces to shoot first)

Two very crucial players in your team are the Make-up artist and the Hair stylist. I have come to learn that both are very essential for a successful shoot. Again, if you are inexperienced you may have to pay them for their work. As time goes by you will want to participate in so-called Creatives where everyone in the team works for free (or for prints) in order to enhance the portfolio.

A Wardrobe stylist is especially useful if you are shooting an editorial which requires many different outfits. An “Art director” (or “Creative director”) will usually supervise a shoot, focus on details, help with posing and give general guidelines so everyone is on the same page. Often he is the guy who picks location and the overall theme.

From assistants to someone whose mere responsibility are fingernails, you can encounter many more roles on a set.

Having all those and adding wardrobe and location leaves you with many variables (infinite possibilities – and we haven’t even touched posing yet) and it is up to you to conduct everything to the vision that you see in a style that you have acquired.

A starting point

Read books or search for “photoshoot” on youtube, learn how to retouch photographs, know your equipment inside out, and assist another photographer in your town. Most important: keep taking pictures and learn to trust yourself.

¹ In my opinion Dean is the only good photographer in that show.

I recently attended an amazing conference, the RubyConf 2007 (held in Charlotte this year). The conference was held in the very quiet town Charlotte. The city’s downtown appeared so dead (where were all the pedestrians?), that it would have made a wonderful setting for a zombie movie a la 28 days later. So while we were running around aimlessly in the hopes of finding a place where you could buy a lawnmower (thank you Peter Jackson!), we had to come realizing that preparing against zombies wouldn’t help very much. We were facing a much greater evil (no, not dinosaur-riding Germans): Werewolves! Lots of them. Very very many. Most of the conference attendees actually (did THEY all eat the zombies?).

Werewolf, also known as Mafia is a game about cunning and accusing but mainly about surviving. The only thing you need is a deck of cards. The 6-16 players are divided randomly into two groups: villagers and werewolves. A narrator is supervising the game and informs the players when the night or day begins. At night, the werewolves get to kill one villager. During the day, everyone (including the werewolves disguised as villagers) is discussing and eventually voting on who to lynch merely based on suspicions. If the villagers happen to lynch a werewolf then they are one step closer to victory and prove the Spanish Inquisition right. If they manage to kill all the werewolves they win. The werewolves win if at one point there are as many villagers as there are werewolves.

The rules are really simple. The game is stressful but fun. Even if you end up playing a villager, you still need to convince all the others of your innocence. You can compare it to going through customs in certain countries: you do not smuggle anything, you do not intend to commit any crimes, you don’t have anything to hide – and yet, after the tenth question that points to a specific item on your 5th birthday while you’re spending the family’s vacation in Cuba you start to get wobbly knees.