All Hallows Eve ~ Dark Themes

Occasionally the Muse reaches out and swivels my head in a different direction.

Up to some point this Fall I had been working to express beauty in white on white images. All Hallows Eve loomed and my mind suddenly turned dark.





Working with one of my favorite expressive extremely creative models, Eyerish Heather Collins, we developed a couple ideas for a photoshoot where we would work black on black.

As the photoshoot approached I had difficulties "seeing" something useful and interesting.

The day before our shoot, Eyerish asked if she could bring two friends. Meghann Rose and Myrk Kauna were to join us for the three person event in front of my lens.





When my wife and I went to pick up our models, my chin dropped at the sight of them. What they expressed and how they dressed were beyond my wildest dreams. Suddenly my concern for what to capture flew out the window as I was presented with one of the best opportunities I've had for making fun and interesting images in a rather long time.

I asked Myrk what had represented. His reply was, "Baron Samedi". That was it! Our theme and our purpose.





I'm thrilled with the outcome of this shoot.

I worked to include Gothic elements from images I made earlier this Fall in Paris, France. Which reminds me. I need to start a blog on a Bohemian Moves to Paris. That aside, the images from Paris lent themselves very well to what I felt as I worked through the 1200+ images we made that day.





Up to this photoshoot, I was seriously considering selling my lighting gear just before our move and never working in the studio like this again.

I may have to reconsider that position.

While I'm at it, I need to publicly thank HamburgerSteaky for uncovering the seed of desire to move to Paris that was planted nearly 30 years ago. He brought up just how wonderful it would be to have an atelier in Paris to make images in. Thank you, HamburgerSteaky! You know who you are.

A little technology doesn't hurt...

I'm about to cover a topic that makes me a little uncomfortable. Why the uncomfortableness? Well, as I've been preaching to my friends and colleagues ([laughing] sometimes it's a miracle I have either at this point), making a fine photographic image is not about the tools. It's about the fool behind the tools that makes or breaks an image.

Yet, there are some interesting changes taking place in the photographic industry that are having a direct impact on my "vision" and ability to "see" a final image. This entry explores one of the new tools that I've found particularly interesting.

I recently purchased a pair of Sony NEX5 to take with me to Europe this Fall. One had a 16mm f/2.8 lens and the other had Sony's fabulous 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 SEL superzoom. As you likely already know, Sony introduced the NEX series with the ability to perform in-camera image stitching. The function produces a jpg file from a series of images that the camera makes when the camera moved in a sweeping arc.





When the NEX firmware was capable of creating these kinds of in-camera stitched panoramic images, I knew I had to try it out. The reason is related to something I've been pursuing in one form or another for over 20 years. At the height of my large format film camera Madness, I owned an incredible Folmer and Schwing 12x20inch monster, complete with lenses (Fuji, Schneider, Zeiss). This camera was shortly followed with an equally incredible Korona 7x17inch mini-monster.

I never really made any images of value with either of these camera systems. Well, perhaps I did with the 7x17 Korona. I have a stack of negatives I've never printed of steam locomotives that I shot using a Kodak 250mm Wide Field Ektar. So the jury is still out. The fact I don't have anything to really show for those early efforts lends credence to the rumor that I'm completely mad about camera equipment and not image making.

A decade down the road, many gallery showings, magazine publications, and awards of all kinds later, I may finally be able to dis-spell those early evil but entirely likely true rumors of my insanity. It took me that long to finally believe what I said to my friends and colleagues. The image is all that matters. How you get there does not.





Moving along to the Digital Age and thinking about how I could get a large detail filled file and create a panorama, I have used several image stitching software packages. I found I like the wide narrow aspect of panoramas. Some of my better work included software stitched panoramas from inside steam engine cabins. These software applications were used outside of the camera and on a computer during post-processing. So when working in the field, I had to rely on my abilities to provide enough overlap between frames to ensure a decent panorama result.

Enter the Sony NEX5.





In-camera panorama creation is great! Now I can see panorama image results in the field. This allows me to make adjustments in exposure, field sweep, and composition from one image to the next. The number of, to me, interesting panoramas I come back with has suddenly increased.

When my wife and I recently visited Paris, France, I was keen to try my hand at in-camera panorama generation. The images here are some of the first results of this exercise. To say I'm thrilled would be an understatement.

Does in-camera panorama creation supplant my earlier software stitch processes? No. It only enhances what I can come away with.

The last image shared here is an example of a software stitched panorama that I took on the same Paris trip. I hand held the camera and shot off images one at a time in an upward sweeping motion. I did this because I wanted to see if I could keep the shadow area noise level to a minimum by shooting RAW images in place of jpgs.





It doesn't matter, actually. A good image is a good image, whether it's shot as RAW or in-camera processed jpg original files. As an academic exercise, I'm satisfied with both results.

It feels like I'm coming back with more and more images that please me. Which leads me to believe that new photographic image making tools are helping me create broader range of expressions.

Something gripped me...

Yes, something gripped my imagination.

It started with looking at images from my favorite artists. I wanted to reverse engineer what I was looking at to see how certain effects and composition might be applied to my work.


As a line out of an old Mel Brooks movie goes, "Something funny happened on the way to the Coliseum."






I find it's true in nearly 100 percent of the cases where I reverse engineer something, work to implement changes in my own work and ways of seeing, only to come out the other end with something completely unexpected and nearly fully my own.

This is what happened on my way to shooting a series of white on white images.

One of my favorite models needed to get in front of my lens and we were kicking around ideas for what we might do. I like the very Portland style bohemian fashions that turn out in this city. So we talked about white on white, but heavily layered and heavily textured.






When Eyerish showed up at the studio both my wife and I were stunned and instantly appreciative. The level of effort that went into the costumes that Eyerish and Lulu created is nothing short of amazing.






We worked for three hours together and turned out some really fun work.

Not a month later, another model asked if I would photograph her dance troupe. She wanted to be photographed against a white backdrop too.

Taking liberties with the idea, I continued to deepen and expand the white on white theme that I started to develop with Eyerish. The results of the bellydance photoshoot are also, in my mind, outstanding. I find I really enjoy the high key lighting over textures and skin tones.






For all the liberties that I took with everyone, I need to thank them for allowing me to risk their publish printed "look" in allowing me to work in the processing manner that I did. Behind each image is the straight, normal photographic image.

As I've come to learn about myself, I can't leave straight, normal photographic images alone. Not when where is something glimmering and attracting way down the processing line.

Meanwhile...

I have been preparing a few prints for a show I'll have starting later this month down at Bread and Ink. They're located around 37th and Hawthorn near-in SE. It's a great restaurant that's been around for years. They use locally sourced organic foods that are then cooked up into various tasty dishes. Well worth a visit.





Taking a quick look at the results, I have to say, I can't believe these images are my own work. The works are full of detail and show (to me) incredible resolution. They also have a quality of light that I never thought I'd ever achieve (see a prior blog entry on this very topic).

Looking at my work from a somewhat removed third person point of view is rather educational. I realize that I work differently than many of my friends and colleagues. This came after an email exchange with Pete Gomena, current President of the Portland Photographer's Forum (PPF). He p0inted out something that I hadn't fully considered nor appreciated before.





In very broad generalizations, I feel that there are two approaches used by photographers in making their images. The first are "found" image makers and the second are "idea" image makers. In "f0und" image making, a person wanders the world looking for something that attracts their eye. *Snap* goes the shutter and, with luck, a person has a pleasing image. When I follow DP Review, Fred Miranda, and many of the camera manufacturer's "expert" advice posts I see that a great many people work in this manner. Wander the world. Look for something interesting.

For "idea" image makers, it seems like we start from something we read or saw or felt. Then we work to re-create the reading, seeing, or feeling in the form of an image. I count myself as one of these kinds of image makers. I feel I can't make a decent landscape image, but, after looking at the prints for the upcoming show, I'm not half bad at taking ideas and transforming them into images.





It's a strange feeling to realize this about myself. I worked for years to follow in Saint Ansel's and Brother Weston's footsteps. The path to enlightenment lay in the world of cameras, lenses, and image making processes (careful film selection, film exposure and development, and printmaking). Or so I believed.

Perhaps seven years ago a huge shift in how I worked took place. I rented a studio from Ray Bidegain for a year or two and started to work with models. For me, to work with models, I needed an idea. Somewhere to begin. Otherwise all I would be left with was a model, perhaps attractively attired, standing in from of a viewer like a stiff sack of potatoes.





Over the next several years I read a lot of books by Terry Pratchett, a few by Niel Gaiman, Susanna Clarke and Ian Banks, and remembered how it felt to read Jules Verne. It was natural for me to then seek out scenes and settings that reminded me of what I read. It took time for me to work the lighting to the point where the images expressed the depth and perspective of what I saw in "my mind's eye" (hmmm... that's almost like St Ansel's "pre-visualization", only turned on it's head in oh so many ways...).

This morning I read a few threads on DP Review and Fred Miranda that reminded me of where I started, oh, forty some years ago. Folks yammering on about equipment and lenses and what's best and what's junk. It's almost as if they need to yackity-yack so they can avoid having to make an image they could be judged against. Then I considered my prints. These are sharper in all dimensions, particularly in the execution of ideas, than anything I ever made from an 8x10inch silver gelatine contact print.






At this point, the camera equipment nearly does not matter. For me, it is the development of ideas that matter most. All the rest doesn't really matter. Nearly. I would like to show my work in Paris, France. But that still has nothing to do with camera equipment, now does it?

The more things change...

I spent some time studying the images of Joel Grimes. I also spent some time studying the Canadian photographer, Renaud Bergeron, and the European photographer, Eugenio Recuenco.





What attracts me to their work is the quality of light they have each achieved. There seems to be a sense of balance between the strong off camera lighting and their somewhat subdued shadow details. Eugenio Recuenco's work reminds me of film set lighting. Perhaps something from a colorized film noir feature. Renaud Bergeron's work is stunning for his mastery of his subject matter. I found Joel Grimes through his Flickr images.

My own work seemed flat and boring by comparison. Perhaps it's that competitive streak in me. Or perhaps it's my continual striving for "perfection". I don't know, but something needed to be done about my boring lighting.





After WWII certain fashion photographers working in Paris, France made wonderful use of north light. That's where a large bank of north facing windows spilled light onto a subject. It is gorgeous, this kind of light. But the three photographers who's work I admire did not seem to employ that kind of light.

William Mortensen (St Ansel's arch nemesis, for reasons I have never understood) wrote a series of wonderful books back in the 1930's. They helped photographers understand their craft as a means of improving their work. William encouraged the use of two kinds of lighting. One gave an iconic, Byzantine tile mosaic kind of light. The other gives a more "familiar" kind of lighting effect. I have followed William's ideas for the past four years. Perhaps it was my flat lighting approach which led to boring images?





In any event, I reviewed my lighting equipment along with my approach and came to feel additional controlled light sources were required. Alien Bees had a PLM parabolic umbrella light system that was back-ordered for many months. One day I saw that their new materials were arriving and I ordered a PLM64.

What I came to realize was that my shoot-thru umbrellas were spilling too much light onto the backdrop, and that my main light could not be controlled in the manner I wanted. I also realized I needed to begin varying the intensity of my various lights to enhance the textures of a subject's clothing as well as to gently spread the shadow areas in certain ways.





It took awhile and several shoots for me to gain confidence in the new approach. Yet the goal was attractive enough that I felt it was worth pursuing. By the time Ivy Slime of Wigslitters asked me to help photograph her wigs a second time, I felt I was ready. Quickly on the heals of that shoot, Tiare Tashnick asked if I could make a few images of her Bogville ~ Gypsy Dust cast.

The results are, hopefully, conveying the change in direction in a way that makes my work subtly more dramatic and approachable. It's only been two years since I submitted work for publication in "1000 Steampunk Creations." The book was very recently released and I am fortunate enough to have two pages of work printed as part of the large, beautiful compilation of Steampunk-themed work. While this is quite thrilling, I realize that I'd love to have another shot at it. I'm much more pleased with my latest images.





Perhaps this is what drives me, then. Not competition. Not "perfection". Rather, perhaps what I'm really involved in is a continual exploration of the craft and art of image making.

It's a real joy, photography.

Wigs!

The longer I live in Portland the more I absolutely love it here. The creative energy is vibrant, accessible, and, well, it certainly helps me feel part of the whole "scene" when I can contribute to the image making fun.

Recently a nice young lady, whom we shall call Ivy Slime, contacted me to see if I would help her out. She runs an Etsy store-front under the name "WigSplitters". Ivy sells wigs and other Victorian style regalia.






I keep my eyes open for new photo-making opportunities, particularly when they involve image styles I'm attracted to. Noir Victorian Gothia, Tribal Fusion, Steampunk, Oilpunk, and Cyberpunk are themes that currently "turn my crank".

My model was stuck in another city. So I called Ivy to ask if we could/should still continue with the photoshoot. Miracle of miracles! She had someone already lined up and they were on their way to the studio.

Katarina was a complete novice in front of the camera. She was a little nervous I think. Yet she held it together very nicely for the duration of the shoot. In fact, I would never have known she was nervous unless Ivy had made the interpretation for me.

Have I ever said how much I enjoy this kind of work? Oh, maybe only a million or more times!

SilverShotz - model credits

Fourteen images have been published in SilverShotz magazine. Since there wasn't room in the publication to credit the models, I want to do that here.

First, on the inside front cover is Eyerish Heather Collins.





Jay Lieber





Uxepi Ipexu





Ladyshade





This is bad form. I don't remember who this is.





Grayson White





Kris White




Rowan





Noah Mickens





Kate Badenoch

SilverShotz Magazine hits the stands...

I can't wait to get home to see how the issue turned out and which images were chosen. The anticipation... the anticipation...







The Muses Steam and Hiss, Crackle and Fizz. The Muses scream of Irreversible Past and ponder Unknowable Future. The Muses close their ears to the Unfathomable and open their eyes to the Dreams of Squids and Red Herrings Daring. Laviathans of deep dark dank wriggle and slither between Coral Towers.





Cheating Death tears the spirit to render both matter and reality substantially modified. The costs of changing forever ones fate is impossibly high.





Into the vastness of time, come all ye whom dare dash the madness of life. Come all ye to whom life means little. Come all ye whom desire to taste and test the three ring circus of the fates.

... after Paris...

I decided to take another look at the level of accomplishment in Portland's streetart. Paris, I have to admit, was pretty hard to top. But, I thought perhaps things were improving around here too.

The site for somewhat decent graff has been torn down. I'm sure other sites are developing, but I personally only know of one active site, and it is just down the street from where I live.





Working with saturation and tonal range, I hoped to capture some of the intensity of the original work.

Paris - City of Public Art

My wife and I visited Paris, France for over two weeks in the Fall, 2010. We wanted to see what it was like to visit this famous "city of lights" and do several things. First, we vowed to see none of the Paris icon tourist spots. What could we see in them that we haven't already seen in prior trips? Second, we wanted to live in an apartment and not out of a hotel. The idea was to begin to experience living in Paris as Parisians do. Third, we wanted to see if the city and it's citizens were as vibrant and alive as during those well documented times of the early 1920's.

Crossing the high tourist sites off our list of things to do freed us up to become flâneurs. We could walk or metro to places where normal life and living takes place. We could stop and talk with people when the urge hit. We were free to discover some incredible places not usually highlighted in guide books.





In this way we found Saint Germain l'Auxerrois, Saint Julian le Pavre, the Hotel Sully, several fine bistros (including Fois de l'isle), Gallery Verto-Dodat, and an ancient church around the corner from Sacre Cour. We wedged through the crowds around the pet shops that line the river Seine. I got to walk through the grève of September 23rd and see how the French unions are alive and active in trying to protect the working class from excessive corporate greed.

Living in an apartment was a wonderful way to participate in life and living in Paris. We prepared many of our meals in the apartment. Buying food in Paris was really no more expensive than buying food in the States, and it tasted much better too (the European food system isn't broken like it is in the USA). Being centrally located on l'isle St. Louis allowed us easy access to anything our hearts desired.





When it came time to see if the Parisian culture was still alive, vibrant, and informed, I could think of no better measure than to find and appreciate Paris streetart. While this may seem odd to some, streetart can be a barometer used to measure the level and volume of art a culture has under development. Streetart, by its nature, is transitory and ephemeral. None of it will ever hang in an "official" gallery. None of it will ever be appreciated by the monied conservative class.

Yet, the form, style, and content of streetart can inform even the casual observer about the level of artistic activity. For me, when art spills out into the streets and onto the buildings and vehicles, it tells me that people are demanding to be heard because they feel they have something important to say. Without access to more formal, traditional art outlets, streetart becomes one of the few public sharings of ones work available.






We visited rue Denoyez. The entire street has been given (or taken?) over to street artists. New works are constantly under development. New ideas are continually being expressed. New visions appear to be explored.

What impressed me most about Paris streetart is its level of sophistication. Artists seem well informed and aware of cultural pressures. They seem to be using these pressures to drive their work. While it may be difficult for me to see outright, I felt a vibrancy, an aliveness about some of the work.





Next time we visit Paris, I want to again seek out a bit of street art. There are more places than just Belleville to visit, too.

The Proof...

A couple posting ago I went on a rant about how people in the photo-forums have nothing better to do than squawk about something they know little to nothing about. Mainly, that lenses have properties that influence image quality that are obvious (to them). I'm thinking of the flame wars about Nikon vs Canon sharpness. I'm thinking about the Leica crowd who fervently believe their images are better than anyone else's because Leica lenses are (somehow) better. I'm thinking of the heavy Sigma lens bashing that goes on. I'm thinking of the folks who pick over potentially unobservable details between one Canon zoom over another. I'm thinking of the folks who "test" lenses and then pontificate over their findings.

OK. So I too am pontificating. Here's my proof. So maybe I'm not exactly pontificating, rather just sharing potentially useful information.

I have once again proven to myself (if no one else) that lenses, by and large, are not the limiting factor in image resolution. From my observations, the sensor is the limiting factor.

Look at the test of four lenses and look for the smallest group of lines that can be resolved. Compare results within specific focal lengths. Look at the influence (or, really, non-influence) of aperture on resolution. Then think about what these observations mean.

If you're being truthful with yourself, you'll realize, as I have, that lens resolution is really sensor resolution in the case of modern AF optical systems. There is no way of getting more resolution into a file than this.

So why do folks go on and on about which lens is better than another? They say "resolution" in many cases, but what people may really be referring to are other dimensions. Perhaps build quality? Perhaps how a lens "feels" in the hand? Or, what I really suspect is true in a large number of cases, is how people can impress complete strangers with their ability to spend large sums of money.

If you want to make wonderful images, buy a lens. Just about any lens. If you want to impress folks, I'm sure you can find a way to spend a lot of money to achieve you goals.

The following are 100% center crops from a 5D MkII Canon full frame DSLR. +1 EV CR2 originals were then converted using #3 Sharpness in DPP. The image style was set to "Standard". No other manipulations were made to the output.

Click on this image, mouse over the image, click again and you can observe the file at full resolution.