Workshop Fun

Well, the September workshop went off quite smoothly. We had a full compliment of shooters and models and the day went by so fast it was amazing. I have these workshops every month, so if you haven't had a chance to come to one, come on down! We teach real-life, hand-on, no-nonsense lighting... from beauty work to editorial, big strobes to hot lights to small strobes. And we do it in a way that can be easily understood by beginners and professional alike. Here are a few images from the location part yesterday.

Included with every Lighting Essential Workshop: a delicious lunch. This lovely day we could actually eat outside at Depot Cantina. Great Mexican food in downtown Tempe.

Yes, two 'carbon-based' light stands delivering the lighting for the doubles portrait. That is a Norman beauty dish with a 550EX in it and a 430EZ behind for a hair light. Models are David and Christina. Behind you can see Briana modeling in hard sunlight in a bikini. I love the weather from about now to next June...

Another view of the couple shoot with Christina and David.

More lighting information can be found at the Lighting Essentials site.

Jeremy Cowart Photography | News

Nicely done site. All CSS, well designed and very, very modern. Who needs flash when you can get fast, incredibly light sites like this? Well done, Jeremy.

Jeremy Cowart Photography | News: "I used to make websites for a living. This doesn’t feel like we just launched a website. This feels like we just wrapped filming a movie or making a record. Fifteen months ago, I realized I wanted to rethink the photography website, ground-up. So I met with my friend Jeremy Pinnix from Pixelgrazer.com and we decided we wanted something fast, all-CSS, easily searchable, extremely organized, content-driven and something that well represented the various genres of photography that I’m interested in. We spent almost a year focusing on functionality before we even got to the design phase. Pinnix spent most of that time planning and building the backend of this site which is just brilliantly easy to use. Then we brought Daniel Box from KurtNoble.com in to design the interface. I gave him a general photoshop template of how I wanted things to work and he did his design magic… subtle magic but always amazingly and typographically appropriate. Then I got my friend Matt Lehman to do the new logo and Daniel Ariza to help out with additional CSS tweaks and other random things. I can’t brag enough about this team… they are all seriously SO good at what they do. I couldn’t have possibly had more fun working with them all. I know it’s just a website, but we’ve truly put our hearts and hundreds of hours into it. Get used to it, because it"

What does it really mean to be a Generalist?

I don't know if Kurt Markus would call himself a generalist, but I think of the term as a compliment when it comes to him and his work.

There are some shooters who shoot a niche, or a couple of niches. And they have a style, or at least can mimic a style well enough to become fairly busy. They shoot what style is "hot" at the time and they work hard to look like what is currently "hot" in certain magazines.

What I love about Kurt Markus' work is that he has a style that is all his own. And he shoots images all over the spectrum of niches. And whether he is shooting fashion, horses, cowboys or sports, it has a style that is all his own. Quiet, well mannered imagery that stops the viewer and makes the image a statement of fact.

Terry Richardson shoots Lindsey Lohan

So you think you gotta have a truck load of equipment and 20 C-stands and 8Gazillion WS of strobe to go along with your 30K camera setup? Really? Well, that would be nice to have I guess, but watch Terry Richardson shoot Lindsey Lohan and you may think differently.

Preliminary Work to find My Groove...

Calendar Test Shot: Prescott, Arizona:
Briana by Don Giannatti
Originally uploaded by Wizwow

Ya know...

I am working on several projects and one is a calendar series, possibly three as this has garnered some attention and possible clients. Cool. In order to get my ideas formulated well, I took a model up for a day to shoot some ideas and get some stylistic things worked out. Here is one of my images and the accompanying Flickr post.

Persephone's Abduction by Carlos David

Persephone's Abduction
Originally uploaded by Carlos David

Another Flickr find. Excellent images... NSFW... but then, so many wonderful shot aren't. A good mix of traditional nude available light and a wink of strobe.

A few more Flickr Finds

I know that Stephen Shore's comments on Flickr being a wasteland were hotly contested. I am not going down that road... and Stephen's out of context quote was already discussed.

But every now and then, I come across someone who is really doing some interesting work. I like to show and share here.

dodolookster is one that is very impressive. There are people shots, still lifes... all kinds of work, but shot with a definite style.

Akshath is another. Nice work, well presented.

Take a look at Shaolin Tiger's People sets.

And over at calbaci's site you will get a good dose of San Francisco imagery.

jmathews has this incredible gallery of women with icons. Good, good stuff.

Finally, disneymike weighs in with this amazing collection of food shots. Mmmmm.

Sara... a very nicely done set of images of a stunning young lady.

Networking and Meeting People: a new way

Networking and meeting people is sometimes hard for some of us who are so damn busy. Between work, family, blogging and keeping up with all the new things going on, there sometimes seems like no time left for meeting new people. So we do it online - virtual friends and foes, supporters and detractors. It is a good way to build a digital relationship.

There are organizations that exist simply to help people meet others with the same interests. But they take on a life of their own many times and it can be difficult to come in after it has been established for a while. They are usually held in bars or someone's office and require getting one from one part of a city to another so there is a time factor as well. Face to face is wonderful, but there is a bit of inertia to overcome when we are all so busy.

We are going to do something a bit different in October, and hope to get a bunch of great people in one place and have a ton of fun. There is a forum on Flickr that was started by David Hobby, a photojournalist in Maryland. His blog, Strobist, has really taken off this past year and there is a great interest in the Flickr forum. We are starting to see real relationships forming there and it has been a great source of interaction and thoughtful posting. Flaming is rare... very rare, and the amount of helpful people is wonderful.

So we are taking the online community to a real life meeting. Place: Jerome, Arizona, an old "ghost town" setting with lots of character. Date: October 20, a Saturday when the heat has left and we Arizonan's start to relish the outdoors. Is there an interest? Take a look at this forum posting to see how people start to build an event online. There is a page of information that keeps everyone posted on what is going on, and we even have shirts to wear to identify ourselves as a community.

Online, virtual community comes together in a real world setting to enjoy one another, make alliances, art and memories and, hopefully friends. See you there?

Some Interesting Do's and Don'ts

There is a long tradition of lists in our culture. From to-do's to checklists, Books of to Letterman's Top 10, we love lists. This collection has to do with photography. I find it interesting. Alec's blog is one you should make a habit, BTW... It is one of the most creatively inspirational that I have found.

alec soth - blog: "

# Photographers are the only creative people that don’t pay attention to their predecessors work—if you imitate something good, you are more likely to succeed

# Whoever originated the idea will surely be forgotten until he or she’s dead—corollary: steal someone else’s idea before they die

# If you have to imitate, at least imitate something good

# Know the difference"

sorry for a slow week...

I have the flu and still have deadlines so the blog is suffering. Apologies.

Six consumer technologies that are destroying traditional IT

This is a very interesting read.

» Sanity check: The six consumer technologies that are destroying traditional IT | Tech Sanity Check | TechRepublic.com: "Let’s take a look at the six consumer technologies that are causing IT the most trouble and then consider what IT can do to turn around a situation that is quickly going from bad to worse in many places."

Another Flickr Find...

please bleed .. .. .. the story in one frame
Originally uploaded by LOWONLANDS

This guy has a great look. Whenever I find some work that really stops me on Flickr, I like to share it with you. Take a look at this unique photographer's images.

Now them's some stars!

A shot of the Milky Way taken from the darkness of Death Valley. Now that's cool.

Computer recycler threatened by bureaucratic nightmare

And these are the people who you want to run your healthcare? Really?

Computer recycler threatened by bureaucratic nightmare - Boing Boing: "Now, if this really was you, you might get upset. You'd see all the work you've done about to be undone, unravelled. It seems nobody cares that you're in this mess and the government, which seems to promote and support environmental cleanup, is using narrow interpretations of its regulations to block the operations of a group engaged in precisely this kind of activity."

Ouch!

Tool... that's good. And I would stick with 'washed up' - yeah... that works.

Techcrunch: "Washed up The still popular with some TechCrunch readers 80’s pop idol Prince has announced his intention to sue YouTube, The Pirate Bay and eBay for copyright infringement. Prince said that in YouTube’s case it could not argue it had no control over which videos users posted on its site: “YouTube … are clearly able (to) filter porn and pedophile material but appear to choose not to filter out the unauthorized music and film content which is core to their business success,” Prince said."

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Just a moment to consider the day... and the universe.

Sunday Concert: Luciano of course

This Sunday is a sad one for me. Losing this voice means that no one will be able to hear it live. We will have to settle for recordings and videos. Bittersweet for we are all somewhat better for his life and contribution to music. He could actually make me cry.




I love Liza. And I don't mind admitting it. What a talented lady. And here she is with Luciano. Fun.

... and you don't have to understand a single word to know the torment Pagliacci feels when he knows he has to laugh on the outside while dying on the inside...

Farewell kind sir... you will be sorely missed.

"Photoshop Express" RIA sneak-peeked today

John is at Photoshop World. He got a sneak peak at the new Adobe Photoshop online. Yep, an online version of Photoshop that will be ad driven.

John Nack on Adobe: "Photoshop Express" RIA sneak-peeked today: "Earlier this year, Adobe introduced Premiere Express, a free, Flash-based online video editor for creating mash-ups and remixes. Anyone using Photobucket, MTV.com and YouTube’s TestTube site can take Premiere Express for a spin. Photoshop Express, though not yet publicly available, aims to offer a similarly easy, approachable experience for image editing."

Business Week looks at Stock Photography

YES!!!! This is exactly what Daniel and I have been saying for years. It is why we built the "Public" side of the PHOTOtool. We absolutely believe that photographers can sell their own stock and do very well at it. If you continue to let the giant, dominant industry monsters control you, you will never have control over your own destiny. Check it out... then think about the PHOTOtool for your own stock.

"Photographers and art buyers who don't agree are finding increasingly varied ways to avoid working with Getty. Says Reid, "A lot of photographers have gone back to marketing themselves directly, discovering other ways to put their images onto the market." One such option is Digital Railroad, a website founded four years ago that allows agencies and photographers to self-publish work."

A Glimpse of a Workshop

I thought you may like to see what kind of energy we have going at the workshops. Lots of fun, lots of learning and lots of shooting. Watch, see, hear, do, learn... that is the key to grasping this stuff.

Into the stillness...

The loss is tremendous. The silence will be deafening for a while. Farewell sir, you will be sorely missed.

Motivation Idea from Jerry Seinfeld

Lifehacker shares a bit of wisdom from Jerry Seinfeld. Really.

Motivation: Jerry Seinfeld's productivity secret - Lifehacker: "Daily action builds habits. It gives you practice and will make you an expert in a short time. If you don't break the chain, you'll start to spot opportunities you otherwise wouldn't. Small improvements accumulate into large improvements rapidly because daily action provides 'compounding interest.' Skipping one day makes it easier to skip the next."

A good look at Lightroom

If you are looking at Lightroom, you will enjoy this little video and it is a good review of Adobe's newest digital photo tool.

Sunday Concert

Mishmash of Fun.