photo techniques (2010-07)

July/August 2010variations on the photographic arts

MICHAEL NELSONBefore the Curtain

SEÁN DUGGANUsing Pinhole

A. D. ColemanThe Photographs of Steven Katzman

Barry HaynesCorrect Digital Exposure

Douglas Dubler’s Fashion Photography

Tyler Stableford

StetsonCampaign

Dan Moughamian

PhotoshopCS5

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THE WORLD’S NEWSSTAND®

Previous Page | Contents | Zoom in | Zoom out | Front Cover | Search Issue | Next PageTechniques®

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EDITOR S NOTE:

Photography is everything I do, and anything different from that isn’t photography.

That’s a paraphrase of statements made in a number of letters I’ve re-ceived regarding specific, though distinctly different, articles we’ve pub-lished in the first three issues of photo technique. Since the 1880s, there have been a number of attempts to define what photography is and isn’t, and none of those have been universally adopted.

Photography is currently the most creative medium in existence. We still have all of the critical power of capturing an event in time and the ability to visualize not only in a moment, but through an extended time in view-ing the print—to fully understand its impact and nuances.

As photographers, we make exposures of events in real time as partici-pants in the real world around us. This has been and continues to be the historical strength of the medium. The synthesized image had always been the strength of painters, but it is no longer exclusively their domain. Our ability as photographers to manipulate and collage photographic images has opened many new avenues to using photography in amazing ways to create new realities.

Neither of these is the sole definition of contemporary photography. In fact, the only one who determines what are the necessary tools, be they analytic or synthetic or a combination of these, is the photographer trying to make an image that conveys information, creativity, emotion. Each chooses the tools and techniques appropriate to making the finest image and the most effective personal statement.

Our medium is expanding. It is still everything that Niepce thought of as a mirror of reality. It is also the technology that allows us to manipulate that reality, to create a whole new mental and emotional terrain through our images.

I like what is happening. I like celebrating the historical as well as the contemporary. It is the best of times to be a photographer.

Paul Schranz, Editorphoto technique magazine

July/August 2010 Vol. 31 No. 4

Formerly PHOTO Techniques Magazine

Publisher S. Tinsley Preston III

Editor Paul R. Schranz

Creative Director Lisa Cordova

Copy Editor Bonnie Schranz

Production Roberta Knight

Marketing Manager Janice Gordon

Online Content Coordinator Bree Lamb

Project Manager Norma Vechot

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photo technique (ISSN 1083-9070) is publishedbimonthly by Preston Publications, Div. Preston Industries, Inc., 6600 W. Touhy Ave., Niles, IL 60714-4516. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing offices. Copyright 2010; reproduction without permission strictly prohibited.

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Portfolios Beauty Avatar Film-inspired fashion shoot Douglas Dubler

Before the Curtain: Portraits of the Atlanta Ballet Interview with Michael Nelson

Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin Pinhole Photography Seán Duggan

Innovations Machine Wash Deluxe A great texture system now a Photoshop plug-in

Acratech Ballhead A perfect mate for a fiber tripod

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On the Cover: Photography and Creative Direction: Douglas Dubler 3Model: Aleksandra Marynyuk, Q Model Management NYMake-Up: Patrycja Korzeniak, rep by Halley Resources NYusing Make Up For EverHair: Hikara Tezuka for Elnett/ L´Oréal USAStyling: Ise White, rep by Timathy Priano NYFashion: Proenza SchoulerHat: Designed by Makins, courtesy of Samuel’s Hats NYDigital Enhancement: Willie of cursorctrl.com www.cursorctrl.com.Studio: Splashlight SoHo NYCInspiration: Sarah Dubler

Contents

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23

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Tech Adobe Photoshop CS5 Content-Aware Workflow Dan Moughamian

Proofing Your Negatives Digitally Critical Scanning Techniques Jean-Christian Rostagni

Perfecting Digital Camera Exposure Your meter reading isn’t always the best choice Barry Haynes

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Insight In the Face of Forgiveness: Steven Katzman’s Epiphanies A. D. Coleman

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pg. 4

pg. 28

Feature Corporate Photography on Location: The Stetson Campaign Interview with Tyler Stableford

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6300 Series Printers Introducing Canon USA’s newest wide format printer

Strobies by Interfit Amazing group of light modifiers for portable flash

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In the Face of Forgiveness:

A. D. Coleman

Steven Katzman’s Epiphanies

4 photo technique J/A 2010

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If God had a face what would it look like? / And would you want to see if seeing meant that / you would have to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the saints / and all the prophets?

— Joan Osborne, “One of Us ”

Photographers have photographed believers in all the world’s major religions and many of its minor ones while engaged in the act of worship. Often they have done so as outsiders to those creeds, with attitudes ranging from the respectful and curious to the skeptical or even critical. But more than a few of those photographers grew up within a particular faith whose practice and practitioners they subsequently described in images. No doubt some of them remained followers of those belief systems, so it seems safe to assume that while a number of them may have lapsed in their faith, or paid only lip service to it thereafter, others surely sustained their convictions to the point where we would consider them devout.

Therefore we can say that religions have been photographed, as it were, from the inside. How-ever, I can think of no photographer who has given us a firsthand account in words and images of his own spiritual crisis and conversion—especially to a religion with which he had no previous connection, and against which he had decided prejudices. No photographer, that is, until Steven Katzman.

Writing about The Face of Forgiveness, Steven Katzman’s act of bearing witness, necessarily in-volves addressing not just the human spirit but acts of faith, the evidence of things not seen, even the possibility that God might exist—whether as the all-powerful, omniscient Being that the conventional wisdom assumes or else, in Joan Osborne’s words, as “one of us . . . Just a slob like one of us, just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.” This project tells us what Katzman believes, while implicitly asking us what we believe, proposing thatwe put those cards on the table.

In the accompanying text to his 2005 book Katzmandescribes how he came to make these images and what happened to him in the process. It’s a long story, and I commend it to you in its moving,

Tampa, Steven Katzman

Left

coherent entirety. I don’t share Katzman’s particular convictions, but I don’t disbelieve a word of what he has to say. And, as a writer, I know an authentic voice when I hear one.

Recently, I asked him to reflect back on that periodof his life and the experience of religious conversion. He replied, in part, as follows:

People have always asked, “What got you interested in revival?” I would always reply, “I saw an ad in the Sarasota Herald Tribune: “Come to the miracle tent, come to the miracle tent. Witness the blind see, the cripple walk, the deaf hear . . .“That’s a pretty hard act to ignore, with all of that Southern polyester singing praises to the Lord under a party tent. As I found myself studying my subjects through my rangefinder, I became fascinated with the worshippers’ devotion towards their belief system, regardless of whether it was in conflict with mine.

During the first service that I documented, the preacher saw me kneeling down, twenty pounds of equipment around my neck, perhaps my own personal albatross, and pointing his finger directly at me he said, “Faith has no religion.” Those words somehow freed me from religion’ s dogma.

It wasn't until I was speaking [about the work] at a gallery opening that the question arose again, “What led you to revival?” I repeated the story, but this time it was different. For the very first time I realized it was “I who was blind, it was I who was deaf, and it was I who was crippled. But now I am able to see, walk and hear.” Holding back my tears, steadied by the supporting wall, I casually told the audience what had just happened.

Perhaps not coincidentally, that controversial 1995 lyric of Joan Osborne’s served as the theme song for the regrettably short-lived TV series Joan of Arcadia, which astonished me not only because it made it onto network TV but also because I found myself drawn to watch it regularly. Its premise—that confused teenagers (or at least Joan Girardi, its eponymous heroine) may be on a mission fromGod — bemused me. But I found the show’s great-est value in its portrayal of blundering, flawed,

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IN THE FACE OF FORGIVENESS A.D. COLEMAN

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Right

vulnerable, wounded, everyday people engaged in a search for meaning, attempting to figure out the right thing to do in mostly ordinary if not always easy situations, and striving to treat each other decently and lovingly.

In short, it concerned the way that those I think of as fundamentally good people, whether known to me or not, try to live their lives everywhere on this planet, regardless of their religious persuasion. By that I don’t suggest that I consider their faith, or conscious acts of agnosticism or atheism, irrelevant. You can use almost any belief system as a weapon with which to injure yourself or as an excuse to harm others. Or you can use it as a reflecting pool to show you the trace of the sacred in your own poor slob’s face. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, agnostic, atheist — anyone can do either,which is all I mean by “regardless.” In my exper-ience, what you choose to believe matters less than how you apply it to your existence on earth.

The people Katzman shows us surely qualify aspilgrims, seekers of enlightenment, and he rendersthem with all his considerable skill as a photo-grapher at moments in which they have surrend-ered themselves to a possibility, the instant of eachone’s act of faith. You can’t photograph faith itself, of course. Photographs describe the light that boun-ces off the surfaces of objects, nothing more, and both faith and revelation remain private, invisible inner experiences.

You can photograph people testifying, feeling the spirit — but that’s not the same thing. The outwardappearance of a spiritual experience inevitably becomes more open to interpretation. If we decon-textualized Katzman’s electrifying images and re-captioned them, presenting his subjects variously as attendees at a James Brown or Tom Jones or Britney Spears concert, customers at a comedy club, victims of a tragedy, or subjects of a hallucinogenic drug experiment, they’d lose none of their visual power. But their meaning, and our understanding of them, would shift dramatically.

So our reading of what these pictures signify de-pends to a great extent on what Katzman tells us heunderwent at the Brownsville Assembly of God inPensacola, Florida in 1999, and thereafter through2004. His riveting account of entering this environ-

ment as a documentary photographer pursuing asociological project and exiting it transformed, perhaps permanently, by his encounter with anenergy both terrifying and rapturous turns his photographs into what detectives call “trace evidence”— insufficient in itself to fully prove thecase, but corroborative of other evidence, sup-portive of a specific interpretation of the events.

Typically, in a documentary project such asKatzman initially intended to create, the photo-grapher interviews selected subjects of his or her images, transcribing and editing their statements to allow those represented to speak for them-selves. This empowers them, by giving them voice, while at the same time distancing the photo-grapher from the situation, casting him or her in the relatively detached role of translator, facilitator, or intermediary.

Katzman, clearly, will have none of this. Or per-haps I should say that whatever has possessed him won’t allow it, won't permit him to stand aside, pretending to impartiality and noninvolvement. In a superficial reading, this results in a seeming disconnect between the pictures — which employ conventional tropes of ostensibly and even clinicallyobjective modernist documentary photography —and Katzman’s intensely subjective, highly emo-tional, first-person confessional narrative, entirely uncharacteristic of the “artist’s statement” that nor-mally accompanies such a suite of photographs.

In that testimony Katzman makes a point of mentioning several times the importance to him of using strobe flash for his images. I’m inclined to take that strobe — and, by extension, the pictures he made with it — metaphorically rather than lit-erally. Like Diogenes with his lantern, searching foran honest man, Katzman behaved with his camera and strobe as if he could discover and expose (first for himself, then for us) the essence of revelation merely by putting a bigger bulb in the socket. Unlike Diogenes, he wasn't making a philosophical point, but behaving in a way we might call presumptuous.Katzman aspired to produce in his photographs a visual analogue of what he calls “the throng of lost souls being blinded by His light.” Powerful images result from this, pictures that suggest how we might appear as motes in an omniscient God’s eye, but they don't take you inside the individual’s


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IN THE FACE OF FORGIVENESS A.D. COLEMAN

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encounter with the divine — because they can’t. How could a mere photograph convey the actual presence, the immanence, of the Holy Spirit?

Yet if one approaches these pictures not as factual, scientific proof but as a form of this photographer’s testament to his own ambition, epiphany and con-version, they take on different, deeper, auto-biographical resonances. When Katzman states, “I am the lost soul in my photographs. . . . I realizedthat I was no longer a stranger shooting from the outside, but I was now . . . on the inside looking out,” his images and text recombine in a much different and more potent configuration, as manifestations

of his own personal search for salvation. Think ofthem as self-portraits, each one an aspect of Katzman’s own yearning for the state of grace, and they fit exactly with his words, merge with them perfectly.

Here’s what I take away from this: Katzman can show you his intense, charged photographs of religious ecstasy manifest in the faces and bodies of human beings, with whom he so closely identifies. As one who now has undergone it himself, he can tell you in his own eloquent, convincing words how that actually feels — especially what it means to a nonbeliever (perhaps like yourself) who, to his


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Mozambique, Steven Katzman

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Above

utter astonishment, totally without warning, found himself swept away. But, no matter how finely wrought and persuasive, Katzman’s representations constitute mere reports, not the event itself as it registers in a receptive heart, mind, soul. Someone or something taught Steven Katzman a lesson, andhe’s passing it along. His true message (or the mes-sage of whatever force speaks through him here):

You cannot have this experience at some remove; ithappens firsthand, hands-on, or not at all. But it does happen. It happens to others. It happened to him. It could happen to you.

The issues that Katzman confronted in this project seem to run through his subsequent explorations. There’s a long, ongoing series about derelict life on Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. in Sarasota, Florida, where he and his wife Sharon reside for part of the year; it’s a meditation on the legacy of the slain civil-rights leader and his example of worldly service to a higher cause. “Cowboy Convict,” addressing guilt and redemption, consists of studies of the inmates of two maximum security prisons: “Oklahoma StatePenitentiary, McAlester, OK, predominantly white,and Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA, pre-dominantly black, where eighty percent of the inmates are serving life for murder,” says Katzman.

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A. D. Coleman has published eight books and more than 2000 es-says on photography and related subjects. Formerly a columnist for the Village Voice, the New York Times, and the New York Observer, Coleman has contributed to ARTnews, Art On Paper, Technology Review, Juliet Art Magazine (Italy), European Photography (Germany), La Fotografia (Spain), and Art Today (China). His work has been translated into 21 languages and published in 31 countries. Coleman's widely read blog, “Photocritic International, appears at photocritic.com. Since 2005, exhibitions that he has curated have opened at museums and galleries in Canada, China, Finland, Italy, Rumania, Slovakia and the U.S.

© Copyright 2010 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. By permission of the author and Image/World Syndication Services, [email protected]

Technical notes for The Face of Forgiveness:“For this project I worked with my Mamiya 7II with a 43mm lens,and a Quantum flash mounted overhead. Film: Kodak T-MAX 100, occasionally T-MAX 400, all developed in T-MAX Developer, printedon a DeVere 8x10 enlarger with a Rodenstock 100mm Apo Rodagonlens, all of which have been sold. I dismantled the darkroom; nowit's a print studio. This was also the last project that I shot with film. I personally did the scans for the book, using an Imacon 848 scanner." — Steven Katzman

To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com

And the bluntly titled “Death” series includes images of cadavers undergoing cremation and un-nerving still lifes involving several species of dead creatures. It seems that Katzman remains a spiritual searcher at heart, “just a stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.”

Author’s note: Steven Katzman’s book, The Face of Forgiveness, was published in 2005 by powerHouse Books. It received sup-portive response from the New York Times Book Review, Psychology Today, and numerous other publications in the U.S. and Europe. The above essay is a considerably revised version of the intro-duction I wrote for that book. You can learn more about this photographer, and see samples from all his projects, at stevenkatzmanphotography.com.

Royal Albert Hall, Steven Katzman

Above

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PHOTOSHOP CS5 DAN MOUGHAMIAN

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This is the first of three articles on the significant changes in Photoshop CS5: Content-Aware Fill, Painting Techniques, and HDR.

It’s no secret that Adobe Photoshop provides photographers with many tools for accomplishing similar or related retouching tasks. Photoshop CS5 ships with two special Edit commands that work in new ways and achieve high quality results.

The new Content-Aware Fill and Content-Aware Healprovide an intelligent means of removing dis-tracting elements in a scene, by predicting what is “behind” these selected elements and then filling the selection or brush stroke with new textures that blend with their surroundings (Fig. 1).

Photoshop CS5:The Content-Aware Workflow

Dan Moughamian

The ChallengeCompositionally, this photograph has a couple of areas that require attention. The first is the lamppost closest to the camera (along the walkway at right). To my eyes, it pulls attention from the Lighthouse, unlike the other two more distant posts. Stemming from that problem, we’ll also need to remove the reflection of the lamppost. These tasks will be hand-led with a Content-Aware Fill workflow.

The composition also needs to be tightened, by bringing the points of interest on either side of the lake channel “closer together” without creating arti-facts or removing important details. This will be handled with the Content-Aware Scale command, accompanied by an alpha channel we create.

(Figure 1)

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Working with Content-Aware Fill & HealLet’s tackle the lamppost first; let’s call this our “target.” I find it is helpful to first zoom in some-where between 50 and 100% magnification, depen-ding upon how large your image is and how much detail you can see at those settings. The idea is to get a good look at the textural details around the target. This is helpful for determining whether you should attempt to replace the target with a single selection and fill, or if a segmented approach is better (Fig. 2).

Typically, a Content-Aware fill target has multiple texture types nearby, as in scenes like this one where a single lamppost might cover areas of con-crete, vegetation, water and sky. Attempting a singleselection when multiple textures like these are “behind” your subject will often result in Photoshop guessing incorrectly which replacement textures go where. Here we’re mostly concerned with the veg-etation and sky, but given the close proximity of the other lamp heads to the one being targeted, I attempted to take care of it in a single pass.

Step 1Working on a separate layer, I used the Lasso tool to select the target, taking care to leave a bit of space between the post and the marching ants, while maintaining an accurate shape outline. Remember, you do not want the selection touching your target generally, and you don’t want to leave too much space or else Photoshop may become “confused” as to what you’re trying to replace.

Step 2 Next, choose Edit > Fill…this will invoke the stand-ard Fill Dialog. Under “Use,” select Content-Aware.For this image the options for transparency, blend and opacity were left at their default settings (Fig. 3).

Content-Aware Fill produces the initial result. Often, if you have a very homogenous area of texture around your target, one pass is all it will take to get a perfectly natural looking result! For more challenging situations like this one, it is not uncommon to get a partially flawed result. The lower area of vegetation, some artifacts on the curband some soft details need further work.

To handle the imperfections in this fill, I selected the flawed areas by shift-dragging around each area

(Figure 3)

(Figure 2)

(Figure 4)

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with the Lasso tools, and then performed another Content-Aware Fill. You can see the second attempt produced a pretty convincing result, even at high magnification (Fig. 4).

For our final replacement, both Content-Aware Fill and the Spot Healing Brush can be used in com-bination to replace the reflection of the lamppost with simple watery tones. I started with the smaller reflections zoomed in to 300% to get an accurate assessment of what needed to be replaced and what should remain, and again used the Lasso tool to carefully select those areas.

Because puddles like these often produce subtle gradients of color, I wanted to replace only the regions of black. After selecting the targets, I ran a Content-Aware Fill; the result is almost flawless. Despite the size of the two smaller reflections, Ifound the Fill was more effective than the Brush, because the fill did not soften the area and repro-duced the color gradients more accurately (Fig. 5).

Finally, the larger reflection was a good candidate for the Spot Healing Brush, because of the homo-genous tones and colors that surround it. All that is required is to click the “Content-Aware” option before making a corrective brush stroke (Fig. 6).

Once I had set up my Spot Healing Brush, I made a single “swipe” across the lamppost reflection and it was gone. All that remained was a small touch-up for the tip of the lamp (left of the main reflection). Zoomed out to normal viewing magnifications, there is no hint that the lamppost ever occupied its concrete perch (Fig. 7).

Working with Content-Aware ScaleOnce the extraneous or distracting elements of a composition are removed, it was time to tighten up the composition. Content-Aware Scale requires a couple additional steps beyond Content-Aware Fill to get your first correction, but it is, nonetheless, a fairly intuitive process once you have tried it a couple times.

Step 1The first thing that needs to be done is define the areas that need to be protected from the Content-Aware Scale algorithm. To accomplish this I used the Lasso tool to select the two regions of my

(Figure 6)

(Figure 7)

(Figure 5)

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(Figure 8)

(Figure 9)

image that most defined the composition: the walkway and the lighthouse. Next I clicked the “New Channel from Selection” button in the Channels panel (Fig. 8).

Step 2I hide the selection and then choose Edit > Content-Aware Scale. This produces a set oftransform handles around the edge of the doc-ument and provides basic transform options and settings in the Options Bar. I always thenchoose my Alpha Channel from the “Protect” pop-up menu, to make sure I don’t accidentally scale the wrong parts of my image.

Step 3 I clicked the center drag handle on the right edge of the image and dragged left, being careful to watch for any obvious distortions along the channel walls or trees. Once you get close to the image width required, you can drag the “Amount” slider; the lower the value, the less distortion will be allowed.

For this image I settled on a value around 40%. This ensured the harbor wall and buildings on the left did not take on a “crunched” appearance at normal magnifications. Note that a value of 0% produces the same or very similar result as using the standard Scale command. Also keep in mind that the finished result usually ends up looking smoother than the “live scale” view yousee prior to accepting your changes (Fig. 9).

The results for this command usually take a minute or two to process depending on imagesize and hardware configurations, so be pa-tient. Once finished there will be an area of transparency along the original boundary ofthe image. That can be cropped away to com-plete the edits (Fig. 10).

Optional StepIn some situations, you may notice slight “fault lines” outside the boundaries of your Alpha Channel/safe area. Adjust the hardness of your Spot Healing brush accordingly toremove these with the aforementioned Content-Aware Heal mode or some quick cloning if

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Dan Moughamian is a fine art photographer and instructor, having more than 16 years experience with Adobe Photoshop. He is a veteran of Adobe's testing programs and a published author, contributing to the Photoshop CS4 Bible, as well as feature articles at Peachpit.com. Dan has also authored a series of in-depth Adobe training videos. His upcoming titles from Nonlinear Educating include: Image Retouching & Adjustment with Photoshop CS5 and Raw Foundations with ACR 6.


(Figure 10)

there are obvious patterns that have been broken. Here I fixed a few small errors on the channel wall, removed a power box along the sidewalk and a seam in the concrete to wrap up.

While no tool or command gets perfect results every time, I think you will find that when used in the right scenarios, the Content-Aware Fill and Content-Aware Scale commands are indispensible retouching tools that can save you a lot of time in post-production.

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BEAUTY AVATAR DOUGLAS DUBLER

When I was first presented with the assign-ment of producing a cover for photo technique, I immediately began the initial and most important task of conjuring up a strong concept from which the visual image could emerge. I use the verb “conjure” because the process is both evocative and mystical with little logic.

As a beauty photographer, I look for inspiration from many diverse sources: museums, mythology, films, cultural events, opera, ballet, etc. I had just been to see James Cameron’s Avatar and was com-pletely captivated by all aspects of the film—so much so that I went to see it twice. I was drawn tothe obvious, such as the camera work, the story and the technology, as well as its subtle parallels to the treatment of the American Indians, gross neglect of our own planet’s ecosystems and Eastern inspired spiritual philosophies. For me everything came to-gether in a marvelous way. He is a master story-teller, and I think it is his best film to date. It really resonated with me on a very personal level. Here was my inspiration!

Since my approach to photography is neither literal nor linear, I used the film as a point of departure. It inspired my choice of color palette, lighting, make-up, and of course, the fabulous feather hat by Makins, which was the basis creatively for the cover shot. I wanted everything to have that organic, wild, tribal feeling. A very important partwas also the fashion. I chose a silk jersey top fromProenza Schouler’s Spring 2010 collection. I felt their animal design motif was perfect—again not

literal, but very interpretative. To have used some-thing more literal like a traditional animal print would have been, for me, too obvious. Using two subtractive primaries, magenta and green, creates a sense of color depth as the eye is unable to focus on both simultaneously. It is one of several techniques that I am frequently inclined to use in order to en-hance the perception of three dimensions in a two-dimensional art form.

The lighting is from a single Broncolor Lightbar 120 with a Para Soft 220 SB as a very weak fill. Power was provided by several Broncolor Scoro A4S packs. The Lightbar’s spread was reduced with barndoors to narrow the beam of light and raise the contrast. The lighting configuration provides even coverage, good modeling with smooth fall-off under the chin. My signature “shutter drag” technique created a slightly off-register secondaryimage while maintaining an ultra sharp primary image. This is a technique that I have been devel-oping over the years which adds a “3D” look to the image and softens the profile of the model. This is even more appropriate since Cameron chose to film Avatar in 3D.

I used the new Phase One 645DF camera made by Mamiya with an AF 150mm f2.8 IF lens. Capture was with the new Phase One P 65+, whose virtually full frame sensor produces an impressive 350MB file in 16-bit with extreme resolution, very smooth tonal transitions and great skin tone. The camera was set at 50 ISO to insure maximum file quality. This camera/back combination has become my new “favorite” for medium format digital capture.

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Beauty AVATAR

Douglas Dubler

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The second look was an extension of the original concept, but even more interpretive. Loose feathers were woven into the model’s hair, which had been wound around a Styrofoam form. The color palette was more minimal with the focus being the futuristic eye make-up and the free-form hairstyle with contrasting colored feathers. The nude lips further accentuate the eyes, which have a distant gaze. I had the make-up artist add a collar of gold and silver leaf to play off the metallic eye colors and bring a textural element to the tight beauty shot. The jewelry is 19th century Victorian Bakelite.

The lighting for this shot was an unusual arrangement of Broncolor Lightbar 120 Evolutions in a horizontal line at camera height with a Pulso-Spot 4 on top of the camera as a fill light. Their combined effect gave me that “deer in the head-lights” effect which I thought went with the styling and coalesced all of the visual elements. I tried several variations on the mainlight before settling on this configuration.

Capture was with my Nikon D3X 24.5 megapixel D-SLR with Nikon’s new 70-200mm f2.8G ED VR II zoom. The close focusing ability of this lensenables me to get “tight” beauty shots while main-taining the distance I need for the lighting setup. I also like the compression afforded by the longer focal length. I captured the image at 50 ISO to virtually eliminate noise and processed the files in Capture NX2 software.

Accurate gray/white balance for both shots was achieved by using the X-Rite’s ColorChecker Passort each time the lighting or camera was changed. In addition, all images were captured to the Apple Mac Pro computer using Phase One’s Capture One Pro soft-ware, which enables multiple camera connection without reconnecting or restar-ting the software. It supports tethered capture with Phase One, Leaf, Nikon and Canon cameras.

After the images were edited, the selects were electronically sent to my retoucher, Willie of CursorControl in Australia (www.cursorctrl.com). We havebeen working together for about 14 years, long before retouching came to the Apple platform. I think his “skin” technique is the best in the market and conveys a sense of moisture, translucency and transparency while maintaining the dimensional quality of the original capture. After several min-

imal revisions, I had the two files that were the completion of my initial vision.

The final chapter for me is always the execution of the print, so I made two prints on my Epson Stylus Pro 3880 on Epson’s new Hot Press Bright paper. They exceeded my expectations. I could finally rest.

This shoot, like most of mine, required con-siderable thought and meticulous planning, which are necessary if one is attempting an accurate ex-pression of an abstract concept. There were many meetings, many more phone conversations and more than enough text messages to insure that all of the creative team was on the same page on the day of the shoot. At that point, I like to leave ample room for creativity so the images that I shoot look inspired, not produced. The difference between the two is what separates good and excellent. And time is often the best barometer of what is trend and what is enduring. In this case, I hope time is on my side.


Douglas Dubler is a fashion and beauty photographer who seamlessly joins craft and creativity to produce some of the most memorable images in editorial, advertising and fine art photography. Clients include Max Factor, Revlon, Clairol, Coty, Redken, Avon, Charles of the Ritz, Sally Hansen, Alexandra de Markoff, CNN, Epson, Broncolor, Nikon and Nik Software, as well as celebrities Jacqueline Bisset, Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine, Dolly Parton, Brooke Shields, Andie MacDowell and Sharon Stone. Recent assignments find him working as both creative director and photographer. Dubler has been recognized by the industry with awards from the Starch Report, Communication Arts, Art Directors Club and Clio. Teaching venues include The School of Visual Arts, Brooks Institute, The International Center of Photography, Hallmark Institute of Photography and Palm Beach Photographic Workshops.


Product ResourcesCameras: Phase One 645DF Camera w/ AF 150mm F2.8 IF lens, Phase One P 65+ 60.5 MP Digital Back, Nikon D3X 24.5 MP DSLR Camera w/105mm f/2 DC Nikkor lens, AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8G IF-ED lens; Lighting: Broncolor Scoro A4 and Grafit A4 Power Packs, Para Soft 220 FB, Para Soft 220 w/diffuser, Lightbar 120 Evolution w/barn doors, Ringflash P, PulsoSpot 4; Kobold 800 DW HMI Par Lights; Software: Capture One Pro 5, Nikon NX2, Adobe Photoshop CS5; Color Management: X-Rite ColorChecker Passport, X-Rite ProfilerMaker 5, Color Eyes Display Pro, Color Think Pro; Printers: Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson Stylus Pro 3880; Monitors: Eizo CG303W, Eizo CG243W; Computer: Apple Mac Pro 8-Core 3.2GHz w/16 GB DDR3 Crucial RAM, Apple iPad 3G 64GB, G-Technology external hard drives, Lexar UDMA 600X Compact Flash cards; Meters: Sekonic L-608 exposure meter, Sekonic C-500R Prodigi Color colormeter; Graphic Technology Print viewers, Wacom Cintiq 21UX, Intuos4 tablets.

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PROOFING YOUR NEGATIVES DIGITALLY JEAN-CHRISTIAN ROSTAGNI

You are not alone; I still shoot film, too. Actually that is mostly what I shoot, mainly because most of my cameras or black and white films don’t have a good digital equivalent. My goal is to proof my films into full frame files that I can use for sub-missions or on my website, without apologies or large expenditure of time.

HardwarePlanarity is an absolute requirement when scanning film. There are only three ways to achieve that:

· Drum scan, obviously not an option for proofing · Imacon/Hasselblad scanners, which flex the film, thereby achieving excellent planarity; aside from sizeable investment, not really a productivity-oriented choice · Scanning between two glasses

I choose the latter for proof scanning. In essence, this is a variation on the contact sheet process, allowing absolute full frame, a must, yet not easily achieved by most film holders.

For this, the Epson V750 paired with SilverFast Ai 6.5 is the best choice I know. It is a flatbed scanner, less than perfect for film, but quite good, efficient and adaptable for about $850. It is superior to the V700, which does not have a fluid mount or high pass optics addressing flare issues in unmaskedscans.

Setting UpFirst, set the options accessed in the main dialogue general tab. Auto is the least intuitive, but I can’t see why one would need other settings, short of being a prepress specialist. Check the “Levels” boxes whenscanning press clippings or the like in order

Proofing Your Negatives DigitallyJean-Christian Rostagni

Lance Armstrong hitting the ground racing, prologue of Tour de France 2009, Monaco, Shot with Noblex 135U, Kodak Ektar 100. See additional Tour de France photographs from proofing scans made using the Epson V750 paired with Silverfast Ai 6.5 software at jean-christian.net/art/socialistvacation/letour/letour.

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to get a whiter background. Then calibrate yourscanner; the Epson V750 ships with IT8 targets. SilverFast targets make the calibration even easier.

Scanning Area & HoldersThe scanner has two film modes; the full area allows scanning directly on the bed in an 8x10 zone. The lens used then is of lesser performance. When using the holders or the fluid mount, the lens system changes to a higher resolution that focusesabout 2mm above the bed. I only use the fluid mount, with a top glass (not delivered). I get full frame and the film is perfectly flat, hence the sharp-ness is optimized. Fluid would make the whole process a little more involved, so I don’t use it.

Instead I use Anti Newton glass in order to avoid Newton rings. In black and white, one A.N. glass is enough, as the emulsion side will not generate rings. A top A.N glass is then the way to go. But in color, the emulsion is often too slick and an A.N. glass is necessary on both sides. One A.N. glass is of no consequence to sharpness, but two will add some noise that has to be compensated for later with noise reduction software.

Replacing the bottom glass in the fluid mount requires removing 14 screws with a 2mm Allen wrench. Focal Point (http://www.fpointinc.com) isthe source for A.N. glass. Whether one scans emul-sion down (best), or up, does not matter, as SilverFast can be set to flip the image (Fig.1). The yellow thread is here for an easy lift of the top glass. The semi opaque strips on three sides create a space between the two glasses allowing air to escape without blowing the strips out when positioning the top glass.

Note: Because of the lamp movement and the ab-sence of mask around the frames, it is necessary to position 35mm strips parallel to the shorter side of the fluid mount. In the other direction, scans getprojections of the perforations. Without masking,no matter what, there will be a slight orange color-ation of the edges of the strips (color). Aperture 3 has some brushes that can take care of that.

SilverFast WorkflowThe most comprehensive way to scan with SilverFast is the HDR format. This means doingRAW scans at 64-bit in multiple exposures, harves-ting all the data that the scanner can extract. The

(Figure 2) In this view of the SilverFast bed, the frame is active. The frames have been rotated to correct orientation.

TECH:

(Figure 1) This is the fluid mount in the scanner.

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PROOFING YOUR NEGATIVES DIGITALLY JEAN-CHRISTIAN ROSTAGNI

(Figure 3) Main dialogue with auto adjust button second from left and grey point dropper left of Professor. Options gives access to general settings.

(Figure 4) I typically do not use the “Standard” tab, but I move the Brightness and Contrast sliders a fair amount.

(Figure 5) This is what appears after clicking Scan. The files here go in a folder 135-NB-2255, which is my film reference. Each file will be named 135NB2255-n where 135NB2255 is the constant (File naming); SilverFast then adds the relevant number for each frame. I have unchecked “Reset for every batch scan,” As this is the second batch for that film, and I want the counter to keep accruing.

scans are edited later, as many times and for as many different applications as necessary. This is the scanning equivalent to a RAW workflow. For proofscanning, I choose a more immediate workflow, as follows:

1. In SilverFast one prepares a batch in reverse order, starting with the last scan. I arrange the marquis around the last frame, with a comfortable bleed for easy positioning. I scan in 16-bit in order to have some reserve for post scanning editing and use auto sharpening, which is perfect for proofing. The frames may be tilted in order to adapt to the position of the strips (Fig. 2).

2. The SilverFast software shipping with the scan-ner does not include “Multi exposure,” which achieves a higher dynamic range. This is different from the older multi-sampling technique. Upgrade online at http://www.silverfast.com.

3. I scan at resolutions that make viewing at 100% in Photoshop too wide for my 22" monitor. The scan size is a compromise between magnification potential, scanning time and impact on storage. Once I have created my first frame with the appro-priate crop, ppi amount, ICE or not, film profile, etc., I save it in the Frame-Set menu in the general tab for the next time I scan a film in this format.

4. When a frame is over an image, SilverFast instantly adjusts for the specificities of that image. Next I click on the diaphragm icon (second from left in main dialogue —Fig. 3). This automatically adjusts density contrast, saturation. I can use the grey point picker (actual picker in the second icon from right in main dialogue) and drop a neutral point to control color tint. It is possible to have up to four grey points in one frame. If an image does not have a good neutralizing zone, some settings from another frame might work better. It is possible to save those and recall them in the NegaFix dialogue. Click on the “Professor” icon, the dialogue expands. The Save and Recall settings options are at the bottom of the expansion tab.

5. At this point I often modify what the auto adjust has assessed by sliding the cursors in the Picture Settings Dialogue (Fig. 4). The orientation of the scan, landscape or portrait, also needs to be set, and that is done in the Densitometer palette. If Iwere out for perfect scans I would then use the

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(Figure 6) NegaFix dialogue with curve of film profile.Auto tolerance adjusts contrast and warmth of the frame.

other tools offered by SilverFast in order to refine what up to now takes five seconds or less. For proof scanning, I make necessary refinements in Aperture or Lightroom.

6. At any rate, when the first frame is done, I drag it over the next one while holding the option key. This duplicates the frame over the next one with all its parameters. That was fast, and I can either reset some parameters to zero, or modify their value, if warranted. Renew for every frame, and then a batch is ready to scan.

7. Select “Batch Scan” in the “General” tab of the main dialogue; click “Scan.” A dialogue appears (Fig. 5) for details. Click “Save,” at which point it is all out of your hands.

8. I scan in TIFF in order to preserve the maximum integrity of the data.It is in fact more difficult to describe the process

in relatively few words than to actually follow the steps, which are fairly intuitive. Also, SilverFast provides screen casts for just about every function of the software, and often those movies are directly accessible from the interface.

There is one golden rule in SilverFast: save your prefs. A number of incidents may cause SilverFast to get out of whack. That is typically remedied by trashing the prefs (user/library/Preferences/Lasersoft Imaging), hence the need to save prefs in order not to lose custom film profiles, frame-sets, and general settings. I save my prefs (the entire Lasersoft Imaging folder) each time I create something new. If I need to reset the preferences, I can replace the prefs that Silverfast recreated by my last saved set, assuming that one was not corrupted. I typically keep several months worth of those prefs in case I need to go back in time. Save prefs in the Documents folder.

Creating a Custom Film ProfileFor proof scanning I typically lower the contrast of the profiles that SilverFast provides. To lower the contrast or to adapt an existing profile to a new film, go to the NegaFix dialogue (Fig. 6). Click on the Curves tab, and then on the pencil icon. At this point the curve can be modified. While holding the Command key, drag the points you want to affect. Clicking on the second icon from left will smooth the curve. When finished, click on the last icon on the right, which will save this new profile under a different name.

TECH:

A native of France’s Rhône valley, Jean-Christian Rostagni discov-ered photography at 15 while traveling with his parents around the Mediterranean sea. He has since devoted his life to its practice. His commercial career began in France and has continued in central North Carolina, USA since 1993, where he has collaborated on projects with writer Clyde Edgerton, exhibited, taught and presented lectures on photography, and received honors from the Durham Arts Council and others. Rostagni’s publications, in addition to photo technique, include Le Monde, Elegant Bride, Marie-Claire and the O.E.C.D. Observer.


Product ResourcesCameras: Leica M6 TTL with summicron 28m, 35mm, 50mm and télé Elmarit 2.8/90mm, Hasselblad 503 CX with 4/50mm FLE, 3.5/60mm, 2.8/80mm, 4/120mm, 4/180mm, Flexbody and Arcbody with 4.5/45mm, Noblex 135U; Scanner: Espon V750; Software: SilverFast AI Studio 6.6 with dual exposure; Film: Kodak Ektar 100, Ilford FP4; Other: Focal Point A.N.Glass.

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BEFORE THE CURTAIN MICHAEL NELSON

What sparked Michael Nelson’s Before the Curtain series was a shoot with a model who was a dancer. Fascinated with a concept of photographing dancers on a much larger scale, he embarked upon an extensive pro bono project with the Atlanta Ballet Company that took him into two worlds — the theater from the vantage point of the audience and the other world backstage that the audience never sees.

Nelson worked on the project for two years almost a decade ago, and he looks back on that time not without some emotion. He describes it as “magical,” as well as “something I could contribute to,” because of thenon-commercial nature of the project. He considers it great fortune that

Before the CurtainPortraits of the Atlanta Balletan interview with Michael Nelson

B. Lynn Simonton

Christy,Michael Nelson

Above

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the company’s artistic director gave him free rein to photograph both from the house and backstage during the ballet’s rehearsals, and his resulting portfolio holds images captured from both vantage points, though he suggests that the most meaningful for him are the backstage portraits.

A commercial portrait photographer, Nelson con-siders all of the shots in this series to be portraits, whether group or solo. Images he likes best are those that tell a story about someone, and this series has quite a few strong examples. And while he once thought there was some separation between his fine art photography and his commercial assignments, he says he has come to recognize the same heart and passion for what he sees and photographs is true in all of his work.

While in some ways similar to photographing a single dancer in his studio, there were significant differences doing this large-scale project. Married to a former dancer, Nelson took instruction from her in the terminology of ballet. He says it also tooka little time to establish a relationship with the per-formers and backstage crew, who came to realize that he was not the typical jobber shooting publicity shots. Nelson knew this had happened when heshowed them Polaroid proof shots and they re-sponded to the intensity of the moment he had captured with them. He became something more than just a “guy with a camera,” and he became almost like another crew member in the darkness of the stage wings. Many of the dancers didn’t know when he was photographing them, he says, and when they did, they were comfortable enough with his presence backstage not to care.

Serenade 1,Michael Nelson

Caught, Michael Nelson

Below

Right

The contrasts between the lighting situation onstage and backstage admittedly presented a challenge. Nelson had the benefit of making use of stage lighting set by a talented professional lighting crew, and he worked with what they provided when he shot dancers onstage from the house. But the contrast in light levels is incredible, and he had to carefully balance the difference between the stage floods and the single 100-watt incandescent bulb allowed backstage. No flash at all was permissible where it would distract the dancers. He made one posed pre-rehearsal shot, “Christy,” for which he used an old Bardwell-McAllister 2000 watt tungsten fresnel light and reflector, but the rest were all what he calls “quick shots” using available light.

Some images like “Serenade #1” had to be shot from the audience. Nelson especially wanted to capture the gorgeous effect of the blue background with the white onstage. Choosing not to use a sharp contrast film, he made the image with a Mamiya RZ 67 with Agfa RS1000 color transparency film and a 180mm lens.

“Caught” is another image shot from the audience, and for this staged sequence, the ballet company got some assistance from the photographer. In this instance, the dance was contemporary, not classical ballet, and the goal was to illuminate the solo dan-cer in freeze-frames as he did a series of leaps acrossa black stage. On Nelson’s suggestion, they rentedtwo large commercial Speedotron power packs—using them on a low-watt setting. The dancer carried a remote transmitter in his hand, which he would trigger when he wanted to be seen by the audience — frequently at the height of a leap. What added to the effect was the complete ab-sence of light onstage and in the audience—even the aisle lights were extinguished. Nelson captured his photograph of the performance through one long exposure.

In addition to controlling light, Nelson drew upon his awareness of musical timing to anticipate the dancers’ timing while shooting the dance company.In essence, dancer, musician and photographer moved to the same rythm. He learned to take shotswhen the dancers paused, and they paused whenthe music of the ballet directed them to do so.

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BEFORE THE CURTAIN MICHAEL NELSON

Without knowing anything about the specific balletbeing performed, he could be guided by its rhyth-mic cues to create images during the pauses. Oneof his favorite images from the series is of a soli-tary dancer. He waited for the moment she paused to capture that frame. Part of the high of the wholeexperience for Michael Nelson was photographing a company under the direction of the intern-ationally recognized choreographer Bobby Barnett,who pretty much allowed Nelson to work where and how he wished during their countless re-hearsal hours together. One of the most telling portraits for Nelson is one of Barnett and a dancer, Jessica Mylene, deep in conversation about her performance. The photograph perfectly captures the relationship between the two subjects through body language that communicates their master/student roles.

Backstage where Nelson shared the limited wing space with the dancers, he used a wide-angle lens to work close to his subjects. He put the Mamiya

RZ67 on a monopod to enable necessary quick maneuvering out of the way of the dancers as they rapidly entered and exited the on-stage area. He was amazed at their transition—elegant dreamlike characters in performance were revealed only backstage as flesh and blood humans with the evident aches and pains of their profession. He captured both of these views in his portraits.

Looking back a number of years to the execution of the project, he admits that he is still very “old school,” and while he now does occasional commercial assignments digitally, he still enjoys working with film. Kodak was a sponsor of the Before the Curtain project, and many of the images were shot with 120mm T-MAX film, which he processed and printed himself. Color work was done with Fuji RHP and Agfa RS1000. Polaroid has been a big part of his photographic life, as well. He spent some time working with Polaroid’s emulsion transfer process. He admits to having some “coveted boxes of T-55 4x5 B&W and some

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Solitary Dancer, Michael Nelson

Above Left

of the medium format 665 Polaroid film to use selectively. “There’s something unique about the imperfections of film,” he says, “to show what’s really going on.” He did a recent shoot with a young model who had experienced only digital cameras. She was amazed when he put a print in her hand made with Fuji’s proofing film.

Before working on this project, Michael Nelson had no prior familiarity with ballet, nor had he ever experienced the Degas paintings of the subject. Hesays that Before the Curtain became for him a clas-sical exercise in the exploration of beauty and grace,form and function. His visual response to the danc-ers’ art was intuitive, a combination of eye and heart.

Direction from Bobby,

Michael Nelson

Above RightProduct ResourcesCameras: Mamiya RZ-67; Lenses: 65mm, 110mm,180mm;Film: Agfa RS1000 color, Kodak TMY B&W, Fuji RHP color;Lighting: Bardwell-McAllister 2000 watt tungsten fresnel light and reflector, Minolta Auto Flash Meter 4, Polaroid 669 metered; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4; Scanner:Umax Powerlook 3000.


Michael Nelson has been a professional photographer for over 20 years, following diverse experiences that include working in business, as a firefighter and paramedic, SCUBA diving and sailing, flying and teaching photography. His only fear is mediocrity, and his approach to life and work is the same — full of humor, spontaneity, and a lot of passion. Among his numerous corporate clients, Baker Books has chosen one of Nelson’s imagesor the cover of the soon to be released book, The Fine Life. For more information, visit Nelson’s website www.michaelnelson.com.

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Machine Wash DeluxeThis is a huge improvement over the former Machine Wash Action sets. The system is a robust rebuild of a great texture system that has moved to a Photoshop plug-in filter with an intricate but intuitive workflow.

Machine Wash Deluxe is downloadable software. It is based on loading one of four sets of textures with the option of buying additional sets. Each set costs $99 and includes the initial software system with the first download. It is intricate in that it cancreate three layers of textures with elaborate customization of each.

The first layer is the primary Wash layer. It is important to check the box that makes this texture application on a separate layer above the original. This allows further manipulation with blending, opacity and masks. You choose a texture from a preview screen that shows all of the textures you purchased, plus those in sets you have not purchased. Once a texture is chosen, you can change the category, scale and placement.

In the Surface Tab, you can choose another texture and apply scale, texture depth and tone for giving the image the illusion of being a paper relief. In the Background Tab, you can choose another texture and place this as a layer below the image for further blending. You can also change the color tints of the highlights, midtones and shadows independently. Click OK and the three layers are shown in the Layers panel.

The only drawback to the software is that Machine Wash Deluxe is only active with 8-bit images. However, the textured effects can be really amazing. For more information, go to www.misterretro.com.

Acratech GP BallheadAn increasingly popular brand of ballheads and tripod accessories is available from a company called Acratech Inc. in California. Made from solid stock aircraft 6061-T6 aluminum, these precision-made accessories are of the highest quality.

In addition to various brackets, including popular L brackets to retain the lens position when shifting between vertical and horizontal, of particular note are their ballheads. The newest is the Acratech GP. The head weighs less than a pound, but it can support up to 25 lbs. It’s the perfect mate to any fiber tripod to keep the weight down while keeping camera capacity weight up.

The mount itself is Acra-Swiss compatible, which will fit a wide variety of mounting plates. The head has a bullseye level at the mounting base.

An interesting feature of the Acratech GP is the two rubberized knob system for the ballhead. One knob is a tension knob. This controls the tension in the movement when you use the major release knob. This helps keep the head (especially with an attached camera) from falling abruptly.

With a long lens mounted using a lens collar ring and set to the side via the ballhead, a combination of the lens vertical movement and the rotation ring movement work as a gimbal head. A gimbal head balances the camera and lens at their natural center of gravity, thus making the lens weightless in terms of tilt. The smoothness of the adjustment is a result of setting the tension knob.

Another unique feature of the GP head is the ability to unscrew the mounting plate and mount it to the head bottom. The ballhead is then mounted to the tripod column upside down. With the mount and bullseye level on the marked rotational base, you can use the rotational marks as a guide to creating accurate panoramic images. The price for the GP ballhead, less the camera mount, is$399.95. For more information, go to www.acratech.com.


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Strobies by InterfitStrobies is brilliant in its simplicity and incredible in its design. It is a group of light modifiers for portable flash units that can be purchased either as a kit or as separate elements.

We tested the Portrait Kit. For $149 you pick a base for your particular flash unit. The base fits snuggly to the head without requiring Velcro attachment. Then you select options, of which there are many. The Portrait Kit has a large white softbox, 8" x 12". Additionally, the kit has a beauty dish, a large globe diffuser for a bare bulb look, miniature four-leaf barn door set, a snoot with optional honeycomb attachments that reduce the circle of project light even further and a larger honeycomb grid for a focused beam.

With complex multi-flash systems being run from inside the camera bodies, having an additional set or a selection of separate pieces for a second flash unit gives you the ability and flexibility of creative portable lighting at an extremely reasonable cost. For more information, go to www.interfitphotographic.com/Strobies.

Canon Releases Next Generation 6300 Series Printers The Canon 6350 24" wide format printer is a significant improvement over the previous 6100 series. While the 6350 has a 80GB hard drive built in for load and batch printing, the specs are the same for the 6300 without the drive, as well as the new 44" 8300.

The 6300 series uses a 12-ink LUCIA EX ink that has a20% wider gamut than its predecessor. The color gamut is very similar to Adobe RGB. (Note: the 6100 inks are not compatible with the 6300 series.) There is also aHigh-Precision mode that delivers less graininess, enhanced gloss, deeper blacks and an exceptional separation in the shadows. It reproduces fine lines more accurately and also produces cleaner text. The new inkshave greater color stability, with reduced bronzing and metamerism and have been formulated to improve scratch resistance.

Like the 6100, the 6300 series has built-in calibration that resets the printer base to the original optimal factory settings that allow specific paper profiles to yield accurate results.

The 6300 series machine is more stable, with less shake as the heads move back and forth. The control panel has been greatly simplified, in both tabs and menus. The print heads on the Canon are user-replaceable. As in the previous model, there are two heads with 15,360 nozzles

each for a total of 30,720. It will print 16-bit files from Photoshop and RAW files from DPP.

Similar to what is found on more expensive RIP systems, Canon’s new printer has an Account Manager built into its software that allows you to obtain printing costs for a particular job.

In an independent review by BERTL that evaluates digital imaging systems, Canon’s 6350 received a five-star Exceptional rating. For more information, go to www.usa.canon.com.

Snoot

Globe Diffuser

Honeycomb Grid Four Leaf Barndoor Set

4 Leaf Barndoor Set

Mini Beauty Dish Reflector

Interior Softbox

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Corporate Photography on Location:

an interview with Tyler Stableford

The Stetson Campaign

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Everyone likes to think that when they do a commercial assignment, the photographer will have an enormous amount of control over what gets photographed and how it will be done. In corporate assignments, the team involved is sim-ilar to what you would image working on a movie set, and this doesn’t even begin to account for the number of corporate people on hand to super-vise production. Tyler Stableford is among the leading location photographers who worked on an ad campaign for Stetson. This interview with him sheds light on the complexities and nuances of doing a corporate shoot of this magnitude on location.

PS: Tell me about how you got the Stetson job.

TS: I think with many ad agencies, it’s a court-ship that can take many months and even years. Pure Brand Communications in Denver is one of the top ad agencies—they had my portfolio and I met them six months to a year before I had a chance to bid on this campaign—that’s generally how it works. I never give my portfolio to an ad

agency and they say, “Great, let’s start working next week.” It’s usually, “We’re interested in your work and what you’re doing, we’ll keep in touch.” And then I start a relationship—I’ve met the art directors and the art buyers and account managers, and then I stay in touch with them and say, “Hey, I’m continuing this work and do things in your genre.”

I think my work is a mix of outdoor adventure, as well as industrial and environmental portraiture. The Stetson project was double/triple bid, as usual. What that means is the bidding comes down to two or three top photographers being considered in the process. They want to know the budget—what would it cost to shoot this campaign over four days in a range of places, from the high mountains to a nightclub, to work-ing ranches, and where should we shoot this thing—they were thinking maybe in Wyoming. I said, “I live in a really beautiful spot that has all that—everything from the country bars to working ranches. We could shoot it locally—keep cost down by shooting locally—have a

Paul Schranz

With the main softbox, I wanted to keep shadows on the male model's left side but allow enough light to fall on his face, as he is anchoring the scene. We used the Hensel Porty 12 Lithium strobe and Wescott softboxes.

Left

For this shot, we had our model in an open field in the afternoon sun. We used scrim on the left side of the model to soften the sun and then placed a large Octobank on a Hensel Porty 12 Lithium light for fill light on the model. My first assistant is holding a California Sunbounce reflector to fill in shadows on the model's face.

Above

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THE STETSON CAMPAIGN TYLER STABLEFORD

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local producer and crew." I think that was ap-pealing. It also meant if weather changed or things changed, my crew and I knew the area well and could adapt quickly.

PS: I look at the photographs of the shoots, and you’ve got quite a few people involved. I think this is something that really escapes people who would like to do a project like this. How many people are involved in this production?

TS: I would preface it by saying that this is prob-ably one of the largest productions that I shot last year. Typically, as a Colorado photographer, my productions are a little bit smaller, for shoot-ing at a ski area or such. This production, be-cause it was a big national campaign, and it

was fashion-oriented, the clothing and the sunglasses were very important; there were a lot of people who played important roles in it. So, from the top down, there were several people from Stetson. There was an art director from the national brand of Stetson. And then Stetson has some licensees of its brand, so one company makes and sells their boots and another makes and sell their sunglasses, their cologne, etc. The cologne is made by Coty, and the hats by Hatco. Roper makes the clothing as well as boots. We have account managers on set who know this clothing line really well, and if things come up as we shoot a scene, where we have a checkered shirt and we want to show a nice t-shirt underneath, too, this person can say yes, that shirt is going to be sold next year,

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and can match the two together. If we want to do a scene with a t-shirt, they’ll say which are the t-shirts we want to represent, so we have a whole wardrobe to choose from.

Then we have the ad agency people who arereally running a lot of the creative, the art director, Jerry Stafford, the account manager, Eric Espinoza, and the co-owner of Pure Brand Communications, Gregg Bergan, who also actsas creative director. And then I have my crewthere, an amazing producer named Liz Longand her assistant who line up all of the loca-tions, arranges for vintage trucks on location, insurance and permits to shoot on a ranch, and make sure we have whatever we need there. Also, the ranch manager to oversee the loca-

tion, a garment and wardrobe stylist to prep all the clothes and make sure they look good on the models, and a hair and make-up stylist. And then I have my first and second assistants who are helping to work with the lighting and run all the equipment, the digital tech and viewing, so if the client’s at the shoot, we can put the compact flash cards in the computer with a full screen to see if we’re getting what they had in mind.

PS: So what is it you actually have control over?

TS: Shooting a large campaign requires a great mix of patience while all the moving parts come together and the creative concepts are hashed out with the clients, who are Stetson and the

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For this late afternoon shot, we set up a scrim above the model to soften sunlight. We then placed a large Octobank softbox in front of the model for fill, bringing the subject out against the bright background.

Above

agency…trying to push professionally for what they think is best for the brand, and people have different opinions and one’s not better than the other. It just requires a lot of discussion, and I try to stay out of it as much as possible. I’m hired for two reasons, I think. I’m hired to execute theclient’s and the agency’s vision, and also to bring my look, my talent set, to the shot. I’m happy to comment upon creative direction, but it’s not my position. It’s up to Stetson and it’s up to Pure to decide and say, “This is the look we want for our campaign.” I don’t do the research—I don’t know exactly who their buyers are. I can say, “It looks great with the cowboy sitting on the truck with his hat cocked sideways,” but that may not be the look that speaks to their brand that they’ve developed over their 145-year history.These big shoots are an opportunity for me to be very patient, but also to act very quickly, to be decisive, and to have a super dialed operation with my two assistants, because we’ve spent so much time hashing it out, and the sunlight’s slipping away, so when we finally get the creative direction, it’s action time and it needs to happen very quickly.

PS: Working with creative direction, and yet hav-ing your own style, how much of “you” do you give up to do this, and how much of you do you get into it?

TS: I would say that in a big shoot I think it’s a general rule that a photographer will give upsome of his creative talents—and that’s fine with me. I have plenty of time in my life to pur-sue my creative dreams, whatever those are. When somebody’s paying me to photograph, I’ll photograph puppies and Barbie dolls all day if that’s what they want me to shoot and the rate’s right. I don’t bring my ego or my sense of what I should be shooting to the job, and I can keep my creative vision for my own side.

PS: How about the lighting scenarios? Do you control that aspect?

TS: Yes, I control the lighting, but of course I’m constantly showing my lighting tests to the art director to see if it fits their concept. For the

photo of the model, Paul, by the vintage truck, we used a silk scrim overhead to diffuse the sun, and filled light on one side with a Hensel strobe and large Westcott Octobank.

PS: Can you talk about the interior shots and the lighting scenario and solutions?

TS: This scene at the Belly Up nightclub inAspen was the most intricate lighting setup of the campaign. We used the nightclub’s existing stage lights and fog machine to start, and added several of our strobes to light the model in a dynamic, energetic way. It took a couple ofhours to really get the lights set up in such a way that the scene felt energetic—as thoughthe model/performer was just about to go onstage during a concert. The creative director,Gregg Bergan, was very helpful in commun-icating his vision and helping us evolve the lighting setups to carry energy. In this behind-the-scenes photo, we are using some scrims and reflectors to block stray light from the stage lights and using our strobes to bring a dramatic look to the model’s jeans and boots. We used an Octobank for soft fill and a gridded light to paint a harder streak atop that.

PS: When someone sees a corporate brand photograph, I don’t think they appreciate the complexity of the shot, not only in terms of the photography, but also the negotiations.


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Product ResourcesCameras: Canon 1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, Lenses 24-70 f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8, 16-35 f/2.8; Lights: Hensel Porty Lithium 12 lights, Westcott softboxes etc, Octobanks and diffusers; Tripods: Gitzo and Manfrotto carbon; Software: Adobe Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS4; Monitor: Apple 30" cinema display, Wacom Cintiq 21UX; Computer: Apple Mac Pro MacBook Pro; Other: PocketWizard radio transmitters; Think Tank SpeedRacer beltpack.


Colorado photographer Tyler Stableford has earned a worldwide clientele for his commercial and editorial photography. Men's Journal recently named him one of seven "World's Greatest Adventure Photographers” and he is among Canon’s prestigious Explorers of Light. He has won awards from Communication Arts, PDN and The International Photography Awards and is an active member of the environmental-business organization,"1% For The Planet." Visit his website www.tylerstableford.com.

TS: As a professional, I want to know how that’s done. How much is offset, how much is posed? That really helps me learn as a professional. I’m happy to share that any time.

PS: What other projects are you working on? How many projects do you have going on at one time?

TS: Anywhere from zero to a dozen—it depends. The usual freelance entropy, you know. I just have completed a short film on a Paralympic skier. I am shooting a campaign for a flame-

resistant clothing company. I shot a controlled burn this week, and we’re shooting with heavy industry workers this month. And then I’m com-pleting an exciting shoot with F-16 fighter pilots that will run in the July issue of 5280 Magazine and also later in Southwest Airlines Magazine. I also do quite a bit of work for Cabela’s; they are one of my top clients.

PS: Last thing. I noticed that you also do video work with your Canon 5D Mark II. This is a new role for the corporate photographer. Can you dis-cuss your DSLR video experiences?

TS: Yes, when the Mark II came out about a year and a half ago, I used it immediately to shoot a volunteer fundraiser for a humanitarian aid agency, and I was super impressed because I was able to work with my existing set-up. I was able to travel with a carry-on bag of equipment and made a very moving, successful fundraiser with stills to video. That would not have been as easy before the 5D Mark II came out. I was able to tell a very powerful story, more powerful than shooting stills alone, for a cause that’s very important to me. And then, of course, my filmmaking has grown. The story-telling abilities that we have now are way more powerful—it’s amazing, but you definitely have to be willing to give up a lot of free time to make the jump. DSLR filmmaking has allowed me to create some of the most powerful projects of my ca-reer, because they have three or four layers of audio track on them, motion and stills—I’m very excited about it.


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It’s critically important to get a correct exposure when shooting with a digital camera. I shoot my digital camera exposures in RAW mode at the lowest ISO I can use and still get the shutter speed and f-stop I want. Although modern cameras have many different exposure options, I have a standard way of shooting that works best for me. I believe that the image itself is the most important thing. That’s why the steps for getting a good exposure have to be second nature, practiced and thought out ahead of time. That allows you to focus on making that all important image!

Five years ago I moved to the Sunshine Coast, just north of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Living here one becomes attracted to the water and the natural beauty that surrounds you. Before moving here, I never was in a sea kayak and seldom found myself in a boat. Now being on the water in a kayak or sailboat or just the ferry that brings us home is one of the things I enjoy most. In the last five years I’ve spent a lot of time learning how to color adjust waves and ripples, color and contrast of water so it looks the way I see it and feel about it when I’m out there on the water.

Choosing your Camera Settings RAW, not Auto or JPEG

Hopefully you’ll find RAW mode as one of the image quality choices on your camera. A RAW file is exactly what the chip in the camera captures, analogous to your original film in traditional photography. RAW files can have up to 32,768 tonal values per each Red, Green and Blue color channel. If you choose JPEG for your file type, the image is shot in RAW, then the computer inside your camera automatically color corrects, adjusts contrast and converts your image to an 8 bit file which only has 256 possible tones per color channel. That JPEG format has tossed most of the detail in your image, and then the image is usually sharpened and saved in a compressed version that may lose more shadow and highlight details. Because it has more contrast, the JPEG version may look better in your camera’s small viewing window. When

Barry Haynes


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Perfecting Digital CameraExposure

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PERFECTING DIGITAL CAMERA EXPOSURE BARRY HAYNES

My image theme for this article is On the Water”..in kayak or sailboat it's one of the things I enjoy most.

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you go to improve the image on your computer, by adding shadow or highlight detail for example, that is where the JPEG falls apart. It doesn’t give you the options provided by all those extra shadow, midtone and highlight values that the larger RAW file has. If you use Auto to shoot your images, the camera is picking your shutter speed and aperture for you.

Histogram display On, use a low ISO

You want to set up your camera’s screen so you can see the histogram display of each image right after you shoot it. This allows you to see if you are under or over exposed. Newer cameras, like my G10, show you a real-time histogram display on the camera’s screen while you are composing a shot so you can see ahead of time if you are going to over expose, then change the exposure to correct before you actually shoot. The histogram display shows you a bar graph of the light values in your image. The darker shadow values are to the left and the bright highlight values are to the right. The shape of the histogram graph will be different for each image and depends on the subject matter in that image. With a contrasty scene, like a bright sunny day, an ideal exposure would have histogram val-ues going from the far left to the far right of the graph without any vertical lines at either the left or the right edge of the graph. A vertical line on the left edge of the graph means that you have lost some shadow detail and on the right edge it means a loss of highlight detail.

I always use the lowest ISO setting on my camera if possible. That would be ISO 100 on my Canon Rebel XTi and ISO 80 on the Canon G10. The G10 is a 14 megapixel pocket camera so its sensor is quite small. I’m able to make 30 to 40 inch prints with the ISO 80 setting, but the higher ISO settings are often too noisy for large prints from the G10. The quality of the XTi images is great at ISO set-tings up to 200 and I’ve certainly shot and used images with the 1600 setting from the XTi, but those require creative Photoshop techniques to disguise the noise in the shadow areas. During my 20 years of teaching Digital Printmaking workshops, I’ve worked with images from many different digital cameras, and I’ve found that the quality of the pixels is, in many ways, more important than the number of pixels. I try to choose cameras that give me the best quality of pixels for the price. Even though my XTi only has 10 megapixels, I can gen-erally make larger sharper prints from it than from the 14 megapixel G10. The key to being able to

up-sample an image and sharpen it for larger high quality prints is to get a correct exposure at the low-est ISO possible where the histogram goes across most of the range from shadow to highlight.

Metering Style, Shutter & Aperture settings

With a digtal camera, I use the camera’s Auto White Balance setting, then tweak it in Photoshop when it’s off a bit. When shooting in RAW mode, the camera’s white balance setting isn’t permanently applied to the file, as it is with the Auto and JPEG settings. You can see the white balance and edit it in the RAW filter later. When the item I want to

Above is the Histogram for an image shot with a Canon Rebel XTi. The Display (Disp on the Canon; Info on some other cameras) button changes the display mode. While viewing a recently shot image, push the button until you see the histogram on the screen. It should appear in the camera s preview after shooting an image. Many cameras have a mode to show the histogram in color. The historgam above is correct for a normal contrast day, in that it spans the full range of values but doesn t go vertical on either the left or right.

On this histogram, notice the vertical bar on the right side, indicating this shot is overexposed and is losing highlight details. The picture to the left of the histogram is flashing black in the sky to show the overexposed areas that will be clipped with no detail in the digital file. To correct this problem, lower your exposure until no clipping is shown.


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PERFECTING DIGITAL CAMERA EXPOSURE BARRY HAYNES

focus and meter on is not in the center area of the screen, I just point the camera at that item and hold the shutter button halfway down. This forces most cameras to make their focus and metering choices. While holding the button halfway down, I then move the camera to reframe the shot and this keeps my initial focus and exposure setting.

I’ve learned that the shooting style that works best for me is to set the camera to shutter speed priority. With this setting, I pick the shutter speed and the camera picks the aperture setting based on the scene and meter setting to get the correct exposure. One needs to understand the relationship between the two, in that faster shutter speeds stop motion and smaller aperture openings (the larger aperture numbers) give you more depth of field. When shooting in this way, to get the most depth of field, I usually pick the slowest shutter speed that I can use for the type of image.

Underexposing to Save Highlight Detail

When you get to a new exposure situation, take a sample shot or two then look at your camera’s histogram display. It is most common to lose high-light detail on a bright day, especially when shoot-ing in the direction of the sun or when you have lots of darker areas and fewer bright areas within the scene. Look at your sample shots; you’ve lost highlight detail if you have a vertical line at the right edge of your histogram and/or the bright parts of the picture on your camera’s screen flash on and off to show you that these highlights are clipped (lost forever). When this happens, you should set

your camera to create a slightly lower exposure, then shoot the scene again until the histogram goes just to the right side and the flashing stops in the bright parts.

An additional advantage of shooting in RAW modeis that if you do overexpose a bit, you can later lower the exposure setting in the RAW filter, and sometimes, if you didn’t overexpose too much, get your lost highlight details back. In JPEG mode these highlight details are permanently clipped.

Another way to solve the loss of highlight detail problem is to set your camera to bracket exposures. When you do this, normally the camera will shoot one exposure at the normal setting, one under exposed and one over exposed. I find that I seldom need the over exposed shot. I’m often not sure if

Another day on the water, we took our sailboat through world famous Skookumchuck Rapids, straight ahead here. I find the power and beauty in this body of water amazing!

On Salmon Inlet, BC; taken from my kayak in RAW mode with the Canon G10.

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I’ll need to underexpose by, for example, one f-stop or two. I’m often shooting from a boat or kayakand can’t stop to check the details, so first I set the camera to underexpose by one f-stop. I then go to the camera setting for bracketing exposures and set it to shoot three exposures. Since I’ve already chosen to be shooting one stop under, the bracketing will now set the camera to shoot one at two stops under, one at one stop under and one at the normal exposure. This allows me to later pick the exposure that works best. If I choose to, I can also take the highlight values from the two stops under, or one stop under shot and get the shadows and midtones from the normal exposure. To do this would require editing the image in Photoshop or a similar application. Aligning several exposures like this is also much easier if they were shot from a tripod so all exposures are of the exact same crop. A tripod won’t work from a kayak, but I still find it fairly easy to take clouds and sky detail from one exposure and the rest of an image from another.

Summary of RAW file Philosophy

Images that you shoot in RAW mode often look flatter than their JPEG counterparts. This is be-cause the camera does no automatic correction on the RAW files. That gives you the most options later when you edit those files using Lightroom, Photoshop’s RAW filter or some other RAW

editing application. Your main goal in exposing a RAW file is that it should have a range of histogram values to match the image without losing any values in the highlight or shadow range. For fairly high contrast, you can underexpose a stop or so and still use the shadows. For extreme contrast, you’ll have to bracket your exposures to give you the option of using several exposures for a final art quality print. These techniques will give you good RAW data to shape into your final image in the digital darkroom.

The system I’ve described here can easily be applied to most outdoor situations, and you’ll have a great image to work with when you want to edit it electronically and/or make a print.

Product ResourcesCameras: Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon EFS 10-22MM lens, Canon G10; Printers: Epson 7600, 4000, 2400; Inks: Ultrachrome; Paper: Epson Premium Luster Photo Paper, Epson Matte Canvas; Software: Adobe Bridge, Photoshop CS4; Computer: Mac.


Barry Haynes is a photographer and author living in Gibsons, BC, Canada, just north of Vancouver, where he has his studio and photography gallery. See www.barryhaynes.com for info about his Outdoor Photography, Photoshop Printmakingworkshops,Photoshopbooks, images and gallery. His Photoshop Artistry: for Photographers using Photoshop CS2 and Beyond, from New Riders publishing, is the 8th edition of this series. See also www.maxart.com.

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Though I have been using digital tech-nologies in my photographic work since 1992, and the majority of my images todayare made with digital SLRs, for the photo-graphic project featured in this article I still have one foot firmly in the analog world of film and simple pinhole cameras.

For those who are unfamiliar with this type of photography, a pinhole camera has no lens, just a tiny pinhole through which light enters and exposes the scene. I had made occasional forays into the world of pinhole photography throughout the 1990s, but in 2000 I began to explore it moreseriously. The camera used for this series is a ZeroImage 6x9 multi-format camera that is essen-

ARTIFACTS OF AN UNCERTAIN ORIGIN SEÁN DUGGAN

tially a simple wooden box; the only exposure “control” is a small wooden slide that covers and uncovers the pinhole. The multi-format capability consists of wooden dividers inside the camera that can be repositioned in a series of notches to change the format of the negative to 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7 or 6x9 (the photos in this series are all 6x9).

For the first test roll that I ran through the Zero, I carried an old typewriter down to the edge of a river, not far from my house in the Sierra foothills. I set the ISO on my DSLR to the same as the ISO 400 film in the pinhole camera and used the DSLR as a light meter to determine a correct exposure for the scene. On the back of the ZeroImage camera are two circular brass dials, one engraved with aper-

Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin Seán Duggan

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The Typewriter,Seán Duggan

The first image in the series; from the initial test roll that I made with the ZeroImage pinhole camera.

Above

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tures and the other with exposure times. By lining up the exposure values from the digital shot, I then checked the position on the dial for the aperture of the pinhole (f/235) to see what the corresponding “shutter speed” was and exposed the film for that amount of time. In the case of the typewriter, it was about 20 seconds (so far, the exposure times for the photographs in this series range from one second up to about five minutes). The test roll results were very good, and that shot of the typewriter was the first in a series of photographs that I have been working on for the past four years.

One early creative decision came from the cameraitself. The notches visible on the top and lower edges of the film are the notches referred to pre-viously that are used to change the format of the negative. I found this particular edge “signature” to be visually very interesting and decided to print the photos full frame and include the edges as part of the image. I also liked the edge lettering, and the use of different film types to include a variety of edge markings was a conscious choice. With this decision, however, the technical challenges of using the camera increased. Because I am printing the images full frame, there is no cropping, and when using a camera with no viewfinder, one has to be very careful with composition. All framing decisions are made based on prior experience with the camera, which provides me with a good sense of the approximate field of view that this wide-angle pinhole produces.

After the full frame/no cropping “rule” emerged, another important rule became clear to me: there would be no digital compositing used to place theartifacts in the scene. I have nothing against digitalcollages; I enjoy creating images using those tech-niques, and I even teach a workshop on Creative Collage with Adobe Photoshop (the next one is coming up at the Mesilla Digital ImagingWorkshops in southern New Mexico in mid-September of2010). But for this series, a central and very im-portant part of the photographs is my experience in making them. And part of that experience is viewing the actual artifacts in the scene and finding unexpected arrangements and relationships with the surrounding landscape. I also enjoy overcoming the logistical and physical challenges that can arise when making some of these photographs, whether it involves wading through thigh-deep water in a

Florida cypress swamp (and discovering an alligator nearby), or a winter snowshoe trek up the side of a Sierra mountain. The process and the journey of making the image are just as important to me as is the final destination of the finished print.

Once the negatives are developed, the analog process moves into the digital darkroom where the selected images are scanned and then opened into Adobe Photoshop for final enhancements that in-clude overall brightness and contrast modifications,“dodging and burning” of specific areas in the scene, and final “seasoning” with a blend of ir-regular toning that combines the original neutral values of the black and white negative with two different strengths of sepia. All tonal and color modifications are applied non-destructively using adjustment layers and layer masks for maximum creative flexibility.

The Landscape of MetaphorThe most fundamental way to view the series is as a combination of the still life and the landscape. In working on this project my previous experience with the landscape as a subject has been re-invigorated and reimagined by pairing it with the enigma of the artifacts I place there. Though theseimages certainly celebrate the incredible diversity, beauty and mystery of the natural world, the land-scape also serves as the stage setting for quiet and slightly surreal tableaus created by the presence of the artifacts.

I also see the photographs like short stories or poems, small fictions that suggest a narrative, in-viting the viewer to step in and follow where it may lead them. The photographs in the series, individually and as a group, represent the frame-work of a story, but one in which you only see a glimpse of what has happened or what is about to happen. It is up to the viewer to fill in the rest. Ansel Adams once wrote that “there are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” I regard the role of the viewer in finding meaning in a photograph, even if it is a meaning or interpretation that is only apparent to them, to be just as important as the role of the photographer in creating the image.

The structure of the series allows me to explore different ideas and concepts through the placement


PORTFOLIO:

The Clocks,Seán Duggan

Fifteen seconds in a snowstorm

The Diary,Seán Duggan

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PORTFOLIO:

of certain artifacts in specific landscapes, or simply enjoy the serendipitous chance of an unexpected juxtaposition. Many of the artifacts are obvious inwhat they might represent, while others are moreenigmatic. I choose artifacts based on how inter-esting they look in a purely visual sense, as well as how they might serve as symbols for other ideas. Some exist not only as visual contrasts with theirsurroundings but also as symbolic and meta-phorical keys that transform the scene by opening a conceptual portal, inviting the viewer from a landscape of earth and sky to a landscape of metaphor and hidden meanings.

On Pinhole PhotographyI am sometimes asked why I go to the trouble of using a wooden pinhole camera with no viewfinder to make these photographs. Wouldn’t it be easier to photograph these images using a digital SLR and then use Photoshop to create the “pinhole look”? In some respects in might be easier, but it would also require more work in Photoshop, and the view would not be the same as that made with an actual pinhole camera. But the main reason I photograph them the way I do is that using a pinhole camera

is a very different photographic experience from using a DSLR (which I do use for other bodies ofwork). And that experience is a key part of my enjoyment of this series. Being out in many dif-ferent landscapes with these artifacts and using a simple wooden camera with the same level of technical sophistication as the cameras used by the early photographers in the mid 1800s is an ex-perience that cannot be achieved using a modern digital camera.

The photographs and the experience of creating them exist on more than one level, and it is this multi-level quality that keeps the series fresh andintriguing for me, a crucial component for any long-term creative project. As I write this, the Artifactsseries is still very much a work in progress, and though I do not know how many images the final series will contain, I feel that I am probably more than halfway there. I have ideas for certain artifacts and specific landscapes to photograph before I can call it a completed body of work. The series also requires travel in search of different landscapes, and the very nature of the photographs, like pinholephotography itself, involves a slower, more contem-

The Gears,Seán Duggan

Parts of a machine, but no longer part of the machine; and in the

background, the river, the 'machine' that made the canyon.

The Zero Image 6x9 pinhole camera

(supported by a Joby Gorillapod) on location,

photographing an artifact of an

uncertain origin.

The Package,Seán Duggan

Above

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Product ResourcesCameras: ZeroImage 6x9 Multi-format Pinhole Camera,Canon EOS 5D (used as a "light meter" for the pinhole camera and documenting); Tripod: Joby Gorillapod, Manfrotto 055X; Film: B&W medium format film (various emulsions); Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4, Lightroom; Computer: MacBook Pro, Sony Artisan Display; Epson Perfection Photo 4870 Scanner.

Seán Duggan is a photographer, author and educator with a traditional, fine art photographic background combined with nearly two decades of extensive real world experience in the field of digital imaging. He is a co-author of The Creative Digital Darkroom (O’Reilly Media, 2008), Photoshop Artistry (New Riders, 2006) and Real World Digital Photography, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press, 2004). You can see more of the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series at www.seanduggan.com.

phototechmag.com 47

plative approach. But I am enjoying the journey very much; the act of creating the photographs, working on them in the digital darkroom and the gentle swirl of ideas that accompanies them is very rewarding. The creative muse still speaks to me through this channel. And when the creative muse is calling, it’s always a good idea to keep answering that call.

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