A lack of preparation on my part...

My brother +aurin ræder and I have started a mutual photography challenge. The first challenge is to make a picture of "soft water" using "high key". Not too hard here in winter, I think, we have a nice river right downtown and snow abounds. Alas, my lack of preparation (and an unstable Gorillapod) thwarted my first attempts.

I had to wait for +Mickey Blake to come home so +The Frida Diaries wouldn't feel all abandoned and start barking. No problem, she comes home with about an hour before sundown. So I start packing up my gear, find lenses, pick a tripod (I have three, plus a monopod for hiking), look for the neutral-density filter in all the wrong places, etc. etc. By the time I get out the door, almost half an hour has gone, and it's cloudy so there won't be much late light. By bad luck of the U-bahn draw, it takes as long again to get down to Thalkirchen, plus some time to get to an interesting water spot.

By the time I found something looking like what I had in mind, the light was low enough that the lack of an ND filter was not an issue. At ISO 100, I got 15s at f/8 right away, easily enough to blur the water. Putting my Gorillapod near the water's edge, I aimed for various shots at low angles including some interesting water and snow-covered rocks. Only a few shots in, the light was too dim for that, and I had to up the ISO. A few shots later, the only way to get enough light was to take out the small but bright pocket light that +Richard Jørgensen had provided me with years back, which just happened to be in my pocket. First time I tried light painting, in theory - in practice, it was just a main light. Focusing was of course awful, though using the flip-out display with manual focus seemed to work ok. It was hard to tell, really. Eventually, my light gave out, and I had to return.

Back home, my shots turned out horrible. Every single one was either shaken or stirred blurred, or both. While the compositions seemed OK, there was just not enough detail to be really striking. It was hard to tell if the focus was off, or the Gorillapod had just bent downwards during exposure. In either case, failure.

Morale: Prepare your equipment ahead of time, so you don't have to spend valuable light-time doing it at the last moment. Also, I need to get more used to what the Gorillapod can and can't do.

Photographer for hire

If you like my photographic style, and would like to hire me for a photography session in or around München, drop me an email. Just don't expect me to be cheaper than a professional photographer - I don't want to underbid already hard-pressed people depending on this for a living. Also don't depend on me for anything hugely important, like big advertisement campaigns or really expensive weddings. I am, and for a while at least will stay, a proficient amateur. I have practised until I can get it right. Professionals have practiced until they can't get it wrong. With a professional, you will get a good result. With me, you might get a great result, or you might get a failure.

But if you like what you see, and want me to try it out on you or yours, I'm always up for challenges. I even do kids and animals well, much to my own surprise.

Painterly photos

Every now and then, I come across a photo that looks more like a painting than a photo, and they always fascinate me. I want to make photos like this.

I am not sure what makes them so painting-like, but I guess it's a combination of limited palette, deep focus, very well-laid soft light with details in the shadows yet some really dark areas. This example shows off +Hugh Jackman in this way:

My equipment

For those into the technical details of my photography, here is my current equipment:

Canon EOS 60D - just upgraded this month, after rigorous testing of the alternatives. I knew I wanted a flip-out screen, and that fortunately limited my options. The 60D won out by having much superior controls, which by now is the more distinguishing factor.

Canon EOS 350D - my first DSLR. It's old and has crufty AF, so it plays backup camera.
Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro - my most beloved lens, it renders beautifully but is not long enough for photo walks. I use this for portraits as well as macros.
Canon EF-S 55-250 f/3.5-5.6 IS - my walk-about lens. Long enough to capture details, barely wide enough to get context shots.
Sigma 18-125 f/3.5-5.6 - my "vacation lens". I end up regretting whenever I only bring this, but I have nothing else that's this wide. It renders flatly and with smushed colors.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 - for low light.
Induro AX-214 tripod - very flexible, good sturdy design, comes with a nice carrying bag and a little bag with extra spiked feet. It's nice.
White foldable bounce, 60cm wide - portable yet useful.
Strobist flash - somewhat less automatic than Canon or even Promaster, but very flexible powerful for the price.
Canon remove release - best $25 I ever spent on camera equipment. Lives unobtrusively on my strap and allows immediate or 2-second delay shots. Nothing else, and that's what I need.
Lightroom 4 - my favorite photo program. It slices, it dices, it even uploads to this blog.
CarrySpeed shoulder strap - solves the problem of the strap having to slide around your shoulder when bringing up the camera. Well worth the €50.

I have a penchant for the odd combinations (as evidenced here and here), and they're fun to play around with, but I will eventually need something better than what I have now. An ultra-wide, a better mid-range, perhaps, and a body with good AF, swivel screen, better ISO and per-lens micoradjustment are all pretty high on my list.

Standing up for what you like

At the brewery of St. Clemens a yellow picture adorns the cover of their newspaper-style menu. On the back is a small biography of the artist (from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts) and a description of his style: "[his] artistic practice fundamentally takes place in the intersection between aesthetics, politics and poetry. The works often balance subtly between a simple, clear expression and a condensed conceptual complexity of meaning. Its apparently simple expressions invite the viewer to interact with the work themselves and take part in producing meaning. "

I read this as "the pictures are boring and convoluted. Instead of putting in the craft required, a virtue is made of sloth by leaving the work of producing meaning to the observer." Quality and hard work have become anathema to modern art, instead calling ambiguity and half-done work "inviting the viewer into the creative process." The artist does not dare make a clear message, does not dare stick his neck out by making his views known. Besides, one would rather not offend anyone, and if the work's meaning is entirely up to the viewer, there is no danger of that.

Art should say something. Art should relate to its surroundings and not just to itself. The kind of art whose only question is "is this art?" has no meaning outside the art world. So much art is self-referential navel-gazing whose only question for the viewer is "is this relevant?" with only one possible answer: a resounding no.

At the same time, many have confused "relevant" with "social realism". One can quite well relate to the world in ways other than by pointing out things that are bad. It's easy to criticize, find fault and belittle. Who in the world of art stands up these days and says "This is beautiful! I like this! This is good!"? We are all experts at criticizing, but it takes courage to be for something. 

When you proclaim your admiration of something, you put yourself at risk. You take a chance of being belittled or denied. But at least you have taken a viewpoint rather than shying away from any commitment. It forces you to dwell on your subject, to feel something for it, to vouch for it, rather than just flit on to demeaning the next thing. A "Yes" has always had greater consequences than a "No", but we are unable to handle the consequences. We like having an undo button, a way back, an opportunity not to be permanently damaged by the mistakes we commit: The house must be able to be sold again, the divorce should be painless. But if we do not vouch for something, we will never have anything of true value. If we try to overthrow our shitty society without taking the trouble to actually make something better, we just end up with chaotic crap instead of organized crap.

It is worth remembering Sturgeon's Law: "90% of science fiction is crap, but then again 90% of anything is crap." It's easy to find something to criticize, because there is so much that is reprehensible. When you stand up for something, take a chance, you no longer have the statistics of Sturgeon's Law on your side.

I try in my art to follow this, to look for what makes me happy and depict it. It is not always successful, and many a time I fall back on the critical and ironic, but I think that the experiment itself is important.

Orchid petals

The apartment I got when moving down to München had this orchid plant standing in the window. After giving it a minimum of water, it rewarded me with the most interesting flowers, of which I of course had to take pictures.

The mouth of the flower, while the most colorful, turned out to be hard to make a good composition from. Instead I looked to the petals, which have a veined-ness that is frequently overlooked. I took this with an on-camera flash bounced off a hand-held small bounce (the walls in that apartment had a color cast). Took me some tries to get one where the veins were really accentuated.

Part of the reason for bouncing was to make sure the shadows from the other petals were nice and soft, as it was more or less impossible to not include them. The black background is intentionally made by placing a black office chair there.

Notes from online videos

I watched a couple of videos while eating lunch, and took some things away from them that I need to remember - and in particular that I want to remember for this afternoon's photo walk.

From this video, I got some tricks on natural light portraits:

• Have the subject look towards open sky, to get the reflection in the eyes.
• Be in the shade
• Have a natural reflector (typically a big building) nearby.

I want to find some places that are good for this, fortunately we have a lot of massive buildings in München with open space around them.  I want to find out if I can get a strong studio-like side light by being close to a reflector, and if working in full sunlight works if right next to a reflector. I also want to find a couple of readily accessible places that are good for this, and note at which time of day they are best. I didn't care too much for the flatness of his light, though, so I'll have to see if being a bit more extreme in the lighting is better.

From this one, I learned mainly to watch out for light coming up from the ground, but also that columns are useful for portraits - and we have a few of those around here. I like how he has a little cloth-covered set -- not for an 8x10 camera, but for his laptop. It would be fun to make a set-up that looks like a classical camera, but is actually a laptop used as a "viewfinder", something like on the right, but preferably a little more steam-punk as well.

This one told me that I need more reflectors - especially adding the last one made a huge difference. But also the little things like straightening the elbow, adjusting the hair and clothes, and turning the fingers -- these are the kinds of things I never think of looking for.