Thanksgiving Experiments

DNG Events

My friend, Linda, came to celebrate our birthdays together yesterday evening. Again, despite using a tripod, many of the photos were blurry. I do best when I take the time to take the photos instead of doing them on the fly. I did get some nice photos. Serendipity rocks!

I still use Bridge and Photoshop from the CS3 suite and on my own learning the subtleties of using the programs. I didn't even know I could capture images from my camera memory card using Bridge until I used the CS4 version. DNG supposedly provides lossless compression. I can't tell the difference between the jpeg files I create from Canon's raw file and from Adobe's DNG.

My "ultimate" workflow is still a work in progress. I don't trust DNG to keep my files solely in that format so first download the Canon raw files then convert to DNG in Bridge. This doubles the storage space used for the capture. The good news is that I am deleting images from Bridge when I view the files. I like this feature although, of course, once deleted, the files are gone forever. But from the many images I capture I really only use a fraction of them. Most of the time I take several shoots of the same subject just so I'll have copies to choose from.
The shoot last night took all of two minutes. It reminded me how much fun shooting my friends can be. Long before I started shooting models I was intrigued by the photos of Nan Goldin and Terry Richardson. Goldin's oeuvre seems to largely consist of snapshots of her friends and lovers in colors I thought of and still think of as lurid. Richardson's photos are similar, loud, almost vulgar, certainly in-your-face images that redefined photographic art for me.

This morning, in the December/January issue of Men's Vogue, I gaped at a blow-up of Marianne Müller's photograph in the living room of architects Mark Lee and Sharon Johnston in LA. It is beautiful but again not your run-of-the-mill arty photo. What makes photographer's images sell for thousands of dollars? Marketing. Our personal canons of what is beautiful is something we learn through accretion through the years. We "hone" our aesthetics from seeing what other people consider as beautiful. Is there truly innate beauty in our world of sensory experience? Beauty is a cognitive product, not a product of direct seeing.
At this point, my take is this: photographs are simply one person's view of the ordinary events in his or her life that the photographer on some golden-hued day finds inexplicably appealing or emotionally moving. There is a kind of aura around the sensori-cognitive experience that seems to me more than the accretion of our life's experiences. Maybe Jung was right. Maybe there is a collective "unconscious" that we inherit through our genes (or karma if you will) from all the consciousnesses that have lived and experienced life thousands of years before us.

Instinct and Beyond

The fall/winter Taschen catalogue arrived yesterday. One of their new offerings, The Godfather Family Album, contains "never-before-seen" photos of the Coppola trilogy shoot. They must have timed this with the recent re-release of the new, digitally mastered DVD of all three films.

Steve Schapiro was a "special" photographer on the sets after he garnered an assignment for an exclusive cover story for Life magazine. He wrote how he shot Pacino during the filming of The Godfather: Part II in the Dominican Republic (apparently standing in for Cuba).

"One morning," Schapiro wrote, "I took Al Pacino around the corner of the balcony to do a portrait against a glass window. With some actors, I've had to jump up and down or even make bird sounds to get the appropriate look. Al, within half a roll, had given me anything I could ever ask for, and we were done."

I hesitate to ask a non-model to model for me because I've had such luck shooting so far. Kaleb was a great introduction into the world of shooting in the studio. He was patient and can hold a pose as instructed. He was my first teacher. He was quick to follow the slightest suggestion or hint from me and had his own beautiful ideas for executing the image. Photography, I think, is a great part of it instinctive feeling. Shooting Kaleb opened my eyes and I was forever hooked.

The three shoots I did with Arron and Scott were my intensive training in shooting models. Lenny was wonderful, too, and had modeled some in his early twenties. His mother was a professional model. I wouldn't mind shooting him again. Not only does he have the looks and physique of a model but also has that instinctive feeling for what looks great in an image. Liking something is the first and essential step to doing anything well.

Schapiro described how he took another photo of Pacino when they were shooting in Palermo. The idea was to shoot the actor in a hallway with light streaming through the window behind him, the light reflected onto the floor. The movie shoot didn't finish until five that day and the beautiful light was gone. He shot Pacino using a strobe to illuminate the actor and did a four-second timed exposure to bring out the dim light from the window spilling onto the floor.

Images begin in our minds. We get a snapshot in our heads about what would look good and get about trying to achieve that effect in the real world. In the course sometimes of doing this we get other, better ideas and we try those, too but inspiration begins as inner vision.

Schapiro thought the cinematographer, Gordon Willis, "seemed to be going for an Oscar. Usually it was almost noon before he would feel his lighting was ready for the first shot of the day." For a scene with Lee Strasberg cutting a cake symbolizing Cuba with Al Pacino, the light just wasn't right for four days! "We remained there, doing the same scene over and over."

Photography, it seems, is much of it instinctive and a visionary element comes first but executing it is work, work, work. Is it naive of me to only realize this now? To get the photographs I want I'll need to work at setting them up not expect as I did when I took snapshots for serendipity to provide them. Luck plays a major role as it does in the rest of our lives but we need to play partners with it, too. We need to take the time to dance.

Cold, Rainy Day in Vienna

Vienna was the last stop of our 2004 European trip with Go Ahead. My sister and I had a huge, elegant room with marble floors. We took a bus to the city center and got off at Kartner Straßße near the Staatsoper, the Vienna State Opera. We basically walked along the Ringstraßße, visiting the sights and taking pictures of the royal palace and grounds, the statues of Vienna's illustrious one-time residents like Mozart and Goethe, and visiting the Sacher Hotel to check out the famous Sachertorte. 

Under the gray skies, Vienna looked old, its buildings impossibly ornate, the classical sculptures starkly reminding me of warm, sunny Athens and Rome instead of this cold, Teutonic city. That evening we went to a chamber music concert where my younger sister, April, and I danced a waltz to our friends' amazement. I was so giddy with delight we almost danced off the floor and out the window!

Prague Castle Hill 2004

Cactus & Salad

I installed the CS4 yesterday but today used Bridge CS4 with Photoshop CS3 to process these photos. Having the choice between CS3 and CS4 is a nice touch.

Yesterday's photos were unimpressive but they allowed me to shoot some more with the 50 mm lens on the D20, compare outputs with the zoom lens on the D5, and experiment with unusual adjustments on Ph CS3.

The first two images are straightforward narrow-aperture photos with the D5. I am still learning to use the contrast adjustment, something I am sure most photographers don't even consider. I'm a tyro at this. I like how the adjustment can sometimes make the image pop out.

The first Christmas cactus image was taken with the D5. I had to take it from a distance but didn't use flash for it. I reduced the exposure some more in Ph CS3 and increased contrast and black levels to darken the background and reveal the veins on the petals.

I took the last two images with the 50 mm lens, again without flash, again adjusting exposure and black levels to make the background darker. I had always admired close-ups of flowers against a dark background. I didn't know I could do this very simply in Photoshop.

To Be a Child Again

For years I took advantage of being able to stay with Ingrid and Michael on 14th Street and visited New York City once or twice a year. I took these photos 20 April 2006 when Central Park burgeoned with spring flowers and kids and their parents escaping from their apartments to enjoy a glorious spring day.

Monon Trail in Autumn

I took these photos late afternoon 8 November 2008 on the Monon Trail north of 86th Street. I was trying out my 50mm lens with the Canon D20. I missed being able to zoom and crop the picture that way but got used to moving me and my camera instead of the lens zoom. The lens aside from the glass is plastic so is very light. Otherwise I did not see much of a difference in the photos themselves. I should try the lens out with the Canon D5 and see if it takes better-resolution photos with the large 1.8 aperture.

In the studio, I got used again to moving the camera instead of zooming the lens when using the 50 mm. I was glad to see I didn't have to be far away from the subject to use the lens which in a digital camera has the equivalent length of 80 mm. It might find its best use when I shoot models indoors. Then I can be more creative with the lighting because the lens is reputed to shoot without added lights in dark environments. In fact I tried using it today to shoot a plate presentation not using any lights. Unfortunately I hand-held the D20 and my hand was not steady enough. The resulting photos were too blurred to be of much use.

Lenny Revisited

I met Lenny at the gym this evening. He said he couldn't open the photos in the password-protected site I launched for him. I told him to try it again and if he was having problems to let me know.
I processed a dozen or so images from the shoot with Lenny after I learned about color correction with Photoshop. I did a handful of his other photos and then went on to other projects.

When I got home tonight, I decided to look at the images from the shoot with Lenny. I have learned considerably more about processing images on Photoshoot since I last worked with this photo shoot. I am amazed at how far I have gone. Images that appeared terrible back then now are easily brought up to publishable condition.

Pomegranate Dreaming

The last few days have been kitchen days. The weather has been unseasonably warm with plenty of sunshine lighting up trees that just now are turning to reds and yellows. It's the good life.

Last Sunday, ostensibly to show Audrey how to make pie crust, we gathered after meditation for lunch, an afternoon movie (Journey to the Center of the Earth on Blu-Ray), and an evening snack of fresh peach pie. Yummy!
For Sunday, I modified a recipe for eggplant Parmesan by introducing a lower layer of lasagna-style ricotta cheese. For lunch today with Tony, I made quiche for the first time in some fifteen years. I wanted another vegetarian meal so instead of making the traditional Quiche Lorraine that I used to make, I substituted giant white asparagus with sautéed white onions and scallions with thyme. It was a meal from paradise.

We have not had a killing frost yet so I still had upland cress on the deck outside the living room. I brought in two pots of Italian parsley and a pot of Vietnamese (purple) basil. So far they are surviving in the south-facing window seat in the bedroom.

So salad today was red-leaf lettuce, cress, English cucumber with a very light dressing of aged balsamic vinegar. For dessert we had organic apple slices, whipped cream and raisins braised in coffee liqueur, Kahlúa.

Unplanned Visit to Venice 2008

My visit to Venice was not in my plans for the trip to Italy last May. It was a result of happenstance but the weather was much better than it was in 2007 when it was rainy and cloudy. Photo opportunities often present themselves unplanned and totally delightful!

I was traveling with Francisco for whom this was his first trip outside of Mexico and the U.S. Our itinerary was all messed up when we checked in at the Indianapolis Airport. We had nine hours wait time at the Marco Polo Airport. From visiting Venice just last fall I knew the airport was half an hour by water taxi but also knew buses could take us Venice by the land route. We decided that instead of waiting at the airport we would be adventurous and go the city as most tourists don't go: by ACTV bus.

These first photos were shot along the way from the airport in Tessera to Piazalle Roma, the terminus for land vehicles headed for Venice. At this huge terminal, all the passengers including Francisco and me disembarked to take water taxis into the city. This was the first time Francisco displayed the Italian he learned in school. For words and phrases he didn't know, Spanish apparently worked almost as well!