Method, Mechanics, Art and Madness.

I spent some time shooting downtown in the middle of the day recently. When the sun is out and the sky is clear the light just doesn't change its intensity from minute to minute.  I find it very freeing to guess at the exposure, set it on the camera and then use it without changing as long as I'm working in the same direct light. My guesses aren't really guesses, they are suggestions from Kodak that I memorized long ago when working with Kodak transparency films.

I am sure I've mentioned more than once that, because of the nature of a camera's built-in, reflective metering a camera can be easily fooled into setting the wrong exposure if the metering elements are pointed at a scene dominated by bright colors or dark colors.  By setting a known exposure for the prevailing conditions (or by using an incident light meter) you eliminate the variations in exposure caused by difference levels of reflectance in a scene.  The old examples are still pertinent.  If you point a reflected meter at a white wall it will return a grey file.  If you point a reflected meter at a black wall it will return a grey file. The meter wanted to put every scene into a blender and render it some shade of neutral grey.  An incident meter measure the light falling on the subject and in this was it could be said to be objective.  A known light source, like the Summer sun is constant (from two hours after sunrise to two hours before sunset).  If your subject is illuminated by direct sunlight a standard setting can be set with no real fear of failure.

Many websites and authors of authoritative articles about metering make the exposure process much more daunting than it really is or needs to be. I think this is a result of the societal/cultural shift from art to measure. We've become a culture that is more adept at measuring stuff and comparing it than anything else.  I think being able to measure what we've decided to call processes gives the ready illusion that with measurement comes control.  I used to hear the heads of corporations talk in hushed tones about "metrics."  Many had more faith in metrics than in listening to actual customers and more than a few of their companies have exited the market.

Not all art is directed by process and the success of art rarely has much to do with metrics. If repeatability and quality were primary concerns of art we'd still be listening to Strauss waltzes and Souza marches exclusively instead of the rich diversity of the music-o-sphere.

Where does the madness come in? I must be mad, or at least intellectually deficient. I post things about the feel of a camera or my perceived differences concerning a file that began life in a digital camera compared to a file that started life in a medium format camera and a certain percentage of my readers (no doubt very advanced and so in control of their emotions and perceptions of reality that they rival the Vulcans...) chime in suggesting that equalizing all the parameters in similar cameras will net me a set of equivalent files.  Images with nearly identical values.  The idea being that my need to touch and handle certain cameras in order to make certain photographs is an emotional attachment on par with a child's security blanket. The implication being that if I only took the time to equalize the technical parameters the seeing between cameras would be identical. The judgement is that cameras are interchangeable as long as the specifications match.

And it must be madness on my part but for me every camera has a certain feel and a certain energy of inclusion or exclusion in relation to me.  I could probably figure it out and explain it in detail, given enough time. But in real life sometimes I'll pick up a camera and it will immediately perform some sort of Vulcan Mind Meld that makes me comfortable with its handling and operation, or not.  The haptics remove some sort of resistance to use that I feel with other cameras.

For instance, I like the overall idea of the Nikon D3200 camera.  It's files are good.  But it seems a bit lifeless in my hands.  It's not that the camera isn't intuitive, it just doesn't push a little button in my brain that starts up the subconscious engine that says, "Go Shoot, Go Shoot, Go Shoot." Rather, it says, "I can take a technically correct image at your direction."  And that doesn't sound nearly as good to the part of my brain that craves the adventure and romance of shooting. I held a friend's D800 over lunch recently and it was the opposite experience.  I was smitten by the feel and balance of the camera at first touch.

When we date we aren't just looking for partners who are proficient in the practice of sex we also desire the company of someone attractive and fun to be with. Features are fun but the overall user experience is more than the sum of the parts. And I find it the same with cameras.

When I take one of my medium format film cameras out to shoot I feel an affinity towards the camera that makes me want to be a  better shooter. I've owned four other brands of MF camera but my basic Hasselblad seems to ring that little mental bell better than any of the others.  I rented a Mamiya RZ67 for a while and hated it.  Although it was capable of taking great images.  I was not capable of taking great images with it.  Over time the thought of using the camera was a great incentive to sleep in. But I know other photographers who loved that crazy box.

I should love the Olympus OMD EM5 but every time I pick it up I find the only thing I like about it is its density.  When I give the camera back to its owner I'm relieved.  There's something in the mix that keeps us from meshing.  On the other hand I've loved the feel of the Sony a77 from the minute I picked it up.

I liked the files from the Canon 5Dmk2 but there was no resistance to giving it up.  The bigger 1DSmk2 was the opposite.  The files were okay but the feel was so nice. More direct and more real.

I'll make a controversial statement here, if you haven't fallen in love with the way your camera fits in your hand, works and sounds, then you haven't found your camera(s) yet.

The shot above was done with a Hasselblad 501 CM camera and the standard 80mm Zeiss Planar. I scanned the file at 7000 by 7000 pixels and I'm sad not be able to print it out and mail a copy at full res to everyone of you to look at.  It's really pretty.  I imagine that one of the 60 or 80 megapixel digital backs from a company like Phase One would out resolve it.  But I'm equally sure (having handled them) that I wouldn't have nearly as much fun wandering the streets and shooting with one.  Of course, your mileage will vary.  Which is what makes all this interesting.

Of course, this could all just be a result of a big Camera Placebo Effect in which I have an emotional attachment that subconsciously informs and improves my ability to work.

When I made the image above I'd spent the better part of an afternoon walking around and shooting.  I never moved the exposure controls. Every frame on the two rolls was perfectly exposed and I had a smile on my face the whole time.

I'm not trying to denigrate the people who think differently than me.  There's the very real possibility that they may be right...

I find progress, at times, to be amazing. Just amazing.

I was looking around this morning to find a bigger memory card. I want to go back out to west Texas and shoot some video interviews and I hate stopping to change memory cards while I'm shooting video. I may be showing both my naieveté as well as my tenure in digital photography but I am astounded at being able to buy a 32 gigibyte, class 10 (for HD video) SD memory card for only $25.

I remember when memory cards were something you budgeted for and saved up for.  Now big ones like these are no more expensive than two movie tickets for some trashy summer thriller. About the price of two rolls of film with processing and contact sheets...

I have a mixed collection of 4,8 and 16 gb SD cards from Transcend and so far, no failures. I got into the habit of formatting my cards before every use. Seems to work for me.

The latest chapter in my ongoing Nikon D3200 review.

ISO 100

After a week of shooting portraits with black and white film in a medium format camera and shooting a television commercial with a Sony a77 I decided to take a break this afternoon and go for a stroll around downtown Austin in the warm glow of the late afternoon.  As a counterpoint to the lit, on tripod work I've been doing I chose to take along just the little Nikon D3200, the kit lens (18-55mm) and, well....nothing else.  My first observation:  The whole package is small and light and easy to walk with. I do think it will balance better with a single focal length lens so I'm trying to decide between the 35mm 1.8 Nikon lens or its longer brother, the 50mm 1.8 lens.  I'm not into expensive glass for what I consider to be my new point and shoot system so I'll leave my choice right there.

Let's get the stuff that's most important to the web dwellers from hell first. An ISO test.  The above image was shot (handheld) at ISO 100.  It's about as noise free as I can imagine and the large file is creamy smooth and detailed.  All the files from the D3200 seem to want some sharpening if you look at them at 100% but if you don't have you nose pressed to the screen the unsharpened images look natural and.....photographic. 

ISO 3200

The image directly above is the other half of my ISO test. It was shot at 3200 ISO (also handheld). If you blow it up you can see a pepper grain pattern noise that has no color flecking or transmorgification of duplicitous color.  That means there's a pattern that looks like Tri-X film grain but is not bothersome to me and is invisible at normal magnifications and viewing distances.  The nice thing about the Nikon files is how they maintain color saturation at the higher ISO's.  The high ISO's are a little better than the Sony a77 files.  Maybe by one half to three quarters of a stop.  

ISO 3200

Here's one more at 3200 ISO.  The beer in the image is Alaskan IPA ale.  It was delicious. The perfect counterpart to a 100 degree stroll through the asphalt heaven we call home.  I got and drank the ale at Caffe Medici on Congress Ave.  Giving up caffeine doesn't mean that all is lost...

I do wonder what the staff think when we photographers descend upon their workplace and spend time photographing our beverages...

ISO 800

Sometimes, when I am between projects and Belinda is working at the ad agency I cook dinner for the three of us.  I made a dish last night that was kind of fun. I got a handful of red potatoes, the small ones.  I rinsed them, quartered them and steamed them for five minutes and then set them aside.  I did the same with several handfuls of fresh green beans.  I got a big skillet and sauteed sweet onions in olive oil, a touch of butter, fresh oregano from our herb garden and some comino pepper.  Then I pulled the onions out and tossed in the potatoes, cooking them until they started to get brown and crusty.  Then I tossed in the blanched green beans and finally added back the onions and some carrot chips for color.  But I like to photograph while I cook so I set the camera at ISO 800 and kept it next to my chef's knife while I partied on the prep.

ISO 800

The camera and lens combo is good at close distances. The lens focuses down to about a foot.

ISO 800.

Here's my finished dish. I call it "carrot, green bean and potatoe sauté.  The family thought it was yummy.  I served a smoked brisket (lean) along with it and I made a peach pie for dessert. A mix of healthy and fun.  I was shooting in manual and underexposed the two images directly above.  I pulled them up over a stop in Lightroom but the noise didn't come up to badly.  Nice to know there's some safety room there when you're cooking and not paying attention to the numbers in the bottom of the finder.  I served dinner with a delicious Cabernet Sauvignon.  Ben had mint tea.

ISO 100.

So, what do you give up in what is ostensibly a $600 dollar, 24 megapixel DSLR?  Let's go through them by the numbers:  1. No depth of field button. You're on your own.  I know what f8 will do but it's nice to be able to see it.  2. The finder is small.  It's bright but it's small. I wish they'd just bite the bullet, conquer their fear and put a great EVF in this camera.  (The bottom line is I've enjoyed using cameras with much worse finders and, like anything else in life, if you use it enough you'll get used to it.  It's just hard to use after having used cameras with much better finders.  Kinda like driving an M series BMW and then saddling up in a Toyota Corola...). 3. The HDR (techno V... ) crowd will cry, moan and whine about the lack of autobracketing.  4.  I'd rather piss and moan about the loss of a PC socket. Or, 5. A separate set of control wheels for the aperture and shutter speed settings.

ISO 100

So, you give up some stuff.  What do you get in return?  How about a camera that feels solid but is small, lightweight and comfortable? I like the size and the grip. I think the files are very, very good and very, very detailed. The 4 fps is fast enough for me and, even though the buffer isn't very big it clears very quickly if you are using fast SDHC cards.  The battery life is much better than I thought it would be.  I think you can expect 750 shots with no chimping and about 500 shots, well chimped. You also get to have a really bitching file generator for far less than a grand.

Two other complaints, one that's easily remedied. First, you can try hard but you'll have difficulty seeing she screen on the back if you're out shooting in the daylight.  Especially in Austin in the Summer where we enjoy about 12 hours of harsh, brutal sunlight.  I'm sure that if you live in one of the dark countries you won't even think about it but I had to step into deep shade to be sure I was setting things correctly.  And I just gave up on chimping as it was doing more harm than good.  You could carry a Hoodman loupe around with you but that would just be goofy. No solution for this.  Set your camera before you get out of your car and pray you don't need to change settings in full sun.

The other complaint is that the active D-Lighting has no range of adjustment, it's either on or off.  I'm used to the Sony cameras which have both an automatic setting and five levels of manual setting for shadow recovery.  Easy fix. Turn it off and do your shadow savings in post.  One way or another you'll need to hit the shadows with a little noise reduction if you are making heroic detail saves.

When I first started shooting with the camera I thought I'd be happy just plugging away with large, fine Jpegs. I am not.  It's not that the Jpegs aren't good.  They are as good as they need to be, it's just that you have so much more control over the files in raw.  On most cameras these days I feel the need to boost contrast and crunch down hard on the blacks.  (That means I think the blacks are too weak as the camera companies try to give you the dynamic range you thought you wanted). I think the blacks in most digital cameras are totally un-filmlike and boring. Next time you find some noise in the shadows jump on that black slider and your files will look a hell of a lot better. I swear.

I'm presuming the lens adds about $100 to the overall kit price.  It's worth it.  It's a nice focal range, it's sharp in the center and the corners and edges come in well with a combination of stopping down and lens correction software in Lightroom. What you end up with is an image that is sharp and has good resolution but which needs a bit of a contrast boost and some black bump. I also like to add a bit of clarity slider for most files except for the high ISO files where the clarity slider accentuates the noise.

Should you run out and buy this camera?  Do you already have: A Nikon D800 or Canon 5Dmk3 or Olympus OMD EM-5 or a Pentax K-5 or .......?????? If so you don't really need this one, do you? But if you have a kid who's a budding photographer or videographer, or a spouse who wants a lighter, easier to use camera it's killer.  It is my current, "this is the camera you need for your sports, family photo, vacations" recommendation camera. The files are nice and clean and the VR in the lens works great.  The only thing missing, and something that would make this the ultimate tyro camera, is auto-ISO. Edit:  I found the auto-ISO. Instead of being part of the accessible ISO setting via the rear panel you have to go into the menu to turn it on and off. Painful but okay.  Most people doing auto-ISO leave it on all the time.  The rest of it can turn it off until we overdo happy hour and still want to shoot....

What about competitors? Well, the Canon t4i looks good on paper. I haven't played with one yet but it adds some sophistication to the movie mode with a phase detection/ contrast detection hybrid that seems like it's what we need to focus quicker in the video mode. It shoots at 5 fps instead of 4. The lower pixel count of the sensor, couple with Canon's sprinkling of high ISO pixie dust will probably get you a stop more cleanliness at high ISO's and that's about it.  If you have a bag full of Canon lenses it's kind of a "no brainer." But you will be paying $300 more.  

My final take on the camera and lens as a package is this:  Nice shooting package and very well done by Nikon. Would I like more stuff on the camera? Always.  Do I want to pay more? Naw.  You could do decent, professional work with this combo and, if your client never made eye contact with your camera package he or she would never know whether you shot your jobs with the top of the line or the bottom of the line camera in 90% of all jobs.  All bets are off if you are shooting professional sports for money or you need very high ISO's for paying specialized work.

This one really proves that it's not the camera the operator.  Operate well and the D3200 will reward you.

Good basic field kit?  This body, the 12-24mm (which I owned and was happy with...), the 35mm 1.8, the 50mm 1.8 and the Nikon 55-300 mm DX VR zoom.  Now you're ready for just about anything.  Add specialty lenses to taste.

The telephoto end of the kit zoom is pretty nice. I'd still through in a little more contrast and black.

Nikon will do well with this one.  But I'm not switching systems yet.

Hello Sony.  Still waiting for a couple of things.  I'd like to know for sure that the full frame camera is coming soon.  And, I'd like you to produce a 60mm f1.8 lens for the cropped frame cameras. That would be the perfect portrait length.  Please make it small and light and send it to me now.  The check's in the mail...

I promised to show a recent set-up shot on film.

 I collaborated in a portrait session last Saturday. I photographed with three different cameras and I've shown work from two of the cameras, the Nikon D3200 and the Sony a77. The third camera was my Hasselblad film camera with a 150mm lens.  I shot four rolls of color transparency and four rolls of Fuji Acros 100 speed black and white film.  I didn't change the lighting during the course of the shoot. The above photograph is of my friend, Lou, from one of the medium format, black and white film frames, developed by Holland Photo Imaging and scanned in my lowly Epson Perfection V500 Photo, flatbed scanner.

I scanned it at 7000 by 7000 pixels. While I don't see much increased detail vis a vis a scan at 3500 by 3500 I do see a much richer tonal distribution that makes the extra file size and time spent worthwhile.

My attention is immediately drawn to Lou's eyes.  And that's where I want it to be. The next thing I notice (and like) is that her right arm (left side of the frame as you face it) and her dress on the opposite side of the frame are already out of focus in a very gentle yet obvious way.

I love the diagonals created by the crossed arms, the incline of her body and the tilt of her head. Purists will want to crop out her watch but I don't really want to.  For some reason, maybe a need to have imperfections in the art, I think it adds a contrasting distraction that keeps your eye moving around the frame, looking for more clues.

I like the strong shadows on the sides of her arms and her face that are opposite the main light.  Those occurred deliberately.  My studio is painted all white. Without intervention the shadows get filled by the reflection from the white walls.  I added black panels to kill the reflections and help enrich the shadows.

I like the contrasting effect of her lit face pushing into the darker area in the top left of the frame and the balance created by the lighter area of the background against the shadow side of her face.

I am most happy with the expression.

When I analyze the file from the scan I find a smoother tonal transition from dark to light than I did in the files from the two digital cameras.  I also find that the hair seems more real and more detailed than it does in either of the other two files.  None of them are technical "fails" and, to some extent, whether you like the files from one camera over the files from either of the other two files, none of them are bad or unusable. Like the swimming at the Olympic Trials some things are measure in 10th's or 100th's of a second...

The biggest difference in the files is in the rendering of out of focus areas and in the manner of the focus "fall-off."  The Hasselblad  is my favorite but then I also like anchovies.

If you want to see the differences you might open up two new windows on your browser and see them side by side.  The Hasselblad 150mm (Zeiss Planar) is the oldest lens in my collection.  It's a mid 1960's version.  It still stands up well.

On an unrelated topic, send a little prayer out to the people in Colorado.  They're living through the kind of heat wave and wildfire situation that we experienced last year.  I can tell you that it's not fun.  I hope they have relief soon.

We're having fun here this Summer.  So far I've done more swimming than working. I'd like to be a little busier in the studio but I'm happy to have the time to work on my endurance.

The First Book:

Pretty Pictures.

When you can no longer call yourself "a photographer."

For the last twenty-five years I've wanted to be called "a photographer."  My self image was that of a professional photographer who spent his time solving visual problems and taking my client's creative concepts and translating them into photographs. I've made a good living doing it. My idea of a great job was being asked to shoot a conference in Monte Carlo and then hopping a flight to Rome to shoot some portraits for a large corporation and then  dropping by London for some additional imaging on my way home.  And for a good long while I got to do just that.  Of course it was all mixed in with countless head shots in various studios and makeshift studio spaces, annual reports in wastewater treatment plants in the middle of nowhere and lots and lots of shots of products against white sweeps.  In the off hours I shot "art" for myself.

But when I woke up this morning the label just didn't fit anymore. This morning I'm packing and doing pre-production on a television commercial I'll be shooting this afternoon/evening.  I spend more time blogging than actually shooting with a camera in my hands and I've spent at least as much time writing books in the past three or four years as I have on location. I've earned as much money writing presentations as I have doing head shots.

Our profession is going through profound changes and it's never, ever going back to the way we used to do things. It can't. The simple bread and butter stuff we used to do to "fill in" financially around the edges is gone.  More and more agencies are pulling photographers in-house to do the day to day stuff and that leaves only the bright, brilliant creative work for the freelance people. And not all of us can be brilliant all the time. But in the agency world long term counts for nothing.  It's all about a great execution of the flavor of the day.  In a real way, the best and the brightest can only stay in place with constant re-invention and constant marketing.

I have friends who've been waiting for the market to "cycle back through..." but there's no cycle to the creative product, only destruction and re-creation.  And the re-creation has to be genuine to work.

I'm checking on the crew.  Calling the make-up and hair people for last minute confirmations.  We're shooting "green screen" so I've revisited what's worked and not worked in the past.  I'm a little, tiny bit nervous because we've never done a green screen project with the new LED lights. I worry that we won't get enough coverage or that we won't be able to control the spread but I know we can deal with it.

I'm shooting with the Sony a77's. I like the feature of the EVF.  Maybe not all still photographers have warmed up to the EVF's yet but for video it's pretty great. You can check your focus via focus peaking and get a good read on exposure and clipping. No need for Zacuto or Hoodman loupes.  For playback we'll run the HDMI out into a separate (and much larger) monitor.  We're splitting the audio signal at the mic mixer.  One feed will go into the camera and the other feed will go into a Tascam digital audio recorder. Ben will be monitoring and riding levels on the Tascam.  The camera will go AGC.

I think we'll be able to use the sound from the camera, even though it will go through the camera's auto gain control, because each take is three seconds or so.  Just long enough for a brief line from an actor.  Not enough time or space between words to make the AGC circuit "pump."  But if it does we'll have clean, sync-able back-up with the Tascam.

We need to be prepared to move quickly this afternoon.  We get the location from 3:30pm and we need to be out by 6:30pm.  We've got two actors and a list of shots to get. We're still waiting to hear from the editor about whether he's decided on 60fps or 24fps.  I like 24 but he'll be editing down for TV so it'll all end up at 30fps.

In the recent (pre-2008) past I'd probably be sending out some new mailers and cruising through the Summer. This time around I've got a novel that's begging to be put to bed, a new book about portraits that needs to get started and several other television projects.  Not sure I could even make a living doing what I used to do....solely as a still photographer and I'm not sure I want to experiment and see.  I'm sure there are still lots of profitable niches left but every time I talk to an art director they tell me about shooting an ad in pieces with Canon Rebels and iPhones and putting it together and massaging it for a week in PhotoShop.  These aren't little "mom and pop" shops, these are ad agencies with multinational clients.  They all have production departments. The usually have two or three employees who are avid photographers. The companies have budgets for whatever gear they want.  Let's face it, it's not that hard to get a usable photograph these days.

Something special? That might be harder but the reality is that ad agencies make their money by speaking the visual language of the masses. They shy aways from stuff that's too forward and too modern. They really do a lot of bread and butter.

I don't do kid's sports (other than a few shots for the swim club) but that's another area that was once quite profitable and it now going through a similar process. Photography is the world's biggest and fastest growing hobby and the last time I was at a soccer game in West Austin there were dozens of moms and dads sporting Nikon D3s cameras and big white or gray lenses. They'd rather photograph their own kids... And every dad or mom with a camera loves to share. Do I blame them? No, at Ben's cross country meets I'm one of the dads, front and center, white lens at the ready.  Would I buy a picture from a vendor?  If it was one I couldn't get. Maybe.

My take on all of this is grimly optimistic. Just as desktop publishing put professional typesetters out of business by turning all the rest of us into semi-professional typesetters photography, as a profession, is losing the really profitable ground quicker and quicker.  In a sense, we are the Kodak of industries.

I think there will be markets that throw off some money for the next five or so years but the smart guys have already left the industry to set themselves up as publishers, workshop leaders, DVD producers, workshop leaders, Creative Live presenters, workshop leaders, photo expedition leaders and workshop leaders.  What does this mean for you if you are a hobbyist? Not really a damn thing. More people to chat about photography with over coffee or beer.  More really fun gear to buy.  More teachers available to help you make better photographs.  More opportunities to do stuff for free that used to be valuable.

In my business we still advertise and pitch photography.  We've moved from black portfolio cases and glassine pages stuffed with prints to iPads with Retina screens.  We show stills but we also show motion.  We talk about whatever aspect of content creation our clients need.  I am just as ready to help a company with writing spec sheets or a conference presentation as I am photographing their widget or their new building.

Going forward we are entering the era of the creative content provider as opposed to the discrete, dedicated still photographer. It's an interesting way to make a living.  Now you have to be good at more things. A challenge is always good, especially if you can figure out how to rise to it....

So,what are we packing for the video adventure today? Five big LED panels. Two medium, battery powered panels, five small panels as accent lights. A muslin green screen.  10 light stands. Background stands, a whole assortment of Westcott FastFlags, stingers (extension cables), an assortment of shotgun microphones, a microphone boom, a fluid head tripod and a slider, two Sony a77 cameras with an assortment of lenses, a bunch of fast SD cards, a slate, "A" clamps, Two apple boxes, the digital audio recorder and a bunch of water.

Thankfully, all the shooting will be inside, in air conditioning. Only the load in and the load out will be done in the heat.  Once we get this wrapped up it's back to the laptop to finish the final edits on my first novel.  The one about the nervous but intrepid photographer caught up in a web of intrique on a shoot in another country.  It's good. Well, at least I think it is...

Off to pack.  Not bitter, not pessimistic.  Just reading the landscape.

edit: June 27th:  Looks like I am not alone: http://www.bythom.com/gettingbetter.htm

Summer time in Austin. A quick photo another summer.

Ben at a swim meet.

Let's drop the cameras for a few days and go swimming...

We're back. This article is worth reading.

In the meantime this is a fun read:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/technology/photo-overload-everyones-taking-pics-but-is-anyone-really-looking/article4365499/

I love the idea that people are always fidgeting with their smartphones because they can no longer smoke cigarettes in most places and don't know what to do with their hands....

edited 6/25  to add:


http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/extended/archives/photography_after_photography/

This is a nicely prodding piece of writing as well...

And, a book by the original photo critic, A. D. Coleman...

This is my style. This is my look.

6/25: Image edited this morning with a judicious square crop.

Anyone who practices a craft goes through a period wherein they feel they've lost their mojo. The magic touch that is part of their unique style. Nothing that used to work seems to work anymore and the artist goes through a period of loss that calls into question their skills, their vision and their very reason to keep going.  I know, I've been there.  And more than once.

I've been working with digital cameras for more than a decade but I was never able to duplicate the look I got when I was shooting portraits on black and white film back in the 1990's.  I've been bouncing from camera system to camera system hoping that I'd find a camera that would do the magic for me.

Recently I started shooting portraits with a Hasselblad film camera and black and white film. I kept thinking I was closing in on the old feel I used to have but at best they were glancing blows, resonance of memory imposed on technique.  But yesterday I think I got my mojo back.  An old friend came into town and I set up the kind of light I used to use when I photographer her nearly twenty years ago.  A big, soft light used in as close as I could.  A black panel to the opposite side to keep the spill light from bouncing around the room and ruining the integrity of my wonderful deep shadows.

My model was intuitive.  She seemed to sense what I was looking for, filling the missing pieces in the puzzle I had scattered in front of me. I work in an almost detached and automatic way, adjusting the light, adjusting the pose and adjusting the give and take.

When the session was over and we said, "goodbye" I sat down and started looking through the files. I ran them through as much post processing as I needed to get them back to the state that was almost automatically achieved in the days of big film (if you considered hours in a darkroom to be "automatic"). And when the file looked back at me from my monitor I knew that I could keep doing portraits. A mental block had been lifted.  I showed myself (dragged kicking and screaming) that I could do what I wanted to do with digital cameras.  I hadn't lost my chops, rather I'd submerged them in the subconscious resistance to change.

To paraphrase Frank Costanza in the Jerry Seinfeld Show, "I'm back, baby!"

Making Portraits.

The quiet moments between the poses are as valuable and interesting as the poses we plan.

Postprocessing as the equivalent of darkroom techniques.

From this afternoon's portrait session. Minimal processing.

Nikon D3200 and kit lens. ISO 100.

And one more variation processed to make the image in line with what I ultimately wanted to see:

All images ©Kirk Tuck 2012

I think the discipline of post-processing should be a process of distillation rather than aggrandizement.  At a certain point it's up to the content of an image to carry the day, not the package the image comes in.

First Portrait with Nikon D3200 camera and kit lens.

From this afternoon's portrait session.

Enduring Beauty. An afternoon portrait session.

I first photographed Lou nearly twenty years ago.  You've seen her portraits from that era on the Visual Science Lab many times. We had the chance to work together again, this afternoon. When she walked into the studio I thought she had been frozen in time.  Once in a great while  you run across a natural beauty. It can knock the breath out of you.

Lou Lofton is the author of, Warren Buffett Invests Like Girl, And Why You Should Too.  She was an analyst and writer for the Motley Fool financial website and.....she was Ben's very first babysitter.

The portrait above was taken with a Sony a77 camera and the 70-200mm f2.8 G zoom lens. ISO 50.  Lighting: Elinchrom Ranger RX AS with a 72 inch Fotodiox umbrella and diffuser.

I also used a Nikon D3200 and a Hasselblad MF film camera during the session.