Model: Sasha Pichugina, Styling: Linnea Adams, Hair/Makeup: Ashley Gee, Lighting Assistants: Sarah Geerdes and Taylor Binda.

Am I impressed with the 4s camera? why yes, yes I am. Don’t expect unicorns and glitter to appear at every shutter press, but if you understand the limitations of this type of camera, and put it in front of interesting things, you can squeeze some decent work out of it.

Basically, it makes a really clean 8 megapixel image in good light. In low light, it kind of falls apart in terms of image quality, but that’s to be expected of any compact camera with a very small image sensor. Some nice features are the LED flash, wider aperture and ability to tap on part of the image to control focus and meter for auto exposure. Perhaps the nicest feature is the lack of features. Even as a photographer and gadget geek, sometimes I just want to forget about all the tech stuff and just concentrate on composing a good shot. The iPhone will let you do that. It will just get out of your way and record a nice image.

Below are some photo examples I’ve gathered over the past several months which were all shot with the iPhone 4s. Many of them were run through or shot with the instagram app (see username “robandrew” to follow me on IG). Some of them were shot with the native camera and left alone or run through the Photoshop Mobile app. Some of them were run through the full fledged Photoshop on my PC for some exposure tweaks. I printed the full res versions today and they all made very nice 5×7’s at 300 PPI. Many could easily be 8×12 or larger if needed. Just add your own unicorns. And glitter.

Keep some Windex and a can of air nearby and this will save you some time in Photoshop, cloning out dust specks. Place the products on the non-painted side and blast away! The products are by my bud Adam at Adamunlimited.com Stingray Products. I personally own one of his Stingray/Shark wallets and its the most durable fireproof, waterproof, conversation-starting wallet I have ever owned. Highly recommend.

The above is an outtake from a shoot I did for First magazine. They actually ran a different photo that was shot in all natural light with a big white reflector in front. Evening sun for backlight, big white reflector in front, shallow depth of field with a confident smile and pose. 3/4 length. You can take that combo to the bank all day long. People eat it up.

The one above was the same concept but the sun was gone so I used a flash with umbrella in front of Amy and another flash behind to simulate the sun backlight. I put a 1/2 CTO gel on the backlight to make it a bit orange. It’s a sterilized, dressed up version of the whole sun backlight thing. And the flash has the benefit of stopping action better. Its kind of fun to play natural light concepts into flash work and see if you can pull it off convincingly.

The above is something I did at SDSU of one of their chemical engineering professors. It went in one of those alumni magazines.  The lighting was terrible in this old classroom so I constantly had two flashes spraying light across the ceiling. But that just basically created the same vanilla lighting, only brighter. So we ramped it up by aiming a shoot through umbrella at the professor and then bouncing a low flash off a reflector that was sitting below his face. The low light became the dominant light, which was not really my intention but I came to like it. It kind of has the glow of a low desk lamp and made a contrasty image. The professor was nice – gave us lots of his time and walked us through different chem labs and classrooms. I had trouble culling this one and delivered over 100 photos on an editorial assignment which is a pretty high number.  But the agency was stoked to have a big array and was willing to cull it down for their client. Just so happens, my assistant, Carlos Chavez is a biochem guy, so he peppered the conversation with tech speak whenever I was at a loss.

This is The Mosaic Quartet, a band I became friendly with after our first shoot together. We just wander around getting shots sometimes on these things. This one is special to me because the pose and colors remind me of early Van Halen, which I’ve always loved (NOT Van HAGAR! in my best Joe Dirt voice). They usually went for the happier shots that showed their comradarie and I think this one captured it well. I was attracted to the red wall and already had an umbrella set up that I knew would produce a catchlight in their eyes and a little specular highlight on the wall which I wanted. So I just basically set my camera to underexpose the natural light by about 2 stops and then brightened it back up with flash.

This one was not editorial or promotional at all. I was hired to just come in and do some basic head shots on gray seamless. But when I saw the dark legal library on my way in I decided that I would ask for a portrait there on our way out. The conference room we took the head shots in was tiny! We had some technical difficulties with the conference room table, regrettably and it became a project to put back together. But on the way out I still asked for that portrait and got it by putting a gridded light on my subject and another gridded light on the books behind her.  I wasn’t sure if I would like hard light on these but I wanted the feeling of tungsten tract lighting that you would see in a dark library. The kind in the small cans that don’t quite light everything but create a little glow here and there.

Well, now I just have to visualize my future assignments and find two pictures that go together for that promo card. Back to work…….

For a while, my early work was out there competing with Coop. It still is, in some ways. In 2002 or so, I saw a highly specialized niche opportunity in knife photography and started doing some product shots. One of my clients sent a photo of mine over to Coop for critique, and he tore it up pretty good. But I am the type of guy that can take a beating. In fact I have come to like them. You learn from a good critique, and it keeps you humble.

When I was invited to a knife show as an event photographer we had an awkward introduction. “Come meet Coop!” my host encouraged, not aware of the butterflies I was feeling. He was right around the corner working his mysterious magic. My photos couldn’t hold a candle to his at that time. They sucked. But they were getting better.

Coop was all smiles, he said he admired my work (WTH?). I thought my work was pretty much “Coop Lite” at the time and not really getting better. I expected a quick dismissal because he was busy shooting but he  invited me into his booth to go over his whole setup with him, show me how he lights everything and tell me about his equipment and post production.

Was I able to get shots just like his when I got home? No. Did I rush out and buy all the same gear he had? No way. Did I steal all his market share and take over the world? No. Did my photos go up a notch in quality and lighting? Hell yes. Coop asked me to sub for him the next year as the main photographer because he had booked something else.

(Setup for the above photo here.)

It was that moment combined with the generous blog of “strobist” David Hobby, great books with photo breakdowns by Joe McNally and others that got my juices flowing to just share as much as possible. If guys like this weren’t afraid to put all the info out there there must be a reason. So here’s why I’m not afraid to share all my secrets:

1. They ain’t secrets. Everything I learned has been second hand info in some way. Sure, I have my own twist on a few things, but basically you have to have the fundamentals down really well to start twisting. Everything I have learned I have learned from reading books, blogs, tweets, emails, attending workshops, practicing my butt off and asking other photographers. Its all out there and its freely available. No secrets, just info.

2. Who do I think I am anyway? Really? My secrets?? There’s loads better people to copy out there than me. If I can share a bit of what I know and help you get to the next level, I feel like I’ve added something positive to the world.

3. It takes practice. In addition to photo classes, I have also taught music for  years. One thing I have learned is photography is very similar. The theoretical knowledge is about 15% of the battle. There is no substitute for years of practice and experimentation on your instrument, the camera. Talent is great, knowledge is great, but both are useless without skill.

4. My market share won’t be stolen overnight. Assuming someone acquires all my magic “secrets”, retains the info, applies the knowledge and spends years practicing their butt off, they would be one of the few with the patience, time and persistence to do so. And after all that, if they copied my style verbatim and targeted the same market as me I would be shocked. And if they actually stole some of my clients I would be shocked-er. Besides, my style will change and my target market will change by then. I don’t have the attention span to shoot the same thing for a month let alone a few years! Besides, I never stop learning, I’m still going to get better. If they pass me up I commend them. If they equal me, they probably still have a lot to learn, much like me.

So there you have it. Ask me anything, I’m an open book.

(Above photo: ISO 200, f/4.5, 1/125. Westcott 28″ Softbox camera left with Lumopro LP160 set to 1/4 power and bare LP160 for rim light set to approx 1/32 power. Canon 5d with 24-70mm 2.8)

Why There’s No Such Thing as “Self Taught”

Musicians and photographers seem to wear the label “self-taught” as a badge of honor. Well, unless they’ve lived in an ice cave in Patagonia for their whole life, they’ve probably learned from others. I’m not a formally “schooled” photographer either, but what I’ve learned so far, I’ve learned in the aforementioned way- books, manuals, blogs, forums, tweets, posts, workshops and loads of practice and studying other people’s images. What does “self-taught” even mean? To me, if the information is craved enough, it is somehow attained, and the manner in which it is attained is insignificant.

(Above photo, ISO 200, f/2.0, 1/250. Canon 5d with 50mm f/1.8)

Why I Don’t Use Watermarks

I am not going to say whether this part is “the right way” or not. Certainly one could argue for the advertising or branding advantage of watermarking. What I will tell you is why I personally chose to stop using watermarks.

1. Everybody and their dog uses them.

2. The “big” photographers don’t use them. Yes, I’m generalizing but you don’t see Chase Jarvis or Joe McNally with a big ‘ol stamp on all their pictures. This is also a function of their identifiability, large web presence and resources but still, can you imagine something like the highly moving photojournalism of James Nachtwey with a big ‘ol “JN Captures” logo on it?

3. Its a visual distraction. No matter how pretty a logo is, the fact is, we humans tend to go straight to the letters and symbols in a picture and put our full attention on them.

4. They don’t truly protect your image. If you place your mark close to the edge, you’re not reaping the benefit of a watermark because its easily cropped out. Place it in the middle and it pretty much dominates image visually. Anyone with just a bit of Photoshop skill can remove a watermark in minutes, especially with the new cloning features now available. In my opinion, your time would be better spent taking your best images and actually registering a copyright with the library of congress or using a service like Digimarc. Including your contact and copyright info in the image’s metadata is also a great practice.

5. Stealers are gonna steal. The type of people that would steal a photo and use it commercially are the type that will just shop out a watermark. If you’re worried about your own clients stealing them and not ordering a print, well, you may have bigger problems with the type of clients you’re attracting than you do with copyright!

6. A watermark seems to say “I don’t trust you with my picture”.

Again, these are just  my  feelings at this point in time and I don’t claim to be “right”. Do what suits your own target market and style when it comes to watermarking.

Curious if you’re getting ripped off? Check out a great service for searching for your images on the web at www.tineye.com.

Thanks for reading!

Just wanted to share a few words today about shutter speed and flash sync for you photographers out there. Probably the most intriguing thing you notice the first time you shoot studio flashes is the sharpness of your photos. This is due in large part to:

1. Flash impulse being much faster than your “normal” shutter speeds.

2. No ambient or continuous light entering the equation.

When shooting with flash, you can get away with a surprisingly slow shutter speed, hand holding the camera (IF your only light source is flash). This is because, although you have a slow shutter speed, your subject will only be illuminated for the length of your flash impulse. This length is known as flash duration. For example, the image above was shot at 1/25 sec, f/8.0, ISO 100, at 70mm. The light source was an Einstein flash unit which gives about a 1/3000 sec. flash burst at 1/8 power. This means that although my shutter is open for 1/25, I am only making an exposure of my daughter for about 1/3000 sec.

You can see sharpness at 1/25 is just fine. I shot this handheld using a slow shutter speed for illustrative purposes. I would  normally shoot this at 1/200 or so which is about the fastest my 5d will sync with studio flash. Most cameras do have an upper limit for syncing with studio flash without banding problems. Typically this is around 1/250 for battery powered flash and about 1/125 for studio flash depending on the make and model. See this article for an excellent and detailed description of flash sync speed and how it works.

The same method can also apply outdoors when your subject is primarily lit with flash.

The problem with this however, is that the slower you make your shutter speed, the more your subject will become partially illuminated by flash and partly illuminated by available light. This makes the flash/ambient mix more of a balancing act, particularly as the ambient starts to fade and you need a slower and slower shutter speed to bring out detail in your surroundings or the sky. The image above is 1/30sec, ISO 250 at f/5.

You can see a bit of ghosting around my subject’s cheek due to the mixture of ambient light and flash having a bit of a conflict. The overall sharpness is decent, just something to be aware of as you push your shutter to its limits in hopes of keeping your ISO numbers down.

Another thing to be aware of- not all flashes have a quick duration. Small speedlights often have short durations such as 1/1000 and faster but some A/C powered studio flashes can be as slow as 1/200. Additionally, some studio flash units can get slower as the power is increased or decreased depending on the technology used to fire and extinguish the light. One reason I recently switched to Einsteins is because for A/C powered lights, the duration is very quick. So far, I am loving them. Stay tuned for a more detailed review of these lights as I put them through the paces on some actual assignments.