The Kindest Mirror

The kindest mirror I have known is blue with a large fleck of brown.

Magnifying joy, absorbing pain.

Intellect, confidence, generosity; formidable, quiet, and boundless overcome by time and the fragility of the vessel.

As your light fades I will carry the spark forward keep it safe, and do my part, sharing it as you have done.

Genesis

Here up north winters are long, cold, and messy. You eat, drink, sleep, screw, snowboard, ski, ice fish, sleep more, eat more, drink more, anything for a diversion. Mostly though you just hide and wait for some kind of change.

Then without ceremony the sky lightens, weather warms, and the cycle begins again.

Today is not that day, but soon, I hold out hope that it will be soon.   

Inside the Box

The challenge is always different. Sometimes it is complex with many moving parts coming together in precise order. Other times it is as simple as finding the right Yogi. After auditioning several locals it became clear that we had to widen the search.

I enlisted four modeling agencies to find a person that not only could do the required posture but hold and repeat it enough times for us to get a picture. A week later we had two possibles; an LA Contortionist or a Yogi from the South. We settled on the Yogi because we liked her look and she could meet our timeline.

The shoot was amazing. Not only could our Yogi hold and repeat the posture but she had a fascinating background in ballet as well. I was shocked and awed when she just dropped to the floor and smoothly moved into the posture. Even more impressive than her power and flexibilty was her casual willingness to repeat as needed.

The final shot is exactly how our Yogi was posed and required only minor retouching to remove wrinkles on her wardrobe. The concept was a humorous turn on how the modern workplace forces people to conform and how the client offers solutions that conform to people. 

It was one of those days when shooting a picture is way too much fun and the surreal quality of the shoot is turned on it's ear by a model who's physicality and personality linger long after the project is complete.

Simplify

The best projects for me are complex, requiring various elements often shot at different times pulled together for the final composition. I love working things out but in the end, simplicity rules, the shot has to work as a single picture.

This shot for the Milwaukee Lakefront Festival of the Arts needed things like green grass and a clean view of the Lake. Of course the physical layout at the Art Museum and a deadline before the grass turned green made things more complicated. 

Shooting a project like this is more about pre visualization and understanding how things will fit together. I needed four elements and ultimately used five for the finished image.

The water, needed separate treatment due to obstructions at the site. The goal was to create the proper perspective and sense of place. Subtle elements like the breakwater and lighthouse put the viewer at the festival site. This base image provides the overall perspective.

The grass, was really brown and just starting to green up when the piece was completed so this element required a perspective match, a definite horizon line, and greening in post. 

The tent, is a built to scale prop. Shot in perspective and matched lighting to the water and grass. The biggest trick here was getting the sail to fill with wind so it would match the shape of the Bris Soleil from the Museum.

The Bris Soleil element is from the amazing Calatrava addition to Milwaukee's Art Museum. The spire and shape create a bit of realism and together with the background put the tent at the festival site.

The sky and clouds needed to be perfect. I always have a camera on hand and often shoot clouds for later use. That paid off in this case as the most amazing clouds appeared one afternoon. For me the wispy clouds add a great deal to the breezy nautical feel of the final image.

That's it, five elements combined to create a cool picture that solves the problem and helped to achieve record attendance for the festival.

I have printed this image as a full color poster. It hit the mail today and there are limited number available through the contact page of this website.

If you like the picture or are just interested in the technical aspects of high end digital send me an email with your info and I will mail one out.

IQ

Image Quality, how much is enough? Is sixty megapixel medium format the pinnacle of IQ or is it overkill?

As the debate rages about file size, dynamic range, high ISO noise, etc... participants attempting to "scientifically" weight the argument to prove the gear they use is good enough or the best. The fact remains, gear choice relates more to the project at hand, one system cannot cover all needs.

I shoot 90% of my work with a medium format system. Phase One P65+, for me it is more about a balance of maximum quality and flexibility. The IQ is stunning, best I have seen in digital, but the ability to hang the back on a view camera is just as important.

More complicated and cumbersome? Sure, but crafting a great picture is what I am after and in that respect medium format is flat out the best. Not just huge files that easily crop to all the spaces and ad will run or the extra headroom for retouching. It is also about applying traditional photographic skills. View camera movements allow fine control over plane of focus and perspective. Large format lenses boost the IQ even more. In short the flexibility of medium format gives me a wider palette of creative and technical choices.

The day may come when Canon or Nikon delivers a camera that can make as many pixels that are as technically perfect as the best of medium format but it will still be just a quick pointing and shooting DSLR. Essential for some projects but in no way a universal solution.

The Leica S2 is a case in point. Beautiful camera, great lenses, as an improvement to the formats however, a failure. It combines the weakest elements of each into one convenient package that is excellent in a very narrow range. If that range is where you live then it is a great solution.

I shoot because I love it. I use the best tools available because it helps me to craft great pictures. That is real, the debate, the pixel peeping, the equivocation, is just noise.  

Ex Equis

Black and white has always held more power for me, stripping the picture down to the basics light, dark, and the values in between.

This series comes from a product launch, a painkiller for horses that reduces side effects and keeps performance horses in the ring.

The project involved creating a half dozen key images but also a library, grooms, vets, etc working with and around these amazing animals.

Our location scout in this case is a great guy who gave us plenty of options. We just couldn't close on the phone. So I flew down to Ocala Florida ahead of the shoot to seal the deal.

Crossing the gate at the first property and seeing the scope and luxury of these operations first hand I was taken aback. All was well though as the owner and her staff were easy to work with and in minutes we had a deal. Other locations followed and soon we were on target for the shoot.

The concept had been tested and was a huge departure from the norm for this space. Most campaigns in this category showed pretty horse and owner pictures. We would be shooting tighter with just ambient light creating an emotional connection between the vet's hands and the patient. All the people in these photos would have to be either vets or equine professional as these are very high energy animals. Having models around would create a safety issue for both model and horse.

The actual shoot went very well and in the end the vets we used could not have been a better fit. The female vet in this picture had no trouble conveying the sense of care we were after.

Post processing to B+W and then a high contrast treatment finished the look of the files. Creating a process recipe allowed complete control of the look for all of files in the library. The launch was very successful problem solved, clients happy.

 I love shooting pictures, and challenge of solving the problem at hand. In this case the problems were upfront and logistical. Solving them led to the good part the shooting part.

As It Is

Most of the waterslide shots I see are done with a long lens from a dry vantage point. Models go by, shoot a couple frames, reset, and repeat.

Long lenses have their place but for a shot like this I prefer a slight wide angle. I used a  35mm with the DSLR system because it is more in your face, gave me more background information, and allowed me to shoot in the tube all the way down the slide.

The problems? Maintaining the spacing, enough stability to frame things properly, and avoiding the inevitable run over at the bottom. 

Picking a slide that was middle of the road in terms of speed and turns allowed enough stability to shoot and tying two tubes together maintained spacing. Riding backwards, I propped the camera housing on my chest to enhance stability and rolled off the tube at the end to avoid getting creamed by the models.

The finished picture is pretty much as shot with the exception of retouching to remove the webbing used to tie the tubes. I left the legs in my version to enhance POV.

Love the big complicated stuff but there really is nothing like the rush of shooting something like this in the moment as it happens. 

Wet Work

The first time I saw this concept the layout was presented as a pencil sketch. Sketched layouts are great because they give you the essence of the image but leave plenty of room for evolution as the project moves forward.

I have an underwater housing for my DSLR system making it the logical choice. Cold temps and poor water clarity precluded doing this as a single capture so more than one piece was needed. 

The scuba diver had to be comfortable, and in the end he would stay under for almost two hours during the hookup portion of the picture. We shot the diver, underwater line, and fish in a nice warm pool.  

The lake bottom came from an early scouting trip and was the style basis for the image as it has nice light and drama. Often one image sets the tone for light and perspective. Other parts matched to it later as the picture evolves.

We shot the fisherman and his boat in another lake. Capturing everything above the water and the waterline itself in one element. Art Director and clients in a pontoon near my position, me in the water shooting, freezing, and loving it the whole time.

This kind of project requires lots of help and many resources. We had two divers, a fishing guide, assistants, stylist, AD, clients, in total a crew of eleven had a hand in this piece.

In addition to people, boats, and lakes there is an important safety component involved anytime you go underwater. Things happen, and people will often push themselves further then they should during a shoot like this because of the novelty of it all. The second diver was a safety diver and had final say over the duration of the hookup portion.

It is great fun producing a picture like this. As always the final outcome needs to meet my standards and in this case a cool project well executed made all of us happy. 

Authenticity

 When I say Cowboy everyone gets a picture in their head. Fancy boots, shiny buckles, a hat, maybe a mustache, all of these are real symbols but are they authentic.

I am no cowboy, but I do have a mustache, and a trip to the boot store can get me the rest.

What I would lack though is the layers of authenticity found on these boots. One glance and I can see that this Cowboy sits a horse every day in all kinds of weather. That the freedom of working in the open lends confidence and a bit of attitude to the owner. Why else would you prop your boot on the buckle of your spurs when you lean against a wall at the end of the day.

I shot this picture while we talked because it captured the tough as nails, honest character of this Cowboy. What the picture doesn't show is his sense of humor, friendliness, and willingness to accept and help.

You can buy a style or a look but authenticity comes from doing the work and living the life.