NYCC: Lesson 2

Embrace RAW.

I've shot RAW since day 2 of my photographic journey. Originally this was done solely on the reading of a website that claimed "you should only shoot in RAW". At the time, I had no idea why. I was too bogged down with learning the camera inside and out to bother with post-processing.

Less than a year after I was fully engrossed with tweaking my pictures to ensure they look and feel as I had originally seen them or intended them to feel.

But at certain times I'm reminded of exactly why RAW rules.

While I was rushing to a press event, I happened across this little R2 unit. He was buzzing and whirring in circles briefly while I pushed through to the front of the crowd and in an instant, he was off!

Camera always in hand, I was able to make a few photos before he completely disappeared. however, upon checking the photos on the LCD, I was dismayed at my inability to set the exposure quickly enough. I had dialed-down the flash prior to making this photo, for something else, and had not powered it back up before this picture.

Luckily, shooting in RAW I was able to make a few key modifications. First, I changed the white balance. Although the strobe did indeed fire, and the white balance was set to flash - I was rather unhappy with the apparent amount of ambient tungsten light that made its way into this image. Even at 1/100th, the yellow hue from the lights was blasting the dome of this astromech unit.

Once I cooled the photo down a bit, I was then concerned with the exposure. I used both the overall exposure setting, as well as fill light slider in Lightroom to get the initial exposure where I wanted it. After that, I modified the dark, light, highlight and shadow curves to get it just right. Finally, I popped the blue tones a bit more to bring out the detailed color of the droid.

In hindsight, I really should have avoided the direction flash, as the front panel of the droid is over-exposed. Additionally, I should have held the camera up a bit more and shot downward to avoid the distracting feet in the background. Otherwise, I was ecstatic with the ability to turn this dull shot into something tolerable to look at.

NYCC: Lesson 1

Group Shots Require Finesse.

After the Good Vibes panel (a new show coming on after Beavis & Butt Head), the cast & creators got together on stage for the many, many photographers. As I was in the second row, isle - I was able to get right up front for this one.

Putting the camera up to my eye I made a few photos. I checked after the first one to ensure proper exposure. As I was surrounded by photographers pushing and shoving for a better spot, I had to be quick.

1/100th @ f/4.0

It wasn't until I returned home for my post-processing work that I realized:

When a group is being photographed by an even larger collection of photographers... noone will be looking the same direction.

While there were press hours shortly after this panel (which I missed due to a memory card malfunction), I was led to understand that not everyone from this group attended.

Perhaps some sort of attention-getting-gimmick for the next panel-shot I take. This way each person's eyes will be looking at my camera instead of all over the place!

My One And Only...

... "published" photograph.

Last year I was contacted by a company that wanted to use one of my photographs on their website. It's a travel guide, of sorts - dedicated to following the "buzz" around certain areas.

I was reminded of this a few moments ago when a follow-up email was sent to me from the company, indicating that they had recently revamped their website, and wanted to know if I had any feedback for them.

It was nice to see a little something I've done used online. Hardly a good photograph, and certainly not of any interest other than a visual representation of the location. But enjoyable for me, nonetheless.

Schmap Website - Photo By Jason Newman

Comic Con Meltdown!

Well, almost.

Sorry to say that I only have 3 memory cards. a 16GB, an 8GB and a 2GB. Needless to say, I only ever really use the 16GB.

I brought all 3 just in case I needed some more room. And at one point, the conversation came up to use my camera to record some video for my cousin's show Video Masters TV. I decided I could easily use the 2GB to do this for him, as the quality on my camera would certainly be better than that of his older 720p video cameras.

I swapped the 16 and the 2 for a few seconds, before the case of a new MTV show was ready for a group photo. I decided to swap back into my 16gig'er.

And when I went to focus/shoot - I got an error indicating the card was "not formatted".

There was panic. Having just made about 100 photos at a panel. And the day had *just started*.

Knowing I could recover the files, so long as I didn't do anything else with the card for the rest of the day - thoughts swarmed through my head about what to do.

But, in the end - all I could do was shoot with the 8 and the 2 gig cards. I had to sit on the 16 or risk loosing everything.

Sure enough as soon as I got home, I loaded up some data recovery software and was able to merely copy the files off the fallen memory card onto my desktop and all was well. Performed a follow-up bad sector check and full format on the 16 card to ensure this doesn't happen again.

Pics soon!

NYCC

Heading into the New York Comic Con tomorrow. Thanks to my awesome cousin, and creator of Video Masters TV, we have press passes! I'm rather excited about that, as I've never had a press pass to.... anywhere. As there will be lots of cosplayers & celebrities that will be there, I'm hoping to make a few good photos.

This will be a step forward into documentary/photojournalism, I feel. My goal here is to really capture the "essence" of the convention - and not just take a few snapshots. It's good to plan things out, but making it happen is something totally different.

I've got both of my camera batteries charged up, and both sets of AA rechargeables charged up as well, for my strobe. I'm bringing the actual chargers for everything, just in case. Finally, I'm also going to be packing an external hard drive w/ cable & my CF card reader - just in case I max out the 16GB & 8GB CF cards. I hope to not, but just in case.

I should have some pics up Sunday, if I'm able to get some editing done the night before!

Tell Me A Funny Joke

“A group of artists are invited for dinner by a famous chef.
In greeting the photographer, the chef comments:
I love your photos, they’re wonderful, you must have a very expensive camera. 
The photographer doesn’t reply and walks into the dining room.


After dinner the photographer approaches the chef and says:
Dinner was sensational, very exquisite flavors, a true work of art,
you must have a very sophisticated stove.”

#PHONAR

A few months back I added my name to a list of attendees to an online, open photography course being offered. The class, from Coverntry University in the UK, is being taught by Jonathon Worth, and also published online throughout the semester.

This sounded like a great opportunity for me to really get involved with something that has deadlines, and due-dates for submissions. While they aren't able to give each submission feedback, or grades/credit - per se, the takeaway here is that I'm able to follow the course curriculum and interact with other students through the forum.

The first assignment was to pick 8 - 10 of your favorite photographs that inspire you. Keeping them to a theme, and laying them out as you would in a presentation, or magazine layout. I found the idea very interesting - keeping a "flow" to the images, and relating them to each other.

I chose images of abandoned and decrepit items, left as garbage. These are images I've seen previously and have enjoyed looking at. I made a best effort to locate the original sources & artists, as most of these images I found while surfing the web.


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4082/4764009918_9149e828f9_o.jpg
http://www.lucisfoto.com/lucisfoto/blog/Entradas/2011/5/17_1x.com_BIS.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bolandrotor/5657236729/in/pool-333349@N20/
http://500px.com/photo/200557
http://photographers.livejournal.com/15444898.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/the_defiance/2955181855/
http://www.myconfinedspace.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/aged-keys.jpg
http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/caribbean-photos/#/caribbean-gallant-lady_2899_600x450.jpg

I didn't feel comfortable taking artwork from other people and using them in my own "layout", as if I was building a spread in a magazine. So instead, I just provided the forum with links for everyone to see the artwork that inspired me from a particular topic.