PixelatedImage Blog

You wanna know how to tell your true friends? When the guy (who shall remain anonymous, but whose initials are Kevin Clark) was on the waiting list for the 5D Mk II, and his came in (and yours didn’t)  but he calls you and says, I’ll switch places in line with you so you can get the camera first. That’s how you know your true friends. Of course if he were to call me right now I’d probably just let it go to voice mail because I’m playing with my new 5D MkII and I know he’d understand. Like I said, I’m not going to say who it was, I don’t kiss and tell, but what a swell guy.

Speaking of swell, the Canadian price went up on these things by $300 and my dealer of choice – Leo’s in Vancouver – threw in a free 8GB Extreme III Sandisk CF card as a way of saying, we know it sucks, there’s nothing we can do, but let us ease your pain a little. This is why I love them. That and they keep hooking me up with the goods and solving my problems when they arise. They are good folk down there.

Also, the 5D MkII – all I’ve done is play with it until the battery drained, but it’s a gorgeous camera and I’m already in love. But $200 for a battery? Seriously? Doesn’t cocaine cost less? I was going to sell my old 5D bodies so I could buy a second 5D MkII but now it looks like I’ll need to sell them just to buy batteries. Jeepers.

Update: In Canada, the list price for the LP-E6 battery is $209.99 at HENRY’S. Matt Brandon just alerted me to the US price – sure enough they’re $79.95USD at B&H. That’s only $96 CAD. C’mon Canon Canada, what the HECK!?

You pretty much know that when you see the word “miscellanea” in my post that I just didn’t get off my butt and write something better. Today is no different. Yesterday was full of planning meetings all day, so this is a hodge-podge of nuggets from around the web – stuff you may have seen already, but if not, now’s your chance. On the plus side, the meetings went well and soon I shall rule the world! (insert conspiratorial laughter)

Adobe released an update to Lightroom2, bringing us up to Lightroom 2.2. Chief updates include RAW engines for cameras like the when-will-the-damn-thing-ever-get-here Canon 5D Mk2, the Canon G10, and new Panasonic and Leica point and shoots.  Here’s the LINK

Speaking of Canon, the camera giant released a white paper on both the 50D and 5D Mk2. Here’s the link to the 77 page PDF. We’re still waiting for Canon to publicly respond to the “black dots” issue, by the way, but Ken Rockwell has already put in his ten cents worth HERE and it’s worth a read if you’re freaking out.

And if you’ve wanted a comparative perspective on the Canon 5D Mk2 vs. the Sony A900 vs. the Nikon D700, The Online Photographer has a solid look at them HERE. For the record, the Sony A900 takes the prize of sexiest dSLR in my book.

The Travel Photographer of the Year competition has wrapped and announced fellow Canadian Darwin Wigett the grand prize winner. See the winners gallery HERE. Our own Gavin Gough got an honorable mention. Already I feel left out for not entering this year, like there was a party, and I was invited, but I stayed at home and washed my hair. If, ahem, I had hair.

While we’re on the contest theme HERE’s a look at the National Geographic Traveler contest winners.

The ThinkTank Pro StreetWalker giveaway is still open – details HERE. I haven’t set a date for the draw because it’s hinging on my receipt of my own bag, so I can write a reaction on it and announce the winner at the same time. Holiday shipping being what it is, it’s running a little late. Should be here any day now…In 2009 I’m hoping to do the giveaways monthly and have a couple already in the wings that I just know you’re going to love.

Looks like there’s only 3 spots left in the Lumen Dei Thailand Tour. If you haven’t read the full itinerary, you should – I’m already so excited about it I can’t sleep.

Finally, Joe McNally chimes in on the discussions going on all over the place about the state of things for photographers and I think his perspective is bang on. The post is called The Best Assignments Are Free and the link is HERE.

As I continue to develop the concept of Vision Driven Workflow (VDW) – it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the ability to describe the desired mood of a photograph is key to being able to create or refine that mood in processing. I think developing/refining mood is one of those things that post-production is very good at. Getting it right in-camera is still critical, but the way you develop an image in the digital darkroom can also make or break the mood.

Here’s what I do. I wish it were more complicated, but it’s not. I ask myself to describe the desired mood in one word. Examples: Soft. Intimate. Creepy. Ancient. Earthy. Mechanical. Luminous. In the image below I chose Luminous. It was not just a random choice, it was my reaction to the scene as I shot it. The undeveloped RAW file doesn’t reveal this but it was the light in the scene that captured my eye – gorgeous light, and as it bounced of this Nepali gentleman’s book and into his face, I knew luminosity was important to this scene. It was the mood I wanted. (Below, the before and after view in Develop module, Keyboard shortcut – Y)

So. Armed not with the question “how can I make this image suck less?” but with the question “how can I return the luminosity to this image?” I began my development. This, in essence, is VDW – following an informed process that is led by your vision for the finished image. Knowing what I am aiming for allows me to better chose my tools and processes.

In this case I had a couple things I needed to do.

1. I needed to make my whites white and my blacks black. I do this first, usually with the Exposure slider and the black slider. In this case I also needed to pull in some burned out highlights, so I bumped the Exposure slider up but I also cranked the Recovery slider until the highlights I was losing were limited to spectral highlights and there’s no detail in those anyways.

2. I bumped the Fill slider up to bring some light into the shadows. Bumping the Brightness slider also does this – pulling the midtones up and effectively making a more luminous image.

3. Contrast was low, I wanted it higher, so I used a Strong Contrast preset in the Tone Curve and bumped overall contrast to +50 with the Contrast slider

4. I bumped the Clarity slider up, because he’s an old guy and Clarity does cool things to texutres like wrinkles and stubble. And by “cool things” I mean it accentuates, draws the eye in to it.

5. Finally, I pulled the Lens Correction – Amount and Midpoint sliders left in darken the corners and pull the eye in even more.

This was not done as guess work but knowing exactly what I wanted the image to feel like, and that determined what I wanted it to LOOK like, and in turn determined which processes I put the image through.

Next time you open Lightroom or Aperture to process an image, don’t touch a thing. Instead take out a piece of paper and write one word on it – the mood or feel that you want to imbue the image with. You should know this already because you should have been thinking it or feeling it when you captured the image. Now you’re just revisiting that, focusing yourself before you start playing with the unlimited tools before you. Resist the urge, at least for this exercise, to mess with them all until it “looks better.” For now just ask three questions:

What do I want this image to feel like? Write it down. Then ask the next two questions.

How does that translate to the aesthetics of the image?

Which tools will get me there with the least amount of pixel-pushing?

Now go to it. You’ve given yourself a destination and a rough road map – both of which get muddled if you start messing with sliders before you know where you’re going. There’s value in just playing and seeing what sliders do what, don’t get me wrong. In fact doing that allows you to better answer the third question above – but it’s still just playing and learning the tools. When you have somewhere particular to go, playing with the tools is less helpful than wielding them well.

Well, it’s that time again. In just over two weeks the calendar rolls and it’s 2009. I know, it’s just another day, but for many freelancers it’s the beginning of a new fiscal year, and a new marketing year. And that means it’s time – if you haven’t done it already – for some planning.

This is a short post, no more than a reminder really. I’m about to sit down and make some notes for a planning meeting I am having on Wednesday. The starting point for those notes is the following questions:

1. What are my goals for 2009? What do I want my finances to look like? What kind of work do I want to do and for whom?

2. Given my goals what steps do I need to take to get there?

• What does my budget need to look like and how can I make sure it happens?
• What does my marketing calendar need to look like and what can I do on a weekly basis to get there?
• What do I want my portfolio to look like by the beginning of 2010? What shoots do I need to make happen in 2009 to make that a reality?
• What initiatives will I make professionally to stay ahead of the game? How will I keep the edge on my craft?

3. What can I do now to smooth the path I want to take for the coming year? Are there contacts I need to make, meetings I need to have, workshops I need to sign up for?

Intentionally sitting down and plotting your course gives you a far better chance of getting where you want to go, and while the odd serendipitious wind may blow you off course and into some wonderful accidental destination, it’s best that you have a say in the matter rather than allow yourself to be blown all over the map, at the mercy of the winds, next year.

Many of my readers don’t do this for a living. Some like it that way, others are working on changing that, but even those for whom this is an avocation – why not sit down with a cup of coffee some evening and plot your course for 2009? Put the big rocks in first, as they say. Take a workshop, plan for the purchase of a new lens, decide to read one new book a month in order to grow in your craft – for some of you just taking the leap and getting your files organized and backed-up would be a huge step. Whatever it is, consider becoming more proactive with your craft. Doing some advance planning, setting some goals and attaching them to some definable steps, means you’ve got a better chance of these things actually happening.

Two weeks ago Matt Brandon and I announced a second 2009 Lumen Dei tour, this time to Thailand with Gavin Gough making the third instructor. We were intentionally mysterious with details and still filled half the tour, so now we’re tipping our hats on the details a little more.

Our workshop group will convene in Bangkok where we’ll spend a a couple of days exploring the city. Bangkok is a great location for street photography and we will be setting out for the local markets as well as exploring some of the city’s shimmering temples and shrines. Just looking at the itinerary for the first few days reveals that the group will be exploring by bus, train, subway, river taxi, long-tail boat, tuk-tuk and on foot. Such is the diversity on offer.

From Bangkok, we will travel to ancient Ayutthaya. Bangkok’s former capital is now a UNESCO World Heritage site and is home to the remains of dozens of monumental temples. Ayutthaya is highly evocative and wandering around the ruined, sacred places is always mesmerising. It would be easy to spend several days exploring Ayutthaya but the lure of more remote locations will see the group taking an overnight train to northern Thailand and the country’s most northerly province. And yes, we travel First Class on the train, sharing lockable, twin-berth compartments. If you’re very lucky a steward will come from the restaurant car to take your food and drinks order, which is then delivered to your compartment. Better still, we’ll approach Chiang Mai in the morning as the sun rises and the view from the window will hint at adventures to come.

In conversation with tourists, Thai people often ask “Have you been to Chiang Mai yet?”. Perhaps it’s the 300 temples, perhaps it’s the surrounding mountains, the local handicrafts, the enticing cuisine or the sense of tranquility that pervades the town. Chiang Mai is gorgeous, that’s for sure, and the group will embark on several photo expeditions from here before setting out to the northern reaches of Thailand towards the Burmese border and Chiang Rai.

Days in Chiang Rai will be spent honing our photographic skills and we’ll be concentrating hard on making the very best of the opportunities on offer. Nights in Chiang Rai will be spend in traditional teak wood accommodation. Simple but attractive. We will eventually leave the town behind as we extend our search for great images and head out into the countryside, staying in traditional bamboo and straw bungalows with the possibility of a home-stay in one of the local hill-tribe villages.

At this stage of the trip our priority will be for our presence to be culturally sensitive. We will link up with one of the local organisations that work with the hill-tribe populations and our aim here is to get memorable images whilst encouraging and aiding the community development projects which support the hill-tribe communities. As a result, our photographic endeavours will be informed by a greater understanding of the region and its inhabitants. We’ll be trying to avoid crashing in and crashing out again, you’ll already know that smash-and-grab photography is not what Matt, Gavin, or I are about.

Thailand’s Hill tribes, or Chao Khâo, originate from across China, Tibet, Burma and Laos. Their borders are defined by language and culture rather than geographical lines and they tend towards a subsistence existence. We will be in a region where the Lisu, Karen and Hmong make their home and will be spending time in villages, meeting with and photographing local people, where appropriate. Photographing in such locations is a privilege and we will approach it as such, probably dividing into small groups of two or three photographers with an accompanying leader.

When our time in northern Thailand comes to an end we will return to Bangkok for a final photographic splurge, to review our images and reflect on our experiences.

I can’t wait. Two very exciting tours this year. For more information visit the newly updated Lumen Dei site HERE or go directly to the Thailand Tour pages HERE.

Economics, shmeconomics. Not to be too glib about the world economic crisis, but plenty of other bloggers out there have already put a pretty fine point on the whole thing. Fact is, it’s gloomy out there and this crisis has hit many people pretty hard. So I’m in no way minimizing that painful reality. I’m just trying to see the sunny side of the dark cloud that is undeniably hanging over many, many people these days.

I have a good friend named Corwin. Aside from being my sometimes producer and sometimes client, we meet once a week for drinks and conversation about the state of things. We discuss marketing and finances related to our businesses, ideas for plans we’re hatching, and a couple times a year we put a weekend aside, go to a cool hotel and spend two days working through the big picture and strategizing for our businesses for the 6 months ahead. I highly recommend it. But that’s not the point at all – the point is we were talking last week and I asked him if he’d felt the ripples of this crisis. I haven’t. Not yet. He hasn’t either. That’s not to brag, neither of us have mortgages or the luxury (liability) of having our money in the stock market. We just haven’t felt it, and that may change.

But here’s where this is leading. We both feel like this is an unprecedented time for freelancers to get on their game. Those that are on their game, have tightened their belts, and respond to this crisis pro-actively rather than reactively will be way, way ahead when the dust settles. How can we do that? Here’s 5 thoughts. And remember, I’m a photographer, and like many of you I’m learning by trial and error. Mostly error. So take this for what it is – a friendly reminder and pep talk rolled into one.

Pay Attention To Your Clients’ Needs Like Never Before.
The world of commerce has not collapsed. There are businesses that need to run, and in some ways it’s business as usual. But the purse strings are tighter. Companies are still spending but they’re being more prudent than they were before. So the more value you can give to a client, the more you can meet their needs and solve their problems, the more business they will bring to you.

Tighten Your Own Belt
If your debt wasn’t a big deal before the crash, it probably is now. You will weather storms longer if your boat isn’t leaking fast, and that’s what debt is. It’s a hole in your boat and you’ll take in more water – water that will sink you-  faster than you can bail it out. Pay down those credit cards. Put 3 months of savings in the bank. Save for tax time. And be really smart about purchases. Here’s the rule: if it actively earns you more money it’s an asset. If it doesn’t, it’s a liability. Yeah, I know you’re jonesin’ for that new Nikon because if you don’t get it someone else will and then you won’t be as professional as them. Baloney. If your clients don’t need larger files and your current body is doing just fine, then put the money in savings, rent a big camera when you need it, and be happy that your company (or your family) just avoided an $8000 liability. Rent lights if you only use them once a month, and bill them to the client. The tighter your finances, the longer you’ll stay afloat. I’m scratching the surface here, but hopefully you get where I’m going with this.

Diversify. Multiple Income Streams are Better Than One.
If all you do is headshots for actors, and people suddenly stop needing – or being able to afford – headshots, what’s your fallback plan? I’m all about doing what you love, and I’m not suggesting you become a jack-of-all-trades. But is there a way you can make multiple income streams from that one specialty? Sure there is. You can teach other photographers, for one. Write a book, put out DVDs, lecture. What about taking the headshots to other markets – like the corporate world? The more sources of income you have the safer you’ll be if/when one temporarily dries up. The same is true of individual clients. Many photographers have a couple really solid clients that are their bread and butter. But what happens when, for example, staff changes occur at the corporation you shoot regularily for? There’s no guarantee the new guy will renew your account. If you’ve let your marketing slide, panic-time is not a good time to make solid marketing decisions and find new clients fast.

Be Awesome.
Chase Jarvis said this lately and put it so succinctly it’s hard to improve on. Never, ever, let your craft slide. If you’re not moving forward you’re moving backwards. You just need to be on the steady path to becoming the best photographer you can possibly be, creating the best work you can possibly create. In the end, though the market is aflood with mediocrity, excellence will always rise to the top – other factors being equal. So don’t rest on those laurels. Stay passionate about learning, stay humble, but be the awesomest at what you do.

Help Others.
The image at the top is a really tight crop of a larger image from Old Delhi this year that never really worked. I posted it here as an illustration and a reminder to myself that no matter how bad I think things might get, others have it worse. It’s all perspective. For most of us when things get “hard” it means cutting back on movies and dinners out. For most of the rest of the world “hard times” means nothing to eat and no place to sleep but the street. Just a matter of perspective and it should keep us all so grateful. Please don’t forget the poor this Christmas. I know you don’t come here for sermons and moralizing, but, well, my blog, my sermons. This financial crunch has hit soup kitchens and dowtown missions really hard. We reap what we sow in this life and I am not for a minute advocating giving so we get something in return, just stating that the world works better for all of us when we look out for each other, and give as freely as we get.  If you’re doing ok through this crunch, keep the love moving. If you’re not, there’s probably still someone worse-off than you, keep the love moving.

We’ll all get through this, but the smarter and kinder we are, the less painful it’ll all be. Any other thoughts about keeping your business lean and getting through this storm without taking a total bath, the comments are open.

One of the things I hear frequently in response to an image critique or review is this: “But I don’t think about those things when I shoot, I just shoot.” Sometimes we appeal to the intuition as a line of defense, as though to say, “I can’t help it, it’s not my fault, my intuition failed me!” I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve found myself thinking that way. But it is my fault, because whether my intuition is, or is not, well-trained, is up to me.

Some people shoot intuitively (the artists) and some people shoot much more analytically (the geeks). Most of us are a hybrid, a certain percentage of artist mixed with a certain percentage of geek. What is important is not to see these two contrasting sides of ourselves as competitive but complimentary.

In the case of the intuitive shooter, your geek side can be your greatest ally if you’ll just let it. Intuition is not some static way of perceiving or knowing things, it’s a sub-conscious skill that grows as conscious information becomes so ingrained and absorbed that it stops being conscious and begins operating sub-consciously. In other words, intuition can be trained.

The more you consciously work to be aware of why certain images work, how your equipment and settings choices affect the aesthetics of your images, and in general how to express yourself in visual ways, the more this stuff begins to seep under the surface and soon you find yourself setting apertures subconsciously when once it was an effort. Or you’ll start seeing the way your 17mm lens sees without bringing it to your face.

The problem is that most of us intuitive types are so heavily artsy-fartsy that the idea of intentionally training our intuition seems a little like sapping the fun from the whole thing. And that’s where it just becomes another element of craft, and hard work. But the promise that all this holds, and the reason most of us intuitive types work through the geek stuff so intentionally, is that once we get that stuff into our subconscious, it becomes not only fun again, but amazing.

When I was still doing comedy for a living there was a point when a new show was no fun. I’d be nervous, my effort would go 100% into remembering lines and not screwing up. And I’d do 30-50 shows like that, hating it, but getting a little more comfortable each time. And one day, after 100 shows I’d be standing up there having a blast and doing what I really loved, which was not reciting lines, but interacting with 1500 laughing people. And there were times I was so comfortable that the lines became subconscious. I could be in the middle of a show and while I was delivering lines and doing my thing I’d also be thinking, “man, is this ever fun.” or “hey, if I pause here I’ll get a better laugh out of this crowd” or even “I wonder what I’ll eat after the show. Speaking of eating, I wonder if I turned the oven off…” When the show became subconscious I could focus on being the best entertainer I could be – I could get past the lines and to the true heart of the art, which is timing and improvisation and connecting to an audience.

Same thing with photography. Learning something new takes time, but one day it dives beneath the surface and forms part of our bulk of intuitive knowledge, the stuff you do without thinking about it, and then the technology and the skills just fade into the background and you can concentrate on just making a great photograph.

I don’t want to imply that one day you’ll get to a point where it will all be intuitive – that only happens if you stop learning, stop trying new techniques and new technology, in which case you’re probably stagnating and that’s a whole other creativity-killing problem. No, you’ll always have new things to learn, new lines to put into the show, and it’ll take plain ol’ practice to internalize it, but as you do the wealth of intuition you can access as you shoot will grow, and you can just concentrate on chasing your vision and expressing it as clearly as possible.

In 2000, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Blink! and I think that there’s some solid stuff in there about the notion of, and value of, thinking intuitively. You can find it on Amazon.com HERE.

I’m not sure you’d ever know it from my own work but I spent hours as a teenager and young adult pouring over the Patagonia catalogues, admiring the photography and daydreaming. Months ago my friend Nick Hall emailed me asking me for some advice. I’m not sure if he took it or not but he landed a great gig and now those shots are in the can and they’re fantastic. They bring me back to those days when the arrival of the new Patagonia catalogue, and to a lesser degree the new Sierra Designs posters, would come, and I’d sink back into wilderness revelrie again, living out my backwoods dreams vicariously through good-looking models in gorgeous locales.

Nick’s just getting his feet wet, and already he’s got some really gorgeous work, and some solid clients, under his belt. Swing by his site and look at his growing portfolio HERE.

The PixelatedImage:Blog began a few years ago as I was making the transition from full-time comedian to full-time photographer. Photography was always my first love, it just took a while for me to feel like the time was right to make it a vocation. Over the years the blog became less a record of my transition and more a resource to other photographers and a place from which to preach my sermons.

Over the last six months the readership on this blog has grown exponentially. It’s been really exciting to see the community growing and I’m really grateful y’all have thrown in your lot with me. So I though for the new kids on the block I’d do a quick Welcome post and show you around.

If you’ll look to the top of the page you’ll see a variety of links. The Portfolio link takes you to a flash-based gallery of my work from around the world, both client-assigned work as well as personal.

The Articles link takes you to a library of articles I’ve written – 15 at present, from shooting in winter conditions, to starting out as a humanitarian photographer, there’s a wealth of information – much of which was originally written for Lexar.com. I encourage you to poke around in here. Next time you land on this page and there’s no new content – head to the Articles and pick something at random.

Prints & Books will take you to my ltd. edition book and prints, and in the coming months will also take you to my new book, due for release in May/June. Most of my work is available for purchase, and while it’s not cheap I take pride in making it look great.

Workshops & Mentoring outlines both my mentoring program and links to the international Lumen Dei Tours and Workshops I do with Matt Brandon.

The Resources page will link you to great gear, photographers, books, and other resources.

The Sponsors page is a list of my sponsors, to whom I am very grateful.They’re the ones responsible for ponying up the gear for the monthly giveaways.

The other significant part of this site is the Vision Collective, a forum for photographers of all ilks, whatever an ilk is, but specifically those interested in travel/world photography and humanitarian/ngo photography. We’re 160 members strong and gaining momentum – what sets us apart is the quality of people that participate – no trolls, no flaming, and no arguments about whether Nikon or Canon is best – just the love of chasing our vision with the tools we have. I, and the other moderators, invite you to visit, register, and participate.

What I love most about this blog is the sense of community that is rising up around it – I feel like my readers eventually become commenters and friends and that’s good for everyone. If you have suggestions for this blog or for content, topics you like to see covered, I’d love to hear from you. I’m keen to make this place valuable to you, and while I can’t accomodate every request, knowing what you want is the first step in making this place the best darn random photography blog out there.

Thanks for being part of this with me.

If you still haven’t signed up for the Think Tank Photo StreetWalker Giveaway, you still have a few days to do so, but get in on it, cause hey – FREE BAG!

I have been waiting for the green light to announce this for quite a while. Sometime in the last couple days Amazon.com listed my upcoming book for pre-order.

The book is called Within The Frame, A Journey In Photographic Vision. It’s a book about finding and expressing your vision photographically, specifically where people, places, and culture are concerned. It’s one part How-To, one part Why-To, and 100% PixelatedImage. If you like this blog, you’ll love the book. It’s being published under the Voices That Matter imprint, the same folks that brough you Joe McNally’s The Moment It Clicks, and Scott Kelby’s excellent books.

My hope for this book was to write something new, a book that hadn’t yet been written. I wanted it to be personal, inspirational, and full of real-world wisdom, the kind of book that might be truly important to photographers as they grow into their craft. As I re-read the drafts and plan to travel around the world in January to gather the photographs that will illustrate the book, I become increasingly excited about this project. It is decidedly not a book about travel photography, it’s a book about fitting your vision of people, places, and culture within the frame.

Closer to the time I’ll be doing a more official announcement, and no-doubt launching a give-away of some sort. The book is due for release in May/June and I’m pumped about it. I’ve read the thing and it’s really not bad.