PixelatedImage Blog

As many of you know I’m in the final stages of writing my book, Within The Frame, The Journey of Photographic Vision. One of things we’re planning on is a downloadable bonus chapter that deals specifically with issues, tips, tricks related to the traveling photographer. So, here’s where you can be helpful to me, if you’re willing.

1. What kind of information would you like to see in this chapter? What would be most helpful to you? What’s your big unanswered question specific to traveling as a photographer.

2. What’s your best tip for other traveling photographers? It could be related to gear, safety, flying, health – anything. As long as it’s about traveling as a photographer.

I’ll put a couple copies of my book on the line. Leave your responses in the comments and in a month I’ll randomly pick 2 names to receive a signed copy of the book. Remember this is for traveling photographers, not travel photography. Emphasis on the traveling, not the photographering.

Thanks in advance, I appreciate it.

Every photographer runs dry, stops shooting stuff that inspires, goes to the well looking for something only to come up with an empty bucket.

A couple years back I had a friend introduce me to the concept of a Cheat Book and it’s been really helpful to me.

A Cheat Book, whether it’s an actual book or not, is a collection of inspiring photographs, concepts, and miscellanea that you can go back to when that well is dry. It’s the case of bottled water you kept under the sink just in case the world really did fall apart in the aftermath of Y2K (Y2K – remember that? Sigh. It had so much potential…). Only in this analogy Y2K comes frequently and you can count on it, so you keep the water fresh, and stocked, and you always add to it.

Your cheat book could be a large notebook with torn pages from magazines, it could be sketches in your Moleskine, it could be a folder of internet bookmarks or even screen captures of images that make you go “Hmmm.” Whatever it is it’s the intentional hoarding of inspiration inventory and it’s gold, baby.

What I’m suggesting here is not a pile of stuff you save so you can copy/imitate later, just a pile of stuff that gets the brain going, makes you ask the “What if…?” questions, and pours a little water on your parched creativity.

Anyone out there do this, find it helpful?

Speaking of being dry, feeling parched, if you haven’t already seen Zack Arias’ short video TRANSFORM, you should check it out HERE on Zack’s blog.

It’s been a long week for me – flying back from Bangladesh, a marathon 40-hour post-production extravaganza (not a continuous 40 hours!) and finally finishing my book. Now the fun begins as we edit it, polish it, and send it to layout. Getting this project off my drives and into the hands of my book team is one of the most gratifying things I done in a long time. Holding the book in my hand will be even better. So, have a great weekend. I’m taking a breather.

3 am. I thought I had escaped the jetlag this time. I couldn’t have been more wronger.

So I used a different rig this time; while shooting in Bangladesh I left my Think Tank Steroid Belt, Digital Holsters, and Pixel Racing Harness in my room and took (1) my Think Tank Streetwalker Hardrive backpack and (2) my Think Tank Belly Dancer with Skins.

The Hardrive fits like a glove into my larger Stormcase – in fact two would fit side by side in there so perfectly you’d think it was made just for them. The Harddrive was packed with my location lighting kit – a bunch of Pocket Wizards, a couple strobes, some gels, David Honl lighting accesories, etc. – and miscellaneous bits like my Pogo printer. That bag came with me on the field daily with an extra 5D body in it and my laptop inside.

The Belly Dancer was rigged with a Double Wide Skin in the front and a Chimp Cage Skin on both the left and the right. The Double carried my 70-200/2.8L, my 85/1.2L, and my 17-40/4.0L, and the other two contained a mix of passports, granola bars, money, cell phone, Pogo printer, Hoodman Screen Loupe (which I really no longer use now that the screen on the 5D Mk2 is so bright. I swear you could burn your retinas out with that thing.) and other goodies like bandanas and lens cloths.

So. The Harddrive. I love it. Very comfortable, holds a boat-load of gear, and like all Think Tank stuff it’s really bomb-proof so I felt fine letting an assistant or helpful by-stander carry it for me – which they do in places like Bangladesh. I swear you have to fight them off with bare-hands or a big stick if you don’t want them to carry your stuff.  For this kind of gig this was a much more comfortable back to haul around than the Airport Addicted or Airport Security (The Airport Security and the Urban Disguise 60 were my carry on bags – jeez, I have alot of bags. I think I have an addiction…)

The Belly Dancer rig was great and for shoots where I only use one body, I see this replacing my other belt/harness/holster rig. It was easy to get into and out of once I learned the trick, which is important because with as much heavy glass in it as I had, it had to come off. And I spend alot of time lying on my belly so it ended up hung from trees and lying on the ground beside me.

If I could change two things about the Belly Dancer rig I have now it would be this:

First, the flap on the Double Wide opens the wrong way. I have no idea how it could open any other way, but as it is now the flap doesn’t stay open when I am changing lenses and that frustrates me when I’m tired and all I want to do is change my lens quickly and get the stinkin’ shot. Like I said, no idea how I would change this, but I’d try.

Second, the velcro that attaches the Skin pouch itself to the belt – I’d add small Fastex-type buckles. When I squat the velcro has a tendency to unhook and you only have to hear your lens bag with $5000 worth of glass in it hit the ground once before you want to prevent it from ever, ever happening again. So I clipped it on with a couple small carabiners and while I the velcro came undone a few more times it never fell of again. An easy fix, and not a big deal, I’m just saying look out for it if you pack these things to bustin’.

I loved having my gear right up front and accessible, that’s the weak spot with my other rig. It’s also much easier now to get in and out of a vehicle without having to take the whole thing off. I usually took it off anyways, but I didn’t have to if it was just a quick change of location. Having this kind of system works brilliantly if you need to use a motorcycle to get around too.

Anyways, a bit of a bag geek-out session and I know not all of you get yer crank turned by this, but when you’re out in the field working long days all you really want is for your gear not to get in the way and make things any harder than they have to be.  The Think Tank stuff just does that for me.

The photo is me walking through the rice paddies to a location. Belly Dancer, Skins, Streetwalker Harddrive. Photo credit goes to my producer Gary who makes sure I come back (1) alive, (2) with the shots, and (3) with images to prove I was there.

I just got an email from Scott Kelby giving me the advance scoop on a new project of his, and it launches NOW. Rather than try to explain it and totally screw it up, here’s the announcement straight from Scott:

New Weekly Nikon DSLR Tips Show Launches Today

Big News: I’m proud to announce that we’ve partnered with Nikon to bring you a new weekly show for Nikon DSLR shooters called “Nikon D-Town” (The name will make sense after you watch the show’s intro).

The show, co-hosted with my good friend and Nikon shooter Matt Kloskowski, airs online each Thursday, and you can watch the premiere episode right HERE. Each episode is full of tips and techniques to help you get the most of your Nikon gear. Take a look at the show and you’ll get the idea.

The link to the show’s site is right HERE (You can watch the show there each week—right in your Web browser, and it’s there so we can hear from our viewers, and get your ideas and suggestions for upcoming shows). Anyway, we hope you enjoy our first weekly episode.

Most of you know I’m a Canon shooter, but I also know many of you are Nikon shooters and this’ll benefit you. Scott, aside from being one of the nicest guys I know, is one of the best educators I know and if you’re looking to get a weekly dose of Nikon tips and tricks, this one’s a no-brainer. I’d like to think Canon would be open to something like this but who’s kidding who?

Head over to Nikon D-Town and check out the premier episode.

Well, this month’s giveaway got more lovin’ than any of the previous ones to date. As promised, I pulled up a random number generator, entered the number of entries and left the forces of chaos to do their thing. In the end it was Robert from MorningGlass.org who comes away with a brand new LensBaby Composer. Robert, send me an email and I’ll get you connected with the fine folks at Lensbaby and they’ll set you up with a Composer with the right mount.

Thanks to all who played along. If you haven’t done so, jump into the comments and take a look at the lessons learned – some good stuff in there and encouraging to see how much of it relates to vision and not to “I learned that I need more gear.”

As for the March Giveaway – I’m pulling out the stops and doing two. But I’ll do a seperate post for those.

Joe McNally has been slaving away on his recent book. It’s now done and only weeks away from being released. I share the same publisher as luminaries like Joe, Vincent Versace, and Scott Kelby. How I got past the selection committee for this club I have no idea, but if I keep my head down and not make too much noise I’m hoping they’ll never discover the error of their ways. I digress. Joe’s book is coming and the fine folks at Peachpit Press are giving away three copies of The Hotshoe Diaries, Big Light From Small Flashes.

All you have to do to get in on the action is leave a comment with your name, your email in the email field, and give me your word that you’ll download the PDF  sample material of the book (you can do that by clicking HERE, which will download the PDF). Joe knows his stuff and whether you use off-camera strobes  a lot or only a little, you will learn much about the quality of light that will only benefit you, even if you’re one of those natural-light-only purist types.

Following 2 months after the release of The Hotshoe Diaries will be Within The Frame, a book that has the dubious distinctions of both being abbreviated as WTF, and being written by me. So when WTF comes out, we’ll do another giveaway. Or maybe I’ll lean on Joe and let him do the honours on his blog

Ok, free Joe books. Who’s in?

As always, this is a randomn draw. I’ll pick 3 names on or near the official release of the book, email you for your address, and ship these when they arrive here from the publishers.

How many of you use tablets with Photoshop or Lightroom? It took me a while to get used to mine a few years ago but now it’s so much a part of what I do I can’t imagine going back to the clunky old mouse. Anyhow – I’d love to know who uses one, and – here’s what I am really getting at – what do you do with your ExpressKeys? I finally switched from my beloved Graphire to a real, grown-up Intuos. I just know there’s some cool things I could do with these customizable strips, but it’s just so much easier to have people give me ideas. My brain hurts right now. Thoughts? Have you got a set-up you just can’t live without? Let us know, spread the love!

A quick note to say hi, let you know I am back from Bangladesh and starting this morning will be knee-deep in post-production for the client. So here I am. Long trip, and I came close to losing my mind completely about a third of the way from Seoul to Vancouver when I woke from a brief nap thinking, Man I sure did sleep a long time, we must be almost there by now. Only to be faced with a monitor that said TIME REMAINING: 7:30.

I took my 5D Mk II to the field with me and coming back to sift through 3000 really big files is a little daunting, especially as I only have 3 days in which to do it. BUT, the client will benefit from larger, deeper files with lower noise, so I just have to work smarter. Anyways, I’m getting to the point and here it is: I love my Mk2 more now than the day I married brought it home. Not that we need reasons when true love is on the line, but here’s a few that really struck me. Shooting 3000+ frames in 5 days makes a few things jump out at you.

Live View. Honestly, I thought I’d never use it, but I used it often to help with framing low shots and showing my producer what I was framing and where I wanted things. Super helpful.

Auto ISO. Another feature that I didn’t buy the Mk2 for. Heck, I didn’t even know it had it until I brought it home and Matt Brandon mentioned it. I used this a lot. Not all the time, but frequently enough to become comfortable with it. My main issue was not knowing where the camera would make the compromises – would it give me unnecessarily high ISOs just to maintain unnecessarily high shutter speeds? In the end it was about right all the time.

LP-E6 Batteries. These last much longer than the old BP-511A batts. More than that, the ability to look at exactly how much power remains in each battery is excellent. I love it.

Custom Settings. Again, not something I thought I’d use, but having a couple extra settings that are available at the turn of a dial is nice.

Custom Menu. I liked the old menu on the 5D – the Mk2 puts all the stuff I use in several different places making it all a little more fiddly. So being able to put the stuff I use most – like Quality, LCD Brightness, Format – all in one place is a time saver.

Weather and Dust Seals + Sensor Cleaning. I worked with one body on this trip when I normally work with two. So there was alot of lens changes in the dust. With the exception of one particle, the sensor’s still clean. That’s pretty cool.

Image Quality. What can I say, these are wonderful image files. I love them. They’re big and they slowed my workflow at day’s end but I started bringing the MacBook with me to the field and downloading the morning images at lunch and the afternoon images on the drive back to the hotel. My MacBook’s maxed out for RAM and the new MacBooks won’t take Firewire (what the heck where they thinking?!), so it looks like I am reluctantly moving back to a 15″ MacBook Pro and I have all kinds of things to say about that. But it’s not the fault of the Mk2.

Anyways, tomorrow I will do the draw for the Lensbaby Composer, and the next day I’ll probably announce the March giveaway. I say probably to hedge my bets in case the Jetlag fogs my brain and I forget. If you haven’t got in on the Lensbaby Composer Giveaway, now’s the last chance. If you haven’t seen Gavin Gough’s review of the Composer it’s well worth the peek – extremely interesting and so thorough it either points to a seriously anal retentive personality or that Gavin’s got way more time on his hands out there in Thailand. Either way, pretty cool. Well done, Gavin.

I have about 24 hours left in Bangladesh, then begin the long journey home via Singapore and Seoul.

This week in Bangladesh has been a surprise; I enjoyed this place and its people more than I could have predicted. Being on assignment doesn’t give me the freedom to do any of my own shooting, we work long days and each moment not shooting is spent driving from location to location. So it should come as no surprise to you that I got no images of my own, just this one en route to an early morning location. But all the same, let me tell you why Bangladesh has just moved to the top spot on my “I want to come back here and photograph this place” list.

We drove north, almost to the Indian border, and once outside of Dhakka – of which  I saw very little and liked even less – the countryside becomes a spectacular sprawl of endless rice patties of impossible green, dotted here and there with thatch irrigation pump houses, and criss-crossed with footpaths. Bangladesh is primarily a Muslim nation and the women walk covered in bright flowing fabrics, accompanied by playful children and old men in skullcaps and beards to envy. Each little town felt like a frontier town – chaotic, dusty, and so full of potential photographs it made my heart ache to drive on by – and as we drove further and further from Dhakka this only increased. Everywhere I looked there was something visually arresting and I’d wager a bet that per sq. kilometer the areas of Bangladesh that I visited had more to pull my eye than any place I’ve ever visited.

We stayed in Sherpur, in a hotel so unremarkable I couldn’t tell you its name. By way of amenities my room had a tap for cold water and a toilet. And a mosquito net of dubious effect. The mattress was so hard I contemplated lying on the concrete instead. But waking in the morning to the call to prayer from the mosque next door and beginning the day with fresh-off-the-grill roti, pratha, and chai as the sun came up, made it all worth it.

It’s cheap here. Two of us had an incredible meal and two sodas for a combined bill of $2. If economy alone determines where you go to shoot, Bangladesh is the cheapest I’ve seen.

Our days were spent among the most gracious people. So kind and patient. Gary, my producer, and I, have spent time among people from many different cultures and hands down the Bangladeshis were among the most hospitable and patient. Their driving skills leave something to be desired, but if (and it’s a big IF here – I’ve never felt my mortality so keenly) you survive the roads, the food they’ll serve you is fantastic.

Lastly, and this is the reason I’m hesitant to even publish this post, once out of Dhakka, we didn’t see a tourist, or another white face for that matter, for 5 days. I’d hate to see that change. There were no postcard shops, no trinkets and knick knacks, no “you want to buy________?” It was life, actual and unadulterated by tourism and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that. Bangladesh is not for everyone for that very reason. It would be a challenging place for many to travel in. Not many hotels, very litte (if any) english signage, and none of the usual infrastructure that props up the tourist. You would live by your wits here, and be forced to interact with the people. You’d have no choice but to learn the language; on my second night I ordered mutton in a restaurant by making noises like a sheep until someone figured it out. I think those things just make Bangladesh more appealing to travel, not less, but not everyone wants squat toilets and forced dependence on the good-will of strangers.

I’m keen to leave Dhakka, but if I could stay, jump on a motorcycle, and spend two week visting the villages, I’d be thrilled. As it is, I’m heading home, to Vancouver, and can’t wait to get back to see Sharon, visit my chiropractor, eat some sushi, and put the finishing touches on my book. I’ll be blogging reliably again from the 24th. See you then. As for photographs, once the clients have seen them it’ll be your turn. I’ll let you know.

The more image reviews I do the more I come back to a paradigm that’s been hatching in my brain. On the off chance it’s helpful to others (or even comprehensible) I’m going to try explaining it here. I’m probably just re-packaging what others before me have taught, but then aren’t we all? This is just the way I look at things. Ok, here goes.

The Premise, Briefly.
Any given image succeeds or fails based on it having a ratio of IMPACT to INFORMATION, and that ratio adding up to 100%.

The Paradigm, Less Briefly.
Impact comes through the emotion created or displayed in the image, the power of color depth, or other content that stirs a strong reaction. Information comes through content that supplies visual clues to what is going on in the image itself. Some images have a great deal of emotion in them, but not many clues as to what’s going on. If there’s enough impact it offsets the lack of information, but as long as the two remain balanced – say an 80:20 ratio then the image is likely to work.

If we reverse the ratio with an image that’s 20% impact and 80% information, that image probably works too. (As long as that’s the intention of the photographer. If she was going for high information:low impact then clearly she’s failed.)

What does not work is an image where the ratio doesn’t add to 100%. An image with low impact (20%) and low information (20%) probably fails. That’s what I mean by balance – he equation comes to 100%.

What about technical merit? Exposure? Composition? Don’t they factor in?
Of course they do. They’re all connected. Poorly exposed images will lose impact and upset the balance, as will poorly composed images. But this isn’t a science, and an image that is high impact for me might not be so for you. I’m not trying here to make it into a mathematical formula rather to put some handles on something that’s highly subjective and often hard to put into words. But this paradigm, looking at the Impact:Information ratio, gives me words to express why I think an image is or is not working.

So What?
More than helping me express thoughts about particular images, this paradigm also helps me sort out the purpose of an image before it’s shot, and in so doing helps determine the way that potential image should be created. A High Impact: Low Information shot will be created for different purposes and in different ways, than a Low Impact:High Information photograph. How so? High Impact will appeal to the emotions, make use of colour psychology, creative lens techniques and framing to create an image that is more emotive. High Information images will appeal more to the intelect, and might use greater depth of field, more static composition, or a wider optic to increase the field of view. These are just possible solutions, each image will have its own purpose and needs, will require it’s own balance between Image and Information, and its own means of achieving that.

Comments are open, feel free to discuss. I’m in Bangladesh, but will check in if/when I can. Remember, Math and I are generally not on speaking terms so if I’ve created a metaphor using math-geek language that just doesn’t work for you, feel free to help me out. I’m not set on being right here, just in creating or expressing some thoughts that make it a little easier to get a handle on our craft.