This guy tells it like it is

In the last couple of days, I've been receiving a bunch of FB and twitter links about this article in the NY Times.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/business/media/30photogs.html?src=me&ref=general

It sheds light on the diminishing and brutal reality of our professions as photographers. And yes, it is painfully true.

Photography is a profession that constantly kicks your ass in many different ways. Not only do you have to be the most creative guy in the room...
...you have to be a savvy marketer
...be an incredible diplomat and politician
...understand tax codes
...constantly understand all of the latest social media tools
...know why it is better to process RAW files in a 16 bit, Pro Photo color space at 240 ppi vs 8 bit Adobe 1998 at 300 dpi...but that it might change if the final output is offset printing vs inkjet large format printing
...and you understand why having 32GB of memory is necessary to work efficiently with photos and now video
...and why it is absolutely mandatory that you have to have your multiple terabytes of data backed up in at least three different places that are preferably not in the same building or even the same city 
...and the list goes on and on and on.

Today, I came across a blog post by Jack Hollingsworth on Twitter.  He pretty much summed up the reality of being a photographer. The harshest part is that you have to ask yourself if you are really doing the one thing in life that you should be doing. If so, dive in, make the most out of it and get ready to get the shit kicked out of you. And then get ready for it to happen over and over again. And if after all that you still wake up and are convinced that its your calling, you are in the right place. You will succeed.

I'll let Jack tell it the way it is, because he did so much more eloquently than I could ever hope to.

Thanks Jack. Well spoken.

http://jack.bigfolioblog.com/weblog/post/144352

Ben Powell - musician shoot

Last week, I had the opportunity to photograph a very talented guitarist, Ben Powell. I wanted to add him to my collection of "Friends of mine that do stuff" series. He's a genuinely nice guy and plays really cool guitars, so he's perfect for the project! This project is a work-in-process that is starting to take shape. Basically, I'm forcing myself to create portraits with a black background and 1:2 aspect ratio. Why those parameters? I have no idea. But it does force me to be creative in the sense that I can't really use environment as a crutch to add visual appeal to my photos.

I set up the first shot with Ben to produce a photo for my project. Out here in California, I don't have a studio to work in so I offered to shoot the portrait at night in our backyard. The yard would give me space to set up a background and strobes and the night sky would provide wonderful controlled lighting. Ben suggested that we could also shoot in the garage at his house. He said his garage had a high ceiling so I agreed to shoot it there. When I arrived to set up, I found the garage to be a wee bit smaller than envisioned. It was going to be tight, but it would work out fine.

Here is a little tighter view of the deluxe studio space/recording studio in Encinitas

I originally had the vision of him playing slide guitar "tabletop" on his lap. I pictured the guitar spanning the whole bottom of the photo with him getting really close to it while playing. It would have made a pretty sweet shot. When I asked him about doing that, he explained that he really doesn't play that way he doesn't have the right type of guitar for what I was envisioning. To keep it organic, I told him just to play some of what he had been working on lately. He played and I shot and it was fun!

This...

...turned into this.

Our friend Bri stopped by to help and I used him as a prop.

I got the shot I was looking for so we changed it up a bit.

I really like panoramic format.

Now, it was time to go outside. A week earlier, I scouted out a location under a bridge down in Del Mar. The columns and geometry were very interesting and would make a delightful backdrop for a portrait. Yes, I did just use the word delightful.

Notice all the white spray paint. That's where the bridge people marked all the concrete that is weak and is ready to fall off. Where we were shooting, there were bunch of fragments of concrete laying on the ground that had fallen off the bridge recently. Makes you think about where you are standing.

Here, I had Brian holding one of my Dynalites with a Med softbox to offset the natural sunlight.

Then we were off to shoot one final shot on the bluffs overlooking the ocean. But first we had to shoot one on the tracks. What is slide guitarist photo shoot without a train being involved?!?

For the bluffs shot, I had a vision of Ben throwing his dreads while he played. Kind of Bob Marley/Michael Franti style. We tried it a few times, but it didn't quite work out as I wanted. Ben was really a good sport and tried numerous times. We laughed our asses off because Bri was getting worked by the strobe/softbox getting blown by the wind. I wasn't without my issues either. My batteries in my PWs decided to crap out on me right when we were ready to shoot. They were charged beforehand...I swear!

Eitherway, while I was running around like a monkey humping a football, Ben pulls out his iphone and starts watching the Laker game - LIVE! He said it costs him $20 bucks and he can watch any NBA game at any time. So... here we are doing a photo shoot on the bluffs overlooking the ocean, Ben's playing slide guitar, Bri is battling the strobe in the wind, Barbara is manning another strobe in the deep grass that all the dogs pee in...and we're watching the Lakers get worked by the Bobcats! I love technology!

We didn't get the shot I wanted but I did get an one-off that was pretty cool.

It was a fun day of shooting with some great photos created. Thanks to Ben for playing along with my ideas and throwing in some of his own. Thanks to Brian showing up when he could be riding his cruiser and drinking beer on a gorgeous Friday afternoon. And last but not least, thanks to Barbara for coming out when she was sick with a cold and being part of the program with no complaint.

Shooting portraits on the top of a really high boat deck

I went out to San Diego for a D-65 workshop with Seth Resnick and Jamie Spritzer. If you feel completely confused with digital photography and workflow, these guys provide one of the best workshops out there. Their energy and good humor actually make learning about converting color profiles and bit depths fun!

Either way, as I was driving out of San Diego I came over a ridge to see a row of windmills spinning in the distance. I was hypnotized. Once I got to the base of them, I shot a bunch of photos of them. To see windmills from a distance or in a magazine is one thing, but to sit under them while they spin is just really cool. I've always been fascinated by them since then.


Last year, Barbara called me from San Diego and asked me if I wanted to go to a small seminar on wind energy. The seminar would be held at the same windfarm that I photographed a few years earlier. I was stoked! We basically learned how they went through the planning process, how the land lease was arranged from the Kumeyaay tribe, how energy from the wind gets transformed to usable power, and so on. We then got to tour the site, control rooms, transformers and the base of the windmills themselves.

I was currently working on my portrait portfolio and I thought, a shot of the project manager would be a great addition to my project. I asked Rob Titus, the project manager, if he would be into doing a shot and he agreed. I called him up a couple days later to arrange a shoot and his schedule had become quite busy. It didn't look like we were going to be able to put something together while I was in town. Discouraged, I had to wait. I hate having to wait.

I kept his info though and contacted him later in the spring when I was coming out again. I asked if he was still into it and he said sure. I then went went one step further and and said, "You know a shot of you on top of one of the wind turbines would make a really cool shot." Fully expecting him to respond with..."oh corporate would never go for that", I braced myself for the less than desirable answer. The next day, I got an email saying, "Sounds great. We just have to fill out some liability forms and you have to do a training session. But I don't think it will be a problem."
YES!!!! I get to make a cool portrait. I've done quite a bit of big wall climbing photography, so I was fairly comfortable with the exposure of working on a really exposed location.

Barbara had a marathon that morning so she pretty much just chilled in the sun at the base of the wind turbine and relaxed her tired legs. Rob got me dialed out in safety gear, gave me a extensive safety training lesson and up we went. The turbines on the Kumeyaay farm are 280' to the main turbine deck. The turbine is accessed by ascending a ladder up the shaft. There is a cable that runs up the ladder, that you connect a safety ascension device to. If you slip while climbing the ladder, the ascension device catches you with a camming action on the cable. Despite this, it's still scary as hell when you are 150' up the ladder. I think the tubular effect of the shaft makes it worse.

When we got on top, Rob explained the safety measures to walking on the deck. I had two lanyards that were to be clipped in at all times to a small 8"railing that went around the turbine deck perimeter. Well, my photographic ADD brain went into full force and as soon as we were out of the hatch, I started making my way across the deck without clipping into anything. I was quickly reprimanded by Rob and clipped in immediately. At that point, I realized that there was a 40 mph wind trying to blow my hard hat off. Weee, this will be fun!

Not really knowing exactly what to expect, I had to assess the situation of what and how I was going to shoot. I brought a selection of lenses, flashes and other equipment but it became very apparent that K.I.S.S(Keep it simple stupid) was the rule of the land up here. We were working on a deck that was quite similar to a boat deck, maybe 8' x 25', 280' high and quite windy. Any sort of flash diffusion was out of the question. Multiple flashes were gonna take too long and be a pain in the ass. The two medium and telephoto lenses weren't going to make it out of the bag. But they sure were fun to haul up that really long ladder!

I had Rob do some inspecting kind of pose and he happily complied and looked at one of the gauges. Since I didn't have much room to work with, I had to hold on to the gauge on the other side of the deck with one hand and lean back as far as I could to show the other windmills in the background. After seeing me hanging back over the side of the deck, Rob shouted over the wind, "It looks like you're used to working in these conditions!" Actually, when in the moment of shooting, I sometimes get too focused on the task at hand.

We then moved over to the other side of the deck, closer to the props to shoot another photo. BTW, this turbine was shut down for maintenance and wasn't operating while we were up there. The prop was sitting at a cool angle so I tried to get Rob, the prop and the other wind turbines in the background all in the composition. The sun was low in the sky and I had to shoot into backlight. In order to retain the rich blue sky with the bright white turbines, I knew I had to pull a flash out on this one. I set up a 550 with a pocket wizard and held it as far out to my left as I could. I prefocused my 24mm and shot with my right hand. The wind was blowing pretty hard so braced my camera on my pack to keep it still. It took about 5 test shots to get the flash dialed and then I took several shots and compositions. Rob asked me what else I wanted to do and I was confident that I got what I wanted. It was a wrap.

A weekend job

"You shoot weddings? Isn't that stressful? I could never deal with that kind pressure"

I hear that quite a bit. I used to tell people that it's not stressful since I work with my friend Randy and we have the luxury of having two cameras shooting all the time. No, it's not stressful.

That's a load of crap.

Let me back up a bit and tell you a little about ourselves. Randy Barnes is a good friend of mine who lives outside of Telluride, CO. We've known each other since 1989 when we were freshmen in college. Both of us have pursued similar paths as photographers. Randy's website is www.barnesfoto.com. Being the outdoorsy types, we naturally both photographed outdoor sports. We shot for the same companies and the same magazines. We photographed many of the same people and athletes. For different reasons, we both faded out of the outdoor photography world. Me, I needed to separate work and play. Randy, he has three kids and chose to stay a little closer to home.

Randy approached me one day and presented the idea of working together to photograph weddings. I had shot a couple of weddings for friends but never really pursued it too much. Randy gave me his best sales pitch on the viability of a wedding photography business in southwest Colorado. After mulling it over for a bit, I bit the bullet and hopped on board. With some initial planning, we formed Alpine Wedding Photography. Probably not the most creative name but it did put us at the top of all the directories. Having no reputation or experience, we needed to use any advantage we could. It's funny, as I look back, we had no idea what we were doing. Sure, we knew how to take photos but we had little experience in running a business that catered to consumers. We were assignment and stock photographers that knew about licensing agreements, page and day rates and photo editors. We had a LOT to learn.

It's been a few years now and we've learned and grown quite a lot. Actually, we're pretty psyched. The 2010 season is booking up fast. While most all of our weddings are in Telluride with a few in Durango,  we really would love to book some weddings in Maui, Belize or Morroco. Tuscan Italy would be pretty good too!


Randy and I have different but complimenting styles. We have evolved to a level where we don't need to talk to each other as much about we're doing or shooting at the wedding. We know each others style as well as strengths and weaknesses. We have developed a natural intuition with each other. Our laid back personalities also work well to ease the stress of brides and other family members.

And speaking of stress. Yes, there is stress, but its how you handle it that is important. I think having both of us shooting really helps that. I know that if my cameras craps out on me at any given time there is another camera with a talented photographer behind it to capture the moment. I can resolve my immediate issues trusting that Randy will continue to cover the moment and nothing will be lost.

One asks, isn't it redundant then to have two photographers doing the job that one person should be able to do? Well...no. Having two of us allows us to be in different places at the same time,  we can capture the same scene in different styles and it provides a bit of insurance when something doesn't go as planned. Which we know, NEVER happens at weddings! :) We also assist each other with lighting, props or styling. And it always helps to have two people coordinating a group shot of 300 people.

The days are long but rewarding. We typically finish up at the wedding around 10pm, we head back home where we then download, backup and preview our work until 2 or 3 in the morning. That work could be done the next day but we sleep better knowing that the wedding was fully covered and backed up. Also, we get to sip on pale ales at that point, so it aint that bad.

Our job is cool. Our office is the incredible mountains of Colorado. We get to hang out with a bunch of people who look about as good as they can possibly look. They're all there to celebrate and pretty much everybody gets happier as the night goes on. We usually end the night with warm, appreciative hugs from the bride and often the groom. Lastly, we get paid to push our creativity the whole time! Not a bad gig.

I invite you to waste a little more time, put off doing your work and visit our site, www.alpineweddingphotography.com. I hope you like it and feel free to share it with your friends...especially the engaged ones!

 Cheers