karl_knize

His use of form and space was without equal. He was truly great.

Seems like your calculation is way off. A 40x50 print @ 240 PPI is about 330 megs, not megapixels. And most big prints are output at 150 PPI, which is about 128 megs. Not all that much. Even at 300 PPI you're only talking about a 515 meg file. Big, but not a killer if you've got some basic system horsepower. Now if you start editing and layering, that's another story altogether. I don't own a flatbed for 8x10 scanning, but I've used an Imacon quite often for 4x5 and smaller. I can't see much difference in scan quality between the Imacon and a drum scan from 4x5, but as the format gets smaller the drum scan starts to inch ahead. With a well exposed 8x10, particularly color neg., I would think that a Microtek would do a pretty good job.

Not as good as a drum scan, but perhaps all that you need.

Thanks Eric. Even a blind squirrel....

I've worked with a few A.D.'s over the years who had a great understanding of cameras and lighting,to the point where one of them would make perspective adjustments to my 8x10's when my back was turned and call out the lighting effects he was after and the sources.

 

(Dennis Manarchy once beaned an A.D. with an 8x10 holder from about 15 feet away for repeatedly making set changes when he wasn't looking. Another story for another time, but one we all love.)

 

I'm sure he could have been a good working photographer but in his head he didn't know enough technically, which was partly true.

 

Now, the instant feedback and small formats pretty much eliminate those considerations, and I'm surprised that there aren't more picture takin' A.D.'s, or that there isn't more convergence. Maybe I should take some design classes?

Lucas,

 

When Jean Moss was in her prime she did some really nice work. Some of her Esquire work was as good as it ever gets. I heard she passed away, which is sad in that she was still working and creative and not that old.

 

It occured to me after the posts that two of the photographers I mentioned are gone now. I'm gettin' old, or so it seems!

Stacy, one thing I forgot. You can search the ASMP website which lists people in your area, also, try the workbook and blackbook sites for regional listings.

Stacy, depending upon where you live and how big the market is, getting assisting gigs is usually more about persistence than talent, with some exceptions. There are some very, very good photographers out there who won't hire you ever unless you're out of RIT or Brooks or somewhere similar and have an excellent student book. These guys are usually in the three big markets.

 

Closer to home, if you go to a rental house or get manuals and learn how to use various kinds of gear without breaking it or blowing it up, have a basic grasp of lighting setups, have some photography to show that illustrates your passion, understand how to work in a completely supportive role, you can get hired. I've hired assistants many times because I liked their passion and personality, and took a pass on the RIT guy with the attitude. Just be yourself and keep calling, as photographers typically ebb and flow with work, and have favorite assitants who always move on at some time or another.

 

When I was assisting I wanted to work for a well known Chicago shooter named Jean Moss, in the worst way. I must have called her studio 100 times over a year or two, and never spoke to her personally. Never connected. Then, years later I was using an assitant who I liked personally but who I felt was marginally skilled at best. I tried to book him one day and he called me back and told me he had just been hired as Jean Moss's full time assistant.

 

Don't be intimidated and good luck.

I know you aren't asking, but here's my two cents: I think you're both right. But it depends upon what the conversation is about, exactly.

 

If you're talking about fashion,editorial, people illustration and basic tabletop, depending upon which area and how talented and smart and driven and connected you are,I think you can get by with little or no assisting experience or a year or three. And truthfully, as someone who has done the full route I know that there's a reciprocal for good assistants and good photographers.

 

Good photographers often make lousy assistants because their head is elsewhere, and good assistants are often clueless about being in control creatively. And generally, assistants who have been at it for more than five years never had it in the first place or lost something along the way.

 

Yes, assisting is more often than not about schlepping and organizing,

with photography lessons learned by osmosis in many studios. This is the "Dog s**t on my heels" school, which I have experienced more than once.

 

At the other end of the spectrum there's mentoring, such as happens at Hedrich-Blessing. And mentoring for good reason because I think that architecture is a specialty unto itself and is about much, much more than technical virtuosity. The seven year process is also about education and seeing architecture.Also,when transition occurs you're vested in the company and not just hanging out your shingle in the Workbook.

 

I think the same goes for food in a way, but I don't consider it as having the overall complexity of architecture. It's certainly it's own discipline though, and not easily acquired.

 

I apologize to Tyler as I was probably throwing water on the fire without the proper caveat. I think the process is often about seven years or so for a good education, transition and building to the point where you're in business and making a living. Architecture falls into this kind of time frame, in my experience.

 

Conversely, someone with little or no assisting experience but with a personal vision can bust it wide open now with a 5D, a zoom and an Epson,mixed with some clever marketing. Witness the tide of junkie color going on right now, with probably half of these folks unaware of Joel Sternfeld or William Eggleston. Vision driven work with no great technical demands required. And I'm not saying this is a horrible thing.

 

Anyway, have to run.

Hi Tyler,

 

Many years ago I used to hang out with Sandi Hedrich,of Hedrich-Blessing in Chicago. If you're not familiar with the name, find a shot of Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater.That's Bill Hedrich's shot.Anyway,this was during my assistant days and I contemplated working for them and learning the craft, but I simply didn't have the fire or love of architecture that it takes to make the enormous commitment it requires to be a real architectural specialist.

At Hedrich-Blessing at that time in the 80's, the average was seven years before an assistant actually produced a photo with H-B on it. Of course, they were still shooting LF primarily, and took every photo to the absolute Nth degree in terms of lighting and color control of interiors. No doubt digital has made things a bit more user friendly, but in the end it remains the same discipline, requiring big doses of experience and technical virtuosity. If you're serious, you need to get in the trenches and find a job as an assistant to someone who is a genuine working specialist.You don't necessarily have to commit seven years, but in the end that sounds about right. It's the only way unless you're a true genius or a wealthy connected genius.:-)

Yes, overall the site is a little over the top for me me too. A little heavy on the flash and music. But again, what I found interesting was the trademarking of the post process, presenting basic PS as a fine art

process.Voila! Magic! Now, for my next trick... For the average customer, I think he's gone the extra step beyond saying "HiRes" or "State of the Art." He's "showing" the average customer what the unwashed are delivering and how he does it better. Assuming the average customer has calibrated monitor that isn't 17 years old.:-)

A little O.T. perhaps, but here's a web site I just stumbled across that I think is hitting on all 8. Nice photography and design, but I think he does a really good job of explaining his process while at the same time exploiting the general public's lack of knowledge regarding digital. Basic photoshop trademarked as an art process. Excellent branding and marketing.

 

http://www.jrgeoffrion.com

BTW-- Nice shot Marc. Tough to beat film, MF or otherwise, for the look.

 

I'm realizing though (perhaps a little slow on the uptake) that one of my beefs with dig capture perhaps has more to do with the chip than the overall technology. I have no issue really with the image quality and look of the work I do in studio with the Imacon and CCD. The edge transitions and tonalilty look pretty good to me. But when I occasionally shoot with a 1DsII for ad work I'm less than enthused about how some shots have a cut and paste quality to the edges. I've held off on the big DSLR purchase because of this, and perhaps I should simply upgrade to a newer Imacon/H2d or try out the upcoming Mamiya ZD. In either case though, the slow capture rate and slower lenses become an issue. Nothing that $50K and two new systems won't fix though. Shooting dig. commercially is like owning a racing boat, only worse.

I used to do a lot more portrait and street work, and for a while worked a lot with my 501 on a monopod. Hassy on a stick. What a great way to work. But I never got comfortable with hand holding it, maybe too many ad shots with lighting,or just the sense of formalism the format gives me. I was a best man 100 years ago and the photographer shot the whole thing with a Rolliflex TLR. The guy had some serious chops and the stuff looked great for the time period.There's an idea. Maybe I'll give hand holding w/flash another try down the line.

Interesting how equipment is both the stimulus and response to shooting requirements and approaches, isn't it? Chicken or egg? I've done the Nikon, Hasselblad and Graflex route myself and in the end, for me it created too many variables and too many choices between being focused on the life spinning by and taking pictures. But for others it seems to work fine. I guess it ends up being about your style, your shooting goals and how well you can compartmentalize. I tend to keep things as simple as possible because I don't handle chaos well, and weddings and people shoots are chaotic by nature or so it seems.

 

So do you have the Hass. in your bag because you really need it to shoot formals as part of your style, or are you shooting formals because you have the Hass. in your bag and should use it after hauling the dammed thing around, grasshopper?

I think you need to go to the mountain and seek advice from Mohammed on this one. Ask Marc Williams. If anyone can illuminate you on how to manage six systems and two technologies I'm sure he can.:-)

I'm a Mac user and I can go into my system preferences>displays>color and by selecting other profiles, such as generic RGB I'll see a huge difference between those and my Optix Pro profile. Don't know about PC's, but I'm assuming you can do the same.

Sometimes, if I want to select a specific color I'll use the lasoo to make a rough selection just outside of my target area and then use color range to fine tune the selection. By adjusting fuzziness in color range you can pretty accurately select a color, then click O.K. and you'll see your original rough selection change to what you saw in your fuzziness window. Then you can make a new adjustment layer and go from there.

Mine's in the shop now for the same thing, along with the common shutter release

problem. $95 plus parts.

I like the concentration on the faces very much but I think the mirror frame and

accessories are perhaps a bit too far out.<div></div>

A $25K camera/capture back combo that has a buffer and doesn't require almost 2 seconds between captures, and doesn't have wildly overpriced glass in the lineup.

 

Maybe a Mamiya ZD or a slightly used Imacon 96C for me, happily purchased from some equipment nut always in search of the next best thing. :-)

Go to the Queensberry site and check out their interface with Photojunction.

Michael--

 

In my honest opinion I think you're concocting a recipe for disaster, or at the least,

problems. A couple of months with a new camera is one thing, and a couple of months

with a new technology is another. No doubt your grandfather can read the manual and let

'er rip on autopilot, and only you can say if all will be O.K. if something bad happnes. But if

something bad does happen, I'd rather it happen to my film that my files.

 

I'd dust off the cameras, make sure you have a couple of working flashes, have your

grandfather shoot some test stuff to get the kinks out and buy him a sack of medium

speed color negative film.

 

You can have the film roll scanned at lower resolution for proofing and editing, and have

higher res. scans done for something special.

 

This way, he gets to work the way he knows best, from his experience, and you get to

work in PSCS until your eyes fall out of your head! :)

Put the majority of your labor into the setup and not the photography or post. If you have

enough gear, I would create a setup which allows you to expose the product and the

background separately from one camera position. Shooting on glass or clear plexi as

mentioned earlier is a good solution, because doing a quick clone of unwanted reflections

is pretty easy and it allows you more flexibility in the lighting.

 

Set up the background so that it's lit separately from the product, and give yourself the

space to slide in or remove a black card or cloth like black velvet.

 

Lock everything down tight, start with the black over your background, expose the

product, remove the black and expose the background as a separate capture. Now your

lighing and setup has created a mask for you. In PS, take your background capture, select

all, copy and paste it in as a layer and there you go.

 

 

I've done this kind of thing many, many times and a light table/plexi under the product

works great. Now, you can gel the light source if you want color in the background layer or

you can leave it neutral if your product is separating.

 

The trick is setting up so that the lighting from one capture/layer doesn't contaminate the

other, and you aren't getting any movement. I've probably done a hundred of these where I

set it up so that I would capture the product, remove the black and capture the

background without moving my feet.

 

Hope this is of value to you!

I shoot professionally, almost all dig. now for ad work and the occasional wedding or full

frontal nude (pro bono!), and one amazing thing to me is that the system of capture,

delivery and production works as well as it does-- which isn't to say perfectly. As an

example, I have two Mac's in my house, a G4 dual for editing and an Emac for web and kid

use. Both the Viewsonic on the G4 and Emac monitors were recently calibrated with the

same device, in about the same lighting conditions. but the Emac monior shows this image

lighter and with a little less contrast. (I'm on the Emac now.)The overall color balance is

still accurate though.

 

Perhaps I rushed the explanation of my process a bit, but I did a global correction in color

balance >shadows to neutralize the wall, I could have selected the wall but it was too

much work for me for a demo. In so doing the kids faces went even more magenta, so I

selectd the faces with the lasoo and used hue/saturation to neutralize and pump up the

saturation, which I felt was a bit weak. When the shadows on the faces looked neutral

there was still a little excess pink in the brighter areas, so I used color balance>highlight

to add a little green without getting into the shadows.

 

One thing I've learned about available /mixed lighting is how often there's color crossover

from highlight to shadow on faces, and more often than not a global CC of the faces

leaves you with green, cyan, magenta, etc. shadows in eye sockets, etc. Yuk.

Hmmm... pixel count on this is 500, wonder why the shot didn't display? another try.<div></div>