Behind The Scenes: Lights & Mirrors

Mirrors are our friends in tabletop/food photography.  In this photo of a thin slice of apple, one light and eight mirrors were used.  A big difference from when I started off in photography; back in the day I would use eight lights and no mirrors!  Simplify.

McCain Foods' Brew City Shoot

Had a great commercial shoot (food & people) with McCain Foods' "Brew City" brand, beer-battered bar food!  Thanks to Elaine Chernov from www.elaineinspired.com for spreading the word about Adam Daniels Photography to The Alchemedia Project, I was fortunate to work with some amazingly talented people!

click images to enlarge

 

Happy Ending for Injured Hawk

See earlier post for first article.


from The Capital, Annapolis, MD:

STEVENSVILLE - An injured red-tailed hawk that was rescued right before Christmas has been successfully returned to the wild.
Bystanders spotted the hawk, with a badly injured wing, off Route 8 in Stevensville on Dec. 23.
Local filmmaker and licensed falconer Stephen Reverand was able to capture the bird, which was eventually taken to Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research in Delaware.
After surgery and recuperation, the hawk was released on Feb. 13 in the same area where it was found.
Reverand said he and others observed the hawk for about 30 minutes until it flew out of sight. He said the hawk appeared to be doing well.
The hawk now sports a small metal band, so it can be identified if it is spotted or ends up in trouble again.
Red-tailed hawks are one of the most common birds of prey in this area. Article by Pam Wood

Adam's First Addy!

My mother always, and still does call me "Addy", but never did I expect to win one!  A big congratulations and thank you to dear friends Richard Hughes from ClearPH Design Studios, and Troy Plota Photography for selecting me to retouch the Florida Aquarium's SeaGrapes Fine Wine & Food Festival poster--the event will take place in Tampa on May 1st, 2010!  We won an ADDY® award!  Here are before and afters.  click photos to enlarge

Been Hassled Lately?

Upon receiving the below email (in italics below), I provided my experience.

Something very similar just happened to me 2 weeks ago:

I was roaming the streets of Chicago with my new lens.  It was nearing dusk, and I had been walking around for hours, photographing anything that moved me.  I came upon an entrance/exit ramp in the back of a building.  The parking lot lights were crossing each other's beams, creating dueling shapes on the cement and illuminating two bright yellow arrows pointing this way and that in such an aesthetically pleasing way.  I just had to photograph it.  Not even five seconds from my lifting my camera to my face did a cop pull up and get in my face. 

"May I see some ID?" he said sternly, followed by, "may I ask why you're photographing this building?"  So I told him the truth, that I enjoy photographing urban landscapes and interesting angles and lighting.  I then proceeded to flip through all the photos I had taken that day to show him--proof that I had no ulterior motives, i.e. casing the joint for a future robbery.  He looked at me as if I had just come from the cuckoo's nest. 

After checking my name and address in his smart car, he enlightened me as to what I was photographing: the neighborhood police station.  Nice. 

I have the utmost respect for law enforcement officers.  And there's a certain level of security I feel as a result of not only this incident, but all the heightened security measures nowadays.  However, I really wanted to take that picture!

Adam

-----
Concerns over security can sometimes make law enforcement officers, security guards, and even private citizens get carried away. A number of government agencies have been encouraging citizens to report “suspicious behaviors,” and one of the specific activities often listed as suspicious is photography. By way of specific example, the LAPD has issued an Order listing 65 suspicious behaviors that LAPD officers are required to report, and one of them is taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value.”

ASMP is working with the ACLU to try to combine security with some basic common sense and fairness. To do that, we need to provide as many concrete examples as possible of photographers being stopped, questioned, harassed or even detained for just taking photographs. If this has happened to you some time over the past three years or so, please send an email to me at perlman@asmp.org or just reply to this message. Please put “SAR” in the subject line (the police acronym for “Suspicious Activity Reporting”) and let me have a description of what you were doing, what happened, where it took place, the approximate date of the incident, and its outcome. I will then pass the information along to the ACLU. If you wish to have your anecdote remain anonymous, please let me know that in the email.

Many thanks for your assistance, and thank you all for your being members of ASMP,
Vic

From Victor S. Perlman General Counsel & Managing Director of ASMP (American Society of Media Photographers)

Corporate Head Shots

Through word of mouth, I was given the opportunity to photograph some CEOs and high-level executives of a corporation last week.  Before bidding on the job, there are always questions that don't get answered in the initial phone call or email that I think of as I'm outlining my plan for the shoot. 

To give me an idea of what sort of lighting would be required, and how creative I could get with it while still keeping in mind budgetary and time constraints, I needed to know how many people at one time I was to photograph.  I also needed to know whether there was a hard floor or carpeted floor.  Typically trying to place people on a seamless paper background while resting on carpet would create holes in the paper.  I was lucky enough to be able to scout the location beforehand, and deduce that the carpet was thin enough to prevent considerable sinking-in of high heels or chair legs. 

Lesson learned:  A 9-foot seamless background was not wide enough for an eleven-people group shot.  I had to Photoshop some white along the edges of the people before sending to the client, a soft cost I had to eat due to improper estimating of seamless real estate.  But lesson learned!

Event Photographer & the Canon 50mm f1.4

I am asked quite frequently to photograph events: phone calls and emails to which I would typically cringe, as I much prefer commercial photography work.  However I've been enjoying them lately for a few reasons.

First off, the opportunity to network at these events is priceless.  It's easy to photograph a gig, get paid, and go home.  But why not spend a few minutes getting to know some of the people whom you violate with a bright burst of light in a low light venue?  It's a chance to exchange business cards and possibly pass referrals to one another down the road.  Make some friends; develop a network; grow!

Secondly, in an effort to shoot an event differently and more creatively than I've done or seen in the past, I have been testing my newly acquired Canon 50mm 1.4 lens.  I acquired the lens primarily for the challenge of using a fixed mm focal length: instead of zooming in and out, I actually have to expend a few calories and literally move my ass!  In addition, I wanted to photograph subjects with a lens that mimics close to what the human eye sees.  There's an article on BH's website that explains this in more depth.  I also wanted a lens that wouldn't protrude as much as my Canon 24-70mm 2.8, or draw too much attention, making me look like a professional when sometimes I just want to blend in with everyone else.

And last, the f1.4 is great for shallow depth of field, bringing the viewer's eye straight to your subject.  For extra interest, I sometimes hold something in the foreground of the shot, right in front of the lens, that blurs out completely.

Mixing flash and ambient light is an art in and of itself.  I typically use my 580EXII Canon flash set on manual, depending on whether I'm bouncing it off the ceiling, off a napkin, or off someone's shirt!

So the next time you're asked to shoot an event, pretend it's a wedding, or a commercial shoot even.  Explore different heights, angles, and compositions; shoot through wine glasses or into mirrors.  Explore and have fun!

They made me get out of the car..

..these "photography opportunities", that is.

I was on my way to scout a location for a corporate photo shoot when I made a wrong turn into a loading dock–something that happens all too often thanks to my not-so-accurate GPS, and superb sense of misdirection.  It was dusk, my favorite time of day.

This photo of pine trees was rotated and converted to black and white so as to show you, the viewer, what I saw when I made it.  I want you to see the shapes: the positive and negative space, without thinking too much about the subject matter.

Seeing this shot from inside a warm car, and knowing that the camera was in the double-locked trunk, one might have driven off.  Aha! But not I. No..I didn't hesitate for a second in shutting off the engine, enduring the freezing outdoor temperature, opening my trunk, and firing up my Canon. I used to pass up these types of shots all the time, telling myself that I could revisit this spot at anytime to photograph it when I wasn't running late, or when I had my tripod with me so that I could get a sharper exposure.  In fact, I even sometimes noted the time of day for that "future trip".  But I learned over time that backtracking my steps to do so rarely occurred.  And if I wanted to stretch my mind, creatively, I would have to, every once in a while, stop to make the picture.

I've been trying to use the phrase "make the picture" instead of "take the picture" as of late--and no, this has nothing to do with Photoshop, specifically.  It's a phrase that a professor, one Jaclyn Cori-Newman from SCAD (Savannah College of Art & Design) once used during my living-off-of-student-loan days; a phrase I obviously never forgot.  It had to do with "dodging and burning", where as one would allow more or less light to shine from the enlarger, through the negative, and onto the photosensitive paper, creating the latent image.  This process, per Jaclyn's tutelage, was "making the photo".  Made sense. It empowered the artist with the creativity for additional personal interpretation, outside of the camera body and lens.  I remember that for me, a still wet-behind-the-ears photo student, this process epitomized the meaning of "to be in awe"--much like developing a print for the first time.

One of my first photos ever taken with an SLR (Single Reflex Camera) was that of a gateway to someone's Victorian-style home in Savannah, GA.  It wasn't a very interesting gate as a straight print.  But after burning the edges around the photo, or vignetting, was suggested--a term all to familiar nowadays what with all the image editing software--the print was an entirely different beast.  

My last photo taken today was this one.  As I exited the building, I stopped, took my camera out, and in the middle of a crowd of people all hungry to leave their 9-6, pointed up and photographed this shape in the window.  I never used to enjoy minimalism when I began studying art, but have grown to love it. And if it doesn't float your boat, well then by all means, go on to my next blog entry!  But if it does evoke anything in you at all, embrace it! 

I'm not sure why it moved me so much, but it did.  And since it did, I captured it: not only for my selfish, simplistically artistic pleasures, but as a learning tool, for both of us!  

Try training your mind to recognize and appreciate these shapes, be them simple or complex, throughout the journeys in your lifetime.  It might open up a whole new train of thought and enlightenment!  Man..that's deep stuff!