5D Mark II shoots the Season Finale of "House". Greg Yaitanes interview.

Phillip Bloom interviews the Director and producer of of the hit TV series House, Greg Yaitanes, in this interview.  The fact that the director of a major TV series decides to shoot it's season finale (not just parts of an episode) is unreal.  As photographers and film makers, we have access to an unbelievable number of tools to tell and share stories.  Exciting times ahead folks!

It sounds like the Canon primes won on set along with a couple of zooms to ease the transition of shooting different focal lengths.  Of note were the 50 f/1.2, 85 f/1.2, 100mm Macro (used in the opening sequence below) and 70-200 f/2.8 II.

There's a good discussion happening over at Cinema 5D on the topic and hopefully we'll see some behind the scenes footage and further discussion soon.

If you missed the show this week, download an HD version at the iTunes store.

-Kevin
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Commercial and Advertising Photographer

Advanced camera panning techniques (Sports and Action photography)

When we think of sports photography, usually we think of shooting at the highest shutter speed possible and wide open apertures in order to stop the subject dead in his/her tracks.  The sharper the image, the better, right?  Let's talk about breaking this rule for a minute and working to capture more of a sense of motion in your images.  How do you translate the feeling of a cyclist racing across the asphalt at 30mph?  How about the movement of a propeller as an airplane leaves the ground at take-off?  Or a sail boat piercing it's way through an open ocean?  Or what about a skier tunneling through three feet of freshly fallen snow?  One way to create movement in our imagery is through the use of slow shutter speeds and panning the camera.  As a commercial photographer, I'm constantly striving to create the most intriguing and compelling photographs.  Of the many techniques available to photographers, panning and the use of slow shutter speeds is an excellent tool to add movement and energy when shooting action.
Skiing image: panning at 1/30th of a second

The easiest way to practice this technique is to pick up the camera, walk out of your front door and point the camera at moving cars.  You can experiment with different shutter speeds, backgrounds and subjects this way.  To take panning to the next level, the trick is to get the camera into a position that it can move at the same speed as your subject.

Road cycling image: panning at 1/20th of a second from the back of a van.

Some other points to consider when panning:

1) Pick the important elements to keep sharp:
What are the important elements to keep sharp in the final image?  If I'm shooting people, I generally want head and facial features sharp.  If it's a commercial shoot, keeping logos, product names or other elements we are advertising is also critical.

2) Move with your subject:
Once you have the location and subject matter, next decide on your composition.  The easiest way to explore the technique of panning is to move the camera parallel to your subject as they ride, ski, swim, walk past you.  For example, during the 2006 Tour de France, I captured this image of cyclist, David Millar during the prologue stage of the tour.  And a few months ago during the Salt Lake Shootout, I captured this skiing photograph with roughly the same technique.  However, if you're working in a more controlled environment, try getting into a position where you can keep the camera still and move with the subject.  Whether it be a bike, motorcycle, car or other rig, try the camera into a position is moving at the same speed and direction as the subject.  For the following image, I wanted a head-on perspective and so we jumped in the back of a mini-van and with the tailgate up, started shooting.   I love the gritty feel of getting the camera close to the moving pavement, while keeping the rider and bike in focus.

3) Choose your shutter speed.
Panning requires a steady hand and experimentation with your shutter speed.  For example, when shooting a cyclist, I'll start in the 1/25th of a second range and move up or down from there to get the right blend of motion and sharpness.   Also, keep in mind your background colors when choosing your shutter speed to create either something that's recognizeable or completely blurred giving an ethereal and abstract feel.

Lifestyle shoot: Panning at 1/5th of a second (strobed w/ Elinchrom Ranger)

Lastly:

1. Use ND Filters.  If you're shooting on a sunny day, throw a neutral density filter or polarizer on your lens to bring your exposure back to 1/30th of a second (or whatever shutter speed you decide on).  As a LAST resort if you can drop your iso to 50 and crank your aperture to f/22, but make sure your sensor is clean!
2. Bring lot's of memory.  We shot roughly 300 images of one athlete in the span of 2 minutes or so on the 5D Mark II (3.9 FPS).  We had roughly 10-15 keepers.
3. Safety first.  If you are hanging off or a motorcycle or out of the back of a van, make sure to communicate to everyone involved.  You, the driver and the athlete need to be on the same page.  The last thing you want is for the driver to suddenly hit the brakes while your cyclist is trailing 3 feet behind at 30 MPH.  Keep it safe.

What are some of your techniques for panning?  Let's hear it.  Next, we'll talk about panning with the use of strobes (big and small).

-Kevin

More behind the scenes videos and photography

Inspiring Documentary: Up There

A few quick thoughts from the documentary "Up There".

First, I hope in addition to shooting a ton of photographs lately, that you are also experimenting with video on your DSLR.  As a commercial photographer often working with people, I can say that the number one benefit from shooting and understanding motion and film has been learning to direct people.  Film also helps me to think in terms of story telling with my photography, which I worked on more this past weekend while photographing Ironman, St. George, Utah (photos coming soon).

Second, both the artists in the story as well as the artist, Malcolm Murray telling the story inspire me to be patient and continuously improve my craft as a photographer.  I love how these folks talk about the process of learning and the time and sacrifice involved in becoming an artist in their field.  In this fast paced world, where truck loads of free information are available at our finger tips, we can at times be a bit too anxious.  Amazing doesn't happen in minutes, but rather it takes a long time and sometimes a lifetime.  Let's step back and appreciate the photographers that have paved the way for us, as well as steadily improve as artists.  Patience is a virtue I believe...

Third, shoot photos and stories you are passionate about.  This story is told with a sense of pride and passion.

-Kevin

Parkour - Free Running Photo Shoot

I've been working on a few personal projects lately, including a photographing some local Parkour, Free Running talent.  I love the combination of technical, physical and mental strength required to pull off the moves these guys do.  The sheer power they display blows my mind.  Ironically, the day we shot the following pictures started out as more of a scouting trip for a short film I'm working on, but ended up becoming the focus of the day as I just couldn't pass up the chance to photograph this stuff.  Here's a quick breakdown of a few shots from the day as well as bts video below:

For the first shot, athlete, Devon Bardole, popped up on a railing and literally stayed in a handstand position for minutes (not seconds).   I quickly grabbed the fisheye lens and started working a few shots telling him to hold on for just a bit longer.  The fisheye lens came to mind first in order to get an "in your face" feel and to capture the intensity of the eyes, while also showing the surrounding environment (tall buildings, urban setting).  The concentration is really impressive from these athletes as Parkour is an extremely technical and mental sport.  As you can see in the quick behind the scenes clip, the rail drops a good six feet on one side (shooting position) and I'm working several different angles during one take.  We had the sun almost directly behind the subject, so I exposed for the face and skin tones allowing the sun to blow out a bit behind and create a halo look.  We could have also brought in a little fill flash (either soft or hard light), but I'm quite happy with the resulting image we got.

Second, we worked into a location with more of a back alley feel, where the athlete's (Devon, Bobby and Ellis Robinson) were picking different lines, popping, flipping and dropping off of everything imagineable.  When one of the athletes (Ellis) flag-poled the side of this a old, gritty building, I quickly set-up a shot to capture the move.  My thought process when I see something I want to capture is to first think about the type of light that will work best for the location and subject.  In this case we had a really nice shaded light that was soft and stunning.  I popped an Elinchrom Ranger at 100 w/s for just a touch of fill light (7 degree reflector from camera right), but otherwise kept the soft feel.  Next, I looked at other aspects of the environment to enhance the shot and in particular for foregrounds and backgrounds that would provide either texture, interesting lines, color and sometimes a combination of all three.  This is also where the choice of lens length comes into play as well as depth of field and whether you want the viewer to see a tack sharp image front to back or isolate the subjects to avoid a cluttered background.  While I was drawn to elements of the foreground and background, I quickly made the choice to isolate the subject with a f/2.8 aperture at 200mm on a Canon 5D Mark II and enhanced that feel with a slight vignette in post-production.

Lastly, we worked a large gap drop that provided a another nice fisheye perspective from directly underneath the take-off zone.  The drop involved a "Kong" move, (blindly I might add) over the wall and down roughly 12-15 feet onto cement, an insanely big move. Here I'm using a Ranger at near full power, 1000 w/s or so and a standard reflector to light the athlete and retaining wall as well as slightly over-power the sun by a stop or so.

The process for this shoot evolved quite quickly as I mentioned we initially wanted to shoot a few stills and scout locations for film work.  That said, the on-the-fly direction worked out really.  When you're shooting in a run-in-gun type fashion like this, you have to make quick decisions.   First, I'll analyze the light and whether I need to add or subtract light or even whether or not I have time as often it will ruin the spontaneity of the shot.  Foregrounds and backgrounds come into play next and other supporting aspects of the environment that I think will enhance the shot (include) or detract (exclude).  Theses types of shoots are a balance of documentary or event type work (where "key moments" won't be repeated) and a commercial photo shoot like our recent trail running shoot for example where prior to taking a shot, we had scouted locations, diagrammed lighting scenarios, and chosen our color palette, compositions and art direction.

See more Parkour and Free Running pictures from our day in downtown Salt Lake City.  Also, stay tuned for the short film we are currently in the process of making!


-Kevin Winzeler
Commercial Photographer

Recent work in Print | Photography

It's time for a quick post with some recent photography that went to press; including a couple of magazine covers, ads and campaign work.  It's always fun to see how an image you photograph translates into print.

-Kevin Winzeler

Advertising and Commercial Photographer

Be Inspired. Find your creativity.

Pictage Films put out this nice little piece on creativity. The interviewees hit it out of the park on a few points as far as I'm concerned:

"The best thing about deadlines is that it forces our creativity to come to the surface" - Blake Howard
"The main feeling I go through when I'm writing a new song is...this sucks!" - Nick Kirk
"When you have a story that needs to be told, you can't help but go out and make it (tell it). If you were to say no, you're doing yourself and others a disservice...you're walking away from the muse that says you need to go make this and it's important that you make this...every film maker, photographer and writer..." - Brandon McCormick

Creativity for me, is a lot like what is described by these individuals. As a photographer, creating images that I feel good about requires an immense amount of hard work, while forcing myself to set deadlines and editing out all the images that "suck". The majority of us out there work hard to develop creativity.
If I put myself in an environment to be creative and by that I mean, always shooting, studying, listening, collaborating, and repeating, I'll improve as an artist and individual.  The "environment" is not a geographic location (i.e. Borders Cafe) where creativity flows continuously, but rather the entire process of WORK.

So keep working!

I'm curious to hear what your creative process is? Chime in below:

-Kevin
Commercial photographer

2010 PhotoCamp Utah: On-location Photography. SCOUT. LIGHT. CREATE

Participating in this years PhotoCamp Utah was an absolute blast!

Photographers! - If you weren't able to attend this years PhotoCamp, I'd highly recommend getting on board for 2011. Just make sure you register early (like within the first 6 hours of registration opening). I guess there were 400+ people on the waiting list this year which doesn't surprise me given the dirt cheap price ($15) for a solid day of all things photography. It was a packed day of excellent presentations and networking opportunities as well as a final Keynote address by Zack Arias, which rocked the house. Thanks for making the trip out Zack!

Photograph: stitched pano shot during my "On-Location" presentation (minute 11:01) while showing recycle time of the Ranger.

I presented toward the beginning of the day and was stoked to see so many people interested in learning about photography on-location as well as lighting. We had 60-70 people crammed into a smallish room all anxious to share and learn. Check out the presentation below and the slides here: Photography and Lighting On-Location
 I'd love to continue the Q&A session as well.  Please chime in with any questions, comments and your experiences with location work, scouting and lighting.



A HUGE thanks to all the people behind the scenes that pulled this thing off (Jeremy, Ann and crew)! Until next year...

-Kevin

Advertising Photographer in Utah

Photographers: Add space and BACK-UP your images today! 2TB Drives and Mac Pro Optical Bay

As a professional photographer, hard drive space is a constant battle!  Of course, we hear all the time how "cheap" HD space is, so what's the problem?  Well, what most people "experts" don't acknowledge is the real cost of adding space to your working system.  I'm talking about the hours of researching reliable drives, planning for future growth, installing and reconfiguring your current system and/or paying for someone to help to do all of that for you.  Time is money and there's a lot more involved than cost per/GB when it comes to running things reliably and professionally. Second, you rarely hear talk of a serious back-up plan which should at a minimum consist of two complete copies of all your data (one being off-site).  With file sizes as large as they are as well as the addition of HD video to most cameras this can start to add up quickly, even for "cheap" space!  

If your system is getting full (say a single drive in an iMac for example), then you're stuck either upgrading that drive or adding external drives.  If adding externals, buy drives with the fastest connection your computer will handle (eSata, iScsi, Firewire 800, Firewire 400, USB), but realize this solution is simply a band-aid.   Externals are great for archiving or back-up to, and yes, I'd include the drobo in this group, but not so great when editing large photography or video files (5D Mark II or larger) (New drobo (iscsi) may be an exception, but I've heard mixed reviews on speeds).  With the exception of eSata,  Read/write and transfer speeds of externals becomes too difficult to work with.  You need your drives working FAST, especially on data you access daily.  At some point you'll need to upgrade to a box (Mac Pro).  More on the back-up plan below.
If you already own a Mac Pro, still running out of space, there's another solution for you.  The beauty of the Mac Pro is the ability to expand from 4 drives into 6 or even 8 by taking over the optical bays (Screenshot below).  A few weeks ago, I found myself in this situation and opted to add two Samsung 2TB drives in the 2nd optical bay (below the DVD drive/burner) via a Pro Caddy 2 from Transintl for roughly $450. This is awesome!  The future possibility for growth here is: 8 bays x 2TB drives = 16TB of onboard data.  

My current Mac Pro is set-up as follows:

-Early 2008 2.8Ghz 8 Core Mac Pro

-16GB RAM

-Hard Drive set-up:

   Bay 1 - 320GB Factory Drive - Holds OSX and all Applications

     [Drives 2-4 are set as a software RAID 0 (through the disk utility in your applications]

   Bay 2 - 1TB Western Digital Black 

   Bay 3 - 1TB Western Digital Black

   Bay 4 - 1TB Western Digital Black

-NEW: 4 Terabytes of space for $450

   2nd Optical Bay-   2 x 2 Terabyte Samsung Drives via Pro Caddy 2 ---[currently set as a RAID 0]

[Note: There are cheaper 2TB drives on the market.  They don't look as reliable as the Samsungs.  Saving $40 on an HD that is of questionable reliability, which 2TB still are, even the Samsung, is about the most insane thing you could do as a photographer, in my opinion.]

In summary, the "Mounted" drives sitting on my desktop are as follows (remember drives 2-4 and the optical are set-up as RAID "0's" so they appear on your desktop as 1 drive):

Mounted Drive 1 - OS/Apps

Mounted Drive 2 - 3TB in RAID 0 - Current years work with 64GB partition for Photoshop scratch disk

Mounted Drive 3 - 4TB  in RAID 0 - All data (Photos, Documents, Music, Motion/Video)

WARNING  -- ***DO NOT SET-UP ANYTHING IN RAID 0, WITHOUT A REALLY, REALLY SOLID BACK-UP AND RESTORE PLAN (In my current set-up, If my "bay 2 drive" crashes, then I lose all photography (data) across 3 drives (bays 2-4).  So in my mind, I have to ask myself - "When a drive crashes, can I get my photographs back?" AND "How long will it take to restore the data?"

BACK-UP PLAN
Probably the most important part of your data management plan as a photographer is to have a consistent back-up plan in place.  When I say consistent, I really mean automated.  If it's not automated, something will slip through the cracks.

Mine's not foolproof, but it's solid and a good place to start...

STEP 1: Back-up all of your live data locally and continuously.

  Part A) Drive #1 (OS/APPS) backed up via Time Machine to a USB drive

  Part B)  Drives #2-6 backed up to Server via Gigabit ethernet.  My main block of live data (i.e. Photographs, video, docs, music) spans 5 hard drives within my Mac Pro, equalling 8 Terabytes of space.  My server consists of a 10 Drive, RAID 6 box which will handle all 8TB's of data.  RAID 6 just means that two drives can completely fail and the data will still be in tact within the server. A drive will fail on you at some point.  Plan on it.  If you can't afford or don't need a server, get a Drobo or even a simple external Hard drive from Costco that has enough space to completely mirror your entire data set).  Another option if your a Mac Pro user, is to simply use the remaining Bay's for back-up (remember you have up to 6 bays with the Pro Caddy 2).  This is the cheapest and cleanest method if the space is available.

STEP 2: Back-up all of your data offsite.  
You need to back-up your data to a place that will still be around if current location experiences a natural disaster such as a flood or fire.  The external HD's get backed-up and stored securely off-site at least monthly and more often if possible.

STEP3: Back-up offsite again - Online.  
I'm currently evaluating CrashPlan and Backblaze for online back-up (both around $50/year).  I'll let you know soon which I prefer.  So far I'm leaning toward CrashPlan for 2 reasons 1) You can send a 1TB upload initially via a Hard Drive  and 2) If and when you have to restore the data Crashplan is a few hundred dollars, Backblaze is several thousand.  Both programs run continuously in the background and update only the files that have changed/added on your computer.  

STEP 4: AUTOMATE everything. 
 I use Chronosync ($30) to automate my main drive back-up (Drives 2-5) to my Server. I also use chronosync for my monthly external, offsite back-ups.  The beauty of this program, is that you don't have to re-copy your entire library of photographs.  For example, let's say I go into Lightroom and tweak my Saturation on a RAW file shot way back in 2005. When I sync my hard drives with Chronosync, it will notice the change to that file (XMP) and add the saturation change to the back-up.

STEP 5: BACK-UP one more time. 
IF you're extremely paranoid (like me), hook-up an additional external drive (or box) via eSata, FW800, or Ethernet directly to your Mac Pro (iMac or PC) to acts as another back-up source to either all of your data or your most important files/folders.  A drobo would be an example of such a box.

*IF you're on a budget, take STEPS 1 and 3 at a MINIMUM.  This is the least expensive, yet viable option.

  

I realize this could either be completely overwhelming to you OR too basic, depending on which camp you fall into on the techy side of things.  Don't stress too much if it sounds overwhelming, just enough to decide to put a back-up plan in place!  If you have questions about your particular system or where to start, please put them in the Comments section and let's generate a good discussion.

Also, please chime in with your experience and plan for both adding more space for data and backing it up.  I would love to hear your thoughts!

-Kevin

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Park City Utah Professional Photographer

On-Location, Big Lights Photography: Presentation Feedback Needed!

So, I was asked to present this coming weekend at PhotoCamp Utah 2010 on the topic of "on-location photography and big light techniques", which is going to be a blast!  The one day event is completely sold out (with 400 people on a waiting list...sorry ya'll).  I think Mr. Zack Arias has something to do with that.

Here's the deal. I only have 45 minutes to present before they yank me out of the room (which has been threatened).  It's just enough time to talk through some scouting ideas as well as show a few behind the scenes examples, but not nearly enough time to set-up a true demo.   If YOU were going to attend my class (or are), what would you want to get out of it??   I plan on talking about the behind the scenes from this  Kauai, Trail Running Photograph as well as the lighting set-up for some of the images from the recent Salt Lake City Shootout: Powder Skiing image 1 and Powder Skiing photograph 2.

Here's the course description :
On-location Photography: from scouting great locations to delivering results with BIG light techniques

This class will focus on what it takes to achieve stellar imagery on-location. We will review two location based "BIG light" shoots and the resulting imagery

Starting point: Please come with a basic understanding of the technical side of working with off-camera lights.  A love for the outdoors and location based work is a bonus.  Ending point: Getting past the technical stuff and finding greater vision when shooting on location including the use of BIG lights.

HIT me below with your feedback (comments).   I'm also toying with the Chase Jarvis idea of doing either a live feed from the presentation or at a minimum recording it and putting it up here in the near future.  

-Kevin

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Park City Utah Professional Photographer

Adobe Lightroom Workflow: Single catalog or multiple catalogs?

Adobe Lightroom users, I need your help!

What is the most effecient way you've found to manage your library of images?

Please tell us if you are using a single catalog or multiple catalogs or a combination of both and what the advantages of your system are?  Also, specify the following in your response:

1) What version of LR you're running?  (For Beta 3 users, specify any differences you see in speed between the two)
2) How big your catalog (s) is (# of images)?
3) How fast the program runs for basic viewing and developing features (adjusting saturation, switching tasks - develop to library grid, etc.).  I realize this is subjective, but is the program running fast enough to actually get work done...
4) How your computer system is set-up (Type, Processor speed, RAM, HD configuration -- LR Catalog on  Drive A, Images on separate drives, and any other nuances)

In addition, do you have any feature requests for Adobe? --   My #1 feature request is to be able to open more than one catalog at once.

Looking forward to hearing your experience!

-Kevin
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Utah Photographers

2010 Salt Lake City Ski Photography Shootout: Winner!

2010 Salt Lake Shootout Winning Photograph: "Best of Show" and first place in "Air" category
Equipment: Canon 7D, 10-22mm lens, beautiful morning sunlight


100% Crop of Jason just after lift-off

This last week is an absolute blur!  The annual Salt Lake Ski Photography shootout took place this past week and I was stoked to get a first time invite.  Anytime you take 10 professional photographers and mix in 20 pro skiers good things are bound to happen and this years contest was no different.  The guidelines were pretty straightforward:

A) 4 days of skiing and shooting at each of the Cottonwood canyon resorts (Alta, Snowbird, Brighton, Solitude)
B) Working with 2 different athletes per day
C) Submit 3 images per category (Air, Powder, Big Mountain, City Lifestyle, Mountain Lifestlye)
D) ALL submissions due by 10PM on Friday (4th day)! No exceptions!

I was expecting to do pretty well, get some publishable images and call it a solid week of work, but in all honesty was not necessarily expecting to win anything.   There was an extremely talented pool of photographers participating from as far away as Norway and Vancouver as well as some local talent.  So when the slide for first place rolled up during the awards ceremony with one of my images, I was pretty floored, to say the least.  The shot of Jason West (above) not only took first place in the"Air" category, but went on to win the "Best of Show", grand prize award.  What a feeling of both humility and extreme excitement!  It was awesome.  The conditions proved awesome, with each day bringing something a bit different to work with.  I've got to give a thank you to every athlete I worked with.  Thanks for hiking back up the mountain for "one more shot" assisting with lights and keeping things so positive the whole time.  You made my job easy (er).  And a course special shout-out to Jason West for his epic line off of the fantasy ridge cliff at Solitude Ski resort that won the thing.  Awesome work my friend!


We worked on some late afternoon/ early evening shots and this was one of my submissions in the Powder category.  Athlete Jason West making a turn just after dusk at Brighton Ski resort near Salt Lake City, Utah

Here's a behind the scenes look of one of our lighting set-ups: Equipment used: Elinchrom Ranger (2 packs, 3 heads), 580EX II x 1, Skyport Triggers, mixed with late ambient light.

Parting shot entered in the "Mountain Lifestyle" category.  Location: Snowbird Ski Resort - Athlete: Cody Barnhill with Leopard dude and Zebra lady

-Kevin

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Utah Photographer

Commercial Photography Checklist: On-location

I love flying airplanes.  In fact, long before I picked up a camera for the first time and well before my commercial photography days, I was intent on becoming a pilot.  Within six months after starting flight school I received my private pilots license and had a whopping 40 hours of flight experience under my belt. I was stoked!  6 short months later I was close to my instrument rating and half way through my commercial rating and was pushing 100 hours of flight time.  At every step in my short aviation career, this notion of using a "checklist" was pounded into my head.  After deciding I'd rather do barrel rolls than bus people around from point A to B, I left my pursuit of becoming a commercial pilot.  That was years ago, but to this day I can still recite from memory several of the checklists that were engrained in my head.  Checklists are a way of life in aviation.  Pre-flight, prior to take-off, emergencies, crossing different airspace, communicating, landing...the list goes on and on.  There's a checklist for EVERYthing you do in aviation and a pilot will have a short life if he ignores his checklists.  You are taught to never rely solely on your memory, but to reference your checklist, item by item, every time!

Have you ever forgotten an important item on a photo shoot (lens, CF cards, lights)?  I have and it's a sickening feeling (take my word for it if you haven't).  Granted we as Photographers don't get into life and death "situations" per se, but we do have a lot of stuff to remember and if you're like me your memory can only handle so much.  So pilots use checklists. Why not photographers?  (maybe you already do)  --  This past week I had a location based shoot and was scrambling around checking the 20 different places I keep my equipment (ughh).  I needed a checklist, just like in my flying days.  So I opened up a spreadsheet, listed my all my equipment in an order that makes sense to me, printed it and voila, was right back in the Pilots seat.  Here's what I came up with:  commercial photography checklist. If it's a helpful starting point for you, drop a comment below or email us and I'll make it available as a downloadable spreadsheet file (created in Apple Numbers) so you can customize it to your gear and working style.  I'll likely follow this up with a production checklist for self-produced shoots.

I've organized the checklist into categories and subcategories.  The lighting section for example, is organized around different lighting kits I use depending on the size and location of my shoot (Small, Medium and Large Kits).  The last thing I do before leaving on a shoot is confirm everything required for the shoot is in my vehicle ready to go.  Don't start checking stuff off before it's physically in the car. (I wouldn't start my landing checklist 50 miles out from the airport) You'll forget something!

I'd love to hear how you organize and keep track of what is needed when you go on a shoot.  Drop a comment with any thoughts or ways to improve this checklist.

-Kevin Winzeler
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Utah professional photographer
Photography | Motion | Stock

Failure & Fear: Photography - Keep Moving

I've spoken about failure as a "good thing" in a prior photography related blog post and so when I across this Harvard commencement address by J.K. Rowling (aka Harry Potter for those living in a closet) recently, I was again quite inspired once again. There is something profound in the notion of coming to grips with our fears and failures in photography (and life) and moving forward despite all of it. It's not that I believe people really seek failure, maybe some do, but those that have failed miserably and persisted to greatness are particularly inspiring.  The idea is beautifully expressed through her address.  

Fear often paralyzes us before we even get to the starting gate.  I know when I NEED to do something by the nerve racking feeling inside that causes a semi-paralysis of thought turning into over-exaggerated fear of all the reasons I might fail, if I do this "thing".   I guarantee [and I rarely use that word] we all experience fear of failure about something in life, whether it be a job, relationship, public speaking or simply photographing something new.  I sure felt this way leaving a corporate position in a Fortune 500 company to become a professional photographer, all while considering my family responsibilities, mortgage, and future "retirement".  Failures have come along the way and will surely come in the future, but those failures shape me as a person and an artist.

If we get past the initial paralysis that fear brings and do that "thing" we feared, often we still find the result is failure, despite our best efforts.  I often call myself an "experimenter", but in reality it would surely be failing.   With no formal photography education, I work really, really hard to understand all aspects of photography and motion from both a technical and an artistic perspective and then I experiment like mad.  Just ask my wife!  This past weekend for example, I was preparing for an upcoming commercial photography shoot so I took over the largest room in our house, kicked the kids out, moved the furniture and set-up shop.  After three hours of experimenting (failing), I had a a few shots and concepts that I would consider successful, but not many.  It seems that most of my successes in photography however, come after a lot of failure and the principle is to keep moving, moving, moving.  JK Rowling kept moving both toward her true passion as well as forward in life after what she calls complete failure.  It is easy to hang up the camera after having felt the fear, acted and then failed.  "At least I tried", we might say to ourselves as we move to something that is less risky and ironically, less of a passion.  We just aren't "visionary", "artistic", or "technical" enough to be great at photography.  Wrong!  In reality, most of us feel this way.  We keep moving forward driven by the passion, even when we feel overwhelmed by failure.  Success comes because we keep moving!  Be courageous to find your vision!


I intended to simply post the video this morning, but hopefully my ramblings have been somewhat worthwhile for you.  Here are a few quotes I found insightful from the address:
Quote 1: "Rock Bottom became my solid foundation"

Quote 2: "Stripping away of the inessentials"

-Kevin

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Kevin Winzeler is a Commercial Photographer based in Utah and available worldwide.

Future of commercial photography and film?

I'm not sure what this means for the future of photography, particularly in the world of advertising and commercial photography which I'm a part of, but the fact that computer generated images are this realistic, makes me wonder.  Alex Roman delivers the most compelling argument I've seen for computer generated (CG) imagery especially when we're talking about one guy pulling this all together not the whole Avatar team down in Weta NZ for example.  It's pretty insane to think about.  What blows me away is not just the realistic nature of every frame in this film, but the level of art he achieves as well.  There's an interesting discussion taking place at "A Photo editor" with predictions about whether CG will or will not take over the role of a photographer as we know it.  It's a fact that Photography and film are becoming more and more about compositing the "pieces" together to make the final image than shooting everything "in frame".  This bow hunting image is an example from my own portflio (rain, clouds, lightning all composite work).  Unfortunately or fortunately depending on your perspective, in the commercial world it's a question of resources and if the "same" film or photograph can be made cheaper, that notion will rule the day.  Here's another example on the topic:

What are your thoughts?  Does any of this affect the type of photography you do or how you view the world of photography? Chime in!  All I know, is I that I have a ton of real, "live" locations to visit all over the world with photographs to be made in each and CG won't do any of them justice!  


-Kevin
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Park City Utah, Photographer

Commercial photographers: 5 apps in my Mac Pro dock

As a commercial photographer in utah there are a few applications I use almost daily.  Without talking about Adobe products, here are the ones I could not live without:

1) Chronosync - (Back-up software - $30)
2) TweetDeck - (Social media - Free)
3) Latest press or publication (keep your latest press in your dock to share)
4) Cyberduck - (FTP Client - Free)
5) SnapnDrag - (Screen shot tool - $1)

What are your favorites?  Share with us!

Here's why I like these applications:

1) Chronosync - My philosophy is that if your back-up system isn't automated, you're going to lose data, at some point, guaranteed!  Chronosync allows you to run an automated back-up every night, hour, or at whatever interval you choose. So essentially, you can back-up as many main drives as you have to as many back-up drives as you choose. This works over both a local set of drives (USB, Firewire) or a network.  Cheap peace of mind.  Now I just need an automated off-site solution.  Any ideas?  Places like Mozy or other online back-up either A) would never be able to back-up multiple Terabytes initially or B) require a huge payment to get your data out if you ever need to.

2) TweetDeck -  I hate updating both Facebook and Twitter separately.  Nuff said.  Not only does Tweetdeck allow you to see your social networking across multiple platforms, it also has a bunch of other cool features.  There's an iphone app also.

3) Latest publications, awards and other docs.  Besides my applications, I pull a bunch of other documents and items into my dock as a reminder of what I should be working on.  If I'm sending out an email to a new prospect or contact, I'll often include some recent press or publication.  Currently, Skiing magazine's shot of the year is handy (see below) for easy access when scripting new emails.  If you have a bunch of new goals for 2010 in a spreadsheet somewhere, pull it up to your dock today.   Remind yourself every morning what the focus for this year is.

4) Cyberduck - There are lot's of FTP clients out there.  I prefer Cyberduck because it's trouble free, allows me to bookmark all of my FTP locations for easy access and It's free.

5) SnapnDrag - I love this application!  Simple as that.  It gets used every day and is one of my favorites.  It's not much more than a "screenshot" tool, but it's the most effective one I've used.  I'm constantly grabbing screenshots (i.e. see #3 above).  One of my favorite features, is the direct email link right in the application.  Grab a screenshot, click "email" and up pops your mail client with the image (screenshot) attached.
Another example:  Client Z asks for a quote (Homepage website usage).  You ask for the size and they point you to their website and say, "just like that top banner".  You say, "great, so the size of the product shot of Kobe's shoe?" client "yep".   "I'll get right back to you".
Now, pull up SnapnDrag, line up the crosshairs exactly on each side of the image, take a snapshot and name it. Next, drag to Photoshop and check the Image Size...ah...915px X 419px.  Now click "email" and confirm with client or send yourself a reminder to estimate usage (since you are in the middle of a shoot right now). ***btw - yes, you can grab screenshots w/Mac shortcut "Shift, Control, Command, 4",  but they automatically go to the desktop and there's no quick email feature or renaming the shot feature.

What are you using on a daily basis?

-Kevin
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Park City Photographers

Timelapse Photography

This time lapse photography reel by 599 productions is pretty insane (as in awesome)! The city footage at 3:15 is particularly amazing. I contacted the photographer with a few technical questions and he (Andrew Walker) was super cool to answer them. I thought you might enjoy our conversation, so here you go...

[ME]
Hey Andrew,
Just checked out Timelapse #5.  Awesome work man!  Really stellar.  
I've got a few "how to" questions for you:


1) How many shots per minute are you shooting?
2) What's the best way to put something like this together (Final cut?).  Have you experimented with different final frame rates? Is the #5 video 10 fps or so? 
Thanks in advance and keep doing great work!   -Kevin


[ANDREW]
All the videos I post are at 24fps, just like film. But that is just the playback frame rate. The capture frame rate varies from shot to shot. The shots range from .5sec to 15sec intervals. So far the best way I have found to do the post processing on this is to use Lightroom and FCP. I have tried After Effects and you could do everything in that program and then some. But I have had nothing but problems outputting from it.  Glad you liked the footage. I'm planning for a slightly longer video that will have my best of stuff in there. But that's a couple months away.


[ME]
Thanks for the reply Andrew.  For your night shots, what are you finding is the limit on ISO with the 5DII (or find you are shooting at most of the time)?  You have a ton of depth of field in almost all of your shots and relatively minimal noise. Are you using any noise reduction in LR? Also, in terms of file type and size, are you exporting all images from LR as Jpgs or Tifs (8bit, 16bit)? And merging into Final Cut.  Thanks for the advice.  It's really helpful.  I look forward to seeing a compilation (best of) segment. Send me a link when you post it.


[ANDREW]
The ISO for the night shots vary from 200-250 for the cityscape stuff and 3200 for all the star timelapse. But I have used around 400 for some city stuff, you just need to find a good balance. For the shots that have the high ISOs I am using some noise reduction in Lightroom. All the images are resized to 1920x1080 16-bit Tiffs. I use to do 8-bit for all my stuff but I found that 16-bit handles the gradients better. Then after the output I import the frames into FCP and have it assemble the frames.
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Park City Photographers

Utah Photographers

Latest photography podcast: The Candid Frame

If you're like me and can always use more quality photography material to listen to while on the road, then I highly recommend this series of Podcasts by Ibarioinex R. Perello here: The Candid Frame.  Grab the iTunes version if you have an iphone or ipod handy and enjoy the show as Ibarionex asks insightful questions to photographers spanning all genres and levels of success.  Really great stuff!

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Two surfers head out for a few waves on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii / Surf Photography by Kevin Winzeler

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Kevin Winzeler

Commercial Photographer 

Salt Lake City, Utah Photographer