A la Carte Digital Studios — Off the Menu

At the end of October I was asked to be a co-instructor with Randy Hufford of the Institute of Visual Arts in Maui for a new and unique 6-day workshop about flower and food photography.  Obviously, I jumped at the chance to participate in this photo adventure in Hawaii.

Flowers and food!  What a weird combination…but as the week went on, I had some interesting observations that made these two subjects more alike than I expected.  Over my entire career I have photographed just about everything…from weddings and rock bands to food and products, but in all honesty, I can’t say I have gone out on my own for a day of flower photography, so I was a bit apprehensive of my level of expertise in capturing the beauty of Mother Nature.

Randy had invited me as the guest instructor because of my food experience. Our secondary objective was to create some food photographs for his wife’s cookbook. “Chef Rebecca” is an excellent cook and has a great passion for food and entertaining. For some time now she has wanted to share her favorite recipes with friends and family as well as create a treasured journal for future Hufford generations.

A great aspect of this event was that there was something for the photographer AND the spouse or friend that might want to also enjoy the week in Maui.  Those that chose not to participate in the photography workshop were invited to a cooking school experience…working with Chef Rebecca preparing some tasty lunches and gourmet dinners. Learning by doing…and enjoying the rewards of the efforts.

The workshop schedule mixed classroom time with four field trips to local Maui botanical gardens and flower farms. Everyone came along on the flower trips…they were magnificent locations if you were doing photography or just enjoying the scenery and flora.

We spent three hours or more in each location discovering photo opportunities at every turn. It seemed that it only took minutes to fill a 4 GB memory card…good thing I had a number of cards with me.  Back in the classroom, Randy presented an excellent overview of Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom^® so we could all start an efficient cataloging system for our new images.  He gave us tips on how to sort, edit, and make some basic corrections to our photographs…I was happy to have participated because I had a very superficial knowledge of Lightroom and was quite happy with the newly discovered features it offered.

At the end of each afternoon we turned our attention to the kitchen and setup for the food photo of the day. One dish from each dinner was selected to be photographed for the cookbook.  For most food jobs I have worked on the food stylist would take extraordinary steps to prepare the food for the camera and be prepared for any problems or surprises along the way. Chef Rebecca wanted to keep the typical “food manipulation” down to a minimum…she wanted to have the food look very believable and a representation of what you could expect when you cook it at home.  It was a much more editorial approach to food photography…and all things considered, it was the smartest way to go since everyone was waiting for me to finish the photo so we could eat.

And did we eat!  Kudos to the Chef and her staff…the food was great every night and a local wine consultant had selected wines that paired perfectly with the meal.  The meals were as good as any restaurant and it was so great to sit at the table with the whole class and “talk shop”.  It was a great way to end the day.

I mentioned earlier that there were some interesting comparisons in photographing flowers or food.  With food we are always trying to take the food and make it beautiful by manipulating the dish, the background, the props and the lighting.  With flowers, we have to find the existing beauty and do the best we can with the lighting, background, and environment around it.  In both cases, we have lots of decisions to make…composition, lens, angle, depth-of-field, and the technical issues of lighting.

Food is very real…it has expectations (of flavor and texture) and stereotypes from our past experiences.  Food photos are more often than not used to SELL — to convince you to try a restaurant (based on the perceived quality or motivation); to buy a packaged food product; to try a recipe; or to read an article or advertisement.  The photo is generally trying to cause an action — a verb!

Flower photos are more documentary or illustrative. It is a passive subject that is often not investigated with the eye (or camera) from a perspective that evokes emotion. Flowers are more abstract subjects that can be elevated to a work of art.  These photos are generally creating or supporting a mood — an adjective!

Both share the commonality of the rules of art…control of light for texture, shape and shadows; selective focal point; dynamic composition; elimination of distractions; and proper techniques (focus, exposure, color, etc.)…all are required to make an exceptional image.

Back to the workshop…When we reached our first location on Monday afternoon I had no idea what I could do in this foreign environment without my tools and the controls I have in the studio.  But, as soon as I clicked the shutter button for the first time…it was like riding a bike!  All of my photographic instincts kicked in and I found lots of fascinating and beautiful subjects to shoot.

I took over 1500 images over the six days and trying to edit them down to a handful of favorites was quite a task. I saw things in the varied images that I would take of a single subject that quickly separated the good from the bad.  Little details such as the sharpness of the background, distrating bright areas, point of critical focus, tangencies, image contrast, and overall composition were factors that guided the editing process.

Overall, this was a great week — for me as an instructor, as well as for the students. Maui is a beautiful place to do photography and this unique photo adventure provided the opportunity to create some great images, learn a great deal about photographic techniques and workflow that can apply to any type of imaging, plus enjoy some great food.  More workshops are planned for the future, so if you are love photography, food and nature, this could be a vacation to remember.

More information on the Flowers & Flavors Maui Photo Adventure:
http://www.ivamaui.com/events.

Did I mention I hated crowds? So why not head to Disneyland in Los Angeles in mid-July! Actually, it was more of a chance to grab an opportunity. Ann and I had not been to Disneyland for over ten years and had never seen the California Adventure Park addition. Just before the 4th of July weekend, I got a call from Disney Imagineering to ask for a day of Better Light scanning back training ASAP…so we made some quick plans  and hotel reservations for the end of the following week, hopped in the car and headed for “beautiful downtown Burbank” (it just happened to be the weekend celebrating of Burbank’s 100th anniversary, too).

We arrived Thursday afternoon and got a nice surprise…a VIP tour of the new research library for Imagineering — where everything (every drawing, every photo, every detail) of the parks and resorts are kept. We saw the original drawing of Disneyland that Walt and his brother Roy used to sell the bankers on the concept and the binders that hold all of the photos, fabric swatches, paint chips and construction details for every attraction, every character, and every prop in the parks and hotels. What a task to keep up…but, that’s how they maintain the incredible quality and continuity that Disney is known for.

Friday was a work day to meet with Imagineering’s photographer, Jess Allen to work out some issues with color profiling, digital focus, and the ViewFinder software for the Better Light scanning back. I’ve done quite a bit of installation and training work over the years and really enjoy working with photographers in many unique situations.

The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Hollywood Tower Hotel in Disney's California Adventure Park. (HDR version. See notes on photo below).

At the end of the day it was time to head south to Anaheim through Friday night rush hour traffic and catch a few hours at Disneyland before it closed. By 8 pm we were in our first line for “Soarin’ Over California”…and a little irritated because the lines didn’t move. The parks now had a Fast Pass system so you could get a reserved window of time to return to the ride and go right to the front. Without it you stood in the “standby” line and that’s where we were. Finally, we got on the ride and it was pretty cool…like a hang glider experience over the major landmarks of California.

Then, off to The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror attraction and this line moved

along pretty nicely. A well done Disney attraction that let’s you relive the night of October 31, 1939 when lightning mysteriously struck the tower, plunging 5 unfortunate elevator occupants into oblivion. “Wave goodbye to the real world!”

This is the original capture...OK, but it lacks the mystery and fantasy feeling of the HDR version above.

It was way past time for some food, so we headed out of the park to Downtown Disney and had a pretty good Italian meal at Naples Ristorante. But, then I had a plan…I had read about Trader Sam’s Enchanted Tiki Bar on the Disneyland Hotel property and just had to try a HippopotoMai Tai (one of the best I’ve had recently, by the way).

OK…let’s wrap this up. Saturday was a full day at the parks. The morning was not too crowded and we got a number of attractions out of the way quickly. There were more things to do for “old folks” than I thought and we had a blast on the California Screamin’ roller coaster and Toy Story Mania…a ride that is a shooting gallery…so cool! It was getting pretty warm — 85° or so (but not in the 100′s like the week before) and the crowds were growing. By 2 pm we were in Disneyland proper and the Fast Passes were being issued for 8 pm already. We went to the rides we wanted to see…endured the standby lines…and were way ready to get away from crowds, screaming children, and attack strollers by 9 pm. We opted for more HippopotoMai Tais and tropical tiki appetizers at Trader Sams.

Water wheel scene at the Grizzly River Run. The lift for the raft ride is in the background. Getting drenched on the rapids ride was a nice relief on a hot Los Angeles afternoon.

Yes, I did carry a camera…that’s what this blog exercise is all about, right?! I’m supposed to take picture “for fun”! There was no way I was taking my Canon 5D and lenses, so my Canon G11 was just enough. I bought that camera because it was 10 megapixels and the smallest camera to shoot RAW files. It hangs on my belt, but the images are decent enough that I feel it’s worth aiming at something. Too many people and not enough “photo ops”, but I did get a couple of images to attach to this post.

Both photos were created in Nik’s HDR Efex Pro software. The G11 can shoot three consecutive images to provide a ±1 f-stop bracket for HDR (high-dynamic range) processing. Naturally, I’m too lazy to carry a tripod (but I did just buy a new lightweight one), so my image sharpness is not perfect…but certainly adequate. Why HDR? First, the extra over and under exposures provides better detail in the deep shadows and brightest highlights; and second, the software allows you to manipulate the tones and detail in many ways from natural looking to some pretty bizarre creative deviations.

This is one of the single captures of the wheel...looks just like the ones a million others shot with their iPhone!

I liked disconnect with reality for both images. The hotel became much more “alive” and the detail and color popped out more. A little retouching to remove the bright red stroller at the lower right corner and a little distortion to correct the verticals of the building and we’ve got a photograph instead of a picture. Similar with the waterwheel…the abstract image was much more interesting to me…the textures really came out and I loved what happened with the water. The problem with something moving like the wheel and the water (plus, me hand-holding the camera) is that the three exposures don’t match up. The software has a “ghost removal” technique, but it’s only so helpful. If you look close at the spokes of the wheel…there are about double the number in the single capture. I retouched out some, but it would have been painful to go farther and they were not visually objectionable. The water variations, however, took on so much more character and interest (at least to me…and it’s my fun!)

That’s more than you probably wanted to know about my weekend. So long for now, until my next outing with the camera.

I hate crowds…so my idea of a good time is not to be part of the huddled masses at holiday events. This year, my wife Ann suggested we join a neighbor at a new vantage point to watch the fireworks in Foster City away from the crowd that has been growing every year for one of the Bay Area’s best fireworks shows.  Since I had talked my way out of going last year, I figured I’d better sound enthusiastic this year.

As you probably know from my first couple of posts on this blog, I am making the public pledge to “get off the couch” and do some photography “just for fun”.  It has been many years since I made a serious effort to take photographs of fireworks…and this goes back to my “young and enthusiastic” days when we still used film. Usually, the results of fireworks on film were disappointing.

But…now we have the power of digital, and I intended to use it. I could be a good husband and go to the fireworks, but immerse myself in capturing the fireworks.

Click on Photo to See Larger Image

Last year, I finally broke down and bought a 21-megapixel Canon 5D Mark II camera. I had previously had the 6-megapixel Kodak 760 in a Nikon body and it was highly stressful to sell it and the great (almost new) Nikon lenses. This will only be the fourth or fifth time that I have used the camera for any specific project.

One hesitation was a lack of a tripod. I’ve got a new carbon fiber tripod arriving this week and rest of my gear and accessories at the studio. I found a location where I could rely on a fence post and my “rock-steady” hands to support the camera without a tripod. After a few initial tests, I made most of the exposures at 1/2 second, f-7, at 640 ISO. The half-second exposure allowed me to push the shutter on the anticipation of the firework’s burst and there would still be ample time to catch some expansion of the pattern and yet not enough time to encounter (too much) camera shake.

Over the short 24 minute show, I made 150 images…most of them usable. Compared to years past, I didn’t feel that there were as many multiple rockets fired at the same time and that many of the burst patterns were pretty similar. I’m sure the current economy and City budget placed some restrictions on the show.  Regardless, my objective was to get “digital parts”…all I needed was components to build a composite later.

This morning I downloaded the files and I was not that impressed with any of the images, but I picked a few “good ones” and brought them into Photoshop. I had one image taken early in the show that still showed some sky color, silhouette of the trees, and detail in the buildings across the lagoon. I began dragging the other images onto this “background image” and moved the firework’s bursts around. I liked what I saw. I pulled a few more images that had possibilities and added some of these to make a full frame of color and patterns.

Overlapping these images was quite easy with the help of Blend Modes and Masking in Photoshop. Each new image layer that I added was changed to “Lighten” blend mode. This made the darker areas disappear and only showed the elements of the image that were “lighter” than the background. Any unwanted elements such as the lights in the distance or reflections on the water were painted out with the use of a layer mask.

I started fine tuning the image by retouching out a streak of lens flare from a nearby yard light, then added some of the streaks near the ground from the firing of the rockets, and grabbed some additional water reflections to get the mix of colors in the foreground…and while I was at it, I added the extra silhouette of the boat to reinforce the fleet of boats that come out on the lagoon for a great view of the fireworks display.

All said and done…the file was 1.25 GB (gigabytes) and had over 20 layers. I always keep my master files at full resolution, 16-bit color, and uncropped. I only shoot raw files so I have additional control over image processing on my main workstation…never, will I shoot anything in JPEG. The camera settings control the image processing and you can never correct for a mistake or recover the resolution. If your camera can shoot a raw file, use it all the time.

Well, the blog has had it’s first triumph in getting me out with the camera. Let’s hope you enjoyed the photo and that we can see more images and self-motivation in the future.

Now that I am a “blogger” I have the opportunity to share some thoughts, goals and accomplishments with you that will hopefully be informative and entertaining. I really love teaching, but ironically, I don’t like talking about my work with people I don’t know…maybe it’s shyness, or it could be that I get very self-conscious talking about myself.

This blog will be a means for me to share some insights on better photography with you, but also will be a symbol of commitment for me to get off the couch and take advantage of  photographic opportunities…even when I am not hired by a client.

I’m proud to say that I have been earning my money from photography since I was a junior in high school. Being one of the few people in the photo club, I did most of our own yearbook photos and soon was hired by our contract school photographer to help him with sports and candids for his other 13 high schools in the suburban Minneapolis area. During that summer I also worked for a suburban newspaper as a photographer and columnist chasing ambulances, shooting local sports and events, and had a special assignment to attend the Beatles press conference and concert in August of 1965.

Venetian Hotel Capanile in Las Vegas – One of my first attempts with HDR from my Canon G11 camera.

One of the penalties that I have paid for my 40+ year career in photography is that I have not done much personal photography — photos just for my own benefit and enjoyment.Or perhaps because I had the good fortune of learning from some of the best photographers in the business who taught me so many aspects of image making that contribute to extraordinary photographs.

I’ve learned what a perfect photograph should be and it has been very difficult for me to appreciate a photograph if it isn’t approaching perfection. Consequently, I would rather not make a photograph if the light isn’t perfect, if the angle isn’t correct, or if I don’t have the right camera equipment with me. I’ve pretty much talked myself out of even carrying a camera with me most of the time.  I did purchase a Canon G11, which is the first compact camera to shoot raw images. It is 11 megapixels and about the size of a pack of cigarettes, so it is small enough to carry in my briefcase or on my belt…yet, sufficient image quality that it is worth the effort to take a photo of something interesting.

In the mid-90′s, after operating my own studio and full-service graphics business for 15 years, I was burnt out and ready to close the studio and try something completely different. I had lost the spark that had made photography challenging and rewarding for me. Then came the digital revolution…I went to several conventions to investigate the opportunities in digital cameras and decide if I even wanted to deal with the in this lifetime.

Well…I was immediately attracted to the concept and found that digital capture could renew the passion again.  I became somewhat of a digital expert…especially in some areas of high-resolution imaging. It has served me well as a photographer, consultant, and educator over the past years, but the absence of “photos for fun” still persists.

Hopefully, you will visit this blog periodically to witness my improved enthusiasm for photography and benefit from some of the techniques and ideas that I will share about my images.

I resisted cell phones when they first came out, a don’t video chat, not sure I even know how to text, and I vowed I will never Tweet! But, the time has come to let more people know about my photography and to share some of the things that go on behind the scenes.

I’m hoping this blog will provide a way for me to tell you more about my thoughts concerning the photography industry and provide some motivation to get out and take some photographs “just for fun”.

So stop by every so often to see what’s going on with may adventures with a camera and my BFF, Photoshop!