Look what we made!!!

So, here he is. World, this is Finley. Finley, this is the internet. It's a place where you have millions of incorrect answers to any question you can imagine! Plus there are endless video stockpiles of kittens doing cute things, or people getting hit in the crotch. It's amazing. For instance, when you are old enough to search out all the times we've mentioned you on your blog, websites and the like, I hope that you have not spent your entire life having not seen this. You're welcome dear son.

Bliss is in the details.

Getting the opportunity to help capture one of the most important days for anyone is a privilege. Getting to capture it for friends is especially wonderful, yet challenging in its own way. Having not formally taken pictures for a wedding in nearly a decade, I was certainly hesitant in agreeing to start shooting weddings. Not that I didn't feel comfortable, or capable, but because of the stress it can provide, and the sheer workload involved (we don't get to send film off to be processed anymore, we get to process each and every image ourselves now!) This is a blessing and a curse. The control over the creative process is invaluable, but there is a ton more work involved on a picture by picture basis. I love taking pictures. I love it, but I am teetering on a new precipice contemplating this as a new job, not just a passion. With our first child within weeks of popping out and providing us with endless entertainment, I have to really check myself with the extra workload I can handle. Throw me in a helicopter, take the doors off and fly it in heavy wind while I hang out trying to shoot a regatta, no problem. Dealing with 20 different models in a 5 hour span with stylists going nuts, bring it. But weddings? Any professional wedding shooter will tell you, if asked, how different shooting an event like a wedding is from most any other shooting environment. It is a one time deal, if you lose a memory card because someone spills a glass of champagne on them, you don't get to re-shoot. You get what you get. If the sun is harsh, tough. If the church doesn't allow flash and seems to be holding on to a medieval tradition of lighting a windowless church by nothing but candlelight, deal with it. If at the perfect moment you are a split second early or late, you get a beautiful shot of the groom going in for the kiss while the bride has one eye closed and mouth half open. All the while, the perception of photography now-a-days, being digital (ie: easy/automated/etc), is that anyone can do it right? Sure. Anyone can do it, but doing it well and with a style that fits the photographer, bride and groom's visions, is where the challenge lies. There are a lot of really good wedding photographers in Portland. There are also a lot of not so good wedding photographers in Portland. Some are a deal, some a steal and some just an outright rip off. One photographer may do an amazing job with the vision the marriage team has, and the same photographer may not jive with another. If I may lend one piece of advice to anyone looking into photography for your wedding, do your homework. Have an idea about what you want and use that to start to look for and discuss this with photographers. It is an important part of your day. The cake is cool, food should be good, music memorable, but all of that and the way they reside in memory can fade in time and will be near forgotten without the pictures. That said, I did my best to take my personal approach and philosophy to photography in general and translate that into capturing Kelly and Gabe's personality both individually and collectively.

With my own 2 year wedding anniversary looming, I had a personal investment in their experience. I remember just how little I actually retained that day. It was a wonderful bout of controlled chaos finding me involved in a series of 30 second conversations between trying to get to the bar for a beer and being pulled to cut cake, take pictures, dance, and attempting to see my new wife. It can go by in a blur. At least it did for me. If it weren't for our pictures (captured by the lovely Rosemary at monamourphotography.com) we might have little to reflect on. Again, I don't remember the food being great, maybe it was, our cake was really cool, but can't remember how it tasted and I have no idea how the alcohol situation turned out. I never did get my beer. One thing I do remember though is the banter involved with my groomsmen. We were doing our best to balance whiskey and coffee at 11 in the morning. I saw myself and friends in Gabe and his crew. As we were wandering the grounds for pre-wedding photos, we joked about many things as guys do. Not coincidentally were those situational conversations that pop up based on what's in front of you. In ground trampoline? Check. Beer? Check. Groomsmen willing to try and combine the two? Check. Nothing like opportunity, alcohol and willingness. I mean, c'mon, a wedding venue with an in ground trampoline? Seriously? What do you expect to happen, right?

Anyway, I really try not to look at my pictures and say, okay, that one looks alright. I want my pictures to either amaze me, confuse me or humor me. Another point of banter was likening the boys and grounds to a scene out of a hip hop video. Hot tub? Check. A large group of attractive girls? Check. Hi-riser having graduated from teenage rims, all polished and ready for the weekend? Crap. Well, that is what photoshop is for.
We couldn't let our lack of wheels deter us from our vision. Could we? I'd guess that there would be some parents or couples spending good money on their wedding photography that would certainly challenge me in this as it does take me a bit of time to process, and of course you now have a pretty smooth, purple piece of American steel riding on 22" dub-ducers sitting behind you and your boys. Hey, it fit the moment and that is what I wanted it to invoke when one of these guys looks at this picture. Hopefully it accomplishes that. The other thing too often lost in staged photography so often utilized in wedding shooting is the lack of spontaneity. Mom, here. Hold his arm. Dad, behind a little... Okay now everyone stand friggin' still and smile! I am someone who wont tell someone to smile, or say cheese. I don't like that. I feel that people should be captured as they are. But, I find that it is not good practice to have people scowling in images depicting a beautiful day, so herein lies my conundrum. Well, I never said I would not make a joke at my own expense or slide the odd comment in to get reaction...
...It's all in the delivery. Anyhoo, I want to thank Kelly and Gabe for pushing me over that edge. I feel deeply honored to have been asked to capture your big day for you. I hope that these images continue to provide you guys with laughs and pleasant memories. I raise my 40oz to the sky to the both of you! Enjoy the next chapter, from my experience, it just keeps getting better. For those interested, Kel and Gabe's wedding gallery is here. Also, to my very own Mrs. Squeeze and soon to be little baby what's-his-face, happy end to the second year of our own blissful (most of the time anyway) marriage. I can't wait for our very own new chapter to begin. I'll bring the camera.

Composite Photography = Magic!

Sometimes simple procedures create what appear to be complex images.  After reading an article in the most recent issue of American Photo magazine, I was tempted to duplicate the results published by an active mother of three/talented photographer on flickr and picked up by the writing staff at AmPhoto mag.  She gave a detailed breakdown on how to create this type of image (which truth be told is a widespread technique).  Having just started to whet my appetite with the depth and ridiculous complexity of photoshop, I felt competent enough to try my hand at it and I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised at how easy it really was.  If you don't have photoshop, you can always try GIMP for free, but then you'll have to figure out how to translate the photoshop equivalents.  I think that it is pretty straight forward, but without firsthand experience, I cannot say for sure...

First: Set your camera up on a tripod and compose the image that will be the setting/background for your finished image.  For me, it was my living room.  Get your exposure settings and snap away (not moving your camera, or changing the focal length/zooming of your lens at all).  When you're happy with it, go get a box, crate, stool, block or anything stable to stand, sit, lay down on top of.  

Secondly: Set the box, crate, etc somewhere in the scene that you can "suspend" yourself on top of.  Set the camera up to fire on a timer, or via a remote, get yourself positioned and fire another shot checking the exposure after the first shot to make sure you are properly exposed.  I used two lights on the shot of me that did not fire for the original exposure to help "pop" me a little bit.  This is entirely a feely touchy thing.  If you want to use lights, use 'em.  If not, don't.  Try natural lighting, or environmental lighting to get you and the original image where you want it.

Next: Get both images uploaded and open them in photoshop.  Using the original image (without you or the box in it) as your background image, hold [shift] and drag the second image (including you in it) on top of the background image.  Holding [shift] while doing this automatically lines the two images up exactly.  Drop the image on top of the background and let go of [shift].  The second image will show up as a layer on top of the background.  With this layer highlighted on the right hand side bar, click the layer mask icon at the bottom right, (it is a small button that looks like a small circle inside a square).  Click on the PAINTBRUSH tool on the tool bar and check that your foreground color is set to black (this is the two overlapping squares below the tool bar on the left, if the Black square is behind the white square, hit the little curved arrow which will switch it) and begin to paint out anything you don't want in the final image (ie: the thing you were standing on) effectively erasing it from the top layer, exposing the original image beneath it.  If you over do it and erase your pinky or something, just switch the foreground color back to white and paint it back on.  

Finally: Flatten and save the image.  You can then do whatever you want to it from here.  You should be magically suspended and can impress your friends with your photoshop prowess.  It is a simple affect that can be used for a variety of effects.  Have at it.

It's been a while...

After sifting through about 1200 images I finally compiled the 110 best pictures from 26 models that I shot in about 4.5 hours. It was controlled chaos and I enjoyed just about every minute of it. With invaluable help from the talented and smooth model charmer Blaine, I was able to keep track of who was who when putting it all together. Now the entire gallery lives here. It was a lot of work for no pay but an invaluable experience nonetheless. Now I just gotta convince these kids that photos can still be printed.

A Season For Graduation

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I have been fortunate enough to have fallen into a few situations in my time. As a newly blossoming photog, I never really thought I would have the opportunity to do any fashion shoots. Not knowing my head from my backside when it came to studio lighting I stumbled across a couple pictures that inspired me to learn. I weaseled my way into shooting the Doom Town show and have since been asked to do a few different shoots which have taught me an amazing amount of technique and allowed me to play around with ideas and concepts that had sat only in theory in this odd little mind of mine. Mrs Squeeze and I had recently talked about the difference between a learned education and an experienced education. While I was arguing that I was glad that I didn't go to school for photography as it afforded me to feel my way through while learning from pure desire not deadline or necessity, she was very enlightening with the argument that when coupled with the desire, a structured educational experience can be invaluable. While without doubt I can say that in a perfect harmony between desire and structure an individual willing to take advantage is set up for success. There is no way for me to know now what differences I would be experiencing if I had gone to school but I must say that what I learn on a daily basis keeps me hungry for more and in no way do I feel at a disadvantage, just challenged in different ways. What's more is that working with artistic people can create collaborations that allow each individual part to comprise a stronger whole. I had ideas when Kori (the designer for this line above) contacted me to do this shoot for her senior collection but through conversations and idea bouncing the images were born a distance away from where they conceptually began. I enjoy working with others that enjoy pushing a creative space and honestly I feel like this gives me a multi directional educational experience that I would not have achieved on my own. Onwards and upwards, while Mrs. Squeeze graduates I feel like, in a way, I get to graduate along with her and hope that our future finds us artistically collaborating together soon.

Photo-Chop

Mrs Squeeze has officially been photoshopped...

So, as someone that questions the validity of such proclamations as "a DJ is a musician" or "a bowler is a professional athlete," I have also wondered is a photographer an artist? How does the capture of an image that already exists deem someone an artist? Creative, sure but an artist? To clarify the DJ comment, I feel that a DJ is an artist and creator because it is a skill that requires timing, rhythm and, I'm sure, many other talents, just not as a "musician". A musician creates music through an instrument and is in fact defined as; "a person that plays a musical instrument". It is not pre-recorded, it is subject to their own ability to execute the sound that whatever instrument they play is capable of creating. While resembling a DJ in the way that they are merely a vessel that helps create sound, the big difference I see is the creative control of what is created in the first place. (The bowler being an athlete vs a skilled hobbiest kinda speaks for itself) This sort of brings me back to the original question. Is a photographer an artist? Once an image is captured on film or digitally, it is a representation of something that already existed. The exposure and composition have been seen by the eye behind the lens, but isn't that just a creative eye? Now what happens when someone decides to digitally manipulate that into something that has never existed? Through the means of digital photo manipulation software like Photoshop and many others, that photograph becomes something different. Is this now art? I wont get into the Photographer vs the Digital Image Manipulator argument as I see us all as self absorbed tools that throw opinions around like piss filled water balloons on April fool's day and honestly if you want start your own blog to argue whatever you feel into the ground go for it, it's free. I guess I have chosen to address the age old question; "what is art?" And frankly, I don't give a shit. It will differ from one person to the next and we are all correct. I am just learning to, after years of photography, use Photoshop. And, damn it is pretty cool. I guess as long as we are using tools, whatever they may be, we can at least claim to be creative if not artists, no? Eh, who cares this is fun to do regardless of being validated by people who've dropped 10's of thousands of dollars for a piece of paper earned after a pre-set increment of time spent studying giving them the idea that telling the world that they are more qualified to tell us what is or isn't. I wonder if the world's economists would say the same about my self given authoritative assessment of the current global economic landscape... I guess I will go take pictures instead.

DIY Effects, MacGyver and Stuffed Porkchops

In this picture we see our two squeezes (of the Mrs and Mr variety) caught in a moment courtesy of a combination of elements. Obviously technology is awesome and allows us to create pictures, videos, art, entertainment, laziness among many many other things. Another element in creating these captured moments can be found in and around the house, the recycle pile, catch all drawer, etc. Kinda like MacGyver we can use things like paper clips, duct tape, Whitesnake songs or conventional bar straws to create and inspire projects that can artfully shape an otherwise bland moment. No offense to Mrs Squeeze, she is way cool and not at all boring but here we are with a camera pointed in our face standing in front of our door. It is a door that happens to be over 60 years old, so its got that going for it but really, other than having watched the tree outside our house grow, it has nothing interesting to offer this crazy world of ours. This night, like so many others found me wanting to take pictures of things in and around the house. The animals weren't having any more of my fumbled attempts to get them to "look cute" and "stop running away from me in sheer terror" so I convinced our lovely friends Kira and Chris along with the infamous Mrs Squeeze to stand in. After a wonderful dinner that they cooked for us, I set off to capture them by means of my newly made 2" Black Straw Grid Snoot. Sounds kinda cool huh? Okay, well a little weird maybe yes. Yeah, its an elongated and somewhat fancy way of saying that I bought some large black bar straws, cut them into 2" lengths, wrapped that with cardboard from the recycle pile and then layered the entire thing in a bulletproof coating of duct tape. You throw this onto the front of your flash and viola! The idea is it will focus and concentrate the light coming from the flash into a light beam that fades (or if you want to get technical: "falls off") drastically, creating the porthole or vignetting effect you see above. When converted to a desaturated sepia like version it carries with it a different feel. Almost old or antiquated some might say. I think it would be fun to take it the next step further and get someone to make folks up looking like they came straight out of a prohibition era speakeasy flapper party where everyone discussed thing-a-majigs, doo-hickies, the cotton gin, moving picture shows and how much it sucked that the government took booze out of the equation, then go crazy with some time piece inspired photo fun! I guess this is what it makes me think of as the motivation to create an effect like this came from an Edith Piaf picture that I love taken by Cosette Harcourt. Our particular picture above is an example of the inspiration being quite a bit different than the outcome but it was fun nonetheless. Okay, hit me back if you want to get ahold of some moonshine, develop a secret knock and make some photo magic happen. That, or we can all just get drunk and talk about how Hilary Clinton is absolutely destroying the newly developed 'real' left in this country. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a vain attempt to court extreme right wing evangelical ninnies she suggests reimposing prohibition because she sees it as an opportunity to further her horrific self serving political career. Man, she sucks.

Multiple light setup...

In an otherwise dark setup using multiple lights can create a depth that is unattainable otherwise.  In this picture there are two strobes and one light used for focusing.  The light (or hot light which is magical techie talk for a regular light, yes the type of light that you are thinking of,  yep that kind) is a standard daylight compact fluorescent bulb to help me focus.  That light doesn't show up in the picture because I nuked it out by overexposing the light from the strobes and adjusted by way of my aperture and shutter speed to more or less properly expose the sculpture.  The sculpture, by the way, was made by my mom, for me.  It is special, and according to my mom, so am I.  The latter may be debatable to ends which I care not to explore, but the art she created truly is a work of great detail and beauty.  

Okay, on to the strobes and using these to separate the background from the subject.  Using two strobes allowed me to adjust the ratio between the two to give me the mood and effect that is played out in the photo.  The set up found this little guy standing on a table about 6 feet away from the back drop in Mrs Squeeze's and my new office (green wall).  We love our new office space but miss Jenny, the worlds best roommate, ever.  Anyway, back to the technical slang.  One strobe was fired onto the wall behind skeletor here at about 1/8 power and at about a 50mm beam which is why the light falls off pretty quickly and creates such a gradient (a "50mm beam" is using the equivalent to cover a focal length of 50mm which the eye sees when looking through the lens at this focal length as a light beam at about a 46 degree angle of view/throw, or so).  The strobe illuminating from the front is below skeletor and was fired at about 1/4 power into a homemade softbox from the ground which was about 3 feet below him.  A "softbox" is just a diffuser used to scatter light which makes it a bit softer.  You can tell the direction of the flash by the shadows on his face, which would have been much more pronounced if the softbox was not used.  This would not be a good example of documentation in the event that the artist, in this case mom, wanted to have photos documenting their art.  But, that being said, it wouldn't be too hard to sandwich the piece between two equally powered light sources to illuminate it and try the same shot exposed for the sculpture without the front flash.  The beauty of digital photography along with time to waste (coupled with free access to blog output) is that you can do whatever you want while describing it however you please and your mom will always think you know what you're doing.  In reality, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing but I am having a hell of a lot of fun not knowing and just doing until something works out.  The really great part about documenting it via this here blog is that I now know that I can recreate this if necessary by simply reading back over this.  It's like free sticky notes...with pictures!

Fashionable photography

DT5 Pictures
Much like taking a class on the economic effects that war has on a given society by reading Noam Chomsky books, theorizing, discussing and regurgitating the info in a classroom setting, researching fashion photographic techniques online doesn't really make any sense until you are pushing the shutter button. I was lucky enough to convince a friend that has been coordinating a local rock and roll fashion show annually for the last 5 years that I was capable of creating images for them that would hold true to their rock and roll roots while helping showcase the designers work. (speaking of the designers, feel free to click on the picture's link and it will take you to the DoomTown5 photo set on my flickr account which has all designers and models credits in case you want to look any of them up) Onward and upward, honestly I lost sleep theorizing how I was going to do this type of a shoot for 14 different designers with a couple of flash strobes, umbrellas and some pocket wizards, an hour and a half and sheer hope fingers crossed and all. I drew diagrams, conceptualized positioning and as soon as I felt I had figured it out, another article or chapter in one of my many photo books would challenge what I had come up with. Being that I had not done a shoot of this magnitude in the past, let alone with such time restraints, I was falling prey to the beast of overthinking things. The most helpful lighting sites I visit to answer questions and create others are; Strobist started and maintained by one David Hobby and Lighting Essentials by Don Giannatti, both of which are amazing pools of information. It is wonderful to have pro photographers that are so willing to share all of their knowledge, trials and errors. Gotta love this internet.

Anyhoo, back to my thought process. The first shoots were for the two coordinator's lines at DT5 which we shot on stage with a draped silver backdrop which looked really cool in preliminary shots but unfortunately didn't translate as well as we had hoped. See here. Well with about 10 minutes to shoot two lines while models were being pulled left and right for makeup, hair and fittings we went with what we had within the time allowed.

Somewhat fortuitously we were kicked off stage as the band had shown up and needed to set up. We moved my lights to a wall adjoined to the bar and after using the amazing Mrs Squeeze as a test subject, we continued to shoot models that trickled out from back stage. I set up one light into a silver umbrella high on a stand camera left to illuminate the models faces and had a bare strobe firing onto the orange wall behind the models for a bit of flare and fill (as seen above). The outcome was fun to watch materialize. While spending dozens of hours going over each and every picture I noticed many things that I can improve on in each one, while many of them came out relatively well and usable for the models and designers purposes, I gained experience that I could not have by reading through sites and blogs. Good times. So after months of researching, reading, studying and the like I had learned more in a few hours of having to fly by the seat of my pants than I had in all the preparation. Now, it must be said that without said preparation, I would not have had the foundation to get off the ground to see if the seat of my pants would hold. They did, and I'm glad.

Fast Primes, the spice of life.

A fast prime lens (a lens that is a fixed focal length, not a zoom) can be the difference between a snapshot and an artistic photograph. I plan on using my new 35mm Canon f/1.4 prime lens to learn how to create these "artistic" shots. I turned 30 last week and decided to treat myself to this little piece of magic. My ever present super model allowed me to take this shot of her while out to dinner with my family. I like the effect that a wide opened aperture (f/1.4 for this shot) allowed the background to blur out so that it focused the attention (plane of focus or depth of field) where I liked it to be, in this case on Mrs Squeeze. She puts up with my incessant nagging to get her to hold still while I tinker with my camera at every opportunity. A good sport this here Mrs Squeeze, she's a keeper. The other real treat aside from the control over a very thin, or narrow depth of field with a "fast" or large apertured prime lens is the ability to shoot in a very low level of available light. Really crucial when shooting night photos, live bands, etc without a flash.

To go into the concept of Depth of Field, a website that I came across that helps me greatly is: DOF Master Enter the type of camera you're using, the focal length of your lens, distance between the lens and the subject and the f-stop (aperture) and it will calculate the amount of depth your focus will have surrounding the point at which you focus. ie: The amount of distance both in front of and behind the subject in focus based on the above criteria. With a wide opened aperture and close proximity to your subject we can be talking about millimeters within your DOF that will be able to stay in focus. Fun stuff. More to come...

Today is the first in a string of many

Here is how it begins. A spare moment caught in between medial tasks that make up a daily grind. For me finding certain things at different points in my life have proved in time to create different degrees of change. The first time I heard Bad Religion's "Suffer" turned me into an early cynic curious about a life of social and political questioning. Also, I got really into punk rock. A move to the Pacific NW created a catalyst that I didn't quite grasp until later in life. This spurred my desire to travel and experience things outside my bubble. College dropped me right back into a politically driven tirade against what I saw as the evils in the world. I also exercised my liver, well. A move to Seattle set the tone for where my life now resides and continues to progress in beautiful Portland, Oregon. One job linked me to a social network that has changed my life. The Brooklyn, a typical restaurant by sight and experience chose to be a launching ground that catapulted my life into a beautifully controlled chaos. Through friends made and others lost in this place, my life has never been the same. Call it fate, call it happenstance, but so many of the pieces that make me up have very strong ties to the six months I spent busing tables at this place. A dark and dreary evening in North Seattle near the Christmas holiday in the year 2000 attending a party of one of my dear co-workers found me standing in a living room surrounded by dozens of people. Some friends, some strangers, all enjoying each others company when out of what seemed like a fold in time and space I found myself laying eyes on someone I felt an instant affinity with. I didn't know why or even if, but I sure felt like it meant something. Years later, in Portland the very same woman that took my breath away at that moment, and yours truly crossed paths. She now continues to take my breath away each and every day. We'll call her Mrs. Squeeze. Well, back to the story... Visiting her family in Spokane a few years back had me spending time with my (now) father in law at a camera shop. Fortunately, I had a sizable tax return and a propensity for non-thought out reactionary impulse spending, and missing my photography days I bought my first digital SLR. The rest as they say is a continuing history that I enjoy creating and manipulating. Armed with a camera and arsenal of random homemade equipment held together with duct tape and pseudo-ingenuity, I am falling more deeply in love with photography each and every day. Moral of the story: Listen to Bad Religion, Greg Graffin is a pretty amazing dude and he will send you off into a life of open eyes and true disgust for the political juggernauts that continue to produce the poisons that some of us try so fervently to rid the world of, and then you will meet your soul mate and end up finding change through photography, or at least for me this is how it worked out. For now, this will be my photo blog.