Bodhnath Nepal

Professional Photography Consultant, Selina Maitreya, Interviews Social Media Guru, Rosh Sillars

Photographer mentor and portfolio consultant, Selina Maitreya is introducing a professional teleseminar series designed to help photographers build their business and thrive in today’s marketplace. On February 6, 2012 Ms. Maitreya will open this series by interviewing social media guru Rosh Sillars during a free teleseminar open to all photographers and business owners.

“I am committed to helping all photographers build a business that will THRIVE and this is yet another step toward that purpose,” states Ms. Maitreya.

During this call, listeners will be invited to expolre:

* The Solar System Equation: Rosh’s explanation of how and why social media truly works
* Which social media tools are hot, and what’s not
* Why more photographers are going onto Google plus
* What you can do to improve your SEO
* How to Prioritize your Social Media presence and tasks
* How Social media effects your earning potential

Interested parties are asked to register at this link. Each teleseminar is recorded and all registered will receive a link after the event to download the interview for future listening.

Considered to be one of the top consultants to photographers on the topic of social media, Rosh Sillars is the co-author of the book: The Linked Photographers’ Guide to Online Marketing and Social Media and has just returned from Australia where he shared his knowledge with photographers.

Host and Photographer mentor and portfolio consultant, Selina Maitreya works with photographers world wide helping them to develop their vision into a competitive visual product. She builds sales and marketing programs with her clients in order for them to build businesses that thrive. She is the author of “How to Succeed in Commercial Photography: Insights from a Leading Consultant” and “Portfolios that Sell”. Clarion Call is an online learning tool designed to share information with commercial photographers worldwide. Clarion Call III will take place Spring 2012. Ms. Maitreya’s signature program, the Photographer’s Path, a 12-month membership program is delivered via video, mp3 recordings and PDF formats that are transformational for photographers anywhere along the experience spectrum.

Registration is required to attend this event. Register here. Lines will be limited.

What do you do when you have access to a fully equipped studio, a large range of modifiers and a variety of seamless backdrops? Why, break out the speedlites of course and find the corner of the room that is used for storage of random bits of furniture and assorted electrical gadgets. It goes somewhat against the grain here in Taiwan where there seems to be a growing trend for people to equip themselves with a large range of studio gear just because they can. In rare instances, such as the studio I used for this shoot which is a working commercial studio, the people with all this gear actually make their livings with it, but more often than not, it’s simply a hobby and they have high paying jobs that allow such luxuries. While there are some incredibly talented photographers here, there are a lot more who think that having all the gear is the recipe to success. They look at the work of someone like Joe McNally and think they need enough lighting gear to light a small city despite the fact that he mostly works with one or at most two lights. As the old saying goes, it’s not what you got but how you use it.

Making new year resolutions is not really my thing but this year I am endeavoring to shoot more personal work that doesn’t always fit in with the work I create for a living. Ideas will often come to me but in the past, unless they have a connection with my predominant genres, I’ve usually put them in the box marked later and never actually gotten around to following up on them. This year, I’m aiming to actually put a few of these into practice and this Taipei Noir shoot was the first. A lot of the inspiration for this style of shoot came from the work of Mark Krajnak and his noir series.

For this I arranged some talent to come in one Sunday afternoon, booked some studio time (mostly for the space not the need for a studio as such) and lined up a couple of assistants. One of the assistants cancelled 15 minutes before the shoot started so my wonderful wife Selina jumped in to help. We used two basic locations, one indoors and then another outdoor one in the city. Lighting was all small flashes and with the exception of the use of a single lightstand in one scene and a Justin clamp in another, the flashes were all handheld. A few gels, some Honl grids, a Lastolite Ezybox and some Phottix Odin ETTL radio triggers completed the gear. Small, portable and fast. In fact, from first shot to last we only needed 3 hours to cover 3 indoors scenes and 4 outdoor ones. And that includes set up, tear down and taxi ride from the studio to the outdoor location.

Strictly speaking this may not meet the definition of noir but the inspiration and idea came from there and I’m sticking with. The concept did evolve somewhat during the course of the shoot and I feel that the resulting photographs are stronger for it. My three models for this, Patrick, Mark and Hannah all did a fantastic job and there’s talk of working together again on another conceptual shoot in the near future. I already have a few ideas in mind for that one. All in all, this shoot was a lot of fun to conceive, arrange and undertake.

As well as providing studio space and acting as a voice activated lightstand, Dilip shot some behind the scenes images. I’ll be offering a peak at those in the future as well as a full rundown of all the shooting details, lighting diagrams and more images in the next issue of my newsletter. You can sign up to that on the top right of the page if you haven’t already done so. In the meantime, here’s a small slideshow with a few more photographs.

On an unrelated note, there are still a few places open in the 2012 China workshop that will be held in Guilin, China with myself and John Batdorff. Click on the image below for more details and to sign up. This promises to be a once in a lifetime trip so don’t delay.

Nun on Black

Today I want to share a few previews of a series I’m currently working on. Think of these ones as more or less test shots to see how much potential the whole thing has. Processing was done in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 with a few minor touch-ups completed in Photoshop. This series is going to evolve into a longer term project through 2012 so stay tuned for more previews in the near future.

Age on black

Young on black

Fireworks in Taiwan

This is a repeat of an older post that I do this time every year.

With the new year fast approaching, one thing you can count on seeing over the next couple of days is fireworks. So how do you go about photographing fireworks?

Well, the good news is that it’s quite easy but there are a few things you’ll need. First, make sure that you have a camera that can be operated manually. Look for a “B” or bulb setting. You’ll also want to be able to focus manually. If you leave autofocus on and try to take photos like that, it’ll just hunt for something to lock onto in the black sky and you won’t get anything. Once you have the camera, you’ll need a sturdy tripod. This is a must as we are going to have exposure times of a few seconds and any camera shake will ruin the picture. Some kind of remote release is required as well. It doesn’t matter if it’s wired or wireless, as long as it’ll let you trip the shutter without needing to touch the camera.

More fireworks

It doesn’t matter how many auto modes your camera has. All those little icons of flowers and mountains are useless for fireworks. With your lens set to MF, focus on something in the distance. Once you are happy, recompose so that the camera is pointing to the area of sky where the fireworks will be but make sure you don’t change the focus. You may not need to do this if you are in an area with buildings, bridges etc.

With your ISO set to 100, shutter set to B, aperture between f8 and f16 and remote release in hand you are ready. Selecting an aperture between f8 and f16 gives you plenty of depth-of-field, and the shutter at B allows you to leave the shutter open for as long as you like. Press and hold the release button once to start the exposure and let go to stop it. A little trial and error may be required, so take as many shots as you can, with differing shutter times. If you can see the place where the fireworks are being launched from, you could try opening the shutter when you see the launch and closing it when the firework goes out. Or, you could leave it open and catch a few bursts of fireworks on the same exposure – hold a black card in front of the lens between bursts to cut down on any stray light.

Good luck and remember to stay safe and warm when you’re out photographing fireworks on these cold winter nights.

Fireworks in Taiwan

Queens Head, Yehliou, Taiwan

I’ve spent the past few days fighting off a cold which has meant the cameras haven’t really been out for awhile. So I’ve spent a bit of time playing around with a few textures. I’d originally had the intention of putting together a more detailed tutorial about the use of textures but ultimately decided against it. Why? Simply because Trey Ratcliff has already created the ultimate texture tutorial and so rather than try to reinvent the wheel, I’ll just send you over to his site where there’s a choice of three different texture tutorials. Click here to go to his tutorials.

Like any other photographic technique, textures are ripe for abuse. You can easily go too far and produce work that is quite ridiculous. In general, I prefer to use texture in a subtle way that doesn’t overpower the image. The Queen’s Head photograph above is an extreme example for me. More to my taste is the portrait below. There’s a hint of texture in it but it isn’t the main focus of the photograph.

Newari Man

One thing that texture should not be used for is to rescue an otherwise poor photograph. A lot of people tend to resort to some kind of tricks or special techniques to try to squeeze life out of photographs that simply don’t work. HDR is a prime example of this but there’s also black and white conversions, oversaturation, fake tilt-shift and so on. Not a day goes by where I don’t see a photo enthusiast post something online that uses these techniques that should never have seen the light of day. Texture should be used in order to enhance a photograph that is already strong rather than to salvage one that’s weak.

The image below was shot with the intention of using a texture in the processing. The location ultimately didn’t quite match what was in my mind so it’s sat unpublished until now. I want to share it now to highlight the point that it’s often better to have a plan before you shoot rather than simply winging it and relying on Photoshop techniques to save you.

China Girl

Textures do have their place in photography but like any other technique, they should be used as part of your overall vision not merely a crutch to lean on when things don’t work. Check out the tutorials and share your results with me. I’d love to see them.

A Tibetan monk smiles and looks on at two dogs baring their teeth at each other. Bodhnath, Nepal.

Short of photographing a war or a riot, we normally don’t think of fear in relation to photography, yet it is something that most photographers find themselves faced with at one time or another. It comes in different forms for different people. It may hold you back creatively or it may hold you back professionally. You may use it as an excuse without knowing you’re doing so. How you deal with it depends firstly on whether you even recognize that it exists and that it’s affecting you. At one extreme, fear may stop you making photographs. At the other, it may drive you to produce some of the best work of your life. I think we’d all prefer the latter over the former but in actuality, the reverse is what we usually get.

To begin to understand how we can move towards producing truly great work, we first need to consider a few situations. You may recognize one or more of these as affecting you now, or having affected you in the past. Chances are, something like these will also affect you in the future. The points in the list that follows are all taken from real life situations and are examples of fear at work.

• Following the same set of photographic rules of composition without ever trying to break them.
• Creating a website and Facebook page to promote yourself professionally, and hoping the buyers come to you instead of vice versa.
• Getting a bit of publicity about your work outside the photographic world and then promptly going and producing mediocre work on your next two jobs.
• Incessantly buying new equipment or software.
• Spending all your time reading photography blogs and posting in photography forums and not actually getting out and shooting yourself.
• Having an idea for something that’s different to what you normally shoot and not following up on it.
• Blaming your failures on the wrong light or wrong lens or some other external factor.
• Becoming bored with your own photography.
• Worrying about the reaction of others to your own creative work.

The above represent just some of the possible manifestations of fear when it comes to photography. There are others. Identifying your own fears and those issues which are affecting you can give you valuable assistance in moving beyond those barriers. Critically and subjectively (as possible) look at your recent work and see whether you are holding yourself back. If you do recognize any of these factors, make note of a few things.

• When does the fear first become obvious?
• Does it exist in some photos but not others?
• Is a little publicity or pressure causing you to rush and make mistakes?
• Are you clinging to the belief that good photography alone is enough to give you a successful business?
• Are you in a rut?
• Do you photograph the same thing over and over again without any real passion?
• Have you been relying on the same techniques for every photo?

Identifying the factor that affects you is the first step to overcoming it. Sometimes it’ll be easy. Sometimes it’ll be hard. Sometimes it’s simply a matter of getting up and doing it. Pick up the phone and call an editor. Shoot black and white environmental portraits instead of frame-filling closeups. Spend a week or two just shooting as much as you can without looking at any photos and let them sit for a few weeks before importing them into Lightroom.

Once you work out how fear is present, you can take steps to overcome it, or to inspire and drive you to produce your best work. Use fear as a motivational tool to push you to new heights. Consider the following reasons for fear and some suggestions for overcoming it.

• Too much pressure? – Shoot some personal work and don’t show anyone.
• No inspiration? – Broaden your horizons and look at other artforms.
• Making novice mistakes? – Slow down while you’re working.
• Worried about failure, either artistically or commercially? – Work with a mentor or photographer’s consultant and identify your strengths and weaknesses.
• Scared of being rejected? – Shoot to please yourself not others.

Schedule some time, whether it’s a few hours or a few days, to consider how fear affects your photographic life. Go where you can be undisturbed and be as objective as you can towards your art. Identify any areas where a change of approach or a change of mindset could make a difference. Very few people are happy to produce work in any artform that is not exciting to them. The true amateur does it because they love it regardless of whether or not it’s a job or hobby. For most of us, something we love doing is also something we want to excel at. Use your fears to help you on the path to excellence.

Deciding on a fee for your photography is often a daunting prospect. The ins and outs of pricing, licensing, calculating usage rights and so on can be very confusing when you’re first starting out. If your local market is anything like mine, there’ll likely be an awful lot of photographers working for beer money, and an equal number of clients taking advantage of that and imposing unrealistic demands. Case in point, I recently had a request for 4 hours shooting late at night from which they wanted about 50 images on a 48 hour turnaround for web use. The fee? US$50 + cab fare. What’s stranger than the request is that there are photographers who’d jump at the chance.

To that end, below is a short video that explains one way to approach pricing. It gives you a good background in exactly what costs are involved in working as a professional photographer, and serves as a useful starting point for calculating your own fees.

If you are getting serious about making the jump to life as a working photographer, then using a pricing calculator is an essential part of the process. Photoshelter has one inbuilt in their system, making use of Fotoquote. This is included with your Photoshelter membership and I’d advise you to take a look. You can get a month free by clicking on the banner below and signing up there. Check out their expanded Pro membership for $549.99 a year that now comes with 1TB of storage. Monthly plans are also available.

In my look at the newly announced Phottix Odin ETTL flash trigger last week, towards the end I mentioned compatibility with the Phottix Strato. As pointed out in my update, the guys at Phottix send me a firmware update for it that would upgrade my earlier demo samples to the latest firmware which promised compatibility. Due to teaching a multimedia photography workshop over the weekend, I didn’t have a lot of free time for much testing but was able to quickly put it to the test. All I really needed to find out was whether or not I could trigger the Strato from the Odin. Sure enough, it was possible. Read on after the jump for the details.

My first step was to update the firmware. That was a simple as running a small utility and connecting the Odin TCU and each receiver in turn to a USB cable and letting the utility do its thing. It only took a couple of minutes for me to update the transmitter unit as well as three receivers. When you buy a Phottix Odin set you won’t need to do this as yours will be factory updated but if there are any future updates, I can let you know that it’s a very smooth process.

Due to the lack of spare time I had for the test, I decided to shoot a self portrait rather than arrange a model. I figured it could serve double duty as a new profile photo for Twiiter, Google+ et al as well as allowing me to test the remotes. So here I am wearing an I Shoot RAW shirt designed by Jared Polin of Fro Knows Photo.

Self Portrait

I set up a camera with a 70-200mm lens on a tripod in my kitchen, facing out the door towards the balcony and the trees behind. On the balcony itself, I placed a light stand with a 580EXII attached to an Phottix Odin Receiver set to ETTL. This was shot into a small softbox and was placed 45 degrees to my (as subjects) right. On the left also at 45 degrees I attached a 550EX with a Phottix Strato II Multi to a water pipe using a Justin Clamp. I placed a basic dome diffuser over the head and set the power to 1/8. Here’s the lighting setup.

Self Portrait Lighting Setup

It was a bright day and my background was metered at f8 when keeping within my cameras native sync speed which was a lot more depth of field than I wanted. As I was at ISO100, normally my only option would have been either let the background blow out or wait until the ambient light changed. Due to time constraints this second option wasn’t possible, and I didn’t want to have a background that was a stop or so brighter than the light hitting me. Which makes the Phottix Odin even more of a wonderful tool in that simply sticking it into high speed sync mode meant I could use a shutter speed of 1/400 which allowed me to shoot it at f4 and still keep things in balance, allowing just enough light from my strobes to brighten up the shaded balcony where I was standing. I hit the self-timer on the camera, got in placed and sure enough, both the speedlight being triggered by the Odin and the one being triggered by the Strato fired. Compatibility assured and a successful self portrait shot.

The Phottix Odin is available at the Phottix Store now and should be in retail stores in the coming days if not already.

Phottix Odin

It’s here. The Phottix Odin, an ETTL capable remote flash trigger that has just hit the market. The release announcement was today and they will start shipping next week. I’ll add some links to the Phottix Store as soon as it’s ready to buy. From talk that’s gone on around the photography world in recent months, this is a device that has been eagerly awaited by many since it was first announced earlier this year. As a Phottix-sponsored photographer, I’ve had the opportunity to spend some time over the past few months testing with demo samples of the Odin and providing some feedback to Phottix from real world situations. Now that it’s been released, I can offer you my thoughts on this unit. What follows is based on my experiences with the Odin and is in no way influenced by my relationship with Phottix.

Firstly though, some specs. So far, the Odin is only available for Canon but they are working on a Nikon version. The Phottix Odin boasts the following.

Technical Specifications

• Frequency: 2.4 GHz
• Distance: 100m+
• Channels: 4 channels
• Groups: 3 groups – A, B, C
• Batteries: 2 x AA batteries (TCU and Receiver), 5V DC on receiver (external power port)
• Max sync speed: 1/8000 sec*
• Output: Hot shoe, 3.5 mm port (receiver)
• Input: USB port (transmitter and receiver)
• Attachment: 1/4 tripod lug, cold shoe (Receiver)
• Input voltage:2.4-3.2V
• Flash port voltage handling: 6V (transmitter) ≤300V(receiver)
• Body dimensions: 94(L) x 66(W) x 35(H) mm, (transmitter), 90(L) x 45(W) x 40(H) mm (receiver)
• Antenna: built-in PCB antenna
• Weight: 105g (transmitter), 66g (receiver) – without batteries
• Operating temperature: -15—65 C
• Storage temperature: -30—85 C

* On compatible cameras / flashes

Notice that maximum sync speed – 1/8000. Pretty sweet. Here’s proof.

1/8000 (click to zoom in - speed is in the upper right)

For years now, I’ve been a dedicated proponent of manual flash usage. Give me a speedlight with manual settings and a remote trigger and I can eyeball a scene and get my settings correct first time 90% of the time. There’s no secret to it, it’s just a factor of experience and knowing my gear. I was never interested in TTL, possibly because Canon’s ETTL leaves a lot to be desired when compared to Nikon CLS. With the Phottix Odin though, that’s all changed. Now, when I need to use a speedlight or three in my work, it’s the Phottix Odin that I find myself reaching for.

Nothing is more frustrating during a photo shoot than setting up lights and then finding you need to adjust the power, especially after you’ve placed the light in a hard to reach place. Perhaps you’re balancing the speedlight with late afternoon ambient light and as the natural levels decrease, you need to make a corresponding adjustment to your strobe to maintain the correct balance. Assuming you don’t want to adjust your aperture to affect the flash output, you need to walk over to the light, lower the stand, make your power adjustment and put it back in place. Sounds simple, but if you and your subject are in a “zone”, that small interruption may be enough to affect the mood or concentration. Which brings me to the first thing I love about the Phottix Odin. You can make all your adjustments to power settings remotely from the transmitter unit on the camera. No need to break concentration, a few clicks of the button on the Odin transmitter and you can increase or decrease the amount of light without affecting any other setting.

In the stream - using the Phottix Odin on location.

Two other great features of the Phottix Odin are the ability to use second-curtain sync and high-speed sync. Both of these functions have been effectively off-limits to photographers working with manual lights so to have access to them now is a fantastic step forward for a lot of people. High-speed sync is especially useful in this part of the world. Not only does it work wonders in action photography, so many location shoots seem to get scheduled during the middle of the day in here in Taiwan and having a high-speed sync function makes it simple to kill the ambient if needed. While a photographer would always try and schedule a location shoot when the light is better, it’s not always up to the photographer so this is a real help. More commonly though, you’ll probably be using it in action shots, especially if it’s just a touch of fill lighting you need. You will lose a stop or two of light when using high-speed sync but as long as you’re aware of that and work around it, you shouldn’t find it an issue.

Jogging with high-speed sync.

With about 4 months of use of the Phottix Odin in hand now, I can safely give it a big thumbs up. I’m told that the final release version has had a firmware update which will allow it compatibility with the Phottix Strato flash trigger. This is big news, as it makes for a much easier upgrade path for a lot of photographers. Those Strato’s you already have won’t just sit there gathering dust if you pick up a set of Phottix Odin. Note that I haven’t actually been able to test this personally as my copy of the Odin is an earlier test model. If I get my hands on one of the production versions, I’ll be sure to give it a try and let you know.

UPDATE – Phottix sent me the firmware upgrade which can conveniently be done via the USB port on the units and I made the quick and easy upgrade to give me compatibility with my Strato units. I’ll do some testing over the weekend and post the results in a couple of days.

Chips and salsa. Window light for the main and an Odin-triggered speedlight for fill.

Below The Horizon.

Out for a late afternoon walk close to home the other day and I managed to photograph the above scene. There are a couple of lessons I want to share with you regarding this. The title of this post, It Pays To Wait, is one of them and the other concerns an approach to photography that Stuart Sipahigil wrote about last year that has resonated with a lot of people. Before I get into those, a few details about the photograph for those of you who are curious about that kind of thing. It is of the crepuscular rays after the sun dips below the horizon as viewed looking over the Danshui River and out to sea. I shot it with a Canon 5D Mark II and 17-40mm lens at 17mm. The camera was mounted on a carbon fiber tripod and a 3-stop graduated neutral density filter was used to give an exposure time of 3.2 seconds at f16 ISO100.

It Pays To Wait

I hadn’t really set out to photograph the sunset in particular. Rather, I’d just gone out for a late afternoon walk along the river because it was such a nice day. As the sun started to sink, the sky around it was very clear and the sun itself was just an orange ball. As far as sunsets go, it was actually kind of boring, and I noticed a lot of tourists and day trippers shooting with camera phones and small digicams turned around to instead watch the almost full moon come up in the east. About 10 to 15 minutes after the sun set, the conditions came right and the sky produced the show you can see above. It only lasted a very short time, and I know a lot of photographers nearby were scrambling to get their gear back out of their bags and set their tripods up again. Conditions can and do change very quickly at that time of day, and it always pays to wait after the sun has gone down as you never know what nature has in store. An extra 10 or 20 minutes of patience can make all the difference between a great photograph and a failed photoshoot.

Close To Home

This shot is very much in keeping with the philosophy described in Stuart Sipahigal’s “Close To Home”. Great pictures can be found at your doorstep. It’s easy to look at the work of travel photographers, see their images and think that if only we could travel to Paris or Brasil or Tibet, we too could create great images. Or to look at the work of a landscape photographer and think that if we had the time to hike into the back country or high into the mountains we could produce works of art. Great photos though are available everywhere, and that includes close to your home. I’ve lived in a few different cities in a few different countries and I’ve always found inspiration at my doorstep. Grab your camera, head out your front door and take a walk. Stuart and fellow photographer Ray Ketchum are running the Close To Home workshops starting this month. If you’re interested, check them out.