There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about doing work for free. For good causes and self promotion, that kind of thing. I just had a commission that was demanded of me, for no payment of any kind except the honour of being the chosen photographer. I just couldn’t turn it down, the intangible cost would have been too high…so I caved, and took the commission stoically, delivering finished prints at no cost, praying the client found my work acceptable. Who was this client who could command my meagre talents for the price of an imperious command? It’s my five year old daughter, Kate.

Kate has been selected as a star student at her kindergarden class. As a result, she has to bring in a poster with pictures of her, her favourite things and family. Also, pictures of her doing her favourite things, and this is where the commission comes in. Once she’d thought about what she wanted pictures of, she asked me to take pictures of her doing two of her favourites. One of her reading in her favourite chair and the second of her playing guitar. This took some thought. I can’t wheel out a multiflash setup with reflectors and soft boxes, the client is over all that stuff and doesn’t have the patience for it. What ever I did would have to be simple, quick and effective.

The first shot was her in her comfy chair, next to the window. Sunlight coming in over her shoulder providing a hairlight. Meter this and drop the exposure 2 stops. Then place a SB-800 flash on the mantlepiece, with 1/2 cto gel on TTL. Set the D700 flash to remote only and start shooting. 5 frames later, it;s a wrap and I got this:

So the first shot is nailed and before we can move onto the next one, the talent has to finish the Dick and Jane story she is now reading. This gives me time to set up the next one. Here, I get time to break out a light stand, throw the same SB-800 up about 6′ angled down. This room only has natural ambient, which is going to get nuked. There will be loads of spill and reflections, so I figure I can make it work. The talent arrives, starts her thing and I go to work. SB-800 with the same 1/2 cut CTO to camera right angled down at 45 degrees on TTL. D700 with a 800 iso on manual, 250th sync speed and f5.6 if you care. I got 7 frames out of the shoot before the talent decided I’d had enough time, so this was the best frame from the second setup:

It isn’t a “great time magazine cover” shot. It’s the best I could do with a very difficult client in a tiny space of time, with little freedom to get the lighting right…but both shots print at 4×6 and got mounted on the poster. The client is satisfied and gave me a hug of thanks – which is the best payment possible.

More to come………

This was my first trip to Algeria, flying into the city of Algiers. Getting in was tricky, as my company has travel restrictions in place because of the security situation there. I was met at the airport and driven to a compound were I would be staying for the next few days.

On Saturday, I was kindly allowed a driver to do some exploring. It quickly became apparent that the driver was also my security detail, which was a bit disconcerting. Normally, I’d have hopped a taxi and gone for a look around, but my driver wasn’t having any of that. I asked to go to the Casbah and a host of other places, but was met with a frank “Non”. The problem is that crime in the city is high, as is the risk of kidnapping, so I was restricted to easily accessible and public places. This was disappointing, as Algiers intrigued me. It was a heady mix of French Colonial and North Africa and I itched to be let loose to see where my footsteps would take me. I’m sure there are marvellous restaurants and cafes to be discovered, but alas, not by me. Company security was rigid and I was restricted to the compound except for one morning hitting the scenery on the outskirts.

The first stop was at Monument des Martyrs, the memorial celebrating the struggle for independance. From here you can get a fantastic view of the city, but the best spot is cordoned off with a military guard denying access! Frustrating, but c’est la vie.

The big concrete memorial is not to my taste, but it is dominating!

Finally, a tantalizing drive through the city, almost within hailing distance of the Casbah, on to the Notre Dame of Africa. This is a European style (small) cathedral in a city on the North Coast of Africa. Go figure. I didn’t get a chance to go in, but it was good to see the local kids kicking a soccer ball about the grounds.

That was the limit of my visit to Algiers. Security is tight, but one day when things settle down, I’d love to go back and explore.

More to Come…

After Abu Dhabi, I went to Doha, Qatar for the night. This was a forced layover due to flight connections, so not much time to get out, but I did manage to nip down to the Museum of Islamic Art. I din’t have time to go in and enjoy the museum, I hit the ground running to find a spot for a blue hour picture.

The museum is a beautiful modern design, and given that most of Doha is newly built, this is a striking design. It is built on an island close to the Dhow port, which provides an interesting contrast. After a hurried scoping of the local, I worked my way back down the causeway to the spot where I could get both the museum and the new city skyline in frame. I shot this at iso 400, on the Zipshot tripod with a cable release. F8 and 4 seconds,  the anti vibration turned off. This is a high contrast scene and tested the limits of the sensor package. What you don’t see here is the shadowed foreground that blocked up. The best way to control noise is to expose to the right and then adjust in the raw conversion package, but with a high contrast scene like this, you can’t do that without blowing the highlights. I did find about a stop of headroom, but I had to use tools I haven’t needed in a while. I used Sharpener Pro 3.0 Raw presharpener to get it as sharp as possible out of raw. Then cropped, straightened, white balance tweak, clarity tweak in Lightroom 4, then into Topaz Adjust for some magic. From there, into Lightroom for some final polish and I’ve got an image that will go to 13″x 7″ native resolution. I would struggle to upscale from there, due to the latent noise, so no posters from this image.

I am pleased with the results. I have to work much harder to get the image I’m looking for compared to the D700, and I’m still concerned about the “white blob” issue, but I’m glad I could work with this package. It helps that I have some software tools already that are very competent at working with these images and issues. I love the Fuji X10, and as I find it’s boundaries, I’m very pleased with it’s performance, cetrainly happier than I was coming out of Abu Dhabi.

Next stop is Algeria….Algiers the White!

More to come…..

A new year brings new challenges. The first trip of the year brings me to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. For this trip, I took the risk of only bringing the Fuji X10 with me. I need to learn, not just how to use it, but how to get the very best image quality from it. It’s not close to the D700 in image quality, but the question is, can it be good enough?

This trip takes me through 3 middle east countries and one north african country. Given recen instabilities, and the fact I’m going to be running through these countries with very little time, I elected to leave the D700 behind and see if I could do my thing with the X10.

First stop was Abu Dhabi. I’m here to present a paper at a conference, not a lot of time to get out. In fact, I wanted to get over to the grand mosque, but didn’t make it, or the marina waterfront. I settled for a short stroll onto a bridge close to my hotel.

I dragged out a zipshot tripod I picked up the day of the trip and got set up. After playing around with different settings, taking bracketed shots as the sun set, I finally packed up and went back to the hotel room. After loading the images into Lightroom, I had a nasty shock. The noise levels were high and where there were bright individual lights – instead of nice “stars” there were white blobs. I scanned through and any shot with a wide open shutter had the blobs. Any frame stopped down to f11 (minimum aperture) had some blob, but recognizable starbursts.

The noise is bad, but I use Dfine from Nik software and it controlls it, somewhat. Image sharpness is not as tack sharp as I’d like, either.

After a bit of research, it seems that the white blob problem is a recognized issue. A lot of commentators say that they can reproduce it in extreme conditions, but it shouldn’t effect general photography. Unfortunately, the kind of thing I want to use this camera for is exactly the kind of photography that is effected, so I now have to figure out how to work around the problem. There are rumours of a firmware fix, but it looks more like a sensor issue and I’m afraid no amount of software tweaking is going to resolve this.

I may be a little unfair. Bearing in mind I’m used to the performance of a D700 with virtually no noise and fantastic lens performance. I love the x10 and it is serving well, but I won’t be making 20*30 prints from it. It will print up to 8*10 though, and display well online. For general snapping in good light, its fine, but a fine art camera it’s not. It’s still the camera I will carry with me 99% of the time, but in future, unless I have a damn good reason, on a trip I’ll carry the D700.

Next stop is Muscat,Oman, followed by Doha, Qatar. I’ll try some things suggested in online forums to see if things improve.

More to come…..

For Christmas, my wife bought me a new camera, the Fuji X10. I’ve been wanting a smaller camera for those times I just can’t take the big rig on a trip.

While I love the X100, it’s fixed focal length and price tag really made it not the right camera for me. I love the style and the big sensor, so next best thing is the X10. I wanted a camera that records raw frames, that had some zoom capability, could stack frames for HDR and could remote trigger a flash if needed. I would have loved the APS-C sized sensor as well, but the X10 has something smaller. This made me concerned about noise and dynamic range. but the test shots I’d seen online seemed OK.

I love the on switch of this camera. Twist and zone the lens to the 28mm position and it starts up. Startup time is excellent, as is the shutter delay. I had a bit of a problem with the raw files at first as the camera comes with a terrible raw conversion program. Fortunately, Adobe came out with an AdobeRaw update for Lightroom and CS5, and it works flawlessly.

The picture above was take with my D700. It is a 1600 iso shot and the noise is very controlled and easily processed out, as done here. The shot below is from the X10, at 100 iso. The two images are very similar in noise characteristics, controllable and removable. 

The final shot below is a 100% crop, with highlights and shadows, post processing in Light room. I’ve boosted clarity, removed a little noise and sharpened. Detail is crisp and clear, highlights and shadows are well controlled. I’m happy with the image quality at 100 iso, which is where I will use it most of the time anyway.

It uses the old threaded mechanical release cable, so I dug an old one of those out, and the batteries for it are some standard size. I bought 2 extras off overstock.com for $3.98 including shipping. It doesn’t come with a lens hood, which is rather cheap of Fuji, and I bought an aftermarket one off eBay for $30 including shipping. The genuine Fuji one is $60 plus shipping, and both are high quality (probably made in the same factory).

I will use it with my small Rollie tripod and a small head that came with it, but I am seriously considering adding a Zipshot tripod to my kit. It packs small and while pretty flimsy, can handle the light weight of the X10.

All this adds up to a small compact set of tools for the travel I do and cannot take the big set. I can’t get super-wide, or the low light performance, or the raw image quality that I get from the D700, but with some hectic trips being planned for this year, the convenience and practicality of this set up – along with very, very good image quality, means that I can get more travel pictures. For street photography, this little camera is superb. it is small, compact and inconspicuous, so I’m hoping to get more colour in my work using this setup. I will report back on the results from my next trip.

More to come……

Last year I had a short and sweet trip to London. I wasn’t happy with the results, but I did take some pics through the sunset. This one was buried in the take, and this is why I like to run through old material to discover hidden nuggets.

This is not the only pic I’ve found again. Last years visit to Tuscany (possibly my favourite place) yielded this one…….

I’m going to spend some times working through older pictures, reprocessing and mining for lost gems until I get back on the road and work up some new destinations.

More to come…..

Trey Ratcliff, over at Stuck in Customs, has released a new app for the Ipad. It’s called Stuck on Earth and is a free download from the iTunes store.

I downloaded and started playing. After a couple of hours I needed rescuing, as this is probably the most addictive app since Angry Birds. Well, at least for me.

The basic premis for the app is to be able to explore new areas and destinations, by looking at existing work done by other photographers. I love the potential of this app, as one of the challenges I face when going to a new city is what and where to shoot.

An example of this was a recent trip I took to KL. I had a small window of opportunity to shoot for my cities project, I’ve never been there before and needed help on finding a place to shoot. The nature of my project is a city Icon at sunset, which in KL means the Petronas Towers. I needed some quick advice and I ended up tweeting Trey who generously answered and helped me out. I ended up taking a different route, but his idea gave me a conversation starting point with locals who could get me the view that I needed.

With the new app, I can now search a new place that i’m going for ideas of what and where to shoot. I typically research using Flickr, Smugmug, Goggle etc., but now this app may improve on those searches. It won’t replace it, but it will give me a host of ideas when going somewhere new.

At present, a lot of the images retrieved are marginal. What I’m hoping is, as the database develops, top quality images and where they were shot from will become dominant. This will depend on an expanding user base, so if you have an iPad, download the app and use it! Upload your best images and make sure you geotag them properly.

Props to Trey for developing this app. I really like it.

Wandering northwest from the Castello Visconteo I came to the Piazza Sempione and the Arco Della Pace. I was early for sunset, so I took the opportunity to explore angles and viewpoints. The first image is a straight shot with the 24-70mm. I made adjustments in Topaz Adjust to make it pop and I’m quite pleased with the results.

As the sun headed down, I tried a panorama. Again, shot with the 24-70mm, 7 shots merged in Photoshop. The image was then tweaked in Topaz Adjust. I was impressed how Photoshop merged the frames, handling the geometric distortions of the converging lines in the stones in the Piazza very well. Topaz does a great job in dialling in contrast and colour adjustments, props to Trey Ratcliffe for turning me onto this program.

After the sun went down, the lights came on. This is always a gamble, as I can never be sure what the scene will look like or the quality and placement of the lights. Once the lights come on, it’s a challenge to adjust quickly and find a composition and shooting location that works. The Arco Della Pace was no exception. There are lots of big lights illuminating the Arco, spread all around the piazza, so it took a while to walk around and figure out the angles. Having a blazing light perched in an obvious spot that blows the picture is not fun and not fixable in post. I hate fixing things in post, life is too short.

 This angle worked. I got foreground interest, the arch and some interest in the sky. I already had a cities project shot of Milan, but I like this for it’s unique feel and perspective. It’s not a Milanese icon, per se, unless you are familar with the city, but if you are familar with Milan, this is an icon with a small i.

More to come…………

From Poland, I nipped down to Hungary. I’ve been to Budapest before, but this trip took me down to Szeged. It looked like a pretty town, but I didn’t get a chance to explore as I arrived Sunday afternoon and left Monday morning. It didn’t help that the weather was awful, socked in foggy. My next stop was Budapest. The weather didn’t improve and my time was tight. I’ve shot some images in Budapest before, but there is so much more that I really need to spend some time here to do it justice. I didn’t get a chance to unpack the tripod before moving on to Milan.

I love Milan and Northern Italy. I took the tram into the city center, stopped for a gelato, and wandered around. I’ve been here before, and I took a shot for the Cities Project, but that was on a limited time budget. This time I had an afternoon to wander and see. The Duomo is heavily scaffolded, as is the statue in the center of the Piazza, so I didn’t hang about here for very long. I started to walk Northwest, stopping for a cappuccino on the way, heading for the Castello Visconteo. There is a roundabout called Largo Cariroli where trams run across and around the central statue. Very colourful!

Moving on, to the Castello Visconteo and the interesting clock. Not as interesting as the clock in Prague, but pretty all the same.

Next, the continuing journey wandering through Milan……

I’m travelling again! The first stop was London. I’ve been there many times, lived there for a while, but never attempted to shoot anything there. As I need to get more material for my Cities Project, I thought I’d have some time to devote to adding London to my portfolio.

Ususally, when I know I’m going somewhere, I do some research as to what and where to shoot for the project. I know London somewhat, and had something in mind. London is tricky as there are so many iconic landmarks, it’s a case of being spoiled for choice. So what did I do? I blew it.

More after the jump…..

In my over confidence, I thought I’d just run down to the embankment and pop off a few shots of the London Eye with the Palace of Westminster and I’d have it in the can. I strolled onto the bridge over the Thames and set up my tripod…..

and just couldn’t see the shot. I tweaked and prodded, shifted and slouched, moved viewpoints, switched from horizontal to vertical format, tried a pano…..nothing.

It was far too late to move to a new location and I have what I regard as a mediocre result.

I’m disappointed at the wasted opportunity. If I’d been more thorough with my research, I would have done a far better job of getting a representative shot of this famous city.

On to Poland and a hectic meeting schedule for the day job. I’m in Warsaw and as I have to spend a weekend in Europe, I decided this was the spot. I’ve never been before, don’t know much about the city, so want to take a look around, catch my breath and see what’s to be seen.

Warsaw was practically flattened during the second world war, so it’s a little light on cultural landmarks. Anything that looks old has probably been rebuilt, so it’s difficult to characterize the city. There is, however, a remarkable structure that dominated the city center- Built in 1955, Joesef Stalin’s gift to the Polish people is the monumental Palac Kultury. This is a soviet style monster of a building, designed to demonstrate power. It looks antiquated now and there is a common debate on whether to tear it down as the Soviet occupation is a sore point for the Polish people. I personally think it is one of the most distinctive buildings I’ve ever seen. Having experienced it once, if anyone ever asks what is a distinctive feature of this city, it would be this building. You see a picture of it and it is immediately recognizable, so I personally feel it needs to stay. If it is torn down, then Warsaw becomes just another modern soulless city center.

Trying to find an angle to shoot this behemoth is another story. I walked around it during the day, scouting, looking for angles and previsualizing the shot. I figured either from the north, with an oblisk as a contrasting element, or from the south with trees hiding ugly signage.  I wan’t happy with anything I saw, but felt I could make it work. I had coffee with a friend who suggested I go up to the fitness center of the Intercontinental hotel and shoot through glass, but he assured me I’d get a fantastic view.  He was right, the view is good, but its unshootable, with lousy angles, multiple walls of glass and just too close! Unfortunately, I’m running out of time. The blue hour is upon me and I  have to make some kind of shot! I ran outside, got to a corner without lampposts in the way and fired off a few frames. I got creative and shot some low speeds to get light trails from traffic and got a usable image. Yet again, it isn’t great, or my best work, but it is a record shot.

I’ve felt that so far I’ve not been on form this trip. I got some “also ran” pictures, but nothing like what I’d hoped for. This isn’t the first time I’ve struggled to get images while working the day job,  but it is disheartening. Maybe I should sell of the Nikon and lenses and just get an X10. Sure beats carrying around a bag with a D700 and three heavy zooms!

More to come…….(probably)