APhotoContributor

regime change starts at home.

So ... I thought I'd be getting the post before this post out before this one -- those of us with real world photo jobs can't possibly post every day.  Every week.  Every couple of weeks.  Okay ... once a month.

Seems as though the workflow/digital asset management blog has a life of its own.  Wanted to wait to see if a cd polishing company could save 30-odd discs before I finished.  A month and change ... 1.25 million images and growing ... lots and lots of terabytes later ... and I'm almost done.  The thought of ingesting more damn cd's/dvd's kind of turns my stomach.  Imagine a big-ass plastic container with 16-odd spindles full of optical media and pulling out that first disc...

Yes, it took almost one month of serious ingesting.

It's funny seeing the evolution of cameras.  There are Nikon D1 (2.74 mp) images, D1X (5.3 mp), Canon 1D (4.48 mp), Canon 1D Mark 2 (8.4 mp), Canon 5D (12.8 mp), Canon 1DS Mark 3 (21.1 mp), Canon 5D Mark 2 (21.1 mp), Canon 1D Mark 4 (16.1 mp), Leica M8 (10.3 mp), Leica M8.2 (10.3 mp), Leica P864 AKA Leica M9 (18 mp) and Leica S2 AKA The Saudi's Choice (37.5 mp) images ... as well as tens of thousands of scanned negs/chromes, too.  

Every once in a while I'd peek in a folder -- kind of for data integrity but mostly because I was being nosey -- to reminisce.  I'd rather reminisce than shoot photos of walls.  

I'm sure that's much more "real world" than actually tidying up your ACTUAL WORLD digital asset management and actually doing WORK that is workflow.  Perhaps not. ;)  Photos of friggin' walls.  I mean ... really!?  To me that kind of "real world" is about as relevant as a retired dentist masquerading as a photojournalist.

The latter of which has a website that isn't 10% as good as MANY friends on dA and flickr.  Totally laughable. Funny when guys of "that calibre" call you/me a paparazzi.  Honestly, it used to make me mad when the uninformed and clearly ignorant of the "real photo market" would say this shit but ... now I pretty much laugh at them.  Yes, I've shot on red carpets but none of my photos are unauthorized. Something I'm sure the dentist-turned-wannabe-pj couldn't do.  Not that he'd have ANY chance of being credentialed.  Probably as much of a chance as real worlders. ;) 

Ol' retired tooth-checker has as much of a chance of actually receiving a "real commission" as Kim Kardashian does winning an Oscar®.  I mean she did show up to the SAG Awards, though.  I thought of a Facebook status of "Since when did porn actresses become SAG members?  In other words how the hell was Kim Kardashian allowed to come to the SAG Awards?"  I didn't put that up because ... I don't think it would be appreciated by some people.

I can write it here because I doubt they have time to read my blog.  'sall good.

What's not all good is when marketing companies at the camera manufacturers figure out supporting bloggers wasn't that great of an idea.  Honestly, dunno what it is about the red dot but I think it's almost like Viagra for some.  I'm sure their internal dialogue goes something like "I can't make a photo to save my life but damn is my camera sexy."  They're the same ones who probably bought the Titanium one. Personally, I wouldn't touch their camera unless it was sprayed down with a disinfectant.

Just remember "... an erection for more than 4 hours could be a serious medical condition and should be treated by a doctor."  Red Dot = Blue Pill.

I know.  I'm not nice.  On to the point...

When I saw the discs within that 40-plus pounds of spindles entitled "Space Ship One" I was trying to remember if I was nice or not.  I thought back to the media room and setting a .wav file to play 3 minutes of wet farts of varying lengths with a good amount of lag between them.  I set it to play well after I'd gone outside in the heat to smoke.  I also distinctly remember being able to have an eye on the MBP.  In the "real world" gear gets stolen in media rooms.  Happens all of the time.  

My real reason for keeping an eye out, though, was to see the face of some wannabe reporter for some Christian-based new service that I'm sure was nothing more than a newsletter you find on the ground outside a coffee shop in Barstow.  Homeboy didn't have a sense of humor nor did he appreciate being within 5 feet who didn't use "I'm so blessed" or "awesome" or "my word" as ways to express themselves.  In the "real world" working shooters speak a lot like truck drivers.  ;)

I've made a truck drivers blush.

Anyway ... after about 2 minutes the ol' MBP started to have intestinal issues.  And, yeah, the volume was up kinda high.  Homeboy the play-reporter -- to me like a hobbyist housewife who thinks she's a "real photographer" -- hears a pretty wet greasy one.  He lost his shit.  Lost it.  Sorry about the pun.  I could have run back in and hit mute or pause but I was too busy laughing my spleen out through my nose. Yes, like milk in 2nd grade my gatorade came through my nose I was laughing so hard.  Dunno why that guy couldn't tell it was an MBP making the sounds but ... he left.  I didn't really give a shit.

Pardon the pun.  Again.

Perhaps he got the last word as the Gatorade left a sting for a while.  I don't remember milk hurting that bad.  It gave the "coloured sweat ads" a whole new meaning.

My photos were moving and I'd spent a couple days in the middle of the desert watching grown rich men light homemade rockets to see if they could get some poor soul past the technical boundary of space.  

That and hearing some engineer bum our Grey Goose vodka and recount stories I'm positive his surely tight-lipped employers would expect him to be as well.  Friggin' desert, man.  Strange shit everywhere.

*forgot to ftp the images to photobucket*

The desert really brings 'em out.  I think that's actually the last shot.  So, yeah, I'm leading with the last instead of something near the first but I think it illustrates that the desert really does ... something ... to people.

Although there are some scans from the assignment paid sojourn to the mojave, I don't think they were done by my lab correctly.  I didn't see them in the 2004 folder around the date they would have been processed.  Whatever.  How much has changed since 2004?  I was still shooting dual systems ... Canon (1D and 1D Mark 2) and Nikon (D1X).  Now I'm all Canon.  Have been for a long time.  Funny looking at those "little files" compared to big bitches of today.

Funny comparing the machine I was using compared to today, too.  I think it was still system 8 or 9.  It was mac but it kinda sucked.  I love version 10.6.6.  I'm starting to love NIK's Silver Efex Pro 2, too, which I've been evaluating within my workflow -- one that doesn't include friggin' walls -- for the last few weeks in beta.

I thought ... ya' know ... to illustrate it to you guys ... I'd see what it made the files of yesteryear look like.  Actually, I was way bored of watching status bars grow and started dicking 'round with the files on the Space Ship One discs once they were ingested from the optical discs.

I'm pretty sure this is the Kodak Tri-X 400 variant filter in Silver Efex Pro 2.  I like how, similar the actual film stocks, it holds the mids and highlights better than Delta.  

Tri-X as opposed to ...

The Delta.

Wish you guys could see these on the calibrated MultiSync PA241W.

This is Paul Allen of Micro$oft fame and wealth.  He had a range of emotions the day before "they lit it."

We referred to him privately as a code word.  I've heard he records every single broadcast of every single broadcaster in the world so ... I'd image he may google himself, too.  I don't think google should be capitalized as it's more of a verb these days.

I used Nik's Color Efex Pro 3.0 on this one of Paul, Mike (the test pilot) and Burt Rutan.  Used a nice Kodak Portra 400 NC filter/process.  I wish the wires would let us use these kinds of filters.  I think they give a photograph a better look than just a plain old jpg that they allow us to file.

One of the reasons I loved Nik's Silver Efex Pro 1 is that I grew up on film and like the aesthetic.  That's about all film has become.  Has better dynamic range and shadow detail and yadayadayada but it can't be digital's speed.  Speed of which a couch-blogger needs to post photos of walls.

I would much rather look at any colour photo processed through -- without becoming a contrived HDR mess -- Nik's Color Efex Pro 3.0.  Again, wish they'd let us use these film filters.  They don't make a material change to the editorial content whatsoever.

Perhaps in time.

Seems giddiness was the general mood for the pre-launch day.  I couldn't just file "happy photos," though.  What if things didn't go well?  They'd need something else to play.

Serious.

And, yes, some Color Efex Pro 3.0 film effects thrown in.

Pensive.  I like how the lens of his glasses refracted (?) "One."  I love the look, simulated with Nik or actual film, of grain.

Pensive or just uncomfortable in a room that was some old military surplus kinda room with air conditioning from the 1950's?

We got to Mojave via some other god-forsaken friggin' desert locale at 04:00 or some shit.  Rarely, do I wake to see a sunrise ...

Levels/Contrast-adjusted "camera original" -- can't wait to hear the hobby-bloggers start using that term. I mean we do a workshop with three instructors and ... of course ... the imitators have to add two to their one-man show.  Funny.

The Silver Efex Pro 2.0 version of the boneyard.  Here are a couple screen shots showing the differences in their emulsion filters...

The Kodak BW 400CN Pro filter/process, which Mr. Jackson likes in the "real form," acts a lot like what it does ... in the "real form."  I compared it to a film I like in "real life" Fuji Neopan ACROS 100...

With a touch more contrast -- and especially with this new feature called "Soft Contrast" -- made this the winner for me.

... a little judicious-cough-cough Velvia filter in Color Efex Pro 3.0...

That's seriously more what it looked like than what the "old cameras" saw.

Played with the sunrise in Color Efex Pro 3.0, too. ;)  I miss Velvia.

There were thousands there just to see Space Ship One.

A little more Velvia action with some control points.  I was pretty awestruck when I saw the White Knight and Spaceship One beneath it.  NIK's Control Points are pretty amazing, too.

The Velvia and Provia filters in Color Efex Pro 3.0 are pretty damn nice.  Photoshop also allowed me to turn some Canon original into an X-Pan. ;)

Members of the media or elements of composition ... through a nice emulsion filter in Silver Efex Pro 2.0.

The White Knight seemed to lumber down the runway and almost seemed to "just get off."

Yes, more iVelvia. ;)

This is an extreme crop from a 4.0/600 Canon.  And, yes, iVelvia in Color Efex Pro 3.0.  They were way the hell up there.  With the naked eye they were hardly larger than a speck.

Kinda like the "speck of a man" looking at the "speck of a transporter/spaceship."  Honestly, I think the Control Point feature of Silver Efex Pro 2.0 kicks Photoshop CS5's burn-dogge collective ass.  The above is the "control point applied" photo. This is the unapplied ...

When guest stars or "housewives with cameras" satisfying creative whims try and dodge and burn most of the time they get halos.  Big ones.  Even my gf can spot a photo where someone "tried to bring something up" and it's pathetically obvious.  Selected just a bit of the lone dude standing on the truck.

When I applied 18% brightness within that Control Point it didn't just bring up the man; it also brought up some features on the old airplane but in an even way instead of a tell-tale way when someone plays with something they know nothing about but should if they refer to themselves as "a photographer."  Pretty amazing I think.  Housewife-photo enthusiasts all over the world should buy this plug-in.  I know.  I can't ever be nice.

One of my favourite things in the world is the "blind item."  They're lovely.  They're like sudoku for the shallow.

Everyone tried to shield their eyes from the bright morning desert sun...

Nice and flat camera original from a Nikon or Canon in '04.

And a file I think looks way better because of a NIK plug-in from '11.  Pretty sure it was Portra 160 VC. iPortra 160 VC.  Sorry.  I know there are people who are sticklers for that shit.

They usually live in forums.

And don't shoot.

At least I haven't dropped an f-bomb. ;)

Even the guys behind the launch -- one with money and the other with engineering skills -- tried to see it coming back.

I'm pretty sure I remember hearing it fire it's engines then proceed up to the fringe of space.

It was early.

I'm not a morning person.

It was when iPods still had disc drives.

It was a bitch to see that morning.  

Just some levels/contrast ... pretty much a camera original ... and then a little Color Efex Pro 3.0...

Just pops without being obnoxious.

Went with one of the less contrast iEmulsions on Silver Efex Pro 2.0 for comparison.

Seriously, when it comes to digital monochrome conversion I don't can't stomach looking at something that hasn't been processing with Silver Efex Pro 2.  The first one was amazing as well.

And then she came back to earth ... gliding.  Her escort was a prop-job; NASA gets jets.  Whatever.  I don't think NASA could have done this project without hiring 30x the people needed and wasting shitloads of money, though.  These guys had a mid-seven figure budget.

This is more what the original file looked like.  The previous had a little iVelvia applied.

Perhaps a bit here, too.

She was launched from an insect-looking airplane, fired a rocket made from rubber or some shit, blasted its way toward space and then glided home.  Pretty amazing considering the budget.

Rutan and Sharky were stoked...

I was pretty happy for all involved.

A little post-flight play-by-play and Silver Efex Pro 2.0 iMonochrome.

Water.  I woulda had a bottle of bourbon.  Then again, I don't have a pilot's license nor should I ever.

When you launch Silver Efex Pro 2.0 it brings it displays it in "neutral."  After a little Control Point on Mike's face ...

A bit better.  It makes the face pop, which is kind of what the whole frame is about.

He was pretty happy to see the benefactor!  iProvia.  Brings up red in the face a bit much for me, though.

And the Silver Efex Pro 2.0 version...

A nice i100 ISO variant.

It's really close to what real Velvia looks like and does to skin tone.  Horrible film for skin tone.  It's also pretty fine-grained.  A grained-up iEmulsion version through Silver Efex Pro 2.0 looks like ...

Think it's one of the 1600 iISO's they have.

The look of Rutan in his glasses is priceless.  I'm pretty sure I was on some long glass for this one.  No, I'm not gonna go look at the EXIF.

Here were my two choices I was looking at the most ...

And the one I went with here ...

It was pretty contrasty light and I thought this best represented what I remember seeing.

Another nice thing about Silver Efex Pro 2.0 is that when you're selecting your iFilm Stock you can just hover over it and it changes your main viewing screen really fast.  I didn't really mind 1.0 being a bit slower because I loved what it did for digital monochrome.  It kicks ass now, though.

Yes, even I'm patient with things I like. :)

And Mike looked right at me quite often.  Perhaps he agreed with what it said on my shirt. ;)

That was my choice for this exercise in getting to know software -- using Nik Silver Efex Pro 2.0 on prior workflow instead of making some nice flower-cat-wall-boring photos.  Here were the iEmulsions I was "hovering" around...

The normal stand-by, iKodak Tri-X 400.

The iAPX I went with ... and ... just for the hell of it ...

Some super-iGraininess.  Wasn't bad, actually.

Loved this and could have "pulled a Detrich" to remove the post-thing but ... didn't.  This is neutral and I wanted an iEmulsion with some contrasty pop!  I would never pull a Detrich by the way.  We (those who shoot for wires for a living) are allowed to do some contrast, unsharp mask (to make up for our CMOS's softness), levels, colour temp and resize. That's it.  I'm sure couch-bloggers sit around all day making irrelevant adjustments to irrelevant wall photos and looking at their Google Analytics page. ;)

Much better.

Kinda like when you're shooting a Caucasian face against a bright background and the subject is wearing a dark suit against a mid-tone background element.  It's a bitch to expose.  Although we aren't allowed to file a photo with a wire service using a Control Point -- or burn or dodge in Aperture or PS CS5 -- it would sure be nice.  Because of idiots who were stringers for Reuters, dumb asses like Detrick and real dumb asses like Walski we'll probably never get to either.  Doesn't change the editorial integrity of the photo but ... the idiots ruin it for the rest of us.  Just like how couch-bloggers will end up ruining it with the manufacturers.

The soon-to-be-favourite tool of people who wake up one morning and print up "Professional Photographer" cards are gonna love these Control Points!  No halos or whatever you call it when you see someone who doesn't know how to use burning and dodging or whatever they call it in Lightroom.

Et voilá...

The face is perfectly lifted from the shadow of his hat with a bit of brightness adjustment and no halos from heaven.  I've heard these halos are very popular in some parts of the world.  It makes people look holy.

There were lotsa big lenses that morning!  A bit more iVelvia. ;)

The skinny Italian hard at work.  My 600 wasn't.  Those gimbles -- even though I rarely need long glass -- are amazing.  Perhaps some couch-bloggers can ask a celebrity to borrow one. ;)

Like the privately launched rocket when would we ever see this again?

Seriously, this was one of the coolest things I've seen.  Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 is also one of the coolest things I've seen.  Instead of shooting brick walls, flowers, cats and horribly cropped canines -- then again, that's kind of what the most vocal forum members and guys who do portraits sitting next to their cameras do -- I wanted to marry the two.

Digital monochrome looks like sharp crap no matter the depth of field.  Nik's Silver Efex Pro 2 makes it look lovely.  

Funny thing is that I went to Epson's HQ's in Long Beach to demo and get trained on the new Epson Stylus Pro 9890 very recently and got to print some massive ... prints.  One of the files was from the M9, another from the 5DM2 and another from the 1DM4.  Since these were for me, I could process them above and beyond wire service standards.

And, of course, I applied some lovely Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 filters.  The prints looked amazing.  Whereas "plain ol' digital" has too much of that "sharp edge" when you use Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 you soften the edge and make it beautiful.  I know ... if you're intoxicated by the red dot, everything must be sharp.  So contradictory to what "the street forum's god," said:

"Sharpness is a bourgeois concept" Henri Cartier-Bresson

Seeing sharp digital monochrome photos -- beside what I do for wire services -- really makes me throw up a little in my mouth.  Seeing them printed makes me throw up a little more than just seeing them on a screen.  Ask around ... someone's seen me do it.  

Hope you've enjoyed a new interpretation of my little sojourn into the Mojave with the skinny Italian assignment seven years ago with today's newest software. :)  I think you're gonna love it.

In fact, I'm gonna select a random commenter's comment randomly ... and give them a copy of it when it's released to the public!  MAKE SURE YOU USE A REAL EMAIL ADDRESS.  Each comment will receive a number on a little piece of paper.  I'm gonna put the little pieces of paper in a bag and mix them up.  I'll close my eyes and pick one.

Hope you win!

I'll do a short blog announcing the winner and where they're from unless I finish that archiving blog.

Hope you're all well and having beautiful weather. ;)

Cheers from somewhere warmer than where you are!

-C

pretend jesus pt. 2

I think I left off with photos from San Francisco, right!?

*checks post*

Indeed.

In the Domke bag on my left shoulder sat the Leica M9.  Was funny how often I just wanted to “switch to what I know.”  Undeterred I kept shooting the Canon 5dm2 and either the 2.0/35 Summicron-R or the 1.4/50 Zeiss ZE.  I left the 1.4/50 Summilux-R at home because I already had a heavy-enough Think Tank Airport International V2.0 to carry ‘round.  That bag is a joy.  From big-ass four-sevens to little RJ's ... it's fit everywhere.  Thank God no one ever weighs it like the wanks at BA.

When I checked the iPhone 4’s weather app I noticed that the weather in Seoul wasn’t much different that places in the E.U. I’ve been to in the Fall.  Well … when I got there … they were experiencing a cold snap.  My light jacket didn’t even cut it whilst walking to the Hyundai Department Store.   Should have known Korea gets cold having watched every episode of M.A.S.H. way back in the day.

I wasn’t in Korea to just shoot street shots.  I was there on assignment.  Funny that I was doing the public relations photography and Doug Menuez was doing the other photography.  I hope you click his name.  His work is lovely.

I don’t usually share details about assignments but … I was doing a walk-through with the p.r. people and a pretty famous actress.  We’re walking around this billion dollar facility and a guy wearing a coat, whom I assumed was a doctor because there were doctors everywhere, walks up to us and says, “You’re Chris Weeks?”  The actress gave me some kind of look.

I said, “Yeah” to which he responded “My friends and I read your blog.”  In one fail swoop at the end of him saying that he raised up his Leica M9.  “You pushed me over the edge to buy one.”

I invited my gf’s uncle to one of the Leica Road Shows (prior to it becoming a dentist’s convention) and he ended up buying an M9 as well.  Then again, I believe some rather wealthy dude bought two M9’s and pretty much at least one of every piece of glass with a red dot on it as well. 

Thinking all these things and knowing that I committed myself to shooting street with a D-SLR left me perplexed.  I mean … from what I was seeing out of my car’s windows I knew I wanted to get out and shoot but … with … a rangefinder not that clunky D-SLR.  But whatever I wanted to prove to myself that a) I didn't need a rangefinder, b) if that's what someone used to shoot street I wanted to know its limitations intimately and c) didn't want to be accused of being exclusionary.

More on (b) later. ;)

Very effective napkins those rolls of teepee.  I shook off the cold.  When I left L.A. it was in the middle of a heat wave.

I'm used to long-ish exposures hand-held.  I like making them with a rangefinder for lots of reasons but I couldn't rule the D-SLR out of the game.  I made the exact photo I wanted to make.

I know nothing about Buddhism.  I failed at yoga.  That's all I know.  And I'm not sure either of those two are connected in anyway besides having to take off your shoes before you enter.

Sometimes I wonder if I "shoot to theme" and then really can't place one theme on what I look for when making street photos.  Had a conversation with Doug about patterns in human behavior. A few things made sense after that.  

Even though there's a lot of activity in Seoul once you tune out the din of traffic a place like this temple -- sorry no idea what the name is -- can become quiet as a tomb.

I worried that I knew I may interrupt homey's moment with the loud twack of the 5dm2 but ... surprisingly he didn't pay attention to me.  Guess I didn't have to worry.

Some call Bruce Gilden a genius ... and he's literally right in your face.  So ... it's all good I guess.  

See I was almost-mean just there.

And wasn't.

I just don't like to be seen and I want my photographs to reflect that.  I guess that argument is as esoteric as the meaning behind a bazillion buddhas.

That's not intended to be a street photo.  And I have no idea if they're, in fact, buddhas.

The Zeiss is so lovely.

This was the district I was "centered" in.  I have no idea what it's called but I know the G20 was to be held the following week in the same location.

Seoul reminded me of a cross of Vancouver, Los Angeles and something vaguely European.  The traffic is worse than L.A.  It wasn't quite Naples-crazy, though.

I like smoking photos only because I'm jealous they're smoking.

This mega-mall dwarfs anything besides that place in Minnesota.  4 Starbucks ... and Seoul is definitely a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf town.  Huge and seemed very lonely.

I'm pretty sure this was like the next morning after arriving.  Went back to the same temple.  It was fun to watch all of the kids looking at their "art assignment" from so many different perspectives.

No one paid any more attention to me than normal.  I think I was looking for a reason to just switch back to the M9.  

Since I live in a culture-less city, it's so odd to see such stark differences between the old and the new and how they co-exist here.  Okay, LA's not completely without culture. ;)

I hear that apt. bldg. in the background is super-expensive.

Then again, the monks are sitting on a pretty nice piece of real estate here, too.

I don't quite get the surgical masks.  Every time I saw one I thought of Michael Jackson.

And ... I don't know for sure but I'm willing to bet that the 5dm2 on AWB handled this mix of multiple light sources better than the M9 would have.  The M9 sees things so differently sometimes even when you tell it what to see.  No so much with the 5dm2.

I have absolutely no idea why these guys were here about the same time a few days in a row but they were super-stoked about something.

In the U.S. I would have thought they were reborn Christians.  The best thing I've heard in a few days is that "Christians are just jews ... who want an insurance policy."

Not Scientologists, though.  Seems a bit overt for them.

I love how girls everywhere love having their nails done.

I asked a friend from "the center" about some places to see.  He took a map and circled a few things.  I took the map to the front desk and told them where I'd like to go.  They then took out a card, wrote something in Korean and handed it to a driver.  Wherever I ended up was 45 minutes away.  

There were a lot of restaurants.

Side streets.

I knew I had my address in Korean.  I knew no matter how lost I could hope I to get I'd still be able to get back to the hotel.

Seoul's an amazing place, really, for making street photographs.  People are pretty chill.  They're used to cameras everywhere.

Frank liked the barstools.

The people of Seoul seem outwardly happier than in L.A. I think.  I love using the Zeiss glass on the 5dm2.  The way it renders the negative space is just lovely.

Everyone's also selling everything to EVERYONE else here.  And, again, the 5dm2 does quite nicely at slow hand-held shots.

Kinda kicks the ass of any rangefinder, too, when you wanna get closer than .7 meters.  

They stood around this stage for at least a few hours bombarded by karaoke and adverts.

I think he was cold.

And as good as those smelled I still went to a "proper restaurant" but wasn't super-stoked about the color of the "chicken."  I'm almost positive whatever the hell I ate was ... dunno ... 

I'm sure it was ... it's just I'm no Anthony Bourdain.

There are a lot of heads in that shot.

I would end up looking as stoic as homey frame left if I had to stare at all of that for too long.

Kind of reminiscent of Hollywood and Highland.

Right after I got this I put the 5dm2 into the bag the M9 was hiding in.  I'd proved several things to myself about shooting street and went back to the rangefinder.

Focusing at night with a rangefinder is way better.  Was the first thing I noticed when I put the camera up to my face to make this photo.  I find focusing on the 5dm2 with even the "better" focusing screen still kinda sucks for quickness especially in the damn dark.

Workable, definitely, but when you're used to one thing ... 

You know how it is.

The tones and the moment worked really well for this.  I like how the M9 has a colder feel than the 5dm2 even when I use a flat picture style.

I always wonder what people are thinking in those 1000 yard stares.

I think for me ... ya' know ... 'cause I'm older ... that focusing a rangefinder is quicker because i'm matching shapes, recomposing if I have to and then making the frame.  With the D-SLR there was a little hunting with focus.

I like to get in and get out as quick as possible.

I'd rather not have to use my magic panacea to get out of the "getting caught moments."

I know.  It looks like he's taking a dump.  I'm 14.

I like when things are shutting down.

That karaoke-advert stage-thing was still going on.  People seemed happily distracted.

So much order.  Totally bucking khaos.

Yet not when buying/selling socks of all kinds.

I wonder if they're buying cheap Chinese imports and threatening their own well-being like we do!?

All I could hear was a shrill voice coming through a horrible speaker with more horribly distorted music coming through equally bad speakers.

But she was happy.

I don't think you could possibly see this girl and see how happy she was and not let it effect you.

If not, dogs don't like you.

And you know it.

My other talented-friend-named-Doug whom I met on the way back to LAX thought this one should be kept in the blog post.

What are the odds of meeting two ultra-talented dudes named Doug in 72 hours?

Everything kinda smelled good-ish.  I'm just a freak.  I'm used to restaurant rating signs in L.A.  Even if they had those in Korea I wouldn't have been able to understand them.

I was so anticipating that I would experience a "Lost in Translation" kind of feeling about Asia but ... I was wrong.  Not once.

Like I said, "... everything smelled good-ish."  There were a lot of places to eat.  

And I picked the busy-questionable place.

I remember eating street food in Downtown L.A. once.  Once.  Like getting sick off of alcohol.  Once.  I know better.

Gave him a card with the location of my hotel written in Korean and didn't happen to hit any traffic whatsoever.

Then I think I reeled from the dinner choice.

And slept a few hours so I could eat breakfast and go ... work ... actually.

I'm pretty sure I worked that night as well.

Decided to meet up with my friend, David.

And instead of the 5dm2 ... I brought the M9.  In as much as I got used to the feel of using a D-SLR for street I've gotten quite used to making street photos with a rangefinder.  Shoot me.

I seriously don't think that homey had a bluetooth headset.   Perhaps he was having internal dialogue.

Yes, I know ... a bit Bruce-whatever-his-name-is but ... he wasn't looking at me.

Directly.

I think this guy may have been trying.  Leica M9 or the 5dm2 I think I would have gotten his attention.

Not that I was trying.  Of course.

Always so much activity in Seoul.  So much.  Everywhere.

Okay ... can't say everywhere because I didn't tour Korea but ... suffice it to say there are a lot of people moving around there.

There's another thing about shooting a D-SLR ... I don't have a Noctilux for that body. ;)  I'm not sure if it was the ND or just the fact the Nocti vignettes when you're wide open ... in daylight.

I do know that that Buddha was really friggin' big.

When I realized what was going on around me it dawned on me:  I'd never made photos at a funeral.  I have friends who have but ... me ... never.  I'm not quite sure what Buddhists call what I saw going on. I watched for a significant amount of time.  

And made a small series of frames.  I know they know I was there but kinda pretended, I think, that I wasn't.  

I know everyone has an opinion of rangefinders but I was so appreciative of the fact the M9's silent mode really is pretty quiet.

Very interesting ceremony.  

This whole experience, of course, juxta-fucking-posed to being in some other temple and, oh, just a nice piece of lead noctilux hitting something that was about as loud as a drum from only a few inches. Could have been more but it seems to work. 

If I prevented anyone achieving whatever they were to have achieved that day, I'm sorry.

Almost no laces.

They're smart.  Untying laces sucks when you realize you've done it six times before.

I think they worked somewhere in giganta-mall.  This place gave me a whole definition of "food court."

They were a little touchy about photos anywhere in this general vicinity ... not that it kept me from doing the same.  Perhaps the army of police dogs and Oakley-wearing Korean soldiers should have tipped me off.  Perhaps.

I even shot a roll of film.

A roll of film that's still in the body.  I think there are two other rolls by the t.v.

Korea is definitely somewhere I hope life finds me again.  Thank you Dr. Kim and Mr. Choi.  

I know I didn't scratch the surface in Korea but perhaps one day.  Then again, I don't really have the chance -- besides in Los Angeles -- to do more than surface scratching when I'm out-of-town.  Most of the time when I'm out-of-town street shooting is just an adjunct to working, which I consider much more "real world" than "writing a blog about something."

All of the photos -- besides the colour ones -- were processed in Aperture and through Silver Efex Pro. Been screwing around with Color Efex Pro and Viveza, too.  More on that later...  

Been skyping and emailing with a mutual friend of ours about doing a couple workshops.  I'm hoping to that Mr. Jackson will be able to do some Los Angeles dates, too.  He's such an interesting foil to the kind of street I like to shoot.  Although we're working on the first one for the winter in Los Angeles, we're looking at other dates and cities that make sense.  It's something I've always wanted to do but doing long-range planning as a freelancer is ... well ... I wish I got more "what does your calendar look like in the second week of february" instead of "... you working tomorrow" or "do you think you could get over to (insert location) today/tonight?"  We're gonna keep it reasonable, too.  This will NOT be tied to any manufacturer.  People -- with a solid knowledge of using their camera -- can shoot anything they'd like.  More details soon.  

I gotta edit some photos.

I'll keep you posted.  There's some really good stuff coming up.

FYI ... I don't think I was mean to anyone in this post. ;)

Cheers from chilly Los Angeles.

-c

Note:  Between the time I initially composed/edited this was one month ago today. :(  Time friggin' flies.  The next one will definitely cover switching from a laptop-based workflow to a Mac Pro-based work flow using RAIDs and all sorts of IT stuff I never really wanted to know about.  Managing a 2.5 TB active library is all sorts of fun.  And all I want to do is push a button at the right time. ;)

pretend jesus pt. 1

It’s been a while.  Wish I could be like the other blog posters and do an update every day or so but, well, that’s not going to happen.  It’s much different when you make photos for a living.  Wonder how many of the semi-popular bloggers gave up their day jobs?  If they did, they’ll be selling their Leicas. ;)

Unless you’re getting the page views of someone like Ken I doubt the “clicks” are much currency.  What drives them?  I remember Angelo told me “It’s not the popularity they want; they want human interaction.”  And instead of wondering what drives them I wondered what they’re missing from their lives that they need SO MUCH attention?

Makes me examine why I post anything online.   I have plenty of human interaction and usually run from things involving more than four people when I’m not working.  Online popularity?  Is that what I’m after?  Being rather pragmatic I don’t think so.  Unless you’re Ken there’s no real money in posting what celebrity friends tell you about something … a day before an embargo.  A pro would never do that.

There are a lot of things a working pro won’t do.  Posting every friggin’ day is one of them for sure.  Between maintaining relationships with clients and phone calls and Fedexes and emails … then there’s the actual work and transit and post-work-flow.  Most of my pro friends … in fact … almost none of them even have any sort of blog nor post anything more than an iPhone 4 photo on FB.

Funny how it works in the real-Real World.  Funny how almost none of the people using that term have any idea what "real world" is.

When I read the phrase “real world” I think of shooting an NBA game for a wire, covering the Boxer victory party as a staffer or perhaps behind-the-scenes (BTS) on a national spot.   I guess I consider location scouting for a automobile commercial or editorial real world as well.  When I did the BTS on a Norman Jean Roy shoot it was so "real world" watching one of Vanity Fair’s best do his thing.  Sorry.  No links.  A client owns that stuff.  The “real world bloggers” wouldn’t ever know what that’s like.

Is a blogger playing with a camera “real world”?  Is a dentist, former ad-exec or engineer traveling to S.E. Asia a REAL photojournalist?  Is someone with barely 3.000 banal stock photos a working photographer?

 It’s all relative.

Instead of posting photos on sites such as Flickr or dA and relying on comments, favourites and pageviews some of those out there like to sit on forums.  They wear a 1,000 post  mark like a badge.  The most “popular” on forums lack a qualified eye.  Go ahead and hate.  If you do, you probably have more than 5,000 posts.  Maybe even 10,000.  You're looking forward to 20,000.  Couldn’t that time have been spent making photos with the cameras you know EVERYTHING about? 

Yes, EVERYTHING.  EVERYTHING besides the actual execution of a nice photo.

I know.  I know.  Your flower, cat, snow-covered lawn furniture photos, banal fashion photos … all … very sharp.  The people with the most posts usually have the sharpest photos.  And within a little group … they have a following.  A sad pathetic following but a following nonetheless.

Having any kind of online following is such a two-edged sword.  I have a small audience in mind when I write.  I like the fact that most of the people I correspond with by email, comments or FB are pretty damn good shooters.  I like the fact they tell me when something inspires them, they get a gig, want to share a file (photo), get repped or published.  It makes up for the “other comments.” 

Unlike most bloggers I don’t care if everyone likes me.  I care if editors like me.  There’s a huge difference.  Editors, assignments and commissions are “real world”; walking ‘round with a camera and telling your forum buddies "this or that is cool" is “not real world.”  Perhaps it's practical but it's NOT the real world you're trying to make people think it is.

I think so many photo bloggers care too much about what people think of them.  They’re still under the impression the pipedream will come true and their site will be the next dpreview.  In their defense the content is usually about on par.

In as much as I don’t care much about the negative associated with any online presence there are some comments that make you think.  When I did that street thing on dA or made the street video last summer I enjoyed 99% of the comments.  The ones that made me think were:

“Why only use Leica?”

“Is Leica the only kind of camera you can use for street photography?”

“I use an SLR and do street photography:  Why is a rangefinder better!?”

"I read some of Chris Weeks Street Photography for the Purist and was disappointed that he knocked the SLR Street Photographers, we are not all in a position to afford a Leica..and just because you dont use a Rangefinder doesnt mean you can’t take good Strret Photos..as someone new to Photography I was very disappointed & surprised by this.."

A former FB-friend would tirelessly comment upon anything shot with a Leica with comments such as “I can do that with an SLR.”  Sure, cool, perhaps.  I didn’t really give a rat’s ass.

For the most part I dismissed those statements.  I know … how very exclusionary of me.  Right?  Honestly, I have way better things to do than sit around and discuss rhetorical questions with randoms.  I’d much rather be making photos for either my clients or myself.  I simply don’t have the time to just sit around and write bullshit fawning reviews of anything with a red dot on it.  In fact, I think it’s funny that some have replaced writing responses on forums and have turned that into writing blogs with 10 readers. ;)

It did make me think, though:  Was I really being that exclusionary by only shooting street with a Leica? 

Having finished my first motion project and looking at lots of hours of “footage” in post shot with Leica R glass and the Canon 5d Mark 2, 1d Mark 4 and the 7d I wondered what it’d be like to actually shoot street purposefully with a D-SLR.  Don’t get me wrong … I’ve shot street with a Holga, my old trusty FM2n with it’s 1.4/50 Zeiss ZF lens, a Rollei TLR and even my iPhone 4.  Shooting with the aforementioned was basically an accoutrement to my Leica rangefinder shooting.  Or like the time I broke two Leica M’s and HAD to use the FM2n.

I always defend my use of Leica to my friends who are REAL PHOTOGRAPHERS.  Ya’ know … the ones who are the ones getting published all over the planet through traditional and emerging media.  The staffers.  The freelancers.  The stringers.  Funny thing is … I don’t know anyone who’s a WORKING photographer who uses Leica.  They use Canon and Nikon.  All of them.  They rent ‘blads.  Most of those I know who own the expensive digi-‘blads are not what I’d consider innately talented at anything more than bullshitting clients. ;)  They know who they are. 

In as much as I love my M9 … My MP … My M6 …. My M3 … I wondered what it would be like to just take out a D-SLR and give it a go.  I know there are smaller bodies out there but all I had was the Canon 5D Mark 2.  Okay … I have 1Ds Mark 3’s, too, but that would have been ridiculous.  I still think shooting street with the smallest footprint possible is the smartest way to go.  Who knows, though.  Can’t really say unless you really go out and do it.

I know … now I’m gonna get comments that I’m being exclusionary toward big D-SLR’s.  I’m sure those comments will come from those with 1000+ comments in forums.  FYI … if you use 1000+ comments as a badge of honor, you’re a wank.  Just FYI.  Just STFU and make photos, loser.

Anyway … a few weeks ago … I left the house with the Canon 5d Mark 2 … a Cameraquest Leica R to Canon Eos adapter … a Summicon-R 2.0/35 and a Summilux-R 1.4/50.  Felt so so so strange to start walking ‘round Downtown L.A.   There was a bit more “heft” on my shoulder as compared to having a trusty M-body on my shoulder.  When I picked up the body I didn’t see frame lines.  I saw a matte screen and felt a bit disconnected from reality as I wasn’t seeing reality through a crystal-clear window. 

So funny that when I started this experiment/project I had a certain view of life.  The very next day of shooting, though, I had a wholly different view of life.  It had nothing to do with the project/experiment whatsoever.  Wholly unrelated to photography but very very nice.

Making the first few frames seemed awkward to me.  The heft went from my shoulder to in my hands.  It felt so strange to have such a massive body shooting street.  The focusing seemed different, too.  Wasn’t wholly different, though, from shooting with F3’s, F4s’s and F5’s back in the day … ya’ know … before autofocus.  Yes, I know that F4’s and F5’s had autofocus but I mostly used manual primes.

I could have used some AF prime on the 5DM2 or even a zoom to really dispel others.  But, no, I love Leica glass for myriad reasons so … I wasn’t going to cheat myself out of the visual pleasure later.  I like fast glass.  Shoot me.  I like fast GOOD glass. ;)  Sorry … meant to clarify.

The first time I went out I was hunting for some light I’d seen on Grand before.  Sadly, I was a bit late but walked around anyway.  I think it was more mental than anything else but I felt like “everyone could see me making photos” with that massive D-SLR up to my face.  Such a different shooting aesthetic than the M9 or any of the other M’s for that matter.

Focusing is so fast with a rangefinder, too.  5dM2’s are meant for AF … not manual.  Whatever.  I was doing this project/experiment/folly and it was gonna happen no matter what.  There are photos I totally missed because I’m so used to the precision I’ve come to love with focusing a Leica rangefinder.

As time when on I got much better.  The 5dM2 sings in low-light with beautiful files up to 3200 where as the M9 struggles with anything above 800.  Don’t get me wrong the files are useable but they’re not as beautiful as the 5dM2’s files.  If only the quick rangefinder focusing as opposed to the not-so-fast-focusing of the 5dM2 in the dark could be coupled to a nice new sensor solution that could sing as well at high ISO’s. ;)  Guess we’ll have to wait and see. ;)

I don’t know what it is with the M9’s AWB but it “wasn’t as good” as the 5dm2.  I know minor changes can be made to RAW’s but if I don’t have to tweak it, why would I want to?  The monitor on the M9 is a bit too reminiscent of the M8’s when you look at it and then look at the same photo made with the 5dm2.  I’ve gotten used to it, though. 

In practical use it was very interesting.  The 5dm2 is noticeably louder than the petite M9.  My girlfriend said “You should really use the Leica if you’re gonna do that.”  Yes, the subject was pretty damn near and within eye-/earshot.  Just FYI … they didn’t say anything nor look at me.

There was one instance in Echo Park where a dude was “less than pleased” that I just photographed him.  I’m not sure if I had the M9 that he still wouldn’t have said something.  And … FYI … I’ve found the best excuse yet for making street photographs.  I’m not, however, going to say what it is.  Yelling at someone in Italian that I’m a tourist and don’t speak English works pretty well but the new one … ah … it’s perfect.

They even leave smiling. No, I'm not telling you what it is so some wank with over-processed HDR street can attempt to teach some pedestrian course about street photography.  Perhaps, though, I'll be able to tell select groups in person. ;)  More on that in the next post.

Except for the ex-/current Mexican mafia dude in Echo Park everyone else bought the "new excuse."

Honestly, I don’t care if I get caught making a frame.  If there’s someone with me, I care but … if I’m alone, it’s all good.  There's one dude in Central Eastern Europe with some kind of "Leica print" I'm sure is still on his face. ;)

Let’s see … what else can someone say?  Okay … yeah … I could have used some Canon glass and tried AF street photography.  Thing is … I don’t own any canon AF primes – the Zeisses are much better.  Wasn’t going to put a CPS order in either.  I can say that the footage I saw with the Canon 1.4/35 and 1.4/24 is lovely.  I kinda thought that the Canon 1.4/35 was too big for street.  For street with the 5dm2 I used a couple Leica lenses via adapter and the beautiful 1.4/50 Zeiss ZE.

I tried to use the motivation that I wanted to shoot street but didn’t have a Leica.  I was directing myself.  Let me tell you … directing is fun.  Since I didn’t have a Leica and all I had – my projection of myself to myself – was a Canon 5dm2 and a few nice manual focus primes. 

Funny that the price of 5dm2 and the lenses in question could be purchased with room left over for a roundtrip ticket and accommodations when compared to the M9 body alone.  But if you’re a retired dentist/engineer and a current forum wank what’s a few grand, right?

“I have the red dot; I’m qualified.”  That’s what I assume they say to themselves.  Too bad they can't buy a "qualified eye."  Too bad even the paparazzi I know are better photographers than they could ever deign.  I'd much rather work some red carpets for clients than "pretend-work" in the streets of S.E. Asia for sure.

Since my life and assignments had me all over L.A., the Bay Area and Seoul, Korea, that’s where my experiment/project took place.

In as much as there were situations where I wished I had the M9 with me, I remembered my motivation and did the best I could.

And then I look at the material to edit and find out that, in fact, I started this experiment/project/folly way before the light disappeared on Grand.  It began on a walk with a doctor-friend to brunch in our wonderful little neighborhood on a Saturday morning, which means 2:00 p.m. in our this 'hood.

only in los angeles do you see mariachis figuring out a parking meter.

After walking back from brunch i decided to go to a place my friend Dan and I call "Mexican Wedding Fountain."  It was straight up and down light but whatever ... I can't shoot in flat light every time I want.  

Every weekend there are wedding parties lined up after wedding parties to shoot formal photos.

Not everyone is part of a wedding party at the fountain.

Was odd ... Even though I had -- what seems massive to me in terms of street shooting -- this D-SLR in my hands and no one really paid any more attention that normal.

Yes, I was using B+W ND filters.  I use them all of the time.  I usually have to tape them on to the Leica R lenses as they have some brilliant-ass filter scheme that no one uses.  Well ... except for guys in forums who would rather talk than shoot.  

Interestingly, and not that you're gonna see it here, but like shooting D-SLR video I used a certain picture style making everything flat.  In doing that it seemed like the dynamic range of the 5dm2 was better than the Leica M9 as well when the picture style was flat.

Was totally surprised no one really paid all that much attention to me.  For having shot 99.9% of the street work I've done in the last however long with an M9 ... it shocked me.

To me it was so ironic -- i like to look for patterns in human behavior -- that some out there would "tag" this area when so many of their own culture use it as a place of beauty.  I'm not being racist as I live in this neighborhood as we know who the taggers are.

The previous two photos show how different NIK Silver Efex can be.  The dude and the tag and the fountain I processed as high ISO whilst the legs and the bride and the tag were done using a low ISO process.  I love NIK Silver Efex.  It takes the edge off of photos that are too-sharp ... too-digi.

In fact, for me it's a factor that levels the playing field when shooting digital street.  Seeing a too-sharp street photo makes me throw up in my mouth a bit -- whether the file's from a Canon, Nikon or Leica M9.

I'm pretty sure it was that night we took the metro into Hollywood. 

I found that the 1.4/35 Summicron-R was quite nice for a hipshot.  No, it wasn't wide open.  I wanted the photo and wasn't waste the moment on trying to be a hotshot at f/1.4. ;)

It's one of the things that I love about Leica focusing scales:  They're right the fuck on.  Ah oh.  I said fuck.  Hmm ... wonder which of the donkeys I just offended.  I'm sure some marketing-pussy will hear about it. ;)  I've NEVER found the Canon scales to be anywhere near accurate.  The Zeisses do almost as well as the Leica R-glass.

Had no idea Avatar character-impersonators-buskers were there now.  Hollywood ... You really glitter all that's gold.

All fun must be topless, right!?  Homegirl's having lotsa fun.  Those bastards driving those buses get in our way all of the time.  I've come to really dislike them.

Ever since late June of last year homey's been working it day and night.  My Leica M9 couldn't have made this shot any better than what I got here with the 5dm2.

I always wonder what tourists bring home with them and if it's how they really remember what they thought they saw.

Having "stood around" listening I know that these guys on Hollywood Blvd. basically entice customers into these sight-seeing vans.  They say that the next one leaves in 10 minutes.  Well ... that's not usually the case as they're trying to "fill 'em up."

So they can drive slow and piss us all off.

I think it's creepy to want to drive around and see private homes of public people.

Honestly, I think it's as creepy as sex tourism. ;)

Or getting a puppy from "a breeder" at 5 weeks old ...

Hope he raises it right.

Along with the tweaky dudes and way-too-young-puppies, junkies, tourists, character impersonators and the like ... there are those trying to get others to do "personality tests."  Oh my.

Famima:  Where Two Supermen and a Willy Wonka recreate.

Reborns:  Using the young and gullible to save souls. ;)

I know.  I know.  I know.  Not all reborns are crazy.

Along with the previously described list ... there are a lot of pizza-by-the-slice places.  I guess it's no different than Amsterdam, really ... save the kebab joints.

And ... for the dudes whispering in your ear "Coh-ca-ina," "Ecstaaaahsee" and "Russian girls, young girls!?"

As good of a place as any I suppose.

1/40th at f/1.4 and 1000 ISO.  Guess a big ol' D-SLR can handle slower shutters.  I mean ... when I do some atmosphere photos for clients I regularly handhold a quarter or a half so ... whatever ... perhaps I'm well-practiced ... but I found shooting someone's candid moment just as easily as I would have with the M9.

I've always wondered what a drunk guy wearing Affliction on his way to "get some bottle service" at Drai's would see.

Merchant of pipes bored out of his mind.

Behind closed curtains.  The captions keep on coming, though.

Same lovely out-of-focus negative space as the M-glass.  Then again, it's glass made by the same company so I'd hope it'd be pretty consistent.

Luckily, R-glass is pretty easy to find and not all that expensive.  Poor R-System shooters.  Lucky us, though.  Wonder if that fate will ring true for other systems besides the M?

Metro antics.  He told me he practiced a lot to do that.

By this point in time I'd gotten over the fact I didn't have an M in my hands.

I seriously have no clue where I made this photo.  It's LA-somewhere.

I would have thought the kinda-loudish sound emanating from the 5dm2 would have killed this moment. It didn't.  Before I would have tried it I would have thought the ONLY camera I could have made this with would have been a rangefinder.  

Contemplative-life-shots are some of the ones I'm always looking for.  Once they see you, though, and you get eye contact I think the moment is ruined.

LA ... one of the only places where you can make street shots from the car. ;)

I always see the Luminous Landscape-kinda guys with their d700's, wide glass and a tripod here but ... was so happy to see a moment that also provided scale.

Can't say much about the difference I feel in life between this series of photographs and the next photo. The next photo doesn't symbolize anything other than it was the next frame I made after learning some news.

Some have a life-changing experiences like the poor dude under the sheet and some have other life-changing experiences.

Life is strange.

Light and the reflection thereof are things I'm amazed by.

Wish you guys could see this on the big screen.

In as much as I thought it would make a difference ... and ... seeing as how I've made almost 100,000 frames with an M9 ... It was me I had to get over when using the 5dm2 for street.  No one else noticed.

Strange for me was -- I have no idea why this was shooting with the 5dm2 -- that I would routinely use longer shutter speeds when I'd try and isolate a slow-moving or stationary-for-the-moment subject.

Like I said. ;)

Ya' gotta try Louis downtown.  There aren't a lot of things good about downtown ... but there are a few.

Shooting wide open with an ND got me a bit of vignetting but ... I'm used to that on M's as well.

So ... Whatever.

Wonder if the above tourist went home and posted that photo and said he was a cough-cough travel photographer.  Wait ... He'd have to have bought a Leica first to do that.  Sorry.  My mistake.

The beautiful light of Echo Park. 

Where haircuts cost USD6.00...

Would have thought they'd have heard the click and the diaphragm and whatever else the 5dm2 does when it's making a photo.  They didn't.

Fairfax is a trippy place.

Such a dichotomy between 2 or 3 blocks here ... not to mention a mile or so.

They caught me but their expressions were no different.

Hence the photo.

This brings up another thing ... 

Sometimes between frames time elapses.  I noticed that every time I picked up the 5dm2 it was ready for me to make a photo at a millisecond's notice.  

Unless you put it on a certain mode the M9 eats battery life.  I have it set to turn off after a minute and if i wanted this frame on this day carrying the M9, I wouldn't have gotten it.

What is aimed at whom interests me as well.  I like not-so-apparent things.  Really doesn't matter what camera I'm shooting, though.  No camera inspires what you like to shoot.

If I ever move from L.A., I'll miss the ghetto birds.  Traffic?  Not so much.

It wasn't as bad as Seoul, though.

They must spend so much money on jet fuel those guys.

So from Hollywood, the Metro, um, Echo Park, Silver Lake, the Mexican wedding fountain, Fairfax, Hollywood ... I ended up in fake Denmark.

Greeted by tea baggers.

I like the confused tourists.

Clearly, enjoying their native cuisine over some nice Abelskiver.

I see a momma-bird and baby-bird.  My friend, Sev, said "... a rarely working portrait format."  Something to that effect.  I would rather hear that from a guy like Sev than from 100 forum-farts with unqualified eyes.

Yes, your eyes can see frozen lawn furniture, cats, rivers, flowers and Asian models quite well.  No doubt in my mind.

So many captions ... so little time.

As opposed to the area best know for a Mexican gang called "Los Avenues"...

I find these as odd as I find the ones in Napoli.  Does Mary really want to be fenced?

Dunno why I saw their house this way.

But I did.

Don't think there was much business this day.

Clearly, lunch affected homey to exhaustion.

Would have thought anything but an M would have alerted faceless homey ... but ... no.

The Vista.  I wonder if she was "checking in" on "the social network"?

No one paid any attention to the 5dm2 and more than they would have if it were an M.

Was sitting having lunch with "The Maestro of the Moment."

We do get rain here.

Not often but it happens.

Then I found myself on a BART train.

Then somewhere off Market in SF.

It was raining up there, too, but it always rains up there.

I've been told that SF only looks good if you do HDR to your street work because you hear it's trendy and that's what the art buyers want.  Perhaps. ;)  Perhaps you'll sell the Golden Gate Bridge as well?

I like sniping people getting their hair cut.

I'm not sure the dude on the right is much of a fan of the waiter -- kinda made a bit more sinister looking by juxtaposition to light -- frame left.

Again, was surprised how low-profile the 5dm2 is in PRACTICAL use making street shots.

I won't say REAL WORLD.  I'll say PRACTICAL.

I mean I guess it's real world, too, to a degree.  

Just makes me laugh how much I see/hear the words real world used these days.

I knew that I snuck up pretty well but I also knew I'd better have had the focus nailed ... as there's no way -- even with a Leica -- that they wouldn't have heard the click.

They did.

I'd also switched to the 1.4/50 Zeiss ZE.  For me the out-of-focus negative spaces have a totally different look than the 1.4/50 Leica-R and M for that matter.  I'm sure there's some donkey on a forum who disagrees and thinks it's ugly but ... they're usually shooting a brick wall or their cat.

Or for their ModelMayhem portfolio.

Equally as uninspired and banal.

Of course.

It'd be fun to imagine that this guy is carting the cumulative contact sheets or printing from most forum members to the curb.

But he wasn't; he worked at a restaurant.

I'm pretty sure that's how 99% of her night was ... seeing as how most people were in North Beach and it was starting to rain.

I was honestly shocked that I could get this close with a D-SLR and pull off a moment as much as I could with the 5dm2.  They didn't see me once in four frames.

Whereas with any of my film M's I would really hope I got it before I could fast-advance, the M9 was better but ... it's no match frame-rate-wise with the 5dm2.  No match.

Has to do with that inherent lag when you have it set so that the battery doesn't drain.

Yes, I have extra batteries.

But still.

They didn't catch/see me either.

Yes, focus on the hand is intentional.

The old dragon saw me after about five frames but I ended up liking the second frame better.

That concluded my stroll 'round Chinatown and North Beach with my friend Martin.

Sorry ... that was the conclusion to the stroll ... a purposefully Dutch shot of someone who's confused. ;)

The next couple days were spent at a dog show.  Yeah, I know ... PETA hates me.

I'm good with that.

From there ... I flew to Korea for a minute where I continued my experiment/folly/exercise in futility.

Yes, "Pretend Jesus" has a pt. 2.

I never thought I'd do enough street shooting with any SLR much less a big-ass D-SLR to actually have enough material for a normal blog post.  Honestly, I was blown away by the fact except in rare situations I didn't really miss the M9.  Or really ... any M ... for that matter.

As my friend Martin said the other day ...

When I asked "what does a pro/working photographer mean?"

I'm sure that the masquerading forum guys who think they're "a pro" still think you can only shoot one brand or another.

I shoot both.

I love both for different reasons.

My Leica M9 compliments my Canons and vice-versa. 

But I'm still amazed that shooting the Canon 5dm2 for street was such a joy.  It's nice to have ISO 3200.

Ya' know ... usable ISO 3200 or even usable 2500 in the way the Mark 2's usable.

Unless I'm editing an assignment I use Aperture to do selects, make adjustments, put it through NIK Silver Efex and export to the blog.  For me it's seamless.

So ... on that note ... I'll try and get Pt. 2 done, too.

Hope you're all well!

Cheers from a fall-like-for-the-moment-LA,

-C

p.s., If you're still thinking you're a photojournalist, please look at this photo.  That's what real photojournalists do.  They do it for real.  They don't just call themselves a photojournalist because they're a tourist.

new york city: part one

i finally developed and scanned a few of my nyc rolls. there are still two more to go but they're 25 iso film so i need to figure out the proper developing times. all of the photos here were shot with a zeiss ikon + a zeiss biogon 35mm f/2 lens on either tri-x (normal and +1) and plus-x film.

look at all this stuff... consumption in the states is crazy. these store windows make me laugh.

apparently people like to chill on the sidewalk beside the street by themselves in times square. either on chairs or just on the street itself.

the next photo will explain what these people are waving at.

there was a giant screen projecting a live video of the street. i'm in there somewhere with my parents and aunt and uncle.

we made our way into union station. i really enjoyed making photos there. we have a union station in toronto too but it's not as nice. it's not ugly or anything but the new york version is a little more classic. people were either running or waiting. this photo shows both. 

this is kind of a required photo in new york. these things were everywhere. i think they look pretty cool visually. smoke usually does. but i think they look especially cool because of their size. you can see how big they are in comparison to the people crossing the street. i remembered seeing severin's photo of this in his new york series and i was remembering back when i saw it in front of me.

i had an amazing lunch at this restaurant's salad bar. i think it was my last meal in nyc before we went back to toronto. left with a great meal and a nice photo. 

you could make a series out of the odd jobs people have in nyc. i wonder if anyone pays attention to these signs anyways? it must bring some business if it's worth paying someone to stand there all day. i never saw a single person look at the sign while i was there though. i'm not sure people would really approach the dude holding it to ask a question either.

i loved the vendors nyc had. pretzels are one of my favorite snacks and we don't have pretzel vendors in toronto. i ate as many as i could, even for $5 which is what they were selling for in times square. i didn't buy anything from nuts4nuts. kind of a sketchy name. 

this guy was dozing in and out of sleep. i would too. i can imagine how boring/draining it would be to hold a sign all day. 

bon apetite. 

making street photos in nyc was so much fun. i went there with my mom, dad and my uncle and cousin from hungary for two days. we wanted to show them new york while they were visiting us because it was their first time in north america. honestly, shooting street there was amazing because people don't care if you take their photo. they are probably so used to it that they just go on with their lives and don't pay much attention to any cameras. everyone is making photos of something and it's so fast paced (especially in times square) that people just don't react to the camera. it was really cool... toronto's quite different in that sense so it was a nice change. 

big family. i love the grandma holding her two grandchildren (i'm assuming) in her wheelchair. 

not sure what happened with this photo... some kind of light leak? i like the photo anyways so i posted it regardless. 

my mom and dad in times square. 

my uncle and cousin on the right. 

this reminds me of a photo chris took in LA. it's in his street documentary.

someone left their hardhat and water on the track. 

my mom looking at a map.

this park was really cool. i forget its name but they had this book shelf that people could just grab a book/magazine from and read. i thought it was a nice concept. don't think we have these in toronto either. i've never come across one at least. 

we were learning about counter-monuments in class the other day. this kind of goes along well with that topic. kind of strange to put a monument on the ground that people step on with muddy shoes...

my mom and uncle joking around in a souvenir shop. who buys this stuff?! 

not even police can really control the traffic there. it's pretty crazy. people just walk/go as they please. 

this guy saw me take this picture and asked me for $5. i told him that if he makes me a pretzel i'd oblige but he kept walking. :) 

back in the hotel room. looking up directions on the computer for the way back to toronto.

good morning... returning back to toronto. my cousin wasn't ready yet. 

ciao new york.

part two coming soon.

cheers, 

arthur mola

baby killer.

One would think that 100+ media at a courthouse would mean something BIG was going on.  Right!?  Well ... In the lovely city of Angels suburb Beverly Hills ... that's not the case.  At least this morning it wasn't the case.

Instead we were all -- 10 legitimate photographers and about 45+ paps -- waiting in the beautiful morning sun of the city that will bring us all "The Persian Version" soon.  Think "Jersey Shore" but in black beee-ehhhm-douuuuble-uuuu's and girls with bad bad bad dye-jobs.

I didn't have an assignment today but thought about the spectacle and felt I wanted to photograph it myself.  In case anyone in Sweden doesn't know what's going on actress/model/clothes designer/singer/tabloid sensation Lindsay Lohan was scheduled to appear in court due to a possible probably probation violation.  Usually I'm inside an exclusive party with her but this was different.

You'd think there was a baby killer having a trial.  Seriously.  Sat trucks.  MULTIPLE teams from each outlet.  Remote cams.  Dudes with backpacks carrying USD50,000 transmitters with 7 aircards inside transmitting live feeds.  It was crazy.

I went, too.  A couple Leica M9's.  The 1.0/50 Nocti with a nice B&W ND, the old 1.4/35 ASPH (send the new prototype back to Germany with broken aperture blades) and the Voigtlander 4.5/15 (the old version with no focus coupling).  Oh yeah ... the shot I envisioned was up high so I brought the step ladder I use to get out pots and souffle dishes.

 And I was gonna do a post about a wedding I shot a few weeks ago.  That's gonna wait.  It was looking at the selects of that wedding that I decided that digital black and white conversions suck ass.  They may be monochrome but ... they're not the same as film.  Not even close.  Even the presets in Aperture and my favourite converter I use in PS CS3 -- no, I don't need anything more than CS3 -- "aren't quite right" as it were.  Not even close.

A friend was showing me some work.  After 8 beautiful film scans I got to a photograph and I said "Um." He looked at me and said "I know."  Shot with an M9 ... It was probably f/8 or greater.  Honestly, I'm not sure I want to look at M9 digital conversions to B&W shot with a tight aperture.  In fact, I think you have to be wider and perhaps get the exposures you need via ND filters.  If you're gonna leave them in colour, all good.  

I'd always heard of the NIK Software solution Silver Efex.  Well ... it's only like USD100 so I bought it and started using it with Aperture.  Switching from 64-bit to the 32-bit version because NIK doesn't have the 64-bit version out for Apple sucks.  Whatever.

I worked a lot of photos from the wedding and was way more pleased than just looking at normal B&W conversions.  Silver Efex "took the edge off" and gave noise a nicer grainy look.  So far, I'm very happy with that plug-in.  I just wish they'd get off their asses and put out the 64-bit version.

The following photos were all processed from DNG's in Aperture, then opened in Silver Efex and then exported from Aperture to a size photo that piece of shit typepad won't crop horribly.  

Unlike his normal routine Michael Lohan didn't spend 30 minutes being a fucking blowhard and talk to even the most obscure or irrelevant "outlet."  He just walked in.  I knew he'd have to say SOMETHING later.  

I asked if they were doing a school project.  Whatever.  I don't think they got sarcasm.

Her "note" was pretty funny, though.  Watch out talking heads in Los Angeles as this girl wants your job.

Was funny watching those two.  I had a lot to watch, though.  Getting up at 05:00 wasn't a total wash.

Guess I was noticed. ;)

Even talking heads -- always trying to "market up" -- have contemplative moments.  I didn't know they actually thought.

I have so little respect for video news-gathering organizations.  I mean ... fed bullshit by producers with agendas ... shot by "spray-and-fucking-pray" video-operators ... 

I think news video-operators probably have the least talent of the working visual pros out there.  

There's always one.  He kept yelling "Lindsay's not Mel Gibson."  I'm positive he was a plant from some television programme yet I couldn't identify who was taping him.

 

When the news choppers arrived I knew we were close to the kick-off.  Helicopters are so annoying unless, of course, I'm watching a splendid high-speed chase that we're so famous for here in la-la-land.

And then she appeared.  

And did the "perp walk" ...

Must suck having to do that.  Her mother, Orange Oprah, and her attorney, Shawn Holley-Chapman, trail her.  I'm pretty sure the "dudes in suits" are either BHPD or LASO.  Dunno.

I saw a lot of my friend's work and didn't think she looked as "worried" as she does in my take.  I don't know anyone who shot wide.  FYI.  It was 70-200/2.8 all the way.  Well ... unless you're a low-level pap with a fresh visa and you've still got the kit lens you bought in Sao Paolo. ;)

Imagine 150+ cameras on you as you're on your way to find out because of your disease you may be going to jail.  I know ... poor little rich girl ... but ... I've always had nice experiences with Lindsay.

I like this because it's almost like she's shielding herself from the light.  The light from someone's flash. No, I wasn't shooting with a flash.  

I think this is my favourite photo, actually.

And ten seconds later ... it was over.

And my photo-buddy Pulitzer Prize-winner Nicky Ut began getting his cards out of the cameras.

And everyone started ingesting, selecting, editing, captioning and sending to their desks.

I didn't.  :)

About 30 minutes later fifteen reporters burst out of the doors saying "She's not coming out; she's going straight to jail."  Since I was there to show what it's like to attract world attention for something pretty petty, I went 'round back for a position.

Like most white suburbs the cops have nothing to do.  This was a big deal to them and they surely treated it like it was.  

Some d-bag nicknamed "Malibu Bob" or some bullshit got a ticket for jay walking.  :)  Funny as shit.  He's one of those "in your face video-paps."  Honestly, I think they're the worst.

Because of that dumb-ass the po-po on bikes made it their life's mission to keep everyone on the sidewalk...

Instead of hiding behind bushes and nicking people for speeding he was wrangling.  Whatever.  I set my step ladder down and stepped up.  Didn't really need much else.

And once again ... she appeared ...

This time, though, behind heavily-tinted glass and some kind of other obstruction.  There's no chance any of the dudes with long glass got anything.  

Wonder how much that transport/escort cost?  Yeah ... all for a misdemeanor and a fucking axe to grind. Well played guys.

Lindsay's clearly angry father decided to speak (big shock) and ya' know 30 crews wanted to listen.

Amazing, really.  You'd think something really important was being said and instead it was bunch of grandstanding as this dim-wit has zero going on in his life and continues to live it by glomming on to someone else's fame.

Ya' know ... like all of those "equipment reviewers" (loosely defined) ... who came from forums ... and of which hardly say anything bad about anything.  They are so laughable it's ... well ... it's funny people actually listen.

He's making a point.  Homeboy behind him is one of those "pop star reborn Christian minister-types."  I was just waiting to hear him say "... and you can find more information at [insert evangelical name].com."

Something tells me I wouldn't want to be a woman in a relationship with pappa Lohan.  

Perhaps he really does need Jesus.

Crazy-plant-guy was lead away by the Sheriffs. ;)

A serious hard-hitting video journalist took contemplative notes.

And then he went on-camera for the recap.  I was more intrigued by the way one of his crew was looking at him.

And the AFP had their mobile office set up. ;)  Sending out the last few photos from such an important day of news gathering. ;)

Amongst the ENG crews and long glass ... I think you'll see something ... besides Lindsay, of course.  The above photo is ©Reuters.

So, yeah, an interesting morning.

And I'm loving the NIK Software Silver Efex!  It makes looking at normal digital B&W palatable.

Hope you guys all have amazing weekends.

I'm sure a certain baby killer won't be. 

Cheers from la-la-land.

-C

integrity?

One day this week I started getting emails saying "did Leica stop making film bodies!?"  When I asked "where the hell did you hear that?" and then hearing where they were all hearing it ... I just shook my head.  The finest amalgamation of photo entusiasts, rumor mongers and ... gear-heads.

Back in May -- it took me a while to remember -- some Rangefinder forum topic surfaced about the Asahi magazine report.

I almost think that if someone writes something in a forum it's almost like gossiping but if a website that is ostensibly a "photo enthusiast" or "photographic news site" ... shouldn't they check?

The funny thing to me is that although I'm not a huge fan of that rumors site that attempts to report on Leica from a wholly pedestrian angle (seeing as how the author has little photographic experience) had asked Leica about it.  Even homeboy got it right!  By no means do I wish to endorse him but I do applaud him for actually getting an official position rather than perpetuate rumor.

When I read THIS ARTICLE (if one calls it an article since all it does is PARROT something that wasn't even verified) I said "I'll ask them myself."  When I asked this -- which I'm assuming anyone could do, especially a site that claims to be a photographic news site -- I got this response from Germany:

Please find herewith the official company statement:

Leica Camera AG has not stopped producing its analog camera models, the Leica M7 and Leica MP, nor does it currently have any intention to do so. Although the demand for analog Leica camera models is not high, it is stable, and we are still producing cameras on a daily basis as always. This is confirmed by a film made last year at the Leica factory showing analog camera models being manufactured. The film can be viewed on youtube.  Besides this, any visitor to Leica Camera AG can go on a factory tour in Solms to see the current camera models - both analog and digital - being produced.

Why does it matter to me?  Well ... It matters because anyone can say anything on the web.  The denizens just take things at face value.  What's even funnier is that one can really see the "entitlement" some have ... well ... especially those who wrote the original article PARROTING an unverified article in a response here.  We'll see.  Yeah ... instead of just being flippant why wouldn't you just call the company in question and ask?

I did.  I'm a photographer; I don't run a website proclaiming to report news.

At least the British Journal of Photography did exactly what I did ... and the rumors site did.  They asked.  They verified.

Instead of "we'll see" why wouldn't someone write "let me ask."

You clearly can't believe everything you read.  Clearly.

Enjoy irrelevancy, mate.

opinions are like...

Well you know what they're like.  Everyone has one.  I think some have more than one, actually. Whatever.

As more and more of the traditional media gets decimated by the internet it seems as though the best place we have for information about whatever topic interests you ... is the ... internet.  cnn, cnbc, the big newspapers ... they're all owned by giant corporations that pick and choose what they want "us" the mindless consumers to read.  Television is a complete waste.  Magazines are advertiser-centric and fast becoming as irrelevant as their newspaper cousins.  We can't tell the difference between editorial and advertorial any longer.  Even photojournalism is pr-machine-generated and pretty much dead.

Besides Vanity Fair and a couple cinematography magazines I don't subscribe to much anymore.  In fact, even ol' PDN has gone to the wayside for me.  I can find much better information on the 'net.  Yes, I'm capitalizing.  Please don't have a heart attack.  I think I'm even punctuating.

I've never really tried to publicize my blog on my own.  Uber's (RIP) execs did a bit through a couple camera give-aways. That's about it.  I know who my readers are for the most part.  They like that I say it like it is and that's totally good with me.  I'm actually a working photographer who doesn't have to use his blog to supplement his income.  Yeah, there's a B&H link but I don't think the commissions are enough to finance my monthly coffee budget.  If publicizing your blog by posting a link to your wall on Facebook is considered publicizing, then, yes, I guess I do that, too.

When I want "real information" I talk to my friends who get the equipment way before anyone else because of the outlets and wire services they work for/contract with.  When I wanted to use a Mark IV I asked friends to borrow them.  When I have a question as to how something is related to something else I make a phone call.  

Not everyone is a working photographer -- defined as making more than 80% of one's income by photography.  Sadly, that also means the random-ass "boulevard portrait photographers" are also considered "working photographers" even though they haven't changed their lighting schemes since they "got them from their dad."  Most interested in photography can't call someone who's won a Pulitzer.  They don't have contacts who have tested "this or that" for the last month on a REAL ASSIGNMENT, not just walking through some park in Toronto.  It's also helpful to know that a certain wire service was contemplating switching systems.  I bought one of the bodies to make sure I knew everything about them in anticipation of the switch.  When the actual switch happened and I got a whole new system I was way better prepared.  Funny than within the last year another switch happened but I didn't switch.  I mention names when I can.  ;)  I can't this time.  

Photo aficionados also have forums for information.  Thing is about forums is that they're filled with theorists rather than those who practice.  I'm generalizing, of course, but I wouldn't rely on what I see posted in forums especially given 90% of the galleries I see associated with the posters.  They're more interested in their "comment count" than anything else.  And, honestly, I know zero working shooters who either post in forums nor get information they need from forums.  The working shooters I know are very busy and I can totally see how "other types of working pros" could have time.  Our genre ... no.

No, my friends are not paps.  For the clearly uneducated or misinformed not everyone who shoots primarily editorial entertainment in Los Angeles and New York City are paps.  If you live in Wisconsin and are wholly irrelevant in the real photo world, then, yes, you could probably make that mistake.

I look at like 4 sites regularly and about 8 photo-related sites semi-regularly.  For whatever reason I found that monitoring many more through RSS just became too much.  Of the content I regularly read I wondered what other's thought, too.  Made a couple of phone calls to people who pageviews are life and death and found out that Alexa's pretty good, Quantcast, too and also Compete.  Of these three I found that the publicly available states given by Compete were pretty good.  I would suggest signing up for their free service to get a couple more stats. 

I'm not really reviewing popular online photo sites, I'm just going to give what I think of them.  Some I think more about than others.  To provide some baseline, though, I checked each of them through Compete.com.  I also provided other sites that whilst I'm not "reviewing them" but putting them in the list for a sense of scale.

Google (Compete Rank# 1) - 143,648,839 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Flickr  (Compete Rank# 36) - 20,272,058 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

BBC.co.uk (Compete Rank UNRANKED) - 6,486,545 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

People.com (Compete Rank# 196) - 5,656,047 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Reuters.com (Compete Rank UNRANKED) - 5,404,486 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

PC World (Compete Rank UNRANKED) - 4,349,261 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Gawker (Compete Rank# 383) - 3,653,909 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

AP (Compete Rank# 748) - 2,142,180 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

deviantART (Compete Rank# 373) - 1,570,019 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Canon.com (Compete Rank UNRATED) - 1,201,776 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Photo.net  (Compete Rank# 1,911) - 960,995 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

MacWorld (Compete Rank# 2293) - 809,129 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

DPReview (Compete Rank# 3,151) - 603,692 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

US News & World Report (Compete Rank# UNRANKED) - 593,338 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

GettyImages.com (Compete Rank UNRANKED) - 468,731 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Kenrockwell.com  (Compete Rank# 8,848) - 225,836 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Luminous-Landscape (Compete Rank# 15,810) - 135,851 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Popular Photography (Compete Rank# UNRANKED) - 103,861 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Shutterbug (Compete Rank# UNRANKED) - 50,946 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

RobGalbraith.com (Compete Rank# 52,924) - 39,917 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

FStoppers.com (Compete Rank# 54,167) - 38,944 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

PDN Online (Compete Rank# 55,956) - 37,576 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Rangefinder Forum (Compete Rank# 69,485) - 29,672 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Canon Rumors (Compete Rank# 69,684) - 29,597 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

MagnumPhotos.com (Compete Rank# 70,562) - 29,183 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Philip Bloom's Blog (Compete Rank# 74,613) - 27,418 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

LeicaCamera.com (Compete Rank# 89,166) - 22,249 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

TOP (Compete Rank# UNRATED) - 19,335 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

APhotoEditor.com (Compete Rank# 139,957) - 13,324 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

SteveHuffPhoto.com (Compete Rank# 165,553) - 10,949 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Vincent Laforet Blog (Compete Rank# 172,639) - 10,430 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

l-camera-forum.com (Compete Rank# 245,086) - 6,920 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

LeicaRumors.com (Compete Rank# 331,373) - 4,865 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

DigiLloyd.com (Compete Rank# 349,203) - 4,581 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

Overgaard.dk (Compete Rank# UNRATED) - 2,660 Compete Unique Visitors (Unknown Date)

ReidReviews (Compete Rank# 1,330,478) - 976 Compete Unique Visitors July 2010

(when unrated last monthly page views used for order)

I know that there are other sites that do web statistic compilations, however, I wanted to use the same service for every search term to maintain some kind of consistency.  I also know that certain websites use proprietary programs and services to accurately compute their own statistics.  I just used these for my own edification to give some scale.

The above rankings are pretty interesting, though.  Clearly, a place where people at least post PHOTOS rather than their amazing theorizations is more popular than forums.  That's cool.  A weekly from the United States is more popular than true news-gathering organizations.  Scary for sure.  DPReview is more popular than one of the oldest best regarded weekly news mags.  Less scary for me than the fact the wires were beat out by people.com.  I think it's funny that the two paid reviews (digilloyd and reidreviews) sites are so unpopular.  Longtime APhotoEditor.com is barely more popular than upstart Steve Huff.  The LuminousLandscape guys must be pissed that KenRockwell is almost twice as big as they are.  I laughed the hardest at that actually.  TOP didn't surprise me that they only got 19K.  Rockwell's numbers are better than PopPhoto.  I doubt they're as pissed as the Luminous guys.  It's gotta kill TOP that pedestrian Rockwell is does more than 10 times their numbers.  An upstart like CanonRumors doing almost as much traffic as longtime RangeFinderForum?  Really?  LeicaRumors being irrelevant is pretty much par for the course.  DSLR-centric sites aren't doing the numbers of their still counterparts.  I thought they'd be bigger.

Would also appear to me that given audience size a site's popularity is affected by how much they post. Further, I think that the more gear-centric your site is ... the more popular you are.  It's no surprise that sites that center on Canon and Nikon are way more popular than any other brands.  

I don't spend a lot of time on every one of those sites but ... I'll give my opinion about some.  I mean ... I'm entitled as much as the most over-posting troll on a forum, too, right?  We'll start with the top of the list:

Flickr (Affiliation:  None except for having account there)

When this site first came around I thought it was just another "hosting site" like photobucket or the nefarious imageshack.us.  Now, since they redid how we can browse photos, I really like their site.  I don't post a lot there yet I usually meet pretty nice people.  I still think I see more talented work on deviantART, though.  

Gawker (Affiliation:  None)

It's one of the first sites I check after waking up.  The have a cadre of young writers grabbing traditional media by the short ones.  It's not Huffington-rehash.  If any of you wonder what style of writing I like, go there and check out some posts.

deviantART (Affiliation:  Friends with C.E.O., have account, admin of group)

It's always seemed to me that the people here are less gear-centric and more art-motivated than other sites.  Some of the most talented people I've met all over the world I met through this site.  I've helped younger photographers from this site get syndication gigs and jobs more than any other site i've frequented.  

Photo.net (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer:  UNK

Never paid much attention because it seemed as though the most frequently posted subject was landscape.  Landscape bores me.

DPReview (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographers:  They say so; I doubt it.

How many people actually reading DPReview would actually buy a Leaf back?  Zero.  Why do they even mention anything beyond point and shoots?  Isn't that what their editor knows best?  How they scammed their way into the numbers that they have is seriously one of the biggest mysteries of the internet.  I mean how the hell did their editor ever get a book deal with this gallery?  So if your editor-in-chief is the best, what does that say about the rest of them?

Some of the worst photos ever made with an M9 were made by their "founder."  A founder whose bio's first line is  "... has been in the internet business for about 15 years."  Um, really?  The first line should be "... has been a photographer..."  The "honorable genre of test photo" on this site brings photography on the internet to a new/old low.

Why anyone would EVER get information from this site is BEYOND me.  The content is the most pedestrian that one could ever want to see.  

Well, ya' know, pedestrian but with the occasional mention of us$40K gear none of their readers could ever afford or have a use for.  Their audience is the point-and-shoot crowd evidenced by the content their editor is known for producing.  Funny thing is that the point-and-shoot crowd would be better served going to Rockwell's site.

KenRockwell (Affiliation:  None except for being i-acquaintances) 

Working Photographer:  UNK

Back in the day I made fun of Ken; he called me a paparazzi, which I told him was the plural of paparazzo and he corrected it even though I told him he had no idea what he was talking about.  Again, anyone really in the non-consumer photo world knows there is a difference between "pap work" and entertainment editorial.  Bygones.  Thing is about Ken is that his information is pretty good.  He doesn't claim to have been some ex-professor of photography or edited a failed photo magazine.  He's a regular guy who loves photography and tells it like it is.  What's funny is that in a photo-centric world his numbers are trumped only by Photo.net.  Ken knows his audience.  He also doesn't try to talk to the "pro audience" some others THINK they have but, in fact, it's dubious if they do. I find those kinds of sites rather pretentious.  Ken's definitely not pretentious.

Honestly, there hasn't been much I've read on Ken's site that wasn't pretty close to the truth. Good for Ken and his numbers that trump so so many others.

Luminous-Landscape (Affiliation:  Have an account I've used for lurking probably won't for long)

Working Photographer:  I'm sure in their minds they are.

With more page views than both Pop Photo and Shutterbug I'd kind of expect better content than the I-use-a-view-camera-and-know-more-than-you-do guys.  Was so funny to see whatever his name is put out some 5dm2 video pretty soon after Vincent Laforet did.  It was so baneful and visually painful to watch it was laughable.  Yeah!!!!  Jump on the D-SLR bandwagon!  That will get you page views.  

In Hollywood there are actors-with-a-capital-A, clearly, in photography sites there are photographers-with-a-capital-P.  These would be them.  If you don't use a Leaf back or some nice 8x10 velvia to make your landscapes; you're way beneath us.  There's also some of the I-can-afford-to-shoot-in-Antartica-because-I'm-a-retired-engineer-and-it's-closer-than-you'll-get-to-shooting-for-Nat-friggin'-Geo in this site, too.  

The reason I learned about it was because of a painfully bad M9 review.  Not that they said anything bad about the camera but ... because the photos were banal.  Then again, I'm sure the audience wouldn't know a "fresh look" to save their lives.  I have a feeling this is where many learn the "noble genre of test photos."

If you want to see another landscape photo, go here, this is your place.

RobGalbraith.com (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer:  YES

Seems as though there was better content back in the day than there is now.  Also seems like now it's just regurgitation of other site's information and links to "best of" galleries by Reuters.  

Thing is ... this guy is an actual working photographer so it's easier to believe the information on his site. It's practical and not theoretical.  I used to look at his CF memory card comparisons when I cared about that information.  Now, dunno ... I guess I just look to look because it used to be worthwhile.

FStoppers.com (Affiliation:  None)

I first found this site because of a viral video circulated on FB a while back.  That video was seen 440,000+ times.  Marketing lesson:  Don't ever underestimate the viral video to pimp your site's numbers.

Honestly, I had no idea South Carolina had a fashion industry.  I kinda thought that there needed to be a fashion industry to be called a fashion photographer.  Makes sense, right?  When I went to the FStoppers youtube page it looked like the iPhone video has over forty times the loads/plays than anything else they've posted.

I think it's cool that a site that has roughly half original content does twice the numbers of TOP. ;)  I'm surprised compete ranks them higher than their HD-SLR God Bloom.  Odd.  

Neither of the authors have style that jumps out and says look at me but they look like competent commercial photographers for sure.  Surely, their opinions are better than those who either a) have never been hired or b) haven't been hired in 20+ years.  Surely.

PDN Online (Affiliation:  Subscriber and been mentioned a couple times)

I'm actually surprised that their rank is so low.  Emerging photographers would totally benefit by checking out even the before-the-pay-wall information.  You'll find out what staffers make on average, what the stock sales industry is doing and what markets are doing instead of how ISO 1250 looks like on a G10 when you shoot your lawn furniture in the winter.  I wonder when a better organized magazine is put together and distributed on something like the iPad will happen.

Rangefinder Forum (Affiliation:  Owner is a friend)

Working Photographer:  N/A

I was quite surprised that the numbers for this site are better than l-camera-forum and leica-camera.  I think that hyphenated domain names are stupid (see: luminous-landscape).  Anyway ... RFF is a great place to learn about rangefinders.  Rangefinder photography?  Honestly, not so much.  Most of the people on this site don't photograph but they sure love to post.  They don't like me much, either, I don't really care.  If you don't have work to back up your opinion, you're nobody.  Just FYI.  You know who you are.

Seems to me that the least talented are actually the moderators for the most part.  That is true, though, of almost any forum.

Canon Rumors (Affiliation:  i-Acquaintance)

Working Photographer:  YES

My opinions of "rumor sites" are pretty well-known to those who follow my blog or get my updates on Facebook.  I haven't found ANY of them to be even mildly reliable.  Having been involved in a project that required an inch thick NDA and watching certain forum posts by "rumor mongers" it was laughable how people who said "my really good source" were wrong every friggin' time.  Laughable.  Rumor sites are the result of rumor mogering on forums.

I'm quite surprised Canon Rumors gets such high numbers but ... the site's well done ... when there are "test photos" they're competent.  In my correspondence with the guy he's genuinely nice and loves photography.  I think he would have done better with a name not implying he's rumor-centric.

Philip Bloom's Blog (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer/Videographer:  YES

Seriously, there is NO ONE better at marketing himself on the web.  I don't think ANYONE took the D-SLR to it's current heights after Vincent Laforet published Reverie better than Bloom.  I will admit that I've definitely learned some technical things because of reading Bloom's blog.  I'd say three things.

I don't think you'll learn much creatively there.  Rather, if you need technical information, how to make a time lapse, how to use a motorized slider to make a moving time lapse or how a British accent and some nice visuals are a way to make yourself a force to be reckoned with ... Bloom's your guy.

I attended a Bloom-workshop to kinda "gauge things" as it were.  Did I learn anything?  No.  Was it interesting?  For sure.  Watching a hundred fanboys gander at their God?  Priceless for sure.

TOP (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer: NO

"I never did take a workshop myself—I sort of skipped right from being a student into being a teacher..." My problem with sites like this is that, especially when you look at compete.com's numbers, it's really not that popular.   I love that Ken's numbers are 10 times the size of TOP's.  I don't think Ken's provenance is anywhere close to what these guys have.  When I read the editor's history all I could think was the high school quarterback who used to be pretty good and then ... the majors ... well ... ya' know the rest of the story.  

Ol' pedestrian Ken with an audience that kills them 10 times over.  Must make some curmudgeons not feel so fanciful.  Sites like this have a little squadron of "regulars" who tow the line and make the head curmudgeon happy.  

At least Ken shows his work.  It's very hard for me -- as it is for a lot of who email me -- to take someone's opinion, whether it's a poster on a forum or a "publisher" of a popular blog, who doesn't show their work. Seriously, so the fuck what your work is on neg.  Scan it.  A lot of us scan our work.  Put it out there.  Let people comment.  Don't be afraid.

Is it that you don't think you HAVE to show your work because of some sense of entitlement?  Let's see some of the work you did after you were a student or when you were a teacher!  How about after that?

When I was primarily working for magazines I worked with writers who could do a bang-up story about cat food and the next day ... about high-end audio gear.  Just because one is a good writer doesn't necessarily mean they're good at anything they write about.

Entitlement is a funny thing.

Another funny thing is having an ad for buffalo hides with a naked baby posing and then an ad for "joyful nudes."  Just sayin'.

APhotoEditor.com (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer:  N/A

I like this guy's real world perspective.  He doesn't theorize.  He's been in the world of which he writes.  

SteveHuffPhoto.com (Affiliation:  A mention and he's an iAcquaintance)

According to compete.com this site has better numbers than THE leica forum and both paid review sites? I'm not sure the compete-laforet numbers are wholly correct, tho.  Not bad for someone who's only had stats since late last year.  I hope a guy like this overtakes something like the alter of entitlement.  

Okay.  There's one thing.  There's this unboxing video.  Why do this?  Who started this phenomenon? Unboxing videos should stay something you keep to yourself.  They really make me want to die.  Why would anyone want to watch such a thing?

Unlike others who depend upon contributors for relevance, Steve's blog has a few very competent contributors who don't just shoot banal landscapes.  You don't need an internationally known PJ to have good content.  

Each of his reviews contains really nice original photographs.  "The honorable genre of the test photo" can also be a good photo; it doesn't have to be of a tree or of an ill-composed dog photo.

I can attest this guy isn't an FB-Overposter and doesn't really market like so many others I know.  You know who you are.  You can call me "closed" and I can quietly think of you as a spammer.

I'd check out Steve's site to see what he thinks.  I mean ... he's better than any of the PAID review sites. Okay, that is unless you like pedestrian wedding photography or landscape that anyone taking a Rockwell-led workshop could do.

One last thing:  Quoting leicarumors.com ... you're better than that, man. ;)  way better.

Vincent Laforet Blog (Affiliation:  None)

Working Photographer:  Duh

I've never thanked him but when I saw Reverie it unlocked something in me. I should thank him. Prior to seeing what the 5dm2 could do -- even with auto-aperture other bullshit Canon didn't forsee being a big deal -- I'd always wanted to do something in motion.  The thought of deep-focus bullshit video cameras did not pique my interest.  Seeing Reverie did.

There's no other photographer in the D-SLR fad-world that inspired me more.  Vincent's still photography is beyond belief as well.  

If you want to see what's REALLY going on with D-SLR's, go to his blog.  I have no idea how compete does it's numbers but I'm going to suspect that his blog's/site's numbers are a somewhere north of where they're reported.  They have to be.  Then again, Vincent doesn't overpost.  He doesn't seem to be quite the social network/media whore that most are.  

Why is that?  He's a real working photographer/cinematographer.  He doesn't have time.  He's not trying to sell every product under the sun or fill his calendar doing workshops ... he's working ... in the real world.  I'd suspect his workshop would kill it over most of the others who are popular D-SLR workshoppers.

Always looking forward to seeing what he's doing next.

In the words of Robert Rodriguez: "You don't have to be technical; you can learn technical.  Technical people, though, aren't creative.  That's where creatives win every time."  Impressing the fanboys is one thing ... impressing agency clients is quite another.  ;)

l-camera-forum.com (Affiliation:  Have an account where I've posted 106 times in over five years)

The best thing I learned here was from some guy who posted about what to do about the hood for the Noctilux from the 80's.  The hood design sucked.  Homeboy suggested buying a B+W hood and a step up ring.  

Otherwise ... well ... this is another place where the number of posts you have gives you streed cred. You'll also find many entries of the "noble genre of the test photo" and find posters from the "paid reviewer genre."  Those hawking workshops like to post in places like this as well.

The one other thing that this site has over others is disposable income.  I don't know for sure but I'll bet the demographics for this site kick some major ass.  Thing is ... just owning a Leica doesn't mean anything more than "you own a Leica."

LeicaRumors.com (Affiliation:  Referenced on site)

Although I'm sure they have better numbers than me, when I look at this site i ask myself "is this what happens when you just buy a domain and regurgitate information that you see on forums?"

Indeed.  I remember talking to this guy on FB and asking him if he owned a Leica.  He said he had a D-Lux.  In as much as I love myself some D-Lux sometimes ... um ... does that really qualify you to provide original content to a blog about Leica?  I mean, really?

In as much as I should have been nicer to whatever his name is when he told me he was "getting an M9" and I said "cool, let me see the photos you make with it."

I never got a response ... ya' know ... like the one I did from Craig at CanonRumors.

There really is no difference between a site like LeicaRumors and a celebrity regurgitation site ... but not like the 2nd regurgitation ... like the 8th.  This isn't just sloppy seconds.  This is just sloppy.

No one should quote this site.  Under any circumstances.  Perhaps I could change my mind if I ever got to a) know the guy's real name (why hide behind an alias, mate) and b) see his work.  Something tells me, though, that never happens.  Besides, the guy published one of my private photos on FB.  Loser.  Go get your own content.

Overgaard.dk (Affiliation:  Referenced a couple times, infrequent contrib here and friend)

Working Photographer:  YES

Finding stats with Alexa, compete or quantcast was difficult for Thorsten's Leica Compendium site.  I'm sure he'll correct me with some stats for his alter to the God of Leica.

If you want to know anything Leica, this is probably a pretty good place to start.  If I ever wonder if a certain lens exists, I search here.  Somehow this Dane sniffs out anything Leica.  

Thorsten's also one of the best at marketing himself through social networks and commenting.  He's referenced in a book as he described on FB "Interesting book for any photographers and other artists wanting to use internet and social media to create network and reach their goals. I'm in it as a case, written by Lindsay Adler."  You can find the book here.

The Paid Review Sites of Reid and DigiLloyd (Affiliation:  None, thank God!)

Working Photographers:  I'd be so surprised

If you want to learn how to shoot boring landscapes, see the luminous guys.  Unless you buy a video you can probably find everything you need for free.  If you want to see what nice wedding work looks like, look at some of Steve's stuff.  You don't need to pay for it.  How homeboy can base a subscriber-based review rooted in wedding work ... well ... I guess someone would want to pay for it.  Funny 'cause I just looked at Steve's stuff again and immediately looked at Seans:  Steve kicks Sean's ass in the wedding genre in one post.

I know that both of these guys would make the argument "Magazines charge for reviews."  Yeah, well, I doubt either of you shoot for magazines.  I'm shocked with all of the great information out there that these sites could get subscribers.  The compete.com numbers are very interesting.  I think.

Wonder who would need to hire someone to do photo consulting?  

I wrote this because, honestly, I just wondered myself which sites were more popular (according to compete.com, of course) than others.  In so many ways I was pretty shocked; in other ways I wasn't.

It's also interesting -- even based upon my own private stats -- that whenever you post about gear your stats spike.  It's not interesting, actually, it's sad.  Seems as though people want something that can possibly make them a better photographer yet they default back to gear fanboy.  There are so many priests of gear that have no problem finding a alter boys and a flock.  

If you want to make better photos, look at better photos.  You're not going to get any better by talking ad naseum about gear on forums or making comments on blogs.  Won't happen.  You can get more popular with other gear-loving time lapsers by making endless comments, though.  This has been proved time and again.

You get better at photography by making more and better photos.

Find content-centric sites for information.  Guys who do original content that isn't the same over and over again -- unless they like to shoot a theme, of course -- are much better to watch than guys who have opinions and then try to support their opinion by allowing great contributors to post.  Never get your information from regurgitation sites.  You're better off lurking a forum than reading those.  You're getting the same information.  Regurgitation sites are probably started mostly by the same guys that write "first post" when commenting on a popular blog.  

Frequent sites written by guys who put there work out there for you to see.  If you respect their work, you can respect their opinion.  

I wish a lot of my talented friends would blog.  Because they're staffers and can't or because they're too busy and it's not going to make them any more money ... they don't.  In fact, they probably think I'm the overposting self-promoter.  Over-posting about gear, visiting forums and claiming to know this or that is proven to make you more popular for sure.

Thing is ... I've had about the same readers when I started journaling (the precursor of blogs) at dA that I do today.  I'm cool with that.  I've been able to get a couple web properties to give away a Leica M7 and lens, a Canon 5D and a lens and a nice Bessa and lens to a lucky kid in Amsterdam, Berlin and, um, Russia, I think.  Can half of the big number guys say they've done anything like that?  I'll post it if they have.  What I like about the readers I have is that they're all good photographers and want information that isn't some theorization.  I work in the real world and beyond a BH Photo ad bump they get real information based on my real world observations of the gear I use day in and day out for some of the biggest clients/brands known to man.

I guess that's why one could probably tell I'm biased towards guys who actually work as photographers.  

Well ... that's the way I see the web in terms of photo-centric sites.  I know I'll take a lot of flack and get messages from friends-of-friends saying "so-and-so is really pissed you said that."  Well ... so what. If any of you post your work and think I should change my opinion because of your practical work instead of your theories, please let me know when you post it.

Cheers!

-C

 

 

 

moving.

photos.  that's what i've been doing when i haven't been shooting stills.  it's been an experience.  

this is the thing:  i wanted to shoot something that looked like what i was used to seeing in the cinema.  up until recently there wasn't really anything available.  there was no way i was going to try and do some deep-focus bullshit with a panasonic video camera.  no thanks.  nor was i interested in using some dof converter and a nikon lens.  as much as i loved the dof look the rig was just so large.

not until the 5dm2 came out was anything available under a thousand dollars per day to rent.  when i got one it replaced my 5d, which was shot along side the 1dsm3.  the first time i shot the 1.2/85 and put the picture up on a 52" samsung i was pretty blown away.  the whole auto exposure aspect really sucked, though.  all you had was riding the iso.  nd's.  still wasn't great.  useable, though.  definitely.  once that firmware fix came out it became much better.  i think that was the point i started shooting the street docu-thing.  I believe it's been loaded almost three quarters of a million times.

when i look back at shooting that ... it seems so rudimentary now.  perhaps not rudimentary but this new project makes that seem easy.

i think anyone in los angeles has a screenplay.  i've met more people "with a screenplay" than without.  go to starbucks in weho.  intelligentsia in either silver lake or venice.  everyone's sitting there with final draft open.  see .. the difference between being in nyc or la rather than being in wisconsin or vermont is that ... this is the real world. ;)  a lot of the time the hopeful writers are listening to people having conversations hoping to hear something interesting.

although i've never written in a coffeeshop i'm not unlike them.  the difference is that i can shoot something i write whereas they probably don't know the difference between an f/stop and a focal length. 

I've also been lucky to have shot a lot of unit stills.  moving photos don't work together the same way still photos work together.  being able to see why certain shots are made and how they work together in editorial was invaluable.  i've also developed a keen respect for the 1st AC.  he's your autofocus.  

so ... being from los angeles means you're a screenwriter ... by default.  given that ... and the fact i've always wanted to make something that wasn't deep-focus bullshit like most of what i've seen shot on hd (besides the high-end cinealta stuff or the d20/21, etc., etc.) ... i felt it was time to do something since i had the 5dm2.  doing a bunch of friggin' time lapses wasn't really what i wanted to do either.  i know some have built huge followings because of a good gab, nice time lapses and ... well ... ya' know.

i think i was most impressed with what vincent laforet had done.  those hoping to ride his fame with their knowledge of all things hd-slr ... well ... i wasn't interested in that.

i think time lapses are cool but ... entire story lines developed around time lapses and friggin' music?  puhlease.  what does that really show you can do?  most of what i see from ex-news guys is "pretty b-roll."  i doubt their talking head shit makes it onto the reel. ;)

i think another really funny-ass thing is the fact none of the "guys with fanboys" have come close to doing anything as pretty as what laforet has done.  laforet doesn't just do time lapse.  

anyway.  

having watched a lot of people use the 5dm2 handheld and trying it myself i found that it's really only good for pretty wide perspectives.  forget handholding something like an 85.  really ... a 50 for that matter.  if you can, though, GOOD for you.  that's not a bad thing.  there's nothing as small as a 5dm2 that can do what it can do.  in fact, i think i tried -- in a practical sense not just on some forum -- to locate the areas where the camera had shortcomings and work around those.  

i knew it could produce lovely images.

having used something wide and handheld i knew that you could get away with shots you couldn't get with anything else.  people look at these things and thing "still camera."  since i kinda like street photography, i appreciated this.  if only the m9 did video.  whatever.  i mean ... seeing something from a ccd instead of a cmos would be so interesting.  hint. hint.  

one of the first pieces of equipment i got to do motion work was a nice video head.  i was able to find a sachtler cine 7+7.  seeing as how new sachtler sticks can cost upwards of us$3000 i went with the best manfrotto made for a 100mm ball mount.  i can't stress enough how important it is to have a great head and really good set of sticks.  putting a sand bag on the spreader is a very nice accessory, too.

it's such a good thing that canon allowed us to "make little videos while doing still assignments" as it was put to me by one of the cps people.  that said ... if you want to focus your 5dm2 without touching the lens and creating camera giggle ... well ... you're SOL.  as a unit photographer i always marveled at how much STUFF was on a movie camera.  when i first asked what a follow focus was and was told "you twist that barrell and you're going to move the camera.  we only move the camera when we want to."  he then let me rack through the focus on the focus wheel.  wow.

that's what i remember.  that feeling.  it was so fluid and lacking play.  i mean ... the guys on the technocrane had a remote one.  felt just the same.  wish i could show some of the unit stills but they're usually almost a full buy-out with a long-ass embargo.  some day i hope to play with those toys i see on 7 figure projects. ;)

knowing what a "real follow focus" should feel like i was ... underwhelmed at what i was seeing for well over fifteen hundred u.s.  on the other side of the spectrum i was underwhelmed as well.  being in los angeles you can find this stuff at places like the big s and film tools in burbank and see what they feel like.  i couldn't imagine ordering anything like this over the internet sight unseen.  unlike equipment companies in the photographic world i'm used to dealing with ... the biggest players like zacuto nor redrock had professional demo equipment.  unless, of course, you hock their equipment or have a fanboy base of 1,000,000+.  ;)  then again, having been able to see what they were all about at dealers here in l.a. i knew there was something different out there.  i mean ... this is the thing ... why should something be so expensive that doesn't have to be?  

i was shocked to learn that many of the popular follow focuses out there had internal parts sourced from r.c. car part manufacturers.  um ... no thanks.  they even have follow focus units that are a direct contact roller-thing.  never tried them.  perhaps they work.

although cinevate didn't have a pro-demo unit available and i didn't know them from adam, i liked what they stood for.  i was also told that if i didn't like it i could return it for a full-refund.  at the very tail end of shooting the street docu i had a head, sticks, rails and a follow focus.  the follow focus being the 15mm durus made by cinevate.  being in between the cheaper stuff and the ungodly expensive stuff in price seemed good.  the build quality is better than anything out there. they couple to your lens via these lens ring things.  the current generation is much better than the last.  the last was a bitch to install.  i mean ... nothing's as easy as the "cinch down kind" but ... they felt like they'd slip.

there's no play in the cinevate durus and the little lens gears have a pretty firm grip on the lens barrel. you'll see that the follow focus is attached to a rail.  they're 15mm rails and they're pretty standard unless you use 19mm rails.  i use the cinevate proteus rail system.  it feels solid.  the height is adjustable.  it's angle is adjustable.  having used this set-up a lot over the past year i can say it's probably one of the best made that's not arri or chroziel.  see ... the first follow focuses i ever got to try were on panavisions and arris and they were made by arri and chroziel.  the cinevate was the first one i tried that was as solid as the "big boys."

although cinevate sells a shoulder mount system, i don't think they were available when i was buying. i ended up buying something from cavision.  funny that when i went to their website i remembered that the first rails system i bought was from them.  the mount from the camera to the rails mount sucked. terrible design.  funny how i totally forgot about the fact i own one.  anyway ... i do remember buying their shoulder mount.  i don't recall it being very expensive.  funny that when i re-read their description they say "shoulder pad."  pad.  my. ass.  that thing is so uncomfortable.  i bribed my mother to make me a "real pad" and used wide-ass velcro to attach it.  cavision makes alright stuff.  that said ... the bolts that connect the shoulder assemblies together are cheap.  on two occasions the chrome came away from the bolt and went into my finger.

yes, i'll probably replace that assembly with that of what cinevate makes.  i know the build quality is a hundred times better than 99% of what's out there.

cavision makes some kind of holder for the back of the shoulder mount for weights.  yes, i could have gotten one of those as well.  glad i didn't.  i just use a five pound boa bag and a zip tie.  works for me.

the boas are rough, too, which kinda keep them in place.  forgot that i also have a cavision single grip but ... that will be replaced with a cinevate grip system.

that last photograph ... it's so funny ... people think that just because "there's light i can shoot."  so so so untrue.  the light above my little character's head is sodium vapor, which has a CRI of -100.  kidding.  it's friggin' ugly.  thus i had to bring in my own tungsten light source.  nhat is riding the boom.  on the end of it is a mathew's grip head and a lantern lock china ball with a 75w 3200 kelvin light source.  i wanted to drown out the ugly-ass street sodium vapor.  where's the power?  was i not only stealing the location but also swiping their power?  no.  i have a few duracell 600 powerpacks.  i've run 275w and 500w bulbs for about an hour on each charge.  not bad at all.  if you want fancier lights, you'll need a inverse square sine wave converter and applicable power.  perhaps one day but not today.  tonight.  whatever.

i've wanted to do the behind-the-scenes mega-blog about hd-dslr motion photography.  first off, i've been busy shooting my project.  secondly, i'm a working still photographer not someone who just reprocesses rumors, gets some fans and ... becomes a forum-god to those who would rather theorize than learn something practically. ;)

what is this project about?  largely, it's visual.  i'm introducing you to a character after her shift at work. i'm letting you into her life.  who she is.  i want you to empathize with her situation.  i want her to endear herself to you.  i want you to stand in her shoes.  then i hit you in the gut.  that's about all i'll say about it.  my lead actress is back in canada working.  another one of my actors .. well ... he's kinda busy until the second week of august.  i'm enjoying a bit of a break.

and, yes, i know there are those who can shoot a project in 4 days but ... i didn't want to rent a red, two kinos and call it a day. ;)

and let me tell you ... music rights clearances is a nightmare.  just fyi.

getting back to the 5dm2 ... focusing that bitch is a nightmare.  being able to rehearse and block is cool. setting focus marks on the focus wheel helps a lot.  but the 5dm2 really does suck at sending out signal to see your image.  when you're in liveview mode you're using a 720 image to focus.  right when you hit record though ... you drop down to a standard definition image.  trying to use that for focus when you're shooting 1080p ... is beyond frustrating.  using a bigger monitor is better but it's still a bitch.

most everyone i know uses this marshall 7" LCD, which has false colours and a peaking filter, which is useful for critical focus.  i'm looking forward to trying both that one and one made by datavideo.  i'm currently using the dp1 from smallhd.com.  the newer dp-slr they came out with looks better, is smaller and lighter and has an sdi input.  my dp1 has done pretty well.  it's gotten knocked around a fair bit and still fires up and lets me shoot in the 5dm2's sd-glory. ;)

i'm very interested in using a monitor with false colours and a peaking filter, though.  every dp i know uses the marshall.  

there are two pieces of equipment i bought from redrock micro.  the first is a little connector i use to clamp onto the 15mm rail and couple to an israeli arm.  the second piece i bought from them was a mount for a monitor loupe.  there are so many kinds of loupes out there.  that bruce dorn guy sells the hoodman with his bracket.  there's the z-finder, which is about the most expensive out there, not unlike the rest of zacuto's products.  i've checked it out and, yes, it's very nice.  

you can spend us$400 or you can spend under a hundred and get the hoodman 3.0.  i've used it along with the redrock attachment and ... i've been very happy.  it's not as easy to mount as the z-finder but ... it's only a few more seconds for me.  not only ... but ... i'd rather spend that much money on something else.  don't fall for the cinema straps that hoodman sells; they're crap.

seems to me that i have to focus the hoodman 3.0 every time i mount it.  it's all good.  i'd rather be in focus that soft.  when you set focus ... focus on menu items instead of picture.  trust me.

hoodman also sells an eye cup that i suggest, too.  the redrock/hoodman set up fits well with the cinevate rails and mount i have.  i've never lamented having purchased the combination.

in this current project i've used both the 5dm2 and 1dm4's.  i haven't used the 7d.  what i love love love about the 1dm4 is not only does it do a better job at higher iso's than the 5dm2 but ... it doesn't shift the image on the monitor from hd to sd when going from liveview to showing recording output.  the shallow dof from the mark 4 is very nice indeed.  the sensor is bigger on the 5dm2 but ... it's not all that much bigger. it's still bigger than a piece of 35mm film from the cine world.  bigger than the red one, too. ;)

yeah ... i know ... the red one is the end-all-be-all.  i'm sorry if i made any comparison.  i know that you "have to be a pro cinematographer if you have a red."  excuse me.  i'm naive.

much like the fact if you post on a leica forum, you must be an amazing photographer!  you must.  look at the equipment in your hands!  ;)

on a still editorial shoot ... it's usually myself and an assistant.  assistants that almost always come from the film world.  i find them "all business" and not wanting to show the client their portfolio.  in the cine world ... outside of talent ... there are so many more players.  except for some small pick-up shots for coverage that i could do with myself and talent ... there were situations when i had nine people.  i was told by a 1st AC friend that he's seen 30 person crews with no permit.  no one really pays attention in los angeles.

having more people to schedule is not easy.  i have a key grip who knows everything.  having shot with me for a long time now he knows exactly what i want.  it's really amazing.

he also makes sure i don't get hit by cars.  very important.

in that last shot ... no ... i wasn't handheld ... i wasn't on sticks ... wasn't on a dolly.  i was using the glidecam hd2000.  before i knew any better i made one myself out of 5/8" grip rod and connectors and a couple weights.  it was alright.  there are also DIY stabilizers.  i even shot some puppies with grip rod configuration.  both my franken-rig and the diy have a lot of limitations.

having an experienced grip make sure you don't fall on your ass is ... so important. ;)

once you determine your balance, which changes depending upon what you have "riding on it," the glidecam hd2000 is amazing.  it's WAY better than anything i cobbled together.

talent likes it, too. :)  when i was out-of-town my key grip sent me an iphone photo of a shoot he was on.  they used a 5dm2, the glidecam hd2000 and ... a little electric cart known as griptrix ... to shoot an entire commercial for a "major athletic shoe brand."  pretty amazing.  i can't show you the photo, though.  sorry.

the initial set-up was "interesting" for someone who'd never set one up before.  lensrentals.com has two great videos on the subject.  setup. practical use/balancing.

you really don't need the glidecam vest unless, of course, you're riding the stabilizer for hours and hours. if that's the case, then try lifting weights for a while.  you could always rent the vest.  i never needed it as i would only use it an hour at a time.

you'll see that i don't have follow focus or rails on the glidecam hd2000.  for me ... they weren't really needed. not only ... but unless you have a remote follow focus, the lens motor, the power supply, etc., doing any kind of focus control with any kind of stabilizer is ... well ... not helpful.  touching the lens at all is a bitch as it shifts.  

in as much as i think most canon glass sucks i found that i used the 2.8/16-35, 1.4/35 and 1.4/24 the most when the 5dm2 was attached to the glidecam hd2000.  i also used the 2.0/35 leica r-glass.  i found that unless you are really good at keeping the distance between your focal plane and your subject perfect, there was really no way to use really wide apertures.  i'd usually get a "buy take" at f/4.0 and then play a bit with looser apertures.

i don't see how you'd go tighter than a thirty five attached to a stabilizer.  i'm sure it could be done but i wasn't going to waste my talent and crew's time "experimenting."

there are a lot of more expensive stabilizers out there ... but the glidecam hd2000 and hd4000 are amazing values for the money.  once you get the rig balanced and set-up, though, you won't be a steadi-shot pro just yet.  you need to practice.  i would also advise lifting weights. ;)  all of that said, though, the moving floaty-cam shots (what my grip calls them) are really beautiful.  

when i was talking to industry veterans about making motion pictures a working 1st AC said, "you know those canon slr lenses aren't accurate, right?"  what he was talking about was the fact if the lens scale said 5 feet, it really wasn't.  hmm.  really?  i know for a fact my leica m-glass was super-accurate.  in fact, i've used the focus scale as a tape measure before.  works.  trust me.

so ... i put a target on the wall.  got out a friggin' tripod.  first i checked the canons.  i couldn't believe that my 1st AC-friend was totally right on.  i then put on the zeiss ze glass and measured.  way way way better.  then ... i put on the leica r-glass and did the same test...

it was pretty much spot on between my measuring tape and the plane of focus and the distance scale on the lens.

one of the bitches of using slr lenses compared to cine-lenses is that if you move an slr lens a millimeter, your focus has shifted by feet.  whereas if you move a cine-lens a mm, your focus doesn't move nearly as much.  most cine-lenses don't have enough "coverage" for a vista vision-sized sensor of the 5dm2.  in fact, there are way more that won't cover than will.  except, of course, according to the manufacturer, the zeiss compact prime 2's in ef mount.  :)

i'm hoping to get my hands on some of these when i start the next project.  14 blade irises!  granted, they're a bit slower than what i'm used to ... but ... shooting wide open doing motion with the 5dm2 is no walk in the park.  on the wider-side t2.9/21 or a t2.1/28 isn't bad.  in ef mount there's also the t2.1/50 and t2.1/85.  i think they've got plenty of good glass to work with.  the next project will include a real 1st AC.  very happy about that.  zeiss really did a great job with this glass ... especially beating out almost everyone with their introduction.

on the shoulder-mounted rig i have the 1.4/80 leica r-glass.  jesus.  it's beautiful.  even when i get my hands on some of that zeiss loveliness, though, i'll always shoot the 1.4/80 leica r-glass.  you'll see that there's some tape on the front. well ... leica's got some odd-ass filter system.  no way was i about to buy different filters for whatever filter mount is on that glass.  instead ... i taped the tiffen 1/8 black promist.

why am i using the tiffen promist?  yes, i know you can get those effects in post.  yes, i know it technically degrades the image.  yes, tiffen's site really has bad photos on it.  the 1/8 filter is lovely.  it just takes off that "hd edge" as it were.  and ... it's about "the look you like" not what some 15 year-old canadian (sorry, canada i could have picked on anyone) thinks on some irrelevant forum.  i spoke to enough dp's who actually work ... they suggested i look at tests with both.  i liked the look the 1/8 gave me.  you may not.  tutto bene.

i mean ... i just looked at this post.  jesus christ.  i mean ... wow.  there's so much information.  this is day-two of writing.  day-one was 2 hours.  i'm on another right now.  i stop and think about what i've already written about.  i then look at the photos i ftp'd to photobucket.  damn.

whilst on the topic of filters ... um ... well ... in as much as i don't like filters besides those of the nd-variety ... it was odd to me ... 

then again, when i'd do unit i'd see them stack three or more in the matte box.  i didn't think ... er ... i avoided thinking that i'd need a matte box.  given that i hit up craig's list and found chroziels, arri's ... lots.  seemed as though there are a lot of dp's getting rid of equipment.  anyway ... i ended up with a cavision, yes, cavision, i forgot that i had yet another cavision accessory, their 4x5.65 matte box for 16:9.  i think i paid the guy us$250 cash.  it was about a us$600 discount on new.  then again, new ones don't have glued clips.  whatever.  a matte box is a pain in the ass.  especially this one.  it has two filter stages.  one rotates so you can use polarizers.  

buy quality like tiffen or schneider.  don't buy shit.  these aren't the round-friggin'-filters; they're square. i use the schneider true-pol 4x4.  really makes the skies pop when you're doing exteriors.  also, they're nice for reducing window reflections.  filter stage one filled.  the other filter i use in the box is that of the tiffen black pro-mist 1/8 in 4x4.  oh shit ... while looking up links i forgot that the other filters i "don't leave home without" are the tiffen 1, 2 and 3 stop neutral density filters in 4x4.  because two filter stages fill up quickly i'll sometimes put round ones on the actual lens and then one or two in the matte box.

if you're shooting at night, though, i'd limit yourself to one filter as lights do some pretty interesting things when bouncing around all of those reflective surfaces.  trust me on this.  

although i've totally gotten my two-hundred-or-so dollars out of the cavision matte box of scorn, i'll be upgrading to a cinevate titan swing away mattebox.  the cavision is stationary.  sucks.  the cinevate swings away so you can have access to changing lenses easier.  not only ... at us $900 or so ... it's still less than half of what an arri or chroziel will cost.  having had a lot of experience with the excellent craftsmanship of cinevate's other products i don't think i'll be disappointed.  plus ... it'll swing away. :)  so important.

don't get me wrong ... the cavision's done it's job.  minutes between set-ups add up.  and when you're ripping off exteriors in busy locations ... you don't have a lot of minutes.

that being said ... no one ever ever ever said anything to us.  one night i had quite a few people.  i was amazed.  

got a filter stack including the tru-pol and 1 stop nd.  oh, yeah, and a focus whip.  i've never quite understood why cinevate doesn't make a whip.  i mean ... why should a piece of spring-friggin-steel cost an arm and a leg?????  us $280?  really, guys?  i got one from cavision for us$60.  would have bought one from cinevate seeing as how i have their durus follow focus but ... they don't make one. ;)  of course, zacuto makes one for us$141.  i don't see why they have to be even that expensive.  

back to the filter stack.  the 5dm2 has it's limitations.  shooting at 24 fps i wanted to be at 1/50th.  1/48th would be more apropos but whatever 1/50th it is.   in fact, i'm always shooting at 1/50th for motion.  it looks the best.  coming from the still world i'm used to having a world of shutter speeds.  in this motion world ... not so much.  not being able to use anything but one shutter speed means i've got to knock down light with either iso, f/stps (t/stops in their world) or nd's.  

that brings up something else.  iso.  i prefer -- having spoken to people who've shot real projects and not just time lapses -- to be as close to the 5dm2's native iso of 160 ... especially for daylight exteriors.  it just looks better.

another thing that looks better is if you go into picture styles and knock the contrast all the way back save one little click, saturation down a few clicks and ... here's an iphone 4 photo of the settings ...

 it's the neutral or flat style that's been discussed ad naseum on the web. hit apple-f and search "neutral."  you'll see vincent's comment.  i'd rather have a bit more dynamic range to work with by dialing in this picture style.  in post you can apply your look and other adjustments there ... don't let the camera do it.

speaking of iso ... i've gotten the 5dm2 up to 1600 and been happy with what i saw (a stairway lit by ugly sodium vapor).  

i was happy with what i was seeing at 1600 and 800 shooting my character walking up a set of stairs. i was kinda shocked how good it looked with just using available light.

you'll probably also notice that i have a little light on the hotshoe.  basically, it's a little obie light, paying homage to dp lucien ballard in 1944 during the filming of "the lodger" to conceal the scars of actress merle "obie" oberon.

you can see the effect of obie aka lite panels micro LED on emelie's face.  balancing for tungsten i also put a 1/2 cto and a small piece of rosco 216.  having grip-friends helps.  they trash a lot of good expendables on sets and i'm the willing recipient of hand-me-downs.  totally cool with me.  i'm sure the planet isn't pissed.

now why would i use some cto or 216 instead of the little filters that come with the micro LED?  well ... i don't know the exact colour temp of what lite panels uses nor the qualities of their diffusion.  i know what a 1/2 cto does to a daylight source such as the micro led.  not only but ... i like the look of 216.  i regularly put it on windows to knock down direct sunlight.  it looks pretty.  also, remember that the diffusion becomes the source.  if it's now my source and it's lighting my talent, i wanna know exactly what i'm dealing with. 

i found the micro LED's filters came off easy.  gaffer tape it is.  the best stuff on earth.  people think duct tape is the end-all-be-all?  they've never used gaffer tape. :)

we're now on day three.  

what else?  dunno what it's like in your town but in los angeles we have a lot of rental houses.  most rental houses will preclude you from renting because you don't have production insurance.  some, though, will allow you to buy insurance directly from them.  if you want to rent an arri bl3 and some lenses you'll have to get production insurance.  luckily, or unluckily, i don't need to shoot film.

did i just say that?

whatever.  perhaps some day i'll get to shoot film for a motion project.  i'm told i'll love it.  i could imagine so.  i found a really cool place in los angeles that rents primarily to the indy community.  wooden nickel lighting.  i needed a 1000w arri tungsten gelled with 3/4 CTB to replicate moonlight.  i also needed to go up 20 feet so ... i had to rent a matthews mombo combo.  this thing can go up 24 feet. the guy fulfilling my rental order said, whilst looking at my 1000w arri light, "you gonna fly that little light on that big-ass stand?"

yes.

looked enough like moonlight.  didn't rent the walkies.  a friend and i went in on a set of four used uhf's, two of which came from a police department.  amazing how much you really need that shit.

yelling is unprofessional.

so much about the visual and nothing about the auditory.  well ... what i've discovered is that unless you're in a PERFECT environment your sound will sound like shit.  i have the sennheiser me67/k6 shotgun, the zoom h4n, the k-tek k-102 boom pole, a windscreen and lots of cable.  truth-be-told ... sound's a bitch.  

miking this night exterior on a busy night was a nightmare.  we only had two lines.  i had one person on one corner and another at another corner pushing the crosswalk signals in unison so that i got 30 seconds to get nice sound.  

when i do exterior dialogue scenes now ... i hire out.  my guy has a us$6000 shotgun mike, vampire mikes, mixing equipement, etc., etc.  he's well worth the money for rich sound.  there's no substitute.

i'd rather direct and shoot. ;)

directing and shooting is a total challenge but i'm very much enjoying it.

i've also been doing some 1st AC work and leaving some of the camera operation (panning, tilting, framing) to someone else when there's too much going on.

i know that the time lapse kids love love love little short dollies that have motors.  well ... in the real world ... you don't see those often.  you either see real dollies like fishers, which require us$250,000 of insurance.  um, yeah, right.  those are worth a quarter million?  don't see how.  there are so many other DIY dollies but ... i didn't want to screw with that shit.  there are "little dollies" that barely have 1 meter of travel and they cost a grand.  actually, they're more than a grand if you get their supports.

i opted for something different.

(these photos have been digitally altered to blur-out the background)

i remember making some comment on facebook about why someone would want the kessler crane dolly and the head-fan-boy himself said "go get a proper dolly."  mmmhmm.  yeah.  okay.  first why would i need a dolly to hold 100lbs. of gear when my gear doesn't way that much and room for two overweight union members?  dunno.  

there are dollies that use aluminum ladders, plastic pipes, etc.  i wanted something that didn't limit me to a three foot move.  one day i was reading american cinematographer magazine and saw an ad for the dana dolly.  for us$549 you get a complete kit that includes the dolly system and 2 track ends and 100mm and 75mm bowl adapters.  basically, you get speed rail from wherever you get that stuff from cut to whatever length you want, put them in the track ends and either put them on stands (heavy duty ones) or on apple boxes.  it appears that the time lapse fan-boys can get a motor for the danadolly as well.  i didn't know that until i went to their site!

it works perfectly.  i still think the kessler crane thing with it's crank is beyond hilarious.  never ever have i seen anyone use anything even close to that in the real world.  perhaps in the time lapse world, that's got such a huge market, it's big.  dunno.

the dana dolly rocks.  i have 4', 8' and 12' speedrail, which is just aluminum pole-like material.  they use it for all sorts of shit on real sets.  i had another set of 8-footers made that have a curve for another project i'm getting ready to shoot.

can you get the kessler to curve?  wait ... if all you do is shoot time lapses why would you need a curved track? ;)

what else?  hmm.  it's funny that this post has taken so long as there is so much gear needed to make a motion project.  gear.  people.  time.  patience.  energy.  balls.  ripping locations can be ... interesting.

i'd get this one little book called the guerilla film makers handbook.  i found some of it very useful, which is about all one could expect.  

during the crux of shooting over almost two months it was funny:  i ran into Michel Gondry a couple times.  check out his youtube page.  once it was at a shoot for tod's, which was launching their new adverts shot by elliot erwitt, and another time at a fashion event.  although i spoke to him for a bit at the first event, i was able to talk to him for quite a while at the second event.  he gave me some really cool advice.

sorry but that's private.

he also made me dance with he and his girl.  that was a site for sure.  frankie rayder took my camera and did my job for a while.  where else does a supermodel take your camera after you got sage advice from one of the best directors to have ever lived ... have a drink ... and then dance?  you tell me.

making a motion project is a lot of hard work.

i'd say one should also have as many "unit stills" or "onset stills" as possible.  hopefully, they're good ones.  luckily, for me, at least, i have a lot of talented friends who are photographers.  go figure.

in fact, i did some stills myself as well. ;)

 

the preceding photos retain the respective copyrights of their authors:  frank jackson, mario anzuoni, daniel kagle, nhat nguyen, launius via iphone, thorsten overgaard or me.

is it done?  um, no.  my actress, annamaria, had to go back to toronto for a bit and my actor ... he's pretty much blown-up ... so i'm hoping i can get the half-day i need with him to fit his busy-ass schedule. so happy for him and his crazy-success.

another funny thing was that the car we were using as a picture vehicle decided to blow it's engine.  yes, indeed.  she's all fixed and has a "donor heart" so ... it's just getting the actors back and ... finishing. continuity is a bitch, too.

i mean ... then it goes to post.  i'm doing quite a bit of it myself in final cut studio with a bit of magic bullet looks.  "grading" my still images for ... some of the time lapses ... i did in aperture where it was easy to create a look, apply it to ya' know ... 5,000 frames ... and then exporting so that i could re-import the files to make a .mov and then export it out in Apple ProRes 422.  as much as i wish i were doing all of this on a nice mac pro ... no ... i'm doing it on my mac book pro ... not bad, actually.

and lucky for me i have a lot of industry pros who are helping with my post. :)  very happy with that as well.

sadly, though, i have no one to help me with some of the music licensing issues.  that ... and language barriers.  but ... whatever.  it'll all come together.

*sits quietly and thinks of the other "stuff" he's had to use to get this done*

yes, i almost forgot, looked toward the window and saw a matthews 4x4 artificial silk solid frame that i used in a variety of situations.  when my matthews quick corner overhead butterfly i have in 6x6 wasn't big enough i was able to use a 12-by.  i use either the white artificial silk (when i didn't care about ambient bounce) or the black (when i did care about ambient bounce).

one note:  if you're flying something heavy above your talent and crew, MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE DOING.  just a 6-by is 36 square feet of sail.  a 12-by is 144 square feet of sail and it can totally get away from you and seriously hurt someone.  you're warned.

of course, i've been using a plethora of matthews stands ... from little ones all the way to beefy overheads and mombo combos.

there are a lot of matthews clamps and grip heads and wall plates i've been using as well but i think a photo of them is better than a description...

milk crates are a nice accessory, too. 

seriously, there's so much more.  what's one of the things you kinda "discover whilst doing"?  cutability of shots.  i know cutability isn't a word.  you may think two shots can marry up in edit but ... they don't. there are so many things to think about when doing a project like this.

i'll end up doing another post especially with the venerable picture car all geared-up with matthews microgrips and several matthews pump cups.

even a good-size editorial shoot only lasts a few hours; these motion-monsters take way way way longer than that.  it's really crazy how much effort one needs to put into all of this.  and ... you can't do this alone.  i'm EXTREMELY grateful to my collaborators.

i'm looking forward to completing this for my reel a) to get it done, b) because i can't wait to cut it together and colour grade the bitch and c) so i can move on to the next project.  cannot wait to do something that's primarily interiors and i can control the lighting the way i'd like.  that ... and ... the next one is something i've REALLY wanted to do but didn't want it to be my first.  

i'm so looking forward to my cast being back and available for shooting.  it's so close to being done i can taste it.  

was having coffee with my friend alexx and he showed me some tests that david fincher did on the new red mysterium with leonardo.  my god.   amazing.

this post took three partial days to do.  i wonder if i'm done?  i'm hoping so.  hope some of you got something out of this in a practical sense that you wouldn't have gotten out of some forum post in a theoretical sense.

also, i hope you guys all have an amazing weekend!

wanna also thank everyone who's been helping me with this project.  some have been name-checked above but there are others who haven't.  thank you.  i'm indebted to you and your time and effort.

cheers from the most temperate summer EVER!  GRAZIE A DIO!

-c

p.s., check out this new remote follow focus from redrock.  jesus.  hope it's iphone4 compatible. ;)

choke.

in doing some desktop housecleaning ... as i only had like 42gb of working space on my macbook pro's hard drive ... found some folders ...

and i believe i meant to blog them or do something besides archiving them.

f.u., photobucket ... you're slow.

i swear to god ... why the fuck would anyone just "talk about cameras" if they don't actually use the fuckers?  jesus.  i don't know why i read the superfluous photographer but sometimes i do.  whilst i know several amazing shooters who do some serious darkroom stuff, i know even equally as amazing shooters who've never even smelled a darkroom from 15m away.

f.u. photobucket still trying to login.  

back to the superfluous-but-can't shoot.  there was this entry about training photographers ... um ... yeah ... okay ... but shouldn't you have some talent in the first place to train someone else?  pageviews from other old white guys who listen to jazz with tube-fucking-amps doesn't fucking mean you can shoot.

makes me laugh.

photobucket doesn't.

so yeah ... found some scans ... no ... the m9 hasn't totally queered me ... looking back at said scans, though, i really don't remember when i made the photos????  dammit.

right?

i remember i made this as a half-tribute to ken. ;) it's not a whole wall hence the half-tribute.  

something wasn't quite right about homey.  not that he couldn't take off an arm.

according to my ups driver ... even these guys can take off an arm.  dunno why she's afraid of my little spaniel, though...

whatever. i'm sure she has her reasons.

fyi ... anything that looks like a 35mm lens was shot with the new 35 summilux ... and ... film.  don't get too shocked.

my kid is even enjoying rangefinder photography ... albeit ... digital rangefinder photography...

i think you can see her photo here.  ;)

couldn't find anything to suggest she moved that one.  hmm.

she likes to walk 'round the 'hood with me and look for photos. :)

i find other peoples spaces and environments so interesting. dunno why.  perhaps i'm just nosey.

love the face lamill isn't "opening near you."  they have clover machines. :)  even though the walmart of coffee bought clover.  jerks.

flowers.

more flowers.  they're dead now.  i just walked by yesterday.  loving the new 35-'lux with film by the way.

but not as much as mr. pug-friend loves spongebob. ;)

palms and a contrail.  not a chemtrail.  so much talk about chemtrails lately. don't get it.  even if they are spraying us with shit ... what the fuck are we gonna do about it?

quiet moment.  quiet shutter.  didn't have a clue i was there stalking a photo. ;)

i do NOT photograph homeless ... but this guy was like conjuring something.  i waited to see if anything materialized.  nothing.

whilst waiting to pay for some tulips (swear that's true) ... i noticed it was taking forEVER for the family in front of myself and drinky-mc-drinkerson to offload their basket full of instant gratification (read:  food full of high fructose corn syrup).  homeboy was carrying that bottle like it was his baby.

skip back or forward or whatever to seattle and portland...

the new 35-'lux and ... some apx 25.  he didn't hear it either.  try that with an slr.  i know i know i know ... some say anything you can do with your rangefinder ... i can do better with my rebel.  cool.  good for you.

agressive birds and panhandlers in seattle.

agressive friggin' gum-smell in that horrible alley in seattle.  some nice .95/50 nocti-luv here. :)  i'm pretty sure i had the other nocti on.  can't remember for sure.

i don't remember what i did yesterday for that matter.

nice quiet moment with a malty beverage.  or without.

i know some who'd kill to live at that address. ;)

some leica m9 roadshow action.  met some very nice people and total leica enthusiasts.

it's all about the m.  as seen through a .95/50 nocti.  love that lens.  too bad it costs more than a car.

gets me all choked up.  sorry.

a juxtapositional pun.  and now we're back in seattle.  

say ah.

that girl was amazing, actually.

she was happy.

as was homegirl.

not so much for homietheclown.

if you come to seattle, you must have that photo.  trust me.

he was busy.

he was as happy as his cornermate homeytheclown.

i was as happy as both when i made this photo.  "sorry sir ... all rooms above the 4th floor are really hot."  fucking april in seattle and it's hot?  he was right.  

i got a different room.

on the third.

diva-bitch-asses get their way ... trust me.

a view from a different room.  i mean ... rainy outside and its 25c+ inside... wtf?  don't get it.  felt like a fucking resthome.

no, i wasn't cropping square:  these are from the rollieflex mx-evs 3.5. unlike the guys at the superfluous phtographer ... i use my equipment and don't just postulate the methods of use.  if you don't use old cameras, they will wither up and die.  can't have that happen to such a beautiful little machine.

'sup happy?

from a different view.

i shot the 120 variant of agfa apx 25 for the most part.  i mean ... f3.5 isn't all that fast but the shutter doesn't vibrate much!

caption contest?

such a sweet man.  found out where the best waffles in portland are sold.  so amazing to meet people so passionate about the most simple things in life.  we learn from everyone.

except for those who profess shit they don't know about, of course.

we kept running into this family.  the first night we were in portland we ate at the ever-so-esoteric clyde common.  i noticed the dad was looking at the two leica m9's on the table.  when we started a conversation he said "i know those are good cameras and i kept thinking to myself, 'those guys probably can't even shoot'."  too funny.  we're now friends.  sent this to them. :)

plenty of seats but he chose the ground.  all good.  portland is weird.  

and we arrive in spaniel-land! :)  a very good place to be.  indeed.

and in spaniel-land we find little spaniel feet with little spaniel slippers.  

back to seattle-land.  this is my friend jon.  he and i hadn't seen each other in 20 some-odd years.  so great to reconnect with him and his lovely wife.  

seemed as though no time had passed as he was one of my best friends in high school.  such a cool dude. 

i would totally put this on the wall if it weren't for the fact the dogs would freak-the-fuck-out.

i know that feeling "where the fuck is it!?"

waiting in food truck row.

dennis rodman's doppelganger?

pesky double-exposures. :(  doesn't happen so much with digital. ;)

your guess is as good as mine.

that's some rad ink.  for damn sure.

he told me he had to get back to salt lake to see his son.  that he had a job waiting for him.  

hope so.

i still think he was buying some h.

choke.

hope you're all well.

cheers from the la-la,

c

smoking wiener dogs.

listening to broken bells.  remember to buy ... not download illegally.  unless it's shitty jazz.  wait ... that only comes on vinyl.  i guess you have to be in wisconsin to really like it, though. ;)

so yeah ... we had our memorial day.  not sure i'm sure why we get that monday off.  i'm not gonna kiss ass so the older white guys like me, though.  sorry.  not my style.  we got a monday off, though, and that was nice.

it's inevitable that when there's a "long weekend" the "weekend warriors" are out in force.  

penis=small.

rather than "destroy the dunes" as it were ... we hung out with a dear friend ... and some furry little dear friends.

'twas a beautiful weekend up north of hell-ay.

this little girl is getting new parents.  fancy parents.  she's so damn sweet.  

perhaps not as sweet as little homie on the left. :)

oh, yeah, not only am i totally in love with aperture 3 but the maccreate.com film simulation presets are really friggin' cool.  not gonna say which were used ... but ... pretty much every photo in this post was run through one preset or another.  

and ... all of the photos in this blog, almost like, well, every other post in recent memory were made with the leica m9.  for the most part i used the new 1.4/35 summilux asph ... i mean ... in prototype form but ... still.  also, there's some 1.4/24 summilux asph, 1.0/50 nocti and ... um ... 2.0/75 sumicron asph, too.  not gonna go frame by frame and say which was used where, though.

funny ... that even though i shoot the best equipment canon has to offer ... it still didn't make me love digital photography.  the leica m9 made me love digital photography.  it even perhaps made me love shooting my canon digi-equipment even more.  odd how things work out.

don't think my lab loves me as much any more, though.  then again, they friggin' should after having a nice drum scan of a neg and then the subsequent almost-six foot wide print we had made.  that should make up for it.

next time 'round ... perhaps we can skip the damn drum scan.  expensive little bitches those things are.  i know ... should have put on some nice jazz ... and made an analog print, right?

whatever.

you're gonna get some cavalier overload, just fyi.  a warning if you will. ;)

such a pretty little face.  wait ... did i hear someone say they wanted to see more of this pretty little face?  i knew i did.  in fact, i think it was a faint whisper out of austria?

rough day of being sweet and cute.  a friend said "you should weaponize this cuteness."

love her little face.  then again, i guess you could tell, right?

her name is punky and she gave birth to a little boy very close to our hearts.

oh my.  what a face.  his personality is just beyond.

i think she likes him ... and ... him ... her.  :)  then again, how couldn't he.  she's amazing.

he's pretty amazing, too.  

i don't think we can name him peta sucks, though.  ;)

baby puppies.  baby wine grapes! :)  except only one will be squashed in the fall and it WON'T be a puppy.  velvia 50 preset. ;)

2.0/75 asph sumicron.  velvia 50 preset again. ;)  i was watching cows move from shade tree to shade tree.

and then a nice ride through some nice tree-lined canyons in the central wine region.  not that we drank any wine.  we had tequila and vodka.

our new favourite cocktail, though is:

high ball glass.  fill with ice.  1 oz st. germain liqueur. 1 oz. grey goose pear vodka. splash of apple cider.  

jesus in a glass.

or a dollar in a barrel.  whatever.

only in this part of the state could you walk into a barn filled with beautiful organic vegetables and fruites and buy on the honor system.  

never happen in los angeles.

we have too many douchebags here ... both native and imported.

most are in entertainment.

we made new goat-friends.

who eat hay ... not fucking corn.  animals should not eat fucking corn.  just fyi.

only assholes from iowa who own feedlots and supply fucking mcdonalds feed their poor cattle corn.

grass-fed ... not that we're eating goats ... livestock is way better.

sorry guys for talking about you and hay and feedlots in the same ... vicinity of sentences and photos.

next ... we went to a dog show.

but seriously ... this should make you angry.  as a father ... i cannot believe what industry/media does to young women.  truly disgusting.  vivid should ... be so ashamed.  yeah ... i just told a porn company to be ashamed.  hmm...  that's like telling a nazi to be nice.

this was what we were greeted by when we parked albeit illegally but ... whatever ... there were no parking attendants/guards at their respective posts.  so ... whatever.  we parked.

the cosina/voigtlander 4.5/15 isn't too bad on the m9.  yeah ... there's some weirdness at the edges but ... whatever ... not every lens can be a leica lens. ;)

<

don't shit here or the akc will spank you.

this little irish terrier wouldn't though.  such a nice little guy.

nothing like a 1988-era fountain in the 909. ;)  or a six-stop nd filter. ;)

homeboy's sucking on a straw next to a sign for a semen bank.  wonder if that was a to-go cup?  dunno.

sorry.

i'm gross.

i'm 14.

whatever.

meet kate.  kate is pretty.

this is leo.  leo is my homeboy.

this is jack.  not jack-jack but jack.  jack's cool as hell.

silky grooming is srs bsns.  srsly.  so many captions ... so little time.

i used to pick on chihuahua owners but ... the stars aligned ... and ... well ... silkies ... and their owners were in the crosshairs of visual snark. ;)

silky.  yorkshire.  i dunno.

i only like cavalier king charles spaniels ... and 80% of their owners/breeders.

"analog bill" my new friend.  very nice guy.  

buy a cosina/voigtlander 4.5/15 and get a free star filter. ;)

fyi ... fucking metal halides ... suck.  they spike in red, green and blue.  their CRI must be -100, then again, high pressure sodiums must have -250 CRI.

i like this.

srs. bsns.

my little friend sammy.  he's a fancy show dog.  i have a soft spot in my heart for rubies.  

sammy has impressive slippers.

afghans.  i think.

someone brought a pony to the dog show?

"another goddamned dog show, marj!?"

that dog weighs 2lbs.  the woman on the right has a cavalier, too, though, so she's off the hook for just "being a chi-chi breeder."  the japanese love her dogs.  

this job's gotta suck over the course of a four-day dog show, right?

srs. bsns.

welcome to the united states.

caption contests could run rampant with these photos.

he asked me to take him out and go chase birds.  poor buddy.

focus.  snack.  bait.  whatever.

at least buy him dinner first.

"fuck ... my nuts are next. if i weren't the most loving breed in the world i'd turn 'round a bite you."

for a chi-chi ... she's sweet and ... cute.  she's big in japan.  pardon the pun.

i love this breed.

they're amazing.

so was this judge's uncanny ability to see a dog's molars at 15 feet away.  brava.

some days you're the pigeon.

some days you're the statue.

potahtos.

potaytoes.

judge gear.

shouldn't she have her glasses on all of the time, though?  kinda like an umpire?  odd to me.

is it snack time yet?

homie ... i'm a photographer ... not the judge.  seriously.

snack.

bait.

don't think they really care.

whatchotalkinbout?

i perfected my monkey sound.  leo and chop-chop agree.  i'm not being racist.  that dog's name is chop-chop.

do not fuck with her.  she will fuck you up.  she has a wiener dog.  my favourite photo of the day.

the irony.

yep.  busy yet good weekend.  started in heaven and ended up in the 909.  at least we were surrounded by mostly friends. :)

hope your week is off to a good start and you're not thinking about making photos whilst listening to jazz and you're actually making photos.

those who can't do ... teach.  remember that.

cheers from a now-warm hell-ay.  i'm going to make soup.

cheers,

c