Good Advice Then...

... good advice now.

This was taken at the Kankakee County Fairgrounds, in one of the livestock display barns. I wouldn't be surprised this sign was many decades old. Then, of course, the major risk was fire in the hay/straw/wood bedding of the animals, ignited by a flame lighting source or a cigarette.

While there's still a lot of hay, straw, and wood chips, neither flame lighting nor cigarettes were much in evidence. There were, however, much newer signs warning that food and drink were not allowed and that you should not touch your face while in the barn and that you should wash after you left. Bird flu and the Oink, you know. Ah, progress.

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For Your Consideration.

We took my daughter to the county fair today. Since we got there just as the Midway opened, we had to wait in line to buy tickets. There, apparently sent by the God of Metaphorical Photo Ops, I saw these two.

I call this, "Jackie Spratt and, Um, Jill Spratt."



I don't know (nor would I care to wager) that they are anything other than friends and/or relations. They might have even been total strangers waiting for their kids. The title is not meant to imply a spousal relationship. I just thought it was funny.

Incidentally I don't recall that Jack Spratt's wife had a name. In the nursery rhyme tradition I have called her Jill. I also considered Jane. Incidentally incidentally, you can't read it at this resolution, but the sign reads, under the "Notice" section:

Due to the design of the seating safety device on this ride, exceptionally large people may not be able to ride.

I think Jill is dead out of luck. Sorry, Jill.

Comments invited.

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No, I Did Not Get Hit By a Bus

Although the dog keeps trying to kill me. He likes to lay in the hall in the dark and see if he can break my legs. So far, he's only managed to hyperextend one of my toes on the laundry hamper, but it's only a matter of time.

I have not had any creative impulse whatsoever for quite some time, I'm sad to say. I mostly just sit around and do geek stuff. I did send a model who's traveling here (or maybe she already did) an email just to see if she'd work with me and she didn't answer, so that didn't help. I can handle most criticism but the kind which implies it's not even worth it to criticize me is kind of rough.

Anyway, here is a letter I got from a nice young lady in Greece and my comments on her questions. You may find it useful. Or interesting. Or at least mildly Amusing.


Hello!!I read your article http://www.marcwphoto.com/starting.html and I thought that you could maybe help me out and answer some qustions.
First of all I'd like to work on swimwear modelling and I'm thinking of building my portfolio soon.
Questions:1)Is it possible to start modelling and still be a good student?

That depends on your bandwidth. If you have the mental energy to try to do both, then yes. I know several models who have finished college degrees, including postgraduate degrees, while supporting themselves partially or wholly through modeling.

2)My portfolio should only include bikini pictures?

If all you ever ever ever want to do is swimwear, then I guess you could have all swimwear pictures and one good headshot, but you might as well at least put a few casual/lifestyle shots in there. It will look awfully strange if it's all bikinis, all the time.

3)Only one photographer helps with the portfolio or can I cooperate with more than one?

If you want your portfolio to have any depth, you're pretty much going to have to get images from more than one photographer.

4)How many pictures can you take in 1 hour?

Me? Thousands, especially if I put my camera on motor drive and hold the button down.

But if you want *good* pictures, the answer is complicated. I've gone the first hour of a shoot and not taken a single frame. I've taken thirty pictures in a two-hour shoot. (And to an old-school film photographer that could STILL be machine-gunning it.) I've taken three hundred pictures in a one-hour shoot. It depends on what you're doing. I would say that unless you're doing seriously complicated concept work, a one-hour shoot ought to get the model at least five pictures she can use, if you're doing trade or paying the photographer. See question three: you don't want or need dozens of pictures from any given photographer anyway. I'll never understand models who want all the images from a shoot. If you get one great image from a session, you're ahead of the game. More than that is a bonus. Unless, of course, you're paying for different looks - then you should expect at least one usable image for each look.

5)Who does the make up,the styling,the wardrobe?

That depends on who's willing to pay for what. I've had the model do it all herself, I've had models pay for stylists and artists, I've paid for stylists and artists, I've had stylists and artists work for trade, I've had clients pay for stylists and artists. (That last is how it works in the "real world" of commercial photography - they're just a line item on the invoice or included in the daily.) If you want pics for your port, either you ask the photographer to arrange makeup and styling and pay for it as part of the shoot, or you arrange for it yourself. If you're doing trade you can often find artists and stylists who also want trade, although they do tend to be less experienced.

6)Do photographers retouch the pictures taken?

Usually, especially if you're paying. However the level of retouching varies wildly, as does the quality. I retouch my pictures very little, but that's because (if I do say so) I know how to take pictures that don't need much retouching. Some photographers are mediocre photographers but have Photoshop skills far exceeding my own. This is great, unless their pictures end up more as photo-illustrations that don't *look* like you. If you show up at a shoot looking radically different than your heavily-retouched pictures, the photographer/client is going to be very upset.

7)I checked model mayhem out for photographers and found some really good ones(and expensive)for bikini shoots but I didn't find someone whose pictues I like here in greece.Should I take some pictures with a not-so-good photographer at first or what else can I do?

If you want pictures to use to market yourself, not-so-good images are worthless. Better to have digital snapshots your friend takes with a point-and-shoot camera than crappy-looking pro pics. Digital snapshots say, "Hey, I'm just starting," and crappy-looking pro pics say, "Hey, I have no idea what good pictures look like and I paid this shmuck to make some bad ones for me." :)

If you listen to nothing else I say, listen to this: It is better to have one good headshot and one good body profile than fifty crappy pictures. Quality is EVERYTHING. Photographers have a saying that you are only as good as your worst picture. It also applies to models.

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Right of Publicity Produces Win-Win-Tie Result

Woody Allen settles with American Apparel for $5M for using his likeness in an ad without permission:

Woody Allen wins $5 million in lawsuit over his image

Despite the headline's text he did not win the money, it was a settlement on the eve of trial.

Win 1: They blatantly took a still from one of his films and used it in an ad. They claimed Fair Use, in that they added a caption in Hebrew, and that obviously, it was "never meant to sell clothes." However, their logo was quite visible on the billboard they made. A court would have made short work of this argument, I think. Commercial misappropriation is a lot harder to defend than noncommercial, and putting your logo on something, especially when you are known for offbeat ads, kind of gives the lie to the idea that it wasn't commercial usage. Right of Publicity comes out on top.

Win 2: I despise American Apparel, at least I do whenever they are brought to my attention. Their ads are the worst FOTM Terry Richardson/Ryan Mcwhatshisface dreck and their products, at least what I've seen in said ads, are ugly and faux-retro in a lazy mass-market way. What discomfits them refreshes me. Also, they tried to intimidate Allen by putting his ex-wife and his current wife, the victim and subject of a rather scandalous affair, on the proposed witness list. That was pure sleaze, as neither of them could possibly have anything to do with the case.

Tie: I have never liked Woody Allen's movies or much cared for the tiny bit I know about him through unpurposed media input. OTOH, he doesn't seem inclined to put up with people doing him wrong, which I have to admire. So I guess it's okay that he won, although ideally somebody would have hit him with a pie on his way out of the courthouse or something.

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Sorry I'm So Lame

Lame blogger is lame.

Gumption supplies are at record lows. Pretty much everything feels kinda pointless. Mostly I sit and play computer games and make snarky comments on web sites.

When (if) the weather ever improves I am going to try to get the garage ready to paint. However, it's been pouring down rain for a week and doesn't look to improve soon. That's okay: I am not looking forward to painting anyway, but at least it's a plan.

Photographywise, zip. I have ideas, I write 'em down, and then I think of all the reasons that if I try to do any photography it won't work. I miss my shooting space and my very own studio. No money for that, though. I am getting the credit cards paid down, which is why there's no money - with any luck just a few more months will do it. We had a quarterly company status meeting yesterday and while of course business is down, we are financially secure and moving product, so that's an upper. We also had our first sale of our new product line - which took four years to develop and two years to get regulatory approval for - so that's a very good sign. The potential revenue from this product line beggars the imagination, IF we can get it into the market and the whole world economy doesn't collapse and/or this new flu doesn't turn out to be Captain Trips.

I work for a closely-held company: lately my big daydream involves our main potential competitor (which has 50 times the employees we do) buying out my bosses with so much money that they give every employee $200K as a going-away present. That, and winning the lottery. :)

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All Quiet on The Midwestern Front

I got a new keyboard and mouse. That's about the extent of it.

It's very disconcerting to replace the keyboard and the mouse when you use the computer as much as I do. Especially since they hardly make "traditional" mice anymore and they're all ergonomic modern sculptures - designed for people with smaller hands than mine. I have very long fingers and I can never get comfortable on a curved mouse. Oh, well.

They were a set, and they're wireless, so that's nice - one less cable snaking around on my desk and causing my water glass to tip perilously off-center. Plus, my new keyboard has a display. That's probably the real reason I picked it. I'm hopeless.

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Says It All, Really

I give you the root of the problem:



From Attu at AttuWorld.

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Why Not?

Apple came out with an upgrade to the Mac Mini recently. Of particular interest to me was the vastly improved video card, which in my mind was the weakest link in the one I had. It would have been nice to have more than 2GB of RAM, but that video card was a dog.

Well, I had a brilliant idea.

My daughter has a hand-me-down eMac, the last one they made with a CRT. It's noisy, it uses a lot of power, and it takes up half her small desk. To do homework it has to be shoved around to make room. I thought, "Hey, I'll get me a new Mini, and she can have mine, along with an LCD screen, and it'll be quiet, efficient, and take up a lot less room."

As those of you who know me personally are aware, thought and deed are one with me, so I did some pretty elaborate shenanigans to get the maximum Frequent Flyer miles possible and the thing arrived yesterday.

Both "base" models have the same processor, but the more expensive one has more RAM, and Apple advertises it as having more Video RAM, too. However, the way it actually works is that if the machine has more RAM, it allocates more of it to the video card. A little deceptive, you ask me. I bought the absolute cheapest one: the hard drives were the same speed, the other one was just bigger, and I don't care about that. I have 2.5TB of storage in my office. I didn't get RAM from Apple, either, their prices are rapacious. I installed it myself, which is no errand for the inexperienced. If you want to see how it works, look here:

http://www.macminicolo.net/macmini2009.html

Amusingly, that site is run by a co-location company (they maintain computer equipment for people that can assist or replace their on-site equipment in case of demand or disaster) which specializes in co-locating Mac Minis. Look at the picture at the bottom, which is of literally DOZENS of Mac Minis on a big server rack. :)

Hooking the antenna back up was a bit dicey, but otherwise, no sweat. I did the Migration Assistant thing that Macs come with: it had to crank all night, but this morning I was ready to rock. Only two glitches, but both of them required some geek-fu: one of them required the use of "sudo." If you don't know what sudo is and you have this glitch, basically your Mac is going to be set to London time forever. :)

It works great: the video card rocks. Between the new video card and the 4GB of RAM (my old one was maxed out at 2GB) I can comfortably multi-task, Lightroom is much more responsive, and the water in World of Warcraft is SPARKLY.

Tonight I backed up my daughter's computer and set up her new one, which seems to be working although I have to make sure her bookmarks are moved and the Parental Controls are working. Since it's in the living room, I got a nice big monitor and we can watch Internet movies and stuff on it, too.

I'll take the old comp to work, safe-erase it, and donate it to anybody who wants it. Or maybe I'll see if my daughter's school wants it.

As always, I was Amused and a little disturbed by all the open WiFi networks I could see when I set up the computer in the living room. (We didn't want to run a cable so her computer had a WiFi card installed: the Mini has one built-in.) I could see three networks, including one which was still at factory defaults (which means I OWN your network if I want to) and one named "Aretha," which was fun. I didn't link into any of them: our network is SSID-silent and requires a 128-bit encryption key. The FBI could break it in short order but wardrivers won't even see it, especially since this is a target-rich environment for them anyway.

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XKCD: Either You Get It, Or You Don't.

XKCD can be a little uneven, although it always delivers the geek. However, today's episode is made of pure iridium-plated WIN.

http://xkcd.com/556/

Friday's comic (http://xkcd.com/555/) is also mostly composed of structural-grade awesome. If that worked I would so totally do that five times a DAY. Soon we would have a serious mirror-haunting demon shortage.

(Small spoiler ahead.)

I don't know why, but the alt text - if you read XKCD, always read the alt text, it's often the best part of the strip - is almost irresistibly hilarious to me. Here it is, if your browser doesn't support alt text:

"The moment their arms spun freely in our air, they were doomed -- for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane."

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I added the italics because that's the really funny part. He'd have put them in if you could put italics in alt text. I know this, if I know nothing else in this world. And that's the beauty of XKCD: where else are you going to get H.G. Wells, triffids, tripods, Al Gore and Cervantes, along with a reference to the totally batshit insane, in one freaking place? I ask you.

Up until now, this has probably been my favorite XKCD comic:

http://xkcd.com/442/

... because I love the "Boom De Yada" song. Many of the panels are sort of in-jokes about XKCD characters, but it's still funny.

M

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New Gear is Fun. Yes, Indeedy.

I've actually been pretty good, compared to the way I used to be, about buying new photography gear. Other than the new printer I bought myself for Christmas (which I needed, as the old one was getting very old and the ink was getting hard to find and expensive) I haven't bought anything for quite some time.

Well, the tax refunds came, and I felt it was my patriotic duty to stimulate the economy a little.

I bought one of these:

EF 135mm f/2.8 with Softfocus

I read about this lens in a book Canon gave me for being one of the first purchasers of the original Digital Rebel (the EOS 300D.) I've been lusting after it for years. It's a 135mm prime lens with a max aperture of f2.8, which is faster than most zoom lenses, but not all that fast for a prime. However, it is unique, so far as I know, amongst currently available lenses in that it has a selectable soft-focus mechanism. It uses controlled spherical aberration to soften the image to two selectable degrees (you can also turn it off.)

In English, that means it can make the subject of the image softer without affecting depth of field or plane of focus. That's what that switch labeled "SOFT" is for - 0 for no softening, 1 for first degree softening, 2 for max softening. Example:



This is a totally unretouched self-portrait. Note how it looks like a Gaussian Blur has been applied or something... but the details are still reasonably clear, which would require either high expertise with the Blur filter, or a lot of fiddling with the parameters to get the optimum blur for this particular image, and maybe partially masking out the beard, which would have been very hard to not over-soften while getting the rest of the face right. Alternatively, I could have used a fast prime and opened it way up, but then I'd have had a very narrow depth of field, which also requires a lot of fiddling to get right, or a very high level of expertise, and even if you get it right, produces radical falloff on a dimensional subject if you want a fairly high level of softening.

This lens just did it all for me, with no work on my part whatsoever. (That's a Level 2 softening, exposure f2.8 at 1/200.) It produces soft, dreamy images which don't look overprocessed or out-of-focus. It'll be very, very handy for things like portraits of "ordinary people," who often benefit from a little softening, and should produce great results even in light which is a little harsh. I'm excited about it.

Interestingly, you hardly ever meet a photographer who's ever even heard of this thing. It was one of the very first Canon EF lenses, introduced way back in the day - first year of manufacture was 1987! It has no IS, and no USM. It's almost as loud as the infamous "Angry Hornet" 35mm f2. Its autofocus, for a lens this fast, is kinda slow in lower light, and it's a bit temperamental. However, as is so often the case with fiddly equipment, it seems to call one to rise to its challenge. You just want to play with it.

The autofocus does work in all softness modes, but the plane of focus shifts when softness is altered, which means you can't focus in 0 and then switch to 1 or 2. At large apertures or high softness settings, you have to pretty much trust the autofocus, especially in lower light, which means you have to be familiar with your camera and know when to be confident that the AF is locked on to what you think it is. On a side note, my cameras are always set to "Center AF only," and I lock-and-pan with separate Focus and Exposure locks, unless I am shooting something that moves around a lot, when I might activate more AF points. This helps me be consistent in my focusing technique.

So, like I said, it's a little touchy. But when it hits, it hits. Example:



ISO1600, f2.8@1/100. Softness level 1. The only light was a 40W tungsten bulb above and to camera right, probably at least six feet away. A little noisy, but dreamy and romantic as all-get-out, with very little post (crop, slight color adjustment.)

Also, I got a Kindle2. I'm still not sure why, but somebody gave me one. It's actually kind of cool. Free wireless internet is a Good Thing.

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