zeraphoto architectural photography blog

Alright, kids, this time it's official - I'm hosting my own blog.

2010-07-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

So, after months of work and patience, the new blog, same as the old blog but better, is now hosted on my very own site: zeraphoto.com. I'll leave this be for archival purposes, but please visit my site for all the current postings, as this will be my last on this blog, unless, of course, something goes horribly wrong with my site and I'm forced to return to nice, old, friendly, reliable google (this is in case they're looking and want to save some server space by deleting old accounts).

Nice google, good google, that's a good Web conglomerate. Sit. Stay. Stay. Staaaayyy, ....

iPad update, week four: crappy wifi but a happy ending

2010-05-16T22:35:00.000-07:00

So the glamour is starting to wear off a bit, but the iPad is a very capable device. I am officially bummed that I didn't hold out for the 3G version; I seriously thought of the iPad as a laptop substitute so I'd use it the same way, coffee shops, at home, in the office, etc. That, and I couldn't bear the thought of giving AT&T even more money every month—my service plan already costs me $175 a month. When I was in college, that was exactly half a month's rent.

But a slew of new apps, some catering specifically to the needs of an architectural photographer, coupled with an ongoing battle to keep the thing connected to wifi networks, changed my mind about the whole 3G thing. More about that in a bit, though; I've some bitching to get out of my system first.

The wifi problem is weird - my iPad stays connected to a network fairly well when using Safari, Mail, and most apps that only make light use of the connection. But whenever I launch a VNC app or Daylite (third-party calendar/contact manager that uses a shared database) to connect to a computer on the local network, the wifi connection drops; the app, of course, freaks out because it just lost the connection it thought it had and promptly freezes/crashes, and then the *really* annoying part happens: my saved wifi settings get deleted from the global system prefs. In order to access wifi again, I need to go into settings, manually find my local network, then re-enter my password in order to reconnect. Every. Single. Time. Not being able to access other devices across a local network kinda makes the whole wifi thing a lot less useful.

So, after the tenth try at connecting, and instead of satisfying my urge to discover how many times I could skip an iPad across Puget Sound, I took a couple of deep breaths and called Apple customer support. The first rep I spoke with was enormously polite and helpful, and, after walking me through the process of reinstalling the device's firmware, she determined that my issue was most likely rooted in a hardware fault, and would I like to go to my local Apple Store for a replacement? Sure thing, I said, and thank you.

After hanging up, I still had a couple questions, but the second Apple person I spoke with was not nearly as friendly and was really quite condescending. I was actually happy when the only part of AT&T's crappy cell service I can rely on occurred - the call was dropped. I didn't bother to call back.

At the Apple Store, I spoke with a tech who went through the same set of questions and troubleshooting stuff, and arrived at the same conclusion as the phone rep. So, I said, instead of a straight exchange, how about I just pay the difference between my current wifi model and the 3G version? I'd love to see if the 3G version worked better across networks.

"Um, sure," said the clerk, instantly elevating himself to near-hero status. So, here I am—a happy 3G + wifi iPad owner.

And the original wireless problem? Honestly, it's still there, but the 3G model is tons better than my first iPad. I can actually use my local network connection about 75% of the time. The tech at the Apple Store told me that some of the connectivity glitches were known issues that should be resolved in an upcoming firmware update.

Despite these early-adopter pains, I still don't regret getting an iPad. They're awesome portfolio presentation tools, are lots lighter than a laptop, and, with a real word-processor, PDF reader and the ability to ingest Canon raw .CR2 image files, it might yet supplant my laptop for many, many things.

Two weeks with the iPad, … the good, the bad, the honest.

2010-04-30T01:32:00.000-07:00

I've now had the iPad long enough such that I finally feel comfortable writing about the thing.

Initial reaction was good. It's basically a giant iPod touch, so there were no surprises as far as shape, fit & finish, etc. It's kinda heavy, so that, coupled with the smooth glass screen and smooth aluminum case makes for something of a precarious user experience. I'm always afraid that the thing is going to squirt out of my hands like a giant bar of soap. And at $700 for the 64GB model, dropping it is pretty much unacceptable.

I got a great leather slipcase for it, which is an lovely way to store the thing, but I'm most looking forward to the Apple case I've ordered, which is more like a notebook cover. That style of case seems far more useful. I'm kinda disappointed about just how tough the naked iPad is too hang on to; I don't want to pinch the edges of the screen for fear of damaging some delicate internal stuff, but I want to drop it even less.

Onward. It took all of 10 minutes to set up to my liking, as it's pretty much exactly like my iPhone. There are some nice interface tweaks in the menus, such as settings (pictured), and mail, which I'm still not sure I completely like but they all do work nicely.

All my iPhone apps work on the iPad, save for those relying on GPS or cell-tower triangulation, so Navigon is useless, but it would be really cool to see Apple add GPS to a future iteration so we can navigate from the large screen.

Apps that have not been optimized for the iPad show up iPad size at first, but there's a button labeled "2X" that scales the app to fit the iPad's much larger screen. While this is cool, the scaled app looks like hammered shit; everything is pixelated to the point that it offends my eye so much I go back to the smaller native size.

And don't get me started about Flash not working. I can't view my expensively-designed, beautiful portfolio Web site on my iPad. Well, at least not the Flash portion. I don't really care why Apple is in such a pissing contest with Adobe over Flash. I'm not a developer, I'm not a designer, I'm a photographer who wants to show off his work, and Flash does an amazing job. I rely on my designer to make decisions as to what technology to use in order to provide the best, most consistent viewing experience possible, and he chose Flash, just like the zillions of other designers who've done the same.

From what I've read, the much-vaunted Flash killer that is HTML 5 will be really good, but it's gonna take years, as in three to five years, in order for it to fully supplant Flash. So why pull the plug now, so far in advance? This is the angriest I've been with Apple since I owned a Performa. And not even Steve Job's recent explanation of why he hates Flash can soothe that frustration.

Enough about that. The iPad is a lovely device, filling a niche squarely between my iPhone and my MacBook. The iPhone is a device I would prefer not to be without, like, ever. I'm still not so sure as to whether I'll get to feel that way about the iPad. Perhaps next week when my iPad Camera Kit arrives in the mail next week (it's been shipped; the tracking info shows it as having left Shenzen, China, a couple days ago and it's now sitting in Hong Kong, no doubt awaiting customs clearance). I've spoken with folks at Apple and the kit is supposed to support Canon RAW files, so perhaps it'll at least make a decent photo-storage device/viewer. I'm a relatively deliberate shooter, so it'll take a long time to max out 64GB of space.

iPhone - the best camera to have is the camera ya got in yer pocket

2010-04-16T22:15:00.000-07:00

Every now and again, I am fortunate enough to be able to travel for both work and for fun. Being a pro photographer does has its perks regarding having ready access to lots of swell gear, but all that equipment does tend to get heavy and bulky after a while, so it's sometimes nice to leave the big stuff at home and travel light. The old adage "it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools" couldn't be more apt when applied to photography as well.

A camera is nothing more than a tool. Sure, some cameras are definitely nicer than others, but they all really do the same relatively simple thing: transfer reflected light to either a piece of film or a digital sensor. Optics and digital sensor quality aside, the best camera to use for a given situation is the one you happen to have with you, because if there's no camera there'll be no picture anyway.

I may not always have my nice Canon DSLR with me, but I do always have my iPhone in my pocket. Candidly, the 3G's camera is sorely lacking from a technical standpoint, but that doesn't make the thing any less convenient and handy. I actually like the challenge of trying to take a good photo with a middling camera. There are also plenty of free/99¢ apps to compensate for some of those technical shortcomings.

The real magic of photography is, and always has been, content and composition. Technical prowess certainly has it's place, but having technical skills without a good eye will only get you lots of nicely-exposed, boring photos.

This gallery is of panoramic photos were all taken with my iPhone and stitched together with a $1.99 app called AutoStitch, and subsequently enhanced with either the free Adobe Photoshop for iPhone app, or perhaps another free app; I can't always remember which combination of apps I've used for an image. Taking the panos is pretty simple; it just requires looking at a scene as a larger image and then, using a steady hand, photographing the entire scene one frame at a time from left to right, then feeding those frames to the stitching app. Easy, and fun!

The importance of stability

2010-04-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

Stability, .... in this case, I'm talking about camera stability, not emotional stability, which will be addressed in a future post.

Lugging around a tripod can definitely be a drag, especially when it weighs in at 13 lb., but when the wind kicks up or there's heavy traffic nearby, nothing beats a stable platform.

The tripod on the left is a Gitzo aluminum G1415 with a G1527 column and Manfrotto 405 head. It's my favorite working rig, as it's incredibly stable and the head is basically three micrometers on three different axis points to make precision adjustments a breeze.

It definitely is something of a beast to travel with, though, as the tripod and it's padded bag weigh about 15 lb. and need to be checked when flying. Unless it's going to be absolutely necessary for the particular shoot, I usually pack a Gitzo GT2942 Basalt tripod with it's Frankensteinian pano rig: an Acratech leveling base, a Manfrotto QTVR pano rotation head, an Acratech Ultimate Ballhead, all topped off with a Really Right Stuff Precision Plus pano kit. The head assembly outweighs the tripod legs by quite a bit, but it all disassembles and fits quite nicely into my carry-on sized roller bag, which, honestly, usually gets checked anyway but that's only one checked bag even for a week of shooting. I also stick a Benro TRCB069 tripod in the carry-on bag, too; it's awesome to have a back-up tripod, or sometimes I like to shoot with two cameras on their own tripods.

None of that stuff was cheap, but the cost is pretty much forgotten, becaus it's the right set of tools for the kind of work I do and it all just works very well.

Over the past six weeks I did three shoots that required air travel; I've got the whole packing thing down to a science. My camera and lenses go into the Crumpler Karachi Outpost backpack I've written about before and absolutely love. The laptop and all necessary cables, chargers, manuals, spare hard drives and snacks go into a giant, elderly Timbuk2 courier bag, and both bags go on the plane with me. The camera bag goes in the overhead and the computer goes under the seat. The tripods, clothes and toiletries all go into the one checked bag. Everything essential to the shoot is on my person; worst case is that, if the checked bag goes astray, I can get some T-shirts, a pair of jeans and a toothbrush pretty much anywhere, and even a cheap tripod can be pressed into service if need be. There's a Walmart just about everywhere; I can't say the same about a camera shop that happens to stock a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5, which is, without question, my most-used lens.

It's definitely tiring lugging all that stuff through airports, especially on a flight with lots of connections, but the comfort of knowing I can complete the job even if my bag gets lost definitely makes it worthwhile. Besides, the extra weightlifting involved helps offset all the less-than-healthy food I inevitably eat while traveling.

Traveling again!

2010-03-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a shoot that took me to Tampa via Salt Lake City; next week it's off to L.A. I took this one in Tampa when I was tired of driving around looking for something decent to eat and went for a walk along the river; I didn't want to leave my camera bag and tripod in the car, and it was a good thing I had both with me. That little Benro carbon tripod has already paid for itself in convenience alone, as it fits right inside my secondary bag., Next post, once I get a little more self-control, I'll perhaps post a little something about my dismal experience with Delta Airlines.

Hypera zoilus Kaldari, aka clover leaf weevil, swimming in a dewdrop.

2010-03-03T18:13:00.001-08:00

fpz_20100303_MG_7870-2
Originally uploaded by zeraphoto

A short post today, but I just wanted to share something I found in my garden this afternoon.

Gearing up for traveling to location shoots, Part I

2010-02-26T11:42:00.000-08:00

I've been fortunate enough to have been asked to do several shoots in different parts of the country; I just got back from several days in Texas, am heading down to Oregon in a short while, and then it's off to the East Coast after that.

Traveling is always exciting and fun, but traveling as a working photographer adds a lot of logistics that need careful consideration.

Working locally, most of my camera equipment fits in one Pelican 1600 case, which is handy when shooting interiors as all my stuff is visible at once, yet the case stacks nicely on my cart with my other Pelican cases and soft-sided bags (those are full of lighting gear; an explanation of that stuff will be in a future post). It's easy to move everything around on the cart at once, especially when I'm working solo.

When the shoot is close enough that I can drive in less than five hours, everything goes into the car, as five hours seems to be the rational cutoff for driving vs. flying: it's still cheaper and faster to drive five hours than deal with getting through airport security, dealing with all the additional stowed baggage, etc., as all that takes up about four-ish hours, so it's better to simply toss it in the car and have a mini road trip. Besides, I'm almost always able to work in a side trip and shoot some stock along the way. Driving also allows me to take along extra gear that would be impossible to deal with when flying, such as a stack of 3' x 4' foam core sheets to add bounce fill or to create a light baffle around a strobe head, or a couple of heavy-duty steel C-stands for positioning lights outside second-story windows.

The Pelican cases were spendy, but worth every cent, as they're pretty much indestructible, stack nicely, and really protect my expensive gear. Hell, they'll even float when loaded, which is comforting when I'm wheeling everything onto a dock to photograph people working on a dam or to photograph a yacht.

I also take along a Crumpler Karachi Outpost camera backpack, which allows me flexibility to pack the basics into the bag, sling it over my shoulder, grab a tripod, and be lots more mobile, which is handy when going up in a lift or a crane basket to get a higher perspective.

Part II will deal with the pared-down kit for flying; part III will cover lighting equipment.

The fallacy of free

2010-02-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

Free is good, right? Well, not always.

This post has been brewing for quite some time, but I never seem to have gotten around to writing it. The catalyst was last week's discovery of a new online arts magazine, titled, provocatively enough, "Pilfered Magazine" (I'm not going to legitimize their existence by providing a link; you can find them yourself if you want). The site's layout was actually quite lovely, and the photography displayed seemed quite good. The problem was this: all the photos were "found" online, i.e., used without permission, as in, stolen.

Here's a good synopsis of the current state of events, via the Copyright Alliance blog:

http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2010/02/infringing-site-re-imagining-our-perspective

Now, you're probably aware that there's a growing anti-copyright movement that's been around for a while and continues to gain ground. Folks who promote this seem to be primarily interested in sharing music and video files without having to pay for them, again, stealing. They'll argue fair use, deep pockets on the part of the movie studios, etc., but my guess is very few of them actually have to try to earn a living creating the content they so willingly steal and gripe about having to pay for.

It's very, very, very disturbing to me that many folks out there feel that it's entirely acceptable for me to have spent the last 15 years of my life spending gobs of money on education and equipment, working like a demon, sacrificing relationships, etc., all in the name of perfecting my craft, just so they can have the fruits of that labor for free.

Also interesting is the hypocrisy of sites like boingboing.net and neatorama.com, collators of news that is overall quite fascinating and entertaining, whose writers decry copyright protections when it comes to enforcement of rules when the law is on the side of the record labels or movie studios, but get quite belligerent when one of their readers has a photo ripped off.

Which is it going to be kids - rules or no rules? These self-titled "copyfighters" talk out of both sides of their mouths. Cory Doctorow might be a fine sci-fi writer and has definitely earned his bully pulpit, but I don't agree with him on this one -- there needs to be strong copyright protection law right alongside open source and creative commons, and let the content creators choose which route to follow. Don't undermine the protections afforded to content creators by copyright law just because you're too cheap to spend $12 on a music CD or mp3 download.

I'm willing to bet that the folks who willingly steal music, photos and video online would quite disapprove of my dropping by their homes and stealing the lawn furniture or a nice shirt from a clothesline. Suddenly, the argument of, "Well, it was out there for all the world to see, what did you expect?" doesn't seem quite so legitimate.

Sure, creative commons is a great idea and one that definitely has a place. Sure, fans may get wind of musicians or artists via the work they've put online for free and catapult the artist into fame and fortune, but that happens about as frequently as you see a herd of unicorns strutting down First Avenue farting rainbows.

And who really catapults that fortunate few to prominence? The very record labels and promoters vilified by the copyfight crowd. Why? To make money off royalties so they can run their business, invest in new acts, and, yes, make a profit. No business that expects to stick around for more than a week needs to turn a profit. Even charities turn profits in the form of investment dividends; otherwise they'd quickly run out of money and be able to help no one.

Do not these people understand that, if they undermine a content-creator's ability to own and thereby control their own work, the only work available will be that of hobbyists who have other sources of income, or folks who've made their money via licensing and are now so wealthy that sales no longer matter? The people in the second group will eventually die off, leaving only the hobbyists and trust-fund kids to make cute pictures of kittens in fields of daisies, or, even more likely, mashups of stolen high-quality work from all the now-destitute content creators.

Do I pay for my music? Absolutely. I admittedly partook of a few downloaded mp3s back in the day, but quickly realized the hypocrisy of that behavior and promptly went back to the record store. I pay for my software, ebooks, and movies, too. All of it. That stuff costs real money to produce, and I don't know of any business that will survive by expending large sums of money to give away the resulting products.

Why not then go after the root cause of the profiteering, then, instead of the rule that the profiteers abuse? Seems to me that the music industry has been hiding behind copyright to deflect scrutiny from its Dickensian business practices, and everyone's been trying to flog the copyright protections rather than the folks who are abusing the copyright creators. The labels don't create the songs (well, discounting the Britney Spears music factories), they're distributors who extract copyright from the artist in exchange for access to the sales channels.

Anyway, to wrap up this rant, copyright reform is necessary and welcome; the elimination of protections for content creators is completely unwelcome.

Tripods, photo storage, clothing, gear bags, traveling, oh my!

2010-01-04T12:06:00.000-08:00

So, progress has been made. I've been delightfully busy shooting, but have managed to solve my tripod dilemma, found a laptop-free photo storage solution, decided which camera bag I'll use for my trip, and beefed up the cases for my Profoto lights, something I'll talk about in detail in a future post.

First off, the tripod: a carbon-fiber Benro C-069M8, the smallest in the lineup. It folds down ridiculously small - 14 inches(!) -- weighs just 2.2 lb. with the head, and supports 13.2 lb., and is just shy of five feet tall fully extended, all of which is just enough for my 5D Mark II and 24-70 f/2.8 zoom.

For traveling to India, I have finally come to terms with a minimalist kit: the aforementioned body, lens and tripod, a 24mm tilt-shift and a lensbaby 2.0. For backup, I'll take my Leica D-Lux 4. For photo storage, I picked up a Hyperdrive Colorspace UDMA, which has a 250GB drive, a passable viewing screen, is completely user-updatable, and only cost $300 from Adorama. I feel better about having gotten that from them after getting my tripod directly from a distributor in China to save myself $100 over U.S. retail.

I was going to break this out into several smaller posts, but I think it'll be better to roll it into a single travel-photo entry, including clothing options, tips on how to deal with traveling with camera gear, and how to pack it all for a multi-week trip that will take us from the Himalayas to the tropics, all in three weeks.

OK, so the bag I'll be taking is hardly stealthy, but it's relatively compact - the Crumpler 6 Million Dollar Home. It's got enough room inside for the cameras, lenses, cords, cables, lens filters, etc. that I'll bring, along with a little extra space for a hat and gloves as necessary.

Notice there's no flash in the kit. I'm an architectural photographer, and I like to use light. Lots and lots of light. If I can't have my Profoto kits, I'd rather do without. The 5DII does remarkably well at pretty high ISO settings, so I can get great stuff with the 2.8 lens and a 800-ish ISO. For really tough light, there's the tripod, which I can jam in on top of camera inside the bag.

To make things a little less susceptible to thievery, another upgrade was to swap out the Canon's garish red camera strap (which came complete with bright white embroidery proclaiming the make and model of the camera) for a plain gray one. Add a couple bits of judiciously-placed black gaffer's tape to hide the logos, and, voila - a much less flashy camera. The Leica benefits greatly from this treatment - covering up the red Leica logo on the body front and the Leica name on the back and lens cap took about 90 seconds and suddenly made the camera look like a run-of-the-mill point-and-shoot. I find that I get much better photos by attracting less attention, and a good way to do that is to avoid looking like a pro.

The carbon tripod is tougher to anonymize, but covering all the logos, etc., with some more black tape made it look a lot less flashy. The camera bag has been coming with me everywhere lately, for no other reason than to get it all scuffed up so it's also not looking all shiny and new.

So, my carry-on will be the camera bag, crammed with all my core equipment - the photo-storage device inside it's Pelican micro-case, the requisite battery chargers, power converters, my iPhone, medicines, a notebook, a paperback, some pens, etc., a battery-powered shortwave radio, and my iPod Shuffle.

The other carry-on will be a standard rolling carry-on bag containing clothing for the three-week trip, along with the first-aid kit and the tripod.

My wife will also have a carry-on, so I think we'll be covered for three weeks worth of stuff without needing to check anything, at least on the international legs. I expect we'll need to check some stuff on the internal flights on smaller aircraft.

All of our clothing is either lightweight wool, polypro, or nylon, so it packs small, and dries fast so it can be washed in hotel-room showers and dried overnight in the room or on a balcony rail (I pack a 15-foot length of parachute cord and some one-inch A-clamps from the hardware store to use as a clothesline and clothespins). Three complete changes of clothing, a rain shell, some long underwear, a wool hat and gloves and a pair of Teva sandals get packed; the heavier shoes go on my feet.

This post is out of chronological order; we returned from the trip a few days ago but I was unable to post this until now. Bear with me, intrepid reader.

The long and winding road to Shimla

2009-12-26T21:13:00.000-08:00

11-ish a.m.: We're on a bus, driving down an amazingly twisty mountain
road. The young man sitting across from us just pointed out his
university out the window - apparently the largest buildings in the
state, perched on a ridge with an commanding view. Folks are amazingly
friendly here, even to strangers. He's already asked our names so he
could friend us on facebook. Kwazy.

Yesterday, while at Humayan's Temple in Shimla (look it up on google;
it's cool), we met two young Indian men, one a soldier and the other a
banker, both on holiday. We'd been hesitating about entering the
temple as non-Hindi, but they said there was no harm in entering, so
we left our shoes on the cold paved walkway and followed them in to
the smoky little building.

OK; had to stop writing for a while as I was getting carsick because
the road was quite possibly the windiest I'd ever been on, and 120km
to boot. We're in our room in Chandigarh now, waiting for the
restaurant to open for dinner at 7 p.m., about 30 minutes from now.

Anyway, getting back to yesterday, those two guys offered to take us
up to Kufri, a little town about a dozen km north of Shimla, a bit
higher in altitude, and home to a wildlife preserve. I was somewhat
reluctant, but Laura accepted and we walked with them down from the
temple and another 1.5 km to the army base, where we got their car and
started driving.

As soon as he started the car, the stereo started blasting a live
version of Bryan Adams' "Cuts Like A Knife," and they didn't turn it
down, although they did shout back to key us know they loved loud
music and hoped we did, too. Turns out the banker dude was a hobbyist
rally driver, so off we went, speeding up the narrow, crowded
Himalayan road to the awful caterwauling of Bryan Adams. It was
appropriately surreal, and I'll post the video once we're home.

Stopping frequently for directions, sometimes in the middle of the
road such that the pedestrian helping had to shout over the din of
honking horns from the drivers stuck behind us, we eventually made it
to the preserve. Much like everything we've seen, it's simultaneously
awesome and decrepit. There were lots of barking deer, but they were
mangy and didn't bark. The bears were stuffed into a little cave-like
pen while two workmen tried to pull down a tree in the enclosure using
a rope tied to the top such that the tree just swayed around a lot; a
saw would have been more efficient, and it was apparent there were
saws available.

The wolves looked tired and sad. The bright spot was the snow leopard
- it looked healthy and active and was quite lovely to watch. There
were also several pens of local pheasants and other gamebirds, all
quite spectacularly plumed.

The drive down was done to the strains of an Enigma's Greatest Hits
CD, which seemed far better suited to the circumstances.

So, on to today, from where I left off on the bus, feeling a little
queasy. We got into the station at Chandigarh just fine, and my wife and
I had a brief grumpy exchange that apparently left us both with
expressions such that the touts left us mostly alone; I'm thinking of
picking a fight with her in the airport tomorrow to see if it's a
workable tout-avoidance option. It did take four auto-rickshaw drivers
to figure out where the hotel was, though - the facade is hidden
behind an enormously bushy palm tree.

Tonight's hotel is The Kaptain's Retreat, smack in the middle of a
strip mall. The hotel is owned by cricket star Kapil Dev, who has
surprisingly good taste in furnishings, as well as food - the hotel
restaurant dinner was dee-licious.

Before dinner, though, we took a cab to Chandigarh's Rock Garden,
built over time by a nutty artistic guy on what had been vacant land.
It's a cross between Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona and South of The
Border on Route 95 in South Carolina. It's a maze, decorated with
stones, sculptures, and walls made of recycled porcelain, pottery,
crockery, and the like. There are small armies of figures made of
pottery shards, clay, and zillions of old bangle bracelets. We only
had an hour there as we arrived close to the dusk closing time, but it
was a very cool experience.

On the way back to the hotel, our driver got lost and we asked someone
in an adjacent auto-rickshaw for directions at a stoplight. They
thought about it for a bit, then the light changed and our driver
zoomed off. The guy behind us had his driver flag ours down, ran up,
asked if they could join us, then directed our driver to our hotel.
The guy was on his way to work, but still took the time to help.

Anyway, Le Corbusier is responsible for much of Chandigarh's city plan
and quite a few of it's buildings. Too bad we don't have time to check
them out, as we fly out to Udaipur first thing tomorrow, where we'll
settle for the next six days.

Time for lights out. There's a construction project along with what
sounds like a factory right outside our window, complete with loud
music and barking dogs. My wife is already sound asleep.

Day 14, India

2009-12-24T21:11:00.000-08:00

Today's coordinates: the Lemon Tree Hotel, Muhamma, Alleppey, Kerala,
India

Time: 2009-12-23 18:29:38 +0530
ISO6709: +24.611789+73.661613+0/
Google: http://maps.google.com/?q=24.611790,73.661613

This morning we left Udaipur at 6:30, our ancient cab winding though
the dark, narrow streets, which were surprisingly empty at that hour,
save for all the dogs, cows, and motorcycle milkmen.

Airport security seemed a bit tighter than on our last internal
flight, no doubt due to the approach of Christmas. The flight was
smooth, although the pilot set us down in the middle of the runway in
Mumbai, necessitating an overly exciting stop at the very, very, very
end of the runway. You'll learn more soon about Indian driving habits.
At least they're all consistent.

The connecting flight left 90 minutes late, all of which was spent
sitting in the plane at the gate, as the airport was temporarily
closed for an unnamed VIP's arrival. At least our seatmate was
pleasant, so the conversation helped pass the time.

Once airborne, it was somewhat surreal to find myself aboard an Indian
aircraft, flying low over the jungle, listening to Muzak Christmas
carols playing over the plane's PA system. Feliz Navidad, ... Feliz
Navi-dad, ... Namaste. This is your captain speaking (in Hindi).

Once in Cochin, we hired a taxi for the 90km drive to the resort.
Sweet Jeebus. The drivers in southern India make the rolling circus in
Delhi seem comparitively civilized. No one really seems to like their
side of the road, instead crossing into opposing traffic at 90+ km/h
for no apparent reason, blowing their horn, perhaps flashing their
lights, perhaps not. Our driver managed it all in tit-for-tat fashion,
swerving out of the way at the latest possible second, never using
more than a couple of fingers to manage the wheel, and refusing to
shift any lower than third gear, which made for painfully labored
starts in the tiny, underpowered Tata hatchback he piloted.

Even better, it is 90F and humid here, and the little extortionist
wanted an extra 500 rupees to turn on the car's air conditioning. You
all must understand that my level of self-restraint is worthy of a
statue somewhere, as I managed to say "no, thank you," instead of
exposing him to the volumes of unsavory language I've acquired over
the years. The little opportunist even tried to wrangle more money out of
us because he failed to get proper directions before we left, and thus
overshot the turn to the resort by 6km or so. Watching him stop every
few hundred meters to grudgingly ask pedestrians for directions was
somehow enjoyable, although we seemed to understand the Hindi
directions better than he did.

He was the first taxi driver we've encountered who wore his seatbelt.
Encouraged, we looked for ours, only to find that the buckles had been
cut out. I asked the whereabouts of the rear seatbelts, and the driver
shook his head, smiled, and said, "not required." I then asked why he
wore one, and, in true Hindi fashion, he smiled and said nothing more.
Life is apparently cheap here, and ours must ring up at even less than
his.

We eventually found our way to the resort, which is a couple
kilometers down an unmarked road (no big deal there, though; *all* the
roads here are unmarked; if there ever were road signs, they've long
since been stolen and used as building materials), we again had to
surrender our passports for a couple hours to the innkeepers so they
could photocopy them and register us with the local police station.
It's been the same drill in every town.

All foreign tourists are under very close scrutiny these days because
of it coming out that the mastermind of last year's attacks in Mumbai
was an American citizen, albeit of Pakistani origin. Another classic
case of closing the barn door after the horse is long gone. They're at
least polite about it all, though, and are treating all foreigners the
same regardless of nationality so as to properly inconvenience
everyone equally.

And the room is nice, with the resort being on a lovely lake of
dubious quality. However, if the hotel's pretty little swimming pool
is half as chlorinated as the water that comes out of the shower tap,
it's going to be as sanitary as hell.

We'll explore more tomorrow.

My Review of Gramicci Musoga Sport Pants - Nylon (For Men)

2009-11-16T01:37:00.001-08:00

The epic travel tripod search begins

2009-10-09T11:00:00.000-07:00

OK, so I need a new compact travel tripod, and I mean compact, and it's gotta be able to hold at least a Canon 5D Mark II and a 24-70 f/2.8 lens, and ideally my 1Ds Mark II and the same lens. Did I mention that I want the whole thing to fold down to 16 inches or so?

I've found several from Gitzo that meet the weight criteria, but they're all 20+ inches long when folded, so they're out of the running. The Gitzo 1541T carbon model definitely fits the bill, but it's price is a usurious $600, *without* a head. I'm sure it's a swell tripod, but I'd rather put that money toward another lens or some lighting gear.

So the search continued. In 2007 I bought a small carbon Induro for a trip to Europe, but it was kinda flimsy and still fairly long when stowed (about 20 inches), and the spelling of the name drove me nuts, so it was sold off via eBay.

Things then swung the other way - if I couldn't find the compact tripod of my dreams for less than the price of a cheap used car, I'd get something really sturdy and compactness be damned. The Gitzo GT2942 seemed nice, so I got one, along with a second-hand aluminum Gitzo G1415. Oddly enough, they're the same length folded (19 inches), but the 1415 weighs as much as a school bus. Once it's set up, though, it doesn't move. They've both been serving me well for the past year or so.

But now there's a three-week trip to India on the horizon and being able to travel very light is again something important. The spendy Gitzo is still not an option, even if only on principle.

An evening's worth of Web searching turned up the relatively new Chinese brand Benro. Calumet and Adorama stock most of their stuff, and of special interest is a line called "travel angel," which looked like a reverse-engineered version of the svelte Gitzo, but at nearly half the price. Reviews were difficult to come by, and, as the ones I found were written by photographers, the grammar was so lousy that I again got disgusted and moved on. Having been an editor in my past life, the running joke in the newsroom was that most photographers couldn't spell their own names save for the fact that they'd had their whole lives to practice it.

In any event, I thought that the largest model would work, and the aluminum version (TRA269) seemed priced quite nicely at $190 from Adorama.

Then we enter the world of "this is why buying locally is better than mail order." No one in Seattle stocks the Benro tripods, though, so I'm buying without the ability to actually handle the tripod first. The tripod arrived late last week - build, fit and finish, and functions were all great, especially for the price. I didn't at all like the head's quick-release platform, but I was planning to swap it out anyway with a Really Right Stuff B2 Pro platform I had kicking around, so no big deal there. The problem, and eventual deal-breaker, was the diameter of the thing when folded up. The folded length was perfect at about 16", but it was nearly 5" in diameter, which would be like sticking a stack of one-quart paint cans in your camera bag; too bulky!

There are two smaller models available, the TRA169 and TRA069, but nowhere can I find listed the closed diameter of any tripod. The smaller aluminum versions only holds five pounds, so it's out, but the carbon TRCB069 holds 12 pounds and should do the trick. Adorama wants $400, but I can get it on eBay for $300 straight from China, so that's where the process stands for now while I decide whether to buy the thing from China and risk not liking it.

So, it's back to Adorama with the aluminum Benro TRA269 tripod for now. If anyone actually reads this post and has any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Please stop undervaluing your work, at least for my sake, OK?

2009-10-06T15:48:00.003-07:00

Pricing is a thorny issue at best, and we’re all aware that these are not the best of times. Frequently, business owners in service industries will discount their rates in tough times in an attempt to garner more business. This is both dangerous and foolhardy.

I recently had a conversation with an architect about pricing, so I’ll use his industry as an example to illustrate this point.

Consumers of architectural services have come to expect that if they shop around, they’ll find an architect who’s willing to do a particular project for what amounts to a loss for that architect, because the architect has an attitude that work is scarce and they need to chase it. For example, if they tell the potential client that it will cost $10,000 to design a building, the architect knows that chances are good that the client will also solicit bids from other architects until they find one who will do the work for less. When a client shops on price, we all know quality is the first thing to suffer, but that’s either not apparent or not an issue to our fictitious client, as he knows that architectural fees are all over the map and they’ll eventually find someone to take their sucker’s bid.

If, on the other hand, someone steps into a law office and asks the attorney to take their case at a discounted rate, they’ll be shown the door, albeit very politely. Attorneys present a united front when it comes to valuing their services. It’s not collusion or price fixing; they all know what it costs to run their businesses and they know the market value of their services.

Why, then, for the love of Ansel Adams, are photographers so willing to do a shoot for less than the cost of producing one? Do they actually think it’ll help them to get more business in the future? Do they think that working for a loss will keep food on the table?

Not only will that practice quickly drive them out of business, it also serves to devalue the entire industry and our entire craft, not to mention driving down the quality of output and, by extension, the clients’ expectation of quality, which further devalues the industry. You can’t tell me that folks will go the extra mile for a client who’s underpaying them, even if that underpayment was the photographer’s idea in the first place.

If you go into a bank and ask for a loan, they’ll tell you that it costs what it costs; there’s no dickering on the fees or rates, even in tough times. You want to have cable television? It costs what it costs, good times or bad. How about a cup of coffee? Or a manicure? A chiropractic adjustment? Have a new set of new tires installed on your car? Those services always cost the same, and only go up over time. Sure, there are discounts and coupons available, but the core price never changes.

There’s a reason for that - the companies providing those services know how much it costs to deliver them, what the profit margins need to be in order to both maintain and grow their businesses. An occasional discount serves to build customer loyalty. A fire sale is a whole different matter.

Do you for one second think that, once the economy turns around, our clients will suddenly think it’s OK to go back to paying $5,000 for something they they’ve been getting for $2,000 or less, even though it really cost $5,000 to produce all along? Of course not. How does one buy and maintain expensive equipment, studio overhead, etc., etc., on hobbyist rates? The short answer is that they don’t.

If you’re looking to curry favor with a client who’s also on hard times, by all means offer them a discount, but for heaven’s sake don’t cut your rates; by doing so you immediately devalue yourself, both in a professional and personal capacity.

By arbitrarily lowering your rates, you are telling people that you were either overcharging them to begin with, which is not good, or that you have no confidence or self-respect, which is almost worse. You’ve immediately declared yourself an underling instead of a peer. Have you ever noticed that the clients who pay your full rate will usually treat you better than the folks to whom you’ve granted a deep discount? That’s because you’ve earned their respect and they see you as a partner in something. The converse is they the client treats you like the garbage collector; someone who is performing a necessary task that doesn’t require much skill and therefore isn’t all that worthy of much attention or respect. It’s not all about money; it’s about knowing how to be a businessperson. Like it or not, if you’re self-employed you need to be a businessperson. If you are not, you’re causing harm to more folks than just yourself.

This could be the beginning of a rapid industry-wide downward spiral unless we create a unified front; otherwise we’re all working for peanuts and photography is going to be looked upon as a cute little hobby that people make a cute little amount of money from. “Oh, you take pictures. How nice. My nephew got a camera for his 15th birthday, … what was it, … a 5D something or other -- I think it’s a lot like that one you’re holding.”

Do you really know how much it costs to produce a photo shoot? Honestly? If not, that’s a large part of the problem. That’s symptomatic of not being a good businessperson. Attorneys are all service providers; they produce nothing tangible, there are no cost-of-goods-sold computations, etc., for them to make, yet they know exactly how much an hour of their services costs, and don’t waver on that, as they’ve got to cover those costs if they’re to make money.

Your profit margin is a cost of doing business; that’s your salary, your future operating capital, and your business savings for the inevitable equipment upgrades. You may have noticed that your local photo equipment shop isn’t cutting its prices; neither is the electric company, your ISP, your cell-phone provider, your automobile mechanic, your bank or your landlord, you still need to pay their regular rates or fees, even though the economic times are tough.

Why, then, have many photographers decided that their services worth less, even though their cost of doing business has not gone down? Photographer services should actually be worth more in tough times, especially in the commercial world; providing valuable images to help companies market their wares in tough times helps companies to maintain sales levels. Produce good results and the client makes more money. That’s valuable. Why do photographers seem to feel that the opposite is somehow true?
Why on earth have photographers decided that the first serious communication with a client includes dickering over the value of their services? This hasn’t “happened” to us, or to architects, or to graphic designers or any other creative types; we have allowed this to happen to us.

There are a million ways to justify cutting rates, but most all of them come down to a lack of business acumen, a lack of confidence, or some combination of both.

Then why have we begun this seemingly desperate race to the bottom? Panic? Fear? I have no idea, but if people don’t pull together we’re all gonna be looking for a different line of work.

There will no doubt be squeals of protest about this article from folks justifying their cuts -- I have kids! I need to make a living! Well, by providing $1,000 worth of work for $500, I’m here to tell you that you’re not making a living. You’re losing money and doing nothing more than burning the furniture to keep warm. When the furniture is gone, you’ll be cold again but will have nowhere to sit while you shiver. To continue with the allegory, if, instead, you were to instead sell some unused furniture to make ends meet while still charging properly for your work, you’ll still be able to afford to heat the place, albeit modestly, but when things turn around you’ll be able to replace that furniture with perhaps something even nicer than what you started with.

Short-term desperation is causing serious damage to this industry; we’re already dealing with a complete removal of the financial barriers to entry. If we add to that the perception that we ourselves don’t value or respect our own hard-earned skills, talents and wisdom, then there’s nothing left.

Real enough for you? I’m not trying to tell you that I think this is the end; I’m telling you that I can see the writing on the wall and it ain’t a pretty read. If anyone out there has an intelligent counter-argument, one that explains how a full-day photo shoot that requires a top-end camera and lighting, takes two full days to plan, a full day to execute with the help of at least one assistant, and another two days to edit and deliver, can be effectively produced for $1,500, I’m all ears. And, yes, people have been bidding $1,500 for jobs like that; I know, as I’ve been underbid three times this summer alone for jobs just like that and the “winning” photographer charged exactly that.

Please explain to me exactly how $1,500 is going to cover a full week’s worth of your work, pay for an assistant, cover gasoline / mileage, equipment, meals, etc., let alone a creative fee.

I’m listening, ...

Backups, Part III and a link to my presentation movie

2009-08-27T18:56:00.000-07:00

OK; so instead of retyping what I've already created, here's a link to a presentation I made for the American Institute of Architects about this very subject.

Questions, anyone? Buhler? Buhler?

We interrupt this blog for a two-day road trip

2009-08-13T22:58:00.000-07:00

Went on a great road trip to south-central Washington to photograph the landscape and a wind-generation facility. There are plenty of new photos from the trip on my site in the commercial architecture and panorama galleries. Please check them out -- feedback is welcome.

Backups - we all know why they're needed but why don't we do it?

2009-08-11T17:18:00.001-07:00

Backups are daunting if you're just starting out -- how much do I back up? Where do I back it up? What about all those unorganized photos, movies, songs, etc.? Sometimes it's just easier to ignore the whole thing rather than tackling the whole problem of organizing just to to *get ready* to do those daunting backups. Right?

Well, sure, until that inevitable system crash and resulting data loss sends you out onto that ledge.

Here's the straightforward, easy way to get organized: start now with new data and don't worry about the old stuff for right now. Create an organization system for your photos, music, whatever, and start putting the new stuff into it. Then, after a fashion, you'll get so sick of looking through all the mess of the old data that you'll slowly start bringing it into the organized system and, before you know it, you can find things. Every time. Quickly and easily.

But what about the backups in the interim? Easy. Get an external drive the same size as your current computer's drive and just duplicate the whole thing for now, and do it on some sort of regular basis. Many drives come with software that lets you schedule your backups; Apple's Time Machine is a good example, but there are plenty of others.

Back to the organization thing: there are several schools of thought: one is the giant bucket school, and then there's the "lots of smaller buckets" school, and degrees of bucket size in between.

What that means is this: put all your images on a disk into one folder, but keyword them using an application like Adobe Lightroom, Apple's iPhoto, etc. You can then search for the photos with the application by whichever parameters you've used for the metadata. The date and camera info should be there by default, created by the camera when the photos were taken, so there's two search terms already. Some cameras have internal GPS recording, and then you'll enter things like info about the subject of the photos, the client you've taken them for, or any other pertinent data. Metadata is great, so long as your editing application doesn't strip it out, which some Windows photo editors do for some reason.

With that in mind, here's what I do. On my server (or your computer's hard drive) create a folder called photos or some such thing, then fill that with folders named for clients (or subjects like mom, dad, cats, ponies, carnival rides, vacations, etc.) Within each of those folders are folders named for the dates of the photos:

photos>client1>2009-04-03

2009-08-11

photos>client4>2007-02-15

And so on. Yours could look like this:

photos>kids>2006-04-09

2008-09-26

photos>vacations>cabin>2009-06

And so on. Just give it a little thought before you start and then be consistent and you'll be OK.

Everybody still with me? Good. Next time I'll expand on some of the details above before moving on to the next step.

Data storage and backups - part 1 of a series

2009-08-04T22:10:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been busy doing post-production for several shoots from the past couple of weeks, which got me thinking about data storage and backups for all that hard work. Keeping data safe also helps my clients; if someone loses a disk, I like to be able to replace it for them quickly and easily, and the only way to be able to do that is to have reliable backups that are readily accessible.

When I was just starting out, a couple of external 250G drives were plenty, and it was really easy to do periodic DVD backups as the amount of data was relatively small.

After 10 years in business, though, my image library is pretty beefy; nearly 3TB on the studio’s server and a cabinet filled with DVDs.

How to keep track of it all? How to do backups now that putting all that stuff on DVDs would be a horribly time-consuming and environmentally unsound process? Well, friends, sit right down and listen well; the next several blog posts will be about this very subject, so stay tuned.

Canon 17mm TS-E review update

2009-07-07T10:49:00.000-07:00

It's starting to get tiresome posting twice, so until my new site is ready (it'll pull content from here), I'll just redirect you to my blog via this link, as well as by clicking on the article title above.

Rest assured that the information there should reward your clicking efforts, and I promise never to Rick-roll anyone.

Time to start wondering about Photoshop CS5 as Snow Leopard's 64-bit support nears

2009-06-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

So, now that Apple is promoting a September 2009 release date for Snow Leopard, AKA Mac OS 10.6, 64-bit support will soon be ours, ... I don’t think I’m alone in feeling slighted in that Windows users have been using 64-bit processing for some time now and Apple is quite late to the party, although at least our OS of choice is attractive and mostly quite functional.

In any case, this recent article (translated from the original German) is an interview with Photoshop Chief Architect Russell Williams and Photoshop Product Manager Bryan O'Neil Hughes, talking (vaguely, of course, and badly translated to boot) about what users might expect in CS5.

Here’s another aggregation of CS5 news, ... again, all this is speculation, but it’s interesting to watch.

Lastly, here’s a real Adobe voice: the venerable John Nack blog.

iPhone panos

2009-06-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

So I've been messing around with a few pano apps for the iPhone for some time now; the best so far is simply called Pano; it's been around for seven months or so and allows you to make a single-row pano up to a full 360 degrees. The best part about this app is that it preserves the edge of the previous photo in sequence as a transuscent strip down the left edge of the phone's screen so it's easy to get the proper overlap and alignment.

A newer app is called Auto Stitch; you take the photos in sequence, even in multiple rows, then load them into the app from the camera roll. Despite the claims on the app's page, I've only been able to get it to stitch four or five frames at a given time, as the app otherwise crashes, no doubt due to memory constraints. Perhaps it works better on the 3Gs than on my 3G, but it's a dissapointing implementation of an otherwise great idea.

I've attached a couple iPhone panos made with Pano, one from Fiji and the other here in Seattle.

Weekend Update

2009-06-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

Here’s a compilation of some random and interesting bits of news gleaned from the Web this morning:

• So it seems that Apple’s Steve Jobs has resurfaced following a liver transplant in a Tennessee hospital: http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=20041

• NEC has rolled out a 43” LCD monitor that’s awesome to behold and equally awesome in it’s wallet-smashing abilities: http://www.slashgear.com/nec-crv43-43-inch-curved-lcd-arrives-july-for-8k-0445950/

• Sharp has come up with a method to make each pixel on an LCD monitor consist of five colors for improved accuracy. Not as glamorous as the NEC monster above, but far more realistically useful: http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/05/29/sharp_five_colour_lcd_panel/

• AT&T responds to iPhone customer bitching about it’s usury-level rate plans and upcoming tethering option here: http://www.facebook.com/ATT?v=app_7146470109 I’m all for a company being profitable, but gouging customers is another matter. I can’t believe that, on top of the onerous data plan and charging absurd rates for text messages that don’t cost the phone companies anything to transmit, they’re going to charge for tethered use as well when everyone else gets it for free.
AT&T is also “generously” allowing people to upgrade early and sign a fresh two-year contract when all their other phone contracts are for one year. AT&T apparently still has some folks on staff who are trying to resurrect the good old days of the Ma Bell monopoly, when they rented you a land line phone as no one was allowed to own their own home phone, and when phoning someone in the next town was a long-distance call.

Check out Scott Hove's work in the July issue of Hi-Fructose magazine

2009-06-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

San Francisco artist (and friend) Scott Hove has been working on some very cool sculpture - cakes! But these cakes have fangs, and one is large enough to walk in to. Hi Fructose is an amazingly cool art magazine - you should definitely check it out!

And, yes, I did some of those photos for Scott when I was in San Francisco for the American Institute of Architects national convention a couple of months ago.

Hands-on with the new Canon 17mm and 24 mm tilt-shift lenses

2009-06-09T17:26:00.002-07:00

Thanks to our local Canon rep, I got a chance today to shoot with both of Canon’s newest lenses: the TS-E 17mm f/4L and the TS-E 24mm f/3.5L II. In a nutshell, they both rock. Completely. It’s good enough that, if I couldn’t afford one, I’d sell other lenses to get a copy. Really.

We met at the Seattle Central Library; it seemed a good place to demo the lenses as there’s lots of room and lots of vertical lines to look at. I got busted for using a tripod, though (apparently it’s against the rules), but was encouraged to continue shooting, so it was freehand for most of the two hours we were there.

I was fully prepared to be underwhelmed by the 17 and to leave the demo wanting to upgrade my 24 to the newer version, as I’ve been disappointed with Canon’s aspherical 14mm lens - the distortion makes it an unpleasant choice for shooting architecture. I figured the 17 would be an improvement, but wasn’t expecting much.

I started out with the 17 on my 1Ds Mark II, then used both it and the 24 on a 5D Mark II. First off, let’s compare the build of the lenses to the current TS-E offerings.

If you’re familiar with Canon’s tilt-shift lenses, you’ll know that their tilt mechanism is in one plane and the shift in another. The 17’s movements are in the same plane, allowing for compound movements in the same plane, a great asset and something not formerly available unless you were brave enough to have at your expensive lens with a screwdriver and a steady hand. The 24 II’s movements remain as they are in the original.

The construction, fit, finish and mechanical operation are smooth, tight, and attractive. The lenses look a lot less like something that came out of a Soviet surplus depot and more like a well-thought design. The knobs are larger and easier to turn, although the lens’ habit of tilting or shifting when you’re walking around is still present, even with the locking screws tightened.

The 17 doesn’t have a hood -- it’s too wide. The lens cap is of a new design, requiring a slide-clip be held while the cap is twisted on like a lens hood. The glass is beautiful, and protrudes quite far from the end of the lens in a fisheye-esque curve. Because of this, a bit of extra care needs to be taken with this lens to avoid physical damage to the glass.

I do regret not taking any photos of the lenses mounted on the camera, but I’m a photographer and was excited about spending time using the lenses, and pretty much forgot to take photos of them. Here’s some basic info: http://www.dpreview.com/news/0902/09021806canon17mm24mmtselenses.asp

The above photo was shot with my 1Ds Mk. II on a tripod before I got busted and had to stow away the tripod. The lens is wide - the advertised field of view is 104˚ diagonally - it’s w-i-d-e. The photo is uncorrected - the camera was perfectly level, which definitely helps, but there’s not really any distortion and the chromatic aberration that plagued many copies of the original 24mm TS-E seems to have been much reduced, at least from what I was able to see in the images from today’s two-hour session.

With the protruding front element, flare is definitely an issue - you really need to pay attention to all light sources when shooting with the 17.

I was quite impressed with the wide field of view and relative lack of barrel distortion, even when hand-holding shots purposely far off level.

Candidly, I spent most of my time with the 17, mostly because I already own a copy of the 24 and would rather acquire the wider lens first, then upgrade a lens I’m mostly happy with anyway.

I’ll write more once I get a chance to spend more time with the resulting images. My overall impression? If you shoot interiors, you’ll want one of these.

ASMP Seattle Koffee Klatch

2009-06-09T17:26:00.001-07:00

Went to the bi-monthly ASMP Seattle Koffee Klatch this morning down at Uptown Espresso on Eastlake Avenue. There were three board members in attendance (including yours truly), Canon rep Mike Gurley, and a half-dozen members and assistants.

This is starting to read like meeting minutes, so I’ll keep it short and cut to the chase - we talked about the slow economy, how to perk up business, the disheartening trend of price wars among photographers, and basic business practices.

The take away? Things are slow, so spend your free time updating your business and marketing plans (you have them, right? No? Make them (http://www.score.org/template_gallery.html) now and start following them; you’ll be surprised as to how efficient you are once you write things down.

Once that’s done, go out and shoot some cool stuff for your portfolio -- you know, the stuff you wished you could shoot if it weren’t for that pesky art director. Then post it on your site or send it as a mailing to show what you’re capable of.

Something to add to this list? Let me know, or come to the next ASMP Seattle Koffee Klatch on August 11.

My Review of Ultimate Cargo Pants

2009-03-04T13:01:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.

SeV Ultimate Cargo Pants give you 2 products in 1 - simply zip off the legs and your Ultimate Cargo Pants convert into Ultimate Cargo Shorts!

We've taken a traditional cargo pant look

Ultimate Cargo Pants

Perfect for travel
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Well Made, Retains Shape, Washes Well, Wrinkle Resistant, Comfortable, Practical, Durable, Great Design
Best Uses: Casual Wear, Wear To Work
Describe Yourself: Casual Dresser
Comfort vs Style: Comfort Driven
Great travel pants. My only complaint is that the fabric is a bit too heavy for tropical travel, and the magnets wear through the fabric surprisingly quickly.
()

My Review of Performance Pullover Quarter Zip

2009-03-04T12:57:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
There's a reason this pullover is Scotts favorite! The Q-Zip blends the functionality of a jacket and the comfort of a t-shirt. With 3 hidden pockets, you'll have enough room to comfortably carry all your e...
Performance Pullover Quarter Zip

Great on its own
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Comfortable, Washes Well, Well Made, Durable, Great Design, Wrinkle Resistant, Retains Shape, Practical
Best Uses: Casual Wear, Wear To Work
Describe Yourself: Casual Dresser
Comfort vs Style: Comfort Driven
This thing is great, especially in the Pacific Northwest's ever-changing climate.
()

My Review of Cotton T-Shirt

2009-03-04T12:52:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
The incredibly popular SeV Performance T-Shirt is now available in 100% pre-washed Cotton. The SeV Cotton T-Shirt combines comfort and good looks with the convenience of 3 discreet pockets - perfect for carrying iPods®, cell phones, gadgets, and other on-the-go essentials. The pockets...
Cotton T-Shirt

A great take on the classic T-shirt
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Lightweight, Comfortable, Breathable
Best Uses: Anytime
Describe Yourself: Occasional Exerciser
Who'd have thought that adding a few well-placed pockets would make such a difference to an ordinary cotton T-shirt? These things are great.
()

My Review of Performance T-Shirt - Short & Long Sleeve

2009-03-04T12:50:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
Available with short or long sleeves, this is the ultimate t-shirt for today's active lifestyle! The incredibly popular SeV Performance T-Shirt combines comfort and good looks with the...

Great for travel, everyday wear
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Lightweight, Comfortable, Stylish, Breathable
Best Uses: Anytime, Cold Weather, Running
Describe Yourself: Occasional Exerciser
I use these as layering pieces when I'm working outdoors - they're great!
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My Review of Microfleece Pullover

2009-03-04T12:48:00.003-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
Our versatile Microfleece Pullover is a wardrobe necessity. It has 6 pockets and tons of convenient features, including a extendible key holder, water bottle holder and magnetic pocket closures
Microfleece Pullover

Best fleece ever!
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Washes Well, Durable, Great Design, Comfortable, Retains Shape, Practical, Well Made
Best Uses: Wear To Work, Casual Wear
Describe Yourself: Casual Dresser
Comfort vs Style: Comfort Driven
This is, without question, the best fleece pullover I've ever owned. I have two of them and wear them constantly in Seattle's cool, wet weather. They're not too heavy, which makes them great for running errands, etc., when you're frequently moving between indoor and outdoor locations. They're also great for air travel. The pockets are secure and numerous without being bulky. The front pocket is large enough for a big telephoto lens, too.
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My Review of Microfleece Pullover

2009-03-04T12:48:00.001-08:00

My Review of Hidden Cargo Pants

2009-03-04T12:45:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
You'll want to wear these pants every day! Featuring 11 hidden pockets and compartments, they offer the carrying space of cargo pants and shorts, yet are streamlined to look like regular khakis. The un...
Hidden Cargo Pants

Great!
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

5 5
Pros: Great Design, Practical, Wrinkle Resistant, Comfortable, Retains Shape, Well Made, Durable, Washes Well
Cons: Wears Out Quickly
Best Uses: Casual Wear, Wear To Work
Describe Yourself: Casual Dresser
Comfort vs Style: Comfort Driven
The pants are great. But with my pair, there is a piece of plastic sewn in between the layers of pockets that I can't remove easily and it's quite annoying. I'll eventually take a seam-ripper to them and get it out, but that seems like something that should have been caught in quality-control.
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My Review of Ultimate Cargo Pants

2009-03-04T12:41:00.001-08:00

SCOTTEVEST, Inc.
"
SeV Ultimate Cargo Pants give you 2 products in 1 - simply zip off the legs and your Ultimate Cargo Pants convert into Ultimate Cargo Shorts!
We've taken a traditional cargo pant look
Ultimate Cargo Pants

Nice product, ...
traveling_photographer Seattle, WA 3/4/2009

4 5
Pros: Comfortable, Practical, Great Design
Cons: Wears Out Quickly
Best Uses: Casual Wear, Wear To Work
Describe Yourself: Casual Dresser
Comfort vs Style: Comfort Driven
The pants are great, save for a couple of issues. First, the magnets tend to wear through the fabric surprisingly quickly. Second, the material is heavy as heck, which seems good for overall durability, but the pants get kind of uncomfortable for air travel, as the fabric tends to bunch up.
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The blog has moved!

2008-01-01T19:34:00.000-08:00
Hi,

Thanks for visiting! For the sake of consistency and convenience, my blog has moved; it's now on my own site at this URL:

http://www.zeraphoto.com/blog

Come visit, sign up for the RSS feed, and stay a while!

Cheers,
Francis

My review of Lexar Compact Flash Memory Card Reader (single slot) with Ultra-Thin Firewire Interface Cable.

2007-02-12T09:12:00.001-08:00

Originally submitted at Adorama
Lexar Compact Flash Memory Card Reader (single slot) with Ultra-Thin Firewire Interface Cable.

Reliable little device
By zeraphoto from Seattle, WA on 2/12/2007

4 out of 5
Pros: Fast , Slim, Reliable
Cons: Flimsy
Best Uses: Professional Cameras
Describe Yourself: Professional
Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
I tend to go through about one card reader a year for some reason; they simply stop working after a bit -- perhaps I use them more frequently than they're designed for, or perhaps their working life is only about a year.

In any case, this one is the most reliable CF-card readers I've used. My one complaint is that the cover constantly jumps off its track and I sense it's impending demise. This is the first reader that I'd consider replacing with a duplicate, though, despite the flimsiness of the cover, due to its fast data transfer and relative overall reliability.
(legalese)

My review of Lexar Compact Flash Memory Card Reader (single slot) with Ultra-Thin Firewire Interface Cable.

2007-02-12T09:12:00.000-08:00

Originally submitted at Adorama
Lexar Compact Flash Memory Card Reader (single slot) with Ultra-Thin Firewire Interface Cable.

Reliable little device
By zeraphoto from Seattle, WA on 2/12/2007

4 out of 5
Pros: Fast , Slim, Reliable
Cons: Flimsy
Best Uses: Professional Cameras
Describe Yourself: Professional
Bottom Line: Yes, I would recommend this to a friend
I tend to go through about one card reader a year for some reason; they simply stop working after a bit -- perhaps I use them more frequently than they're designed for, or perhaps their working life is only about a year.

In any case, this one is the most reliable CF-card readers I've used. My one complaint is that the cover constantly jumps off its track and I sense it's impending demise. This is the first reader that I'd consider replacing with a duplicate, though, despite the flimsiness of the cover, due to its fast data transfer and relative overall reliability.
(legalese)

It's been a wonderfully busy summer, ...

2006-11-05T15:18:00.000-08:00
Well, it certainly has been a long time since I made the effort to post, ... business has been brisk to say the least, and that's a lovely state of affairs.

Now that things have calmed down a bit with the change of seasons, I've time to catch up on my correspondence, marketing, blogs, etc., etc. I've attached, in no particular order, a few recent samples of what I've been up to these past few months. There's been lots more than this, of course, but it'll give you an idea.

I'm hoping to make use of this blog as a place to share information for current and future clients regarding how to store and access their final images, tips for making shoots go smoothly, tips for staging interior spaces to make them look their best in photos, along with explanations of how things work behind the scenes so as to give a more solid understanding of the whole architectural/product photography process.

Any ideas or suggestions for future topics would be welcome, either by posting a comment to the blog or sending me an e-mail directly.

Watch this space!

Bedknobs and broomsticks

2006-04-20T02:05:00.000-07:00
Ever wonder what it takes to shoot interiors? Time, ... lots of time. Not to mention brooms, Swiffers, squeegees, mops, wipes, and not a little Windex.

Back from Texas, ...

2006-04-14T20:36:00.000-07:00
Spent most of last week in Matagorda, Texas. It's the last bit of unspoiled Texas-Gulf coastline, and well worth the effort required to visit. I was there for a magazine assignment, and had a lovely time fishing, kayaking, and taking aerial photos of the coastline. I also did my first yacht interior shoot on my return to Seattle; here's one of the results, along with a couple images from Texas.

Planes, trains, ... you know the drill.

2006-04-05T00:45:00.000-07:00
So I've been on the road a lot, and am headed for the Gulf Coast of Texas later this week for an assignment. Wisdom to impart? Hmmm, ... networking is where it's at as far as growing one's business.

Home sweet home

2006-03-07T23:32:00.000-08:00
Home at last. The snowy trend continued while I was in New England; I was snowed in at the Providence, Rhode Island, airport and had to stay an extra day. But dad's fine and everything's as close to normal as possible back here in sunny Seattle.

Sometimes I've something to say; today I guess I'll just stick with the visuals.

Massachusetts

2006-02-25T09:04:00.000-08:00
I'm currently in my hometown in western Massachusetts, helping out the family as my dad underwent hip-replacement surgery last week. Most everything seems to be going well. I haven't had too much time to photograph anything, but it's snowing today and the roads are too slippery to drive the 50+ miles to the hospital so I think I'll go shoot some snowy landscapes.

Today's photo is of a cemetery in southern New Hapmshire that I took last weekend.

Thursday in the evening

2006-02-09T23:28:00.000-08:00
It's interesting to me how something so seemingly simple as a mortgage payment can consume a person, ... therefore, I've been busily working. Here's some new work, ...

Home for a while, ...

2006-02-01T23:29:00.000-08:00
Just got back from a lovely press trip to northern Utah, and have a couple of weeks to process/sell the images before heading off to New England for two weeks later this month. Things should settle for a bit after that while I focus on my local architectural, professional and manufacturing clients.

I've grown quite fond of Utah; it's a magnificent place. Today's photos are from my most recent trip.

Paris!

2006-01-16T23:31:00.000-08:00
My lovely wife and I have decided that we'll spend our third anniversary in Paris. It's not until this fall, but I'm very excited nonetheless as I've dreamed of Paris since I was a child. Now it's time to bone up on all that French language study, ... Tout le travail et aucunes marques Jack de jeu un garçon mat!

Quant à la photo de cette semaine, je pense que quelque chose faire avec les femmes étrangères serait approprié, ...

Oh -- by the way, I'm apparently a pure nerd.

Pure Nerd
78 % Nerd, 34% Geek, 47% Dork
For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.

The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer. Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.

Congratulations!

Take the nerd/geek/dork test

Travelin' blues

2006-01-07T03:06:00.000-08:00
Well, not really. It just sounded like a good post title. I *love* to travel, domestically or otherwise. My next travel-magazine photography trips are, in order, to northern Utah, Massachusetts, and then to Nashville. Watch this space for some cool travel photographs!

Another year gone, ... what a ride!

2005-12-30T18:02:00.000-08:00
It's tough to believe that I'm already at the end of my first full year of self-employment. It's been a hell of a year; things have gone better than expectations and that certainly bodes well for 2006. Here are the highlights:

New Clients:
• McGraw Hill
• Warren Miller
• New York Post
• Power & Motoryacht magazine
• St. George/Zion National Park Convention & Visitors Bureau
• OnRequest Images
• Ramada Inns
• Spectacular Homes of the Pacific Northwest (by Panache Partners, publishers of coffee-table books)
• Several Seattle-area architecture and interior-design firms

Travel assignments:
• Massachusetts
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Texas
• Utah (twice)
• Oregon
• Vancouver, British Columbia (twice)

Oh -- today's images are from one of the Ramada shoots.

Here's to a specatular and peaceful 2006!

Weekend Redux

2005-12-15T11:09:00.000-08:00
Other than my obtaining a sprained ankle from having slipped on a rocky riverbank, the weekend in Oregon was a complete success, ... we didn't really do much of anything other than explore riverbanks and seashores, skip lots of stones across the aforementioned rivers, and watch some mighty lovely sunsets. We did watch my favorite movie, too -- City of Lost Children. It has the most amazing lighing and set design I've ever seen.

Today's images are from the trip, ...

Road trip!

2005-12-09T00:33:00.000-08:00
Time for a photo safari/R&R trip. Headed for southern coastal Oregon, Port Orford, to be exact. Gonna see what I can see. Right now I'm in a motel room in Vancouver, Wash., which is just about half-way to my final destination. Hope this clear weather holds for the weekend; the Oregon coast is a lovely part of the world.

As for today's photo, here's a taste of what's to come.

Another week speeds by

2005-12-08T00:15:00.000-08:00
It's true; time flies when you're working your ass off.

Revelations? People aren't always as they seem; no good deed goes unpunished, and if you don't set firm boundaries people will dutifully try their best to take advantage of you.

Tip? Write up the agreement before the shoot. Don't get lazy; you're sure to get bitten in the ass otherwise.

Today's photos don't really have anything to do with anything other than they fit my mood. They're from an art project I did to illustrate the seven deadly sins.

Here's a contest -- tell me which ones these are!

More new clients!

2005-11-30T23:19:00.000-08:00
So far this week I signed on with a stock agency called OnRequest images, and landed a new real-estate client. The good news just keeps rollin' along, ... but I don't want to get *too* cocky, lest the photo gods smack me down. Just let me be happy.

I'll be brief, as it's approaching midnight here. Today's image is just something I shot and then simply dropped in a gradiated background, ... it's representative of my emotions of late.

Anti-Turkey Day

2005-11-24T16:07:00.000-08:00
Does the definition of a workaholic include a compulsion to ignore holidays? Anyway, my wife's out of town for the weekend so I'm spending the weekend working on tying up loose ends and completing a couple outstanding projects. Nothing too exciting, and I'm planning mac-n-cheese for my T-day dinner, which is one of my all-time favorite comfort meals.

The studio renovations are nearing completion, too. All that remains is to paint the new window panels and remove the stovepipe from the former owner's woodstove. Next step will be to build a permanent cyc wall so I won't have to deal with paper backdrops anymore.

Wondering what a cyc wall is? Check out today's link: ProCyc.com

My studio is fairly modest at 500 s.f., but it's perfectly suited to the kind of work I do.

In that vein, today's photos were taken in my studio; the first is from a family-portrait session and the second is a product shot of a Japanese toy.

Not feeling particularly profound today, but thought I'd try a bit of photo wisdom: You can't make a good portrait until the camera disappears from the equation. Once the subject is so comfortable that they forget their photo is being taken, you're home free.

Time sure flies, ...

2005-11-22T22:44:00.000-08:00
Guess I've gotta be more disciplined about this; it's been nearly a fortnight since my last post. My recently-revived workout scheme has been foiled by a separated rib from repetitive stress combined will bull-headedness. Basically, I didn't listen to my body and hurt myself, so no workouts for about six weeks. *sigh* So much for my planned return to the land of the svelte.

In any event, the mystery client I'd mentioned in my last post is now a reality -- Warren Miller Entertainment, he of those gnarly extreme-skiing films. I'm doing all their product shots.

I've also landed a new local architectural firm and a real-estate agency as clients. I really enjoy the architecture work. Someday I'll keep track of a typical interiors shoot and catalog the whole process. I think it's fun, but I expect most will find it quite tedious.

Now *there's* a solid closer -- come back soon to read about the tedious details of my life!

As for this posting's image, it's a cover shot from a publication called Sustainable Industries Journal. The feature story was about how the U.S. Army is actually using some environmentally-friendly building techniques and infrastructure technologies. The assignment was this: illustrate the obvious dichotomy of the devil-may-care armed forces with caring for the enviroment. The editors were pleased with my result.

Oh -- and I've also discovered that I'm Reverse Pocky.

You Are Reverse Pocky

Your attitude: rebellious and clever
Non-conformist, but curiously a trendsetter
With you, up is down... and it's a wild ride!

Take the Pocky quiz!

Working like a madman and loving every second of it

2005-11-10T20:02:00.000-08:00
Busy, busy, busy -- a very good state for a self-employed person. Working on several new clients (I'll share the names once I've signed contracts; I'm not comfortable with being cocky, as the universe has a way of slapping me down every time I get overconfident), and putting the wraps on several other projects. Also joined the Columbia Tower Club in Seattle yesterday; hope it brings lots of new networking opportunities.

Today's photo is from an interiors shoot earlier this summer; the photos are destined for a coffee-table book called Spectacular Homes of the Pacific Northwest, which is due out sometime early next year.

Sunday Bloody Sunday

2005-10-30T22:01:00.000-08:00
OK; nothing but yardwork today. It was all about wrestling with the trimmings from a very large and very point holly hedge that the prior owners of our place had let go. According to the neighbors, it hasn't been touched for more than 10 years; it was 25 feet tall in places. Did I mention that holly is pointy? Reference today's title, ...

Anyway, I was wondering what to post for a photo that's somewhat topical, but decided to go for something antithetical instead.

Looking for a bunch of cool adjectives to describe my day

2005-10-28T00:02:00.000-07:00
OK; this thing is cool. Today was filled with post-production work and follow-ups with current clients, as well as a meeting with a financial planner from my business networking group. Jeezus, am I ever square.

I think I'll try to post a photo every day; here's another favorite -- it's of Spooky Canyon in southern Utah.

First post - Texas trip with a new lens

2005-10-27T12:29:00.000-07:00
OK; here we go. The first of what I hope is a lengthy relationship with all things blog. I'll begin with a couple of images made in Texas last week using my new favorite lens - the lensbaby (I love if when you call me baby). Comments and questions are welcome; this is an interactive experience, after all.