Working with the Classics: Speedotron
“Remember that the person you are photographing is 50% of the portrait and you are the other 50%. You need the model as much as he or she needs you. If they don’t want to help you, it will be a very dull picture.”—Lord Patrick Lichfield Speedotron’s power pack and head systems are the studio lighting world’s equivalent of the American muscle car. They’re made in the USA, ruggedly built to take hard use, and powerful. The...
Proofing & TFP: How I Do It
I’m often asked about how I deliver proofs from photo shoots and this is how I do it. This system may not work for you but you might see a part of my system that you can use and if you like it, give it a try Nowadays, all of my photography is done for publication in books, blogs or magazines, so I don’t deliver any kind of traditional prints or proofs to the people I photograph. Instead of proofs I give them a CD containing all of the...
Street Photography & The Law
The subtitle of this post should be “Why I’m not a Street Photographer” because it’s not a genre that I’m all that good at or am comfortable shooting. Part of my difficulty is that is I don’t want to impose on anybody’s privacy. In Colorado I’m concerned about the possibility of offending people, getting punched in the face or having a run-in with police. I don’t like either of these options but I’m trying to overcome this reluctance....
Coping with Shutter Lag
Sometimes when making candid photographs your subject stays right where you hoped but occasionally something or someone steps into the scene blocking your chance of capturing the moment, all because of shutter lag. Out here in the real world, there are two kinds of shutter lag: The first is the amount of time that it takes from depressing the camera’s shutter release to when an image is saved onto a memory card. During that time, the...
Camera-of-the-Year 2013?
For the past several years, I’ve presented an annual Camera of the Year award nicknamed the Ernie, in honor of the late Earnest E. Mau, a photographer, computer pioneer, and friend who didn’t live long enough to get his hands on a really good digital camera. My main rule for giving this award is that it is based on my hands-on experiences with a camera I actually used and shot under all kinds of conditions but in 2013 not many...
Welcome to the New Blog
Things look a bit different and I hope better here at the all-new Saving the World, One Pixel at a Time. My system architect, Tim Fielder, worked on our new look, new functionality and improved user experience. For instance, on our Home page you can now scan a full week’s worth of blog posts at one time, displaying thumbnails and a bit of text allowing you to preview the post before clicking to see the full details. The Search...
Wordless Wednesday #014: “Platte Valley Medical Center in HDR”
This HDR image of the Platte Valley Medical Center was made from a five shot bracket with a nominal exposure of 1/500 sec at f/11 and ISO 320 using a Sigma 10-20mm lens set at 18mm. Three .NEF files were combined using Adobe Photoshop’s Merge to HDR function to produce the final image. ©2012 Joe...
