Perfect Planning Prevents Poor Performance, or something like that

I wanted to expand on an idea from earlier.

I was talking about light bouncing all over the place and it being hard to control it, especially when there are other factors like moving people and limited time to solve problems.

It might be useful to show and example.

What I wanted was to evenly light the training room, which was very dark, even with the lights on. The room is small and crammed with computers. My plan was to use two strobes aimed at the ceiling from either side of the room. The ceiling gets lit and becomes a big soft light box, more light falls, badda bing, even light. For more details, see David Hobby's version here.

So, I set out to do just that. Well, my problem was the position of the lights. Pointed straight up, they didn't light enough space and tended to wind up in the shot. Pointed at an angle, they cast crazy shadows like the ones you see above. In some cases, that led to okay accidents, like the shot of Darshan, but it's not what I wanted.

Eventually, by moving the lights around and changing their angles, I got sort-of what I wanted, but not really. I had to limit the experiment because we were at work on a break.

Point is; actually doing it taught me way more than reading about it. If I had been smarter, I would have spent the lunch hour figuring out the position and then taken the shots 123.

The other thing I'm trying to balance is TTL. Now, TTL is a system where the camera figures out how much light to send to the flashes. I could set the light levels manually, but the thing I don't like about that is that you need to adjust the levels each time you change the zoom depth of the lens. When you change your mind as much as me, TTL is a nice flexible option. The downside to it is that you rely on the camera. And I'm still trying to figure out what affects that. For example, if I'm set to single spot focus instead of area will that affect the light throw? What about metering? Again, the only real way to learn is to do it again and again.

What does all this failure mean for India? Means my plan is to first get the shot and then try tricksy stuff. Means my plan is to take a bajillion pictures. And practice beforehand.

The comeback

I'm back home for now and wiped out.
I took a cab back from Logan. When I first leaned in towards the front seat to explain where I was going (they always want to look it up in their book) I caught a whiff of a familar odor and could tell in the dark that he was prolly Indian. Sure enough: Punjabi. I wonder if after two months of the food I'll get that aura as well.
The shot above is Gururaja. On the last day of training we all got together for snaps. Previously I had joked that we would all need to wear funny hats for the shot. Incredibly, Yvette produced a box of just that. There was a general tumult as they all tried on silly hats and feather boas.
The photos were a learning moment. I previously posted that I wanted to light the backgrounds to get separation. You can see from the shadows Im using on-axis and a hard light from camera right. I tried to light the background as well, but couldnt put enough distance between subject and background. Also worth noting that a shiny, reflective background like a drywipe board can't have hard light pointed directly at it. Looking at that ugly hard light, I wish I had improvised a diffuser of some sort. There was plenty of paper around. In all the chaos I kind of just went with it and ended up with snapshots instead of portraits,

Posted from my iPhone

Scattershot

Several random encounters bracketed my day.
In the morning I swung by the On The Go to get a Rockstar. I still had a coffee from breakfast that was almost finished, so I brought it from the car to throw it out. There were two pillars bracketing the entrance, and I went around the far one looking for the trashcan. There it is and some dude is standing outside by it drinking his own cup in the morning sun. I throw mine out and the dude says "Black or brown, johnny dundayguys". He says it mean, very harsh so I pay attention but I have no idea what the heck he means.
Inside the store, I mull it over. I figure maybe 'dundayguys' is "don't date guys". But why is he telling me he doesn't date men of color? Ah, wait: 'black or brown' was 'back around'. He was threatening me away from his garbage can. Well, he's crazy. At least he gets to speak about himself in the third person.
At the end of the day I pull into a parking space out back of the hotel. The van lights illuminate the scene. Outside the hotel door is a patch of grass with a picnic table. On it a girl sits backwards with her back to me. She's leaning back and her elbows are resting on the tabletop. Behind her on the table is a tall glass of a very red drink with ice cubes. I step out of the van. I'm still 15 yards away and the smell of booze hits me square in the face. That is one strong Sea Breeze.
As I get closer she tells me to come on over. Excuse me? I must not have heard right. She says it again: come over, why don't I come on over? This seems odd as she hasn't turned around but there is no one else alone and her hands are where I can see them so she must be talking to-- ah you tricksie Bluetooth headsets! That must be it, her long hair hid the earpiece and she's talking to some boyfriend.
I gather my things and go around her to head inside. Working my security card at the hotel door, I sneak a peek back at the girl. She's staring into the distance, her chin on her chest, still talking, inviting people over. There's no headset. No earpiece. Just a drunk girl talking to herself. Maybe she should invite Johnny over; I hear he doesn't date guys.
---
On the photo front, some setbacks. Turns out you can't just throw light around and hope it all works out because your fancy camera thinks it can balance the amount of light. Angles and shadows were a huge challenge recently in two sets of snaps. That plus the muddy reality of people moving around and their limited patience. People expect photos to be right, quick and automatic. When you bring big gear to the party, they expect it to be great and automatic. That's not what Im trying to do and it I've taken some really bad shots lately. Light bouncing harshly all around small, cramped rooms has made for some ghastly, shadowy shots.
Since I haven't had light softeners or spreaders, like an umbrella I've been trying to bounce light off ceilings to get broad, even spread. The problem has been distances, intermediate objects and the inability to figure things out quickly as the scene changes. I'm thinking in must-have shots, it might be better if i cant get it right to forgo flash: kick up my iso and drop my dof. I really hate grain, though. Gah. Thats lame. I just need to work harder.

Edit: I posted an example of what I'm talking about. Click on it to see the whole photo. Uneven lighting and bad shadows. :\

- Posted from my iPhone

Reality Sets In

As we get to the final week of this trip, the reality of the next one is sinking in.

I have travel reservations.

I have a hotel reservation even. The Chancery Pavilion in Bangalore:

http://www.chancerypavilion.com/pavilion/

Mind you, the word is "Bangalore", but my kids tell me the fresh, local way to say it is "Banglaroo!" But maybe they are just playing tricks on me. They could write their own blogs about how badly I pronounce all the phrases they try to teach me.

What do I want to do in India? Well, Bangalore has a cool local palace that looks pretty shiny. I want to see the shrines to Hanuman, Udishdera and all the guys I like. I want to disobey all the rules about not eating street food and going out alone. I don't know that I will be able to do much longer travelling. This makes it seem like visiting Kashmir won't happen. Kushal tells me that it's not a very safe idea to travel there anyway. I'm torn about the Taj Mahal. It's a long way away, but how often are you in India? Maybe more than once, and I'm not on vacation.

But the real real travel is to CT next week to see the fam!

I can't wait. But of course, I have zero XMas shopping done. I'm unconcerned. This trip is almost done. Two more to go.

The above photo is l-r Mohan, Darshan, Senthil, and Sham. Shot in the dark training room. I lit it with two flashes crossing from either direction pointing at the ceiling. I had a hard time keeping from getting the shadows too crazy. This one is sort of okay, but not really what I wanted. I clearly need to work more.

I'm tired of Cali and I'm ready to go home.

Mind a Snap?

The Indian trainers have an amusing cadence to their speech. I shouldn't say "amusing", that sounds paternal. Hell, they each speak at least three languages (Hindi, English, and their local dialects) at least -- so they're doing great. I just find it enjoyable to hear unexpected emphasis here and there. Adding to it are the unusual word choices and structuring of common phrases.

Some of these choices clearly come from the English influence. Hindi words like wine, taxi, coffee and credit card, are nearly exactly the same as the English.

And there are different accents in the group. The Southern kids are a little different from the Northern and there are differences amoung them as well. Senthil has a thick accent and a deep voice that I can't really describe. It makes longer chats with his harder, but the drop-ins he has are delightful.

The other day he said something that sounded like "sTEEv...mihnd ehSNop?" When he gestured with his camera I got what meant. "Mind a snap?" No, no not all. Delighted.

Couple quick shots from yesterday morning. The light was nice. The one of my room interior I was playing with the gels that go into the flashes. I used amber ones.

Personal Space

Here we are in the minivan on the way to work this morning. The shot was taken from the dashboard. You can see we have to get a little close. In general, they have different values about space, boundaries and distance, as one would expect from people with that dense a population.
For example, my camera was on the desk. As i was doing something else, Darshan picked it up, scrolled through the pictures and even took a few snapshots of his own. I was fine with this and didn't say anything.
Cut to later that day, Darshan is outside at lunch and sees a motorcycle parked in the lot. He hops on and checks it out. Vroom vrooom! People upstairs in the production office notice this out the window and soon a crowd gathers. Eventually the dude who's bike it is comes out and says please stop that. Darshan is loveably harmless, so it goes well. But we've teased him about it ever since.
For those keeping score, that's Darshan in the passenger seat. I took the shot by putting flashes in the back and way back seats and firing them from the camera.

Posted from my iPhone

Post on Post

"Post" is the term photogs give all the doctoring they do in Photoshop; their post-shooting work. At home, I shoot in the RAW format mostly and work in PScs3. My final destination of most shots is the Internet, I'm not printing much of these. So, I try to make it look nice on the Mac, and look at on the PC as well sometimes.
Here on the road, things are different. In India I hope to be down to one laptop: my work PC. Now this computer only has Photoshop 6. No Bridge, no raw processing, and the PC monitor gamut as my destination. Since it's a work computer so I can't add or change software.
So it's back to JPEGs and working on this punk Toshiba.
I have to say; it's a little stiffling. Getting on the Internet in hotels is a pain these days, too. The wifi never works so you have to plug into the wall. It's crazy slow. You have to log into the hotel's site, agree to terms, click past slow-loading surveys and offers to get to the Internet and then watch the pages crawl down like cold molasses dripping down a stucco wall.
Long story short, I haven't shot as much real stuff as I'd like these two weeks and I'm being a baby about the gear.
I took some shots last night, though. I'll post them once I get my computer back up.
The basic idea was to reset the camera color balance to blue shift and then filter the flash light to nuetralize it. So, all blue except where the flash hits it. You snoot the flash to limit the spot. Sorta interesting, we'll see what's there once I do the post.

- Posted from my iPhone

Rainy Weekend

I think I mentioned all the stuff in the classroom. Here's a peek. Freaky right? I forgot the giant rat and the wolfman.
In the clip Spatzy gives me the Heisman, but Darshen seems into it.
So I'm a bit at a crossroads with my weekend plans. I want to go somewhere totally Cali, but it's raining and supposed continue to do so all weekend. Not sure what I will do. Hmm hmm.

Posted from my iPhone

Tradition of Perviness

During the course of comparing cultures with my Indian counterparts, I'm starting to notice a trend: we're perverts.
Every time they have a cute, sweet tradition, our version is naughtier. So they'll tell me how the bride and groom play catch with a flower ball at their wedding. In turn I relate the bride-tossing-the-bouquet tradition. It's all going well until I get to the part about putting the garter up under the girl's skirt.
Then they all get real quiet.
And it keeps happening. I'll start telling some story or detail of American life and it always seems to end with drunkeness or an unwed mother.
Maybe it's just me. They like Yanni and Top Cat. I like Family Guy and the Ramones.

On the photo front, I'm thinking about discipline and motivation. When I read about some shooters work, or see how they go about a task, it is very directed. They want to make a specific image and set about to do it. I think my Dad is this way. He sees something and sets about to record and show it.
This has never been my way. When I painted, or worked on cartoons, I would start out with half an idea and the process of doing the work would hopefully flesh out the details and take me somewhere. It was entertaining to see where it would end up and what would happen. I don't understand writers who know where there stuff is going. To me it would be boring if I knew all the twists beforehand.
I guess shooting is similar: I see something sort of cool and take some shots to see what it looks like photographed.
This is fine and fun, but it's a limited approach. I need to be able to picture a result and set about to getting it, not just picturing a process and seeing what happens.
I need new traditions.

Posted from my iPhone

Many Things to Enjoy

Today we switched topics, classrooms and teachers. I'm delivering now, which is both more and less tiring. The day goes faster for sure, though I'm feeling more like I'm letting other stuff slide.
The new classroom is smaller, and a bit cluttered. The stuff cluttering it is generally pretty cool though. Yvette was showing the Indian trainers some of her prizes today. They were very amused and wanted to try them all. Here they test out the Optimus Prime voice changer mask and the Hulk Hands. It was pretty funny.
Afterwards Sentil opined in his thick accent "Eevett, you have many things to enjoy". They pronounce "Yvette" so that it almost sounds like "wet". It gave me a chuckle.
Also fun today: Yvette and I exchanged several low-brow font jokes that sailed over all of their heads completely. It was somehow funnier because it was clear that our silliness was safely lost in translation.
Pretty happy-go-stupid day all around.
Photo notes: these are taken on the iPhone, and then given a vignette and some warmth using Chase Jarvis' Best Camera (is the one you have with you) app.

- Posted from my iPhone

Walk Off

I got up this mornng and drove to Hollywood to see the Walk of Fame.

I never noticed that the stars had icons in them before. Like this dude's is for television. There are also icons for movies, recording and radio.

I was also mildly surprised that characters like Snow White and Kermit the Frog get stars. I've long known that the walk is more publicity than homage: the celebrities pay for their stars, but having fictional characters there seemed a bit much. Why not have one for the Whopper or Nyquil while we're at it? Kermit's star must have been a tough call, because he was in movies and had a hit song, but they gave it to him for television. That puts him in the good company of Donald Trump.

So, it's early still and I'm walking around, looking at Grauman's and such when Jack Sparrow walks by in full pirate getup. He and a pretty plonde are out for a stroll so I tag along to see what's up. Seems the pirate captain needs a cup of coffee to get his day started. He and the blonde go into a corner shop and get a couple of regulars. No one but me finds this the slightest bit interesting to see a man in full costume and make-up preparing himself a cup of mud while discussing last night's party as though nothing unusual were going on. Even the Japanese tourists politely ignore him.
I try to hip shoot a few photos but decide against taking a more-direct shot when I hear more of the conversation. Jack's a jerkface. I head back North to look for a beach.

Starting Snapshots

There's a big difference between knowing and doing.

I knew that these shots would be lame unless I set up a second light behind them.

I knew, I didn't do it even though I had a second (and third) light in my bag because I was being feeble.

But, let's get back to that.

This is Vanaya, Sentil and Mohan. Three of the seven students I'm working with. They will become trainers. All of our vendor friends love taking pictures and when a camera comes out, they are quick to get in the act. Everyone takes pictures with everyone and we buddy up in different groups and all take shots of each other. Very snapshotty- like these.

Overall, they are very amusing, bright, open and interested.

I've rented a mini van I use to take them back and forth to the job site. On the way we ask each other questions about our respective cultures and lives. I've learned about shrines, religion, forehead dots, the rules of cricket and popular Indian culture. In exchange I bought them scratch tickets and told them about Barry White.

So, it's been funny and interesting so far, but with really hard problems to solve in between. We were at a good stopping point today, so I took out the camera and took some shots. It was fun, but the hullaballoo and crowd it created made setting up the lights harder. Of course I could and should have, I just didn't. But: I've laid the groundwork for shooting them more and set a benchmark for portraits on this trip that will give me a lot of room to improve upon.

So, am I psyched at these shots, no. But I'm going to try to keep it up until I can stop thinking and just do it.

Ring Light & Stage Fright

I got up this morning and followed through on my plan to shoot the Bird of Paradise flowers. Here's one:



And another:



I think they are okay, but a bit rushed and haphazard. The cropping isnt quite correct in either of them, but I've had lots of technical hurdles both in camera, computer and connectivity today. On the whole ok, but really the problem is that it's ground I've tread before.
I'm shooting using a macro 300mm opened all the way up at about f16. A ring flash adaptor on the flash provides the characteristic lighting. I like the ring flash for shooting plants, but it's most common use is for people.
Which is why I brought it and what my current challenge is. I want to shoot headshots of all the people in this training. But I am feeling like a dope and I haven't started doing it yet.
Partly, it's the rig, but mostly it's me. I would be less-self concious shooting people with a more basic camera. I wouldn't think twice shooting with my phone. But hauling out a giant camera with a flash and ring light is kind of a showy production. Really I'm the only one who cares, but I feel awkward doing it. I need to get over this to take the photos I want to take. I must get over it and tomorrow I will. I will get these shots so that I can introduce you to these people who will be in my life constantly for the next 3 months. Next post will be portraits. It must be.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Same Flowers, Less Creepy

I don't know what this flower is, but I like it. I shot this back in July when I was at this hotel last time. They grow around the base of the building. I wanted to shoot them more, but the base of the building is pretty much always right outside someones window. I don't want to be the dude with the zoom lense outside your window trying to explain how Im just there for the flowers.
Well, good news is this time I am on the ground floor and it's my window they are outside of and they are still in bloom, or whatever state that is. They are still all orangey. So, I plan to explore further. But first, off to work.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Overheard and overhead

So, on the flight out I'm stuck in the middle seat in the last row. But, it's not so bad as I'm sandwiched between two delightful ladies. The one on my right is a tiny Asian girl and during the course of the flight I begin to believe she doesn't speak much English.
I come to this idea by the way that she communicates via grunts, squeaks and gestures to the flight attendants. Need some water? Point at it and squeal. Want the chips? Angle your head at it and nod vigorously.
We land and to my pleasant surprise they announce over the intercom that they are debarking via the rear of the plane as well as the front. Ho ho! This is sweet, I can jump right off.
But my little seat-mate makes no move to get up. She sits there stonily. Perhaps she didn't understand the announcement, what with her bad English and all. People are streaming out now and I become agitated. Helpfully, I nudge her and indicate the rear of the plane.
In the dryest English ever she says "Yesss, I fear my luggage is in the overhead bin several seats forward. We must wait a bit to disembark."
Durr durr durr. Yes we must, oh, and by the way, I'm a dummy.


- Posted from my iPhone

Quality of Light

I've been thinking about the ineffable, sculptural quality of light.
When I was new to prepress, I would play a mental color game. The trick was to see a color on the world, like the dude across from me's baby puke green sweater, and try to guess the CMYK color breakdown of it. (C10Y20K2 for the sweater btw)
That game is smart and good exercise, but the color of light is only one aspect of it's quality.
For example, if I was color- correcting a photo of this waiting area it runs left to right yellow-green from the flourescent overheads to a more-nuetral-but-still casted daylight from the pane windows at right. I can imagine a correction curve layer in PS with a linear gradient mask.
But the world isn't a flat photo and the light is spilling in all around the place. Softer here by the wall, catching a diffuse cross from the far off opposite windows on right. Harsher and clearer in front of the counter, bouncing all over the white walls and ceiling, eaten up by the steel gray rug.
I want to better see the depth of the light. It fills up these areas heavily and floats lighter over there. I do a lot of macro work and big sky shots; I'm either up close or all open. There is a complex middle space that escapes me. When I shoot it, it never describes the depth of light correctly. There's something I'm missing.
Maybe it's in the metering, maybe it's related to depth of field. I need to explore further...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

First of Two

So, tomorrow I fly to LA for a month. It's the pre-training before the two-month gig in India. So, basically the start of three months on the road with a small gap in the middle.
I have mixed feelings about the trips, what they mean for me, what they mean for the company, all the people losing jobs, things like that. I'm going to try to roll with it, really I have no other option.
The deal I'm making with myself is that these are both photo trips. As the first trip is preparation business-wise for the second, so too must the first trip prepare for the second photographically. So, I'm bringing a fair amount of gear: camera, three lenses, three flashes, ring flash and various other light modifiers. Not sure about hauling a tripod still. I hate to haul it, but there are a few things I would want it for. I'm thinking I will leave it behind and see if I miss it.
If I miss it in LA, I will for sure want it in India.









This is what I'm bringing, not that bad. Plus another backpack with two laptops, an external hard drive and all the cables. Plus the camera chargers, card reader, spare battery, thumb drives, and things like that. I need the second laptop for work, but I'm hoping I can cut it down to one for the longer India trip.
In all of the trips I've taken this year, this is the first time I'm hauling a seperate camera backpack. I hope it's not too unweildy. Really having to take the second laptop forced the issue. So if it doesn't work out, and I only need the one next time, it may work out. Really just the first of a lot of unknown experiments this trip.

- Posted from my iPhone