Archive | January, 2009

This is Not a Nikon D3x Review. It’s Just Me and Scott Talking.

By on January 30, 2009

[Update: the video hummed along nicely for about 24 hours, however sometime late Saturday/early Sunday the embedded video stopped playing here, presumably due to Facebook bandwidth constraints/large traffic volumes. We reposted and it was just more of the same. They're still serving it to my Facebook page if you're interested in checking it out there.]

Whew! Just wrapped the first ever (I’m told) national ad campaign shot with the Nikon D3x. What an absolute beaut of a camera. I’m smitten.

Hopefully you were able to follow along via Twitter and my Facebook Page for the play by play. I can’t share all the details of what I was working on (see my earlier post for why), so unfortunately no sample pics just yet, but this here lo-fi vid cut and pasted from my Facebook gives the quick and dirty about Nikon’s new, bad-ass, flagship camera.

Now back to my edit and sipping on Robitussin ;)

[RSS and email subscribers click here to see the vid.]

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Nikon D3x: Follow The Play by Play on Twitter/Facebook

By on January 26, 2009

Alrighty. I’m pumped to try something new here. Today I am starting work on a 4-day North American advertising campaign, which–according only to what those I know in the biz can confirm for me–might just be the first such campaign shot using the Nikon D3x.

Oh ya, btw, I’ve started dropping some 24.5 megapixel Nikon bombs these days. Just got a production D3x on Friday.

As a part of my continued mission with this here blog, I thought you might find it interesting to see a play-by-play via Twitter and my Facebook page (text, photos + videos if/wherever possible), of our loving and/or grappling with a new beast of a camera amidst a real, commercial project.

Why Twitter and Facebook and not the blog? Well, I’ve got better on-the-fly access to both those platforms in my pocket via iPhone. Easy peasy. I’ll do my best to summarize all this via the blog–perhaps in a video–as soon as I can; but until then, I’ll give the down and dirty as often as I can from my pocket to yours. As such, I’m accepting Facebook friends and follower inquiries are welcome on my Twitter account.

[UPDATE: I've also posted my twitter feed in the margin to the right for those of you following along...just refresh often...]

As is standard with most contracts surrounding the creation of ad campaigns, I can’t share who I’m shooting for nor what the campaign is about, nor can I show any images from the campaign until it goes live. This is about the camera, not the shoot details. Hopefully this makes sense to you. (Although I do have an inquiry into the client to see if they’d like to open that up a tad!). I can tell you stuff about the camera and the super-basic following:

-It’s a lifestyle shoot.
-It’s a location-based shoot.
-I’ll be shooting tethered, if possible.

Beyond that, expect the information flow to focus on what I’m thinking, what gear we’re using and why, my thoughts on image quality, any challenges we might face with software or firmware, successes, hiccups, holy sh*ts, etc, etc. You get the picture. For the next four days.

Lastly, please keep in mind that I’m not a camera reviewer, a talking head, or a tech geek. I’m a photographer. In full disclosure, this isn’t a Nikon thing. Yes, they sent me the camera. Yes I’m a Nikon Master (whatever that means) but this is not their idea, they actually have no idea what I’m doing with it. Just something new that I thought might be interesting. Or it could suck. But let’s give it the ol’ college try.

Starting immediately. As in we leave to location and begin pre-light at 11am PST, in 7 minutes. Woot!
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Songs For Eating and Drinking #2.0 – Hip Hop

By on January 23, 2009

You know the Songs for Eating and Drinking project I’ve got going with my buddy Hebb. (If not, check here.)

Long story short, we followed up our foiled attempt to get to our Portland S.F.E.A.D two weeks ago, with a night I’ll never forget. Last Saturday, after a year in the making and some gracious help from our beloved Sabzi, we were able to briefly unite Seattle’s once-underground-but-now-erupting hip-hop community–at a dinner table set for 50–for a humble evening of lamb stew, a French red, and a tidal wave of raw and intimate performances. I was awestruck. The Seattle paper, The Stranger, wrote:

“Last week I saw something incredible. Jake One, DV One, Tha Stahi Bros, Fatal Lucciauno, Spaceman, the Saturday Knights, Grayskul, Cancer Rising, Nite Owls, J.Pinder, Dyme Def, GMK, Blue Scholars, Grynch, Macklemore, Common Market, Piece, the Physics, Mad Rad, and others all sat in a room, ate a crackin’-ass dinner, drank like fuckin’ fish, and gave a series of short, intimate, straight-up-thrilling performances. It was definitely one of the favorite experiences I’ve had since being involved in music—and this is coming from someone who got to fucking meet Marvin Gaye…”

With 4 HD video cameras rolling, 10 channels of audio into the board, Nikon digis ripping frames at high ISO, and an old Hasselblad winding through some Delta 3200, we shared in the evening and captured the evening to share it. And we will continue pour it out for the coming weeks.

Enjoy the a-capella performance above delivered by Geologic of Blue Scholars (turn your ears down if you’re sensitive to the occasional f-bomb), hit the jump to see the full post, another video featuring Macklemore‘s Air Jordans, lots of still photos, and a sneak peak behind the scenes. [click 'continue reading' below]
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And here’s a few still images from the evening:


Grynch, backlit.


Mad Rad, screaming mad.


Vitamin D drops knowledge.


RA Scion of Common Market.

and here’s a link to 100 more still images from the evening, plus behind the scenes and pre-production.

In case you care, here’s how we captured the visuals…

Cameras video: 4 Canon XHA-1′s
Cameras digital still: Nikon D3
ISO: 3200
Cameras film still: Hasselblad 503cm
Film: Ilford Delta 3200
Approximate ambient exposures for both still cameras: f4, 1/60
Lighting: candles + mix of Lowel and Arri spots with barn doors

Stay tuned here and at the Songs for Eating and Drinking site for additional performances added weekly. There’s some seriously cool shiznit coming down the pipe from this evening.

[Here's another 100 images from S.F.E.A.D. #1.0 featuring performers from Pearl Jam, Head Like a Kite, Arthur & Yu, and others.]
[Original blog post about S.F.E.A.D.]

A Barometer For Change In Photography And Video

By on January 20, 2009

The images surrounding the first African American US President, Barack Obama, will indisputably be an important part of the historical record of our country, and, likely, the world. I believe it’s this new era of photography–both in the creation of images and how they are spread–that has brought us a more interesting, diverse, and never-before-experienced range of images and access to them.

And setting campaign platforms aside, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to examine the images of the new President and their distribution as an example–or indicator–of the breadth of recent changes in photography. Consider the following:

_Street art + news wire.
A great story behind Jim Young’s (Reuters) image as the launch pad from which street artist Shepard Fairey’s iconic poster was created (NPR piece here).

_Old media turned multimedia.
For example, the NY Times used to be print only. Today you get great multimedia pieces about his victory and slick slideshows about Obama’s People.

_Presidential images not only as historical reference, but as fine art.
Photographer, Callie Shell, documented Obama’s road to the White House and has a reported more than 400,000 images of him. A brilliant selection of these are already being exhibited and sold as fine art by Soulcatcher Studio, a photography gallery in Santa Fe that used to focus on the likes of Ansel Adams, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Bruce Davidson, and Elliott Erwitt.

[Click 'Continue Reading' below for some crazy-ass satellite images, video, and predictions after the jump...]
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_Obama’s YouTube Channel, Flickr stream, Facebook page, and Twitter.
We’re leaving an era where (for legal reasons) both Bill Clinton and George Bush didn’t send a single email throughout their entire presidencies. And now things have changed so quickly that our Commander in Chief has numerous new media outlets for photos and video on a daily, or sometimes, minute-by-minute basis. [here's his YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter]

_Unsuspecting images from the sky.
Did you have any idea that satellite images with half-meter resolution were being collected and shared from today’s ceremony? I didn’t either, but if you visit this GeoEye gallery (free, downloadable, sharable, even high res), it will blow your mind like Google street-view (thanks Martin!).

_You’re pictures.
Phone snaps, Mino vids, you name it; and it’s all getting “out there” fast. The above image was one of a barrage of up-to-the-minute iPhone snaps that my wife Kate–left side of the frame–emailed, tweeted, and Facebooked me from the inauguration today.

And the list probably goes on for miles. But remember this list is not about the new President, it’s about you.

Today these new models act to supplement the more traditional models of newswire, newspaper, magazine, and books; but tomorrow they will almost entirely supplant them.

When you consider these changes have happened essentially between the last inauguration and today’s, that’s a huge pile of change in a short amount of time. Sure, at its essence, image making is still the same: the capturing of images from the world around us into some reproducible medium. But in every way besides its essence, it is very different than ever before.

What some photographers see as peril is seen by other photographers as possibility. If you haven’t already, you should decide how you’re going to view this new era of photography.

Viva la change.

Still More Important Than Photography

By on January 19, 2009

If you’ve watched any videos on this blog, you should watch this one.

Whether you’re observing the holiday from home or the office, I recommend that you turn up your speakers a few clicks, gather some family members, friends, or colleagues together and watch this 17 minute video.

RSS readers can catch the video here.
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Chase Jarvis RAW: [not] Getting To Portland

By on January 13, 2009

You should know that the above video is not my typical video. Sure it’s a Chase Jarvis RAW – the series where I normally show a bunch of behind the scenes footage from a shoot – but this is different because, while this certainly is the backstage of “a shoot,” there are ultimately no models, no cameras, no lighting, no wardrobe or props anywhere to be found in this video. Huh? I understand that sounds weird. If you need these things in your photography videos, I totally understand, but wait for my next vid and don’t watch this one. Seriously. No hard feelings. On the other hand, if you can do without those things, and if you want to share in the less-well-known side of the coin, then please read on, and do watch.

In truth, we just whipped this thing together in about 8 hours. It isn’t at all a video I set out to make initially, but when I realized what it was turning into, I didn’t try to change it either. It deserves to be out there because it’s pretty real and also:

1) it involves personal work, for which I’m a huge advocate. Personal projects–like my Songs for Eating and Drinking project–are deeply important to me and I think they should be to all creatives.

2) much of being a professional photographer is a lot broader than f-stops, megapixels, and lighting mods – the ironic cornerstones of photography vids on the web. The problem solving, the travel, the budget, the will, the pre-production, the art for art’s sake, and having fun while doing all those things actually take up a most of the typical day, yet they’re rarely discussed or explored. This video has peculiar instances of each of those things, and I hope we can now begin to explore them more fully.

3) I’m an advocate of saying yes, and giving a shit and trying, even when it’s sometimes recognizably not in the cards. Stupid? Maybe. But it’s historically yielded good results. I’ve advocated this before in a popular post called To Go Or Not To Go. I suppose this is just an extension of that same idea with a different outcome.

4) There’s a couple great elements of community. First, there’s my crew. I love them. So cool and fun. I’m grateful to have somehow tricked them into working with me. Second. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may know of — or, hell, may even be one of those generous people who responded to — my outrageous requests for private jets just a couple days ago. The funniest part? You made it happen, and that is freaking cool. I wasn’t able to take you up on the offer for a variety of weird reasons, but you made it a possibility. So in a quirky way, this vid is a thank you, thank you too.

So again, you might think this has no place in the behind-the-scenes-photography video realm, but I think it fits just fine.

[Big thanks to Halcyon and Adult Napper for the background beats. King 5 and KEXP? Y’all rule too.]
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Life, Death, and Dinner in 1968

By on January 7, 2009


The year was 1968. My uncle was killed in Vietnam, and this was the camera that he carried into war.

But this isn’t a sad story, nor is it the end of a story, it’s a sort of a cool new beginning–not for my uncle Rick unfortunately, but it is for this little camera.

Enter stage right: Seattle’s largest cultural festival, Bumbershoot. Hundreds of bands, theater, performance, food, it’s a 3 day festival in September. Very cool. Enter stage left: my good friend, renowned food guru Michael Hebb (he’s my partner in our www.songsforeatinganddrinking.com project). Hebb was an artist in residence at this festival, and he chose to do what he does so well – host open dinners for 50 people to share, discuss, and revive ideas. The topic for this series of dinners?…the ideas behind arguably the most revolutionary year in US history (and certainly a huge year worldwide), 1968. And to this dinner, guests were required to bring something to share – a story, a poem, memory, an artifact – from or about 1968 in exchange for this meal that he would prepare. From Hebb:

greetings – you are here at one pot at bumbershoot so that i can feed you – but also so that i can get something from you – the basic request is one of reciprocation – I cook you dinner and you bring me something – it seems to be that this basic exchange is the root of most culture. money is an unfortunate substitution for basic reciprocity – it is silent, and generally rather dirty, “it don’t sing and dance and it don’t walk” – many cultures have (had) great ritual in the matters of the table and the guest/host relationship – the greeks in the classical era were famous for long treatises on the importance of proper exchange – the table was central to this – the collapses of this code often resulted in calamity. take for instance when paris decided to take more than food from the the table of menelaus (he slipped helen of troy into his pocket) the result was the most mythologized war of all time. so don’t steel my woman – I will burn down your village. restaurant tables do not offer this kind of currency. this table was built as a kind of modern agora for an exchange about a very important time – 68 changed our world – I don’t profess to be of high knowledge about this era – this year – in fact I wasn’t even born – but I launched this project to learn about how it came to pass that all the way around the globe thought and ideas turned into action – the world is filled with ideas – and yet the world has arguably never seen as much action as it did in 1968.

As you’ve already guessed, I brought the this little camera to the table along with the story of my uncle’s passing. And I brought it all three nights, along with a handful of Ilford Delta 3200 film, taking a snapshop portrait of every person in attendance, largely total strangers, over their shoulders, in near total darkness. [More story and photos after the jump. Click ‘continue reading’ below...]
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So, aside from this being my uncle’s war camera, the other interesting things about this camera are:
1. It hadn’t seen a roll of film since my uncle’s death in that year of revolution, 1968, and I was keen to change that.
2. The camera is called a “half-frame”, meaning that it takes 35mm film, but takes photos that fill only half of a 35mm frame. As such it gets 72 “portrait” images on a roll.
3. It has presets for 160 and 200 ASA film only.
4. It has a built-in ring flash (can you imagine how stoked David Hobby would be?!)
[Update - turns out it's not a ring flash, but a selenium light meter..]

With that information, I formulated the following plan:
1. I wasn’t going to “check” my work after the first night. I planned to just snapping portraits all three nights and see what I got. I WANTED – was desperately looking for – unique, awkward snapshots of total strangers bonding beautifully, strangely over dinner. Eerie pictures, weird pictures.
2. I couldn’t locate the appropriate power source for the ring flash given the short time between when I tracked down the camera in my family and the event. As such, I was forced to go natural light – when there was none. Hence, I’d shoot 3200 iso, and I’d push it.
3. Since there’s only a single dial on the front of the camera with shutter speeds, aperture, and ISO all on the same dial, I had no idea how to get 3200 thru there “properly”. As such, I decided to shoot a test roll. Since the room was going to be “lit” the same for all three nights, I’d be ok. I just clicked off 35 pictures of the room right when I get in there on the first night. When it came time to process the film, the lab could then “snip” this roll — develop a bunch of different pieces of the film for different lengths of time — and decide what the right development time in the tank would be for the remainder of the “real” rolls.

Well, the plan was a reasonable one. And I got a pile of fascinating, simple, bizarre images from the dark dinner table. They are indeed blurry, weird, old-looking, but cool. And I think they’re cool because of what they recorded and how and why. And now they’re a part of the permanent Bumbershoot festival collection. Here’s a sample:

So I’m looking forward to my new beginning with this weird little camera. Sure I love my iphone, but this is something different. It can’t be used, but it has it’s special place. Here’s a couple more snaps of this neat old camera below, and then a whole lot of pictures from dinner–150 or more. Keep in mind that a lot didn’t turn out. The camera misfired, or people were unrecognizable, or I blew it. Many of these suck beautifully, and some suck poorly. I’m fine with that and hopefully you are too. There’s some well known people tucked in these pictures if you care about that stuff. There’s the good snaps, crap ones and everything indecipherable and in between–the bulk of which can be found at this link here.

I learned a lot about 1968 that weekend from poems, songs and first hand accounts. I learned more deeply what revolution stands for, how it works, and how it fails. And I learned how to shoot this cool little camera. I love the power of the story or the image and a meaningful meal. I hope you enjoy these photos in a not-so-perfect sort of way. They are a slice of a strange and powerful dinner in 2008, of half-frames, and 3200 Ilford Delta film pushed like mad.

UPDATE: posted an online version of a giant print composite (4ft by 7ft) that we’ve made with the images to celebrate this series of evenings. View it in this online gallery here…

[Full gallery of blur, 3 pages long, begins here.]

Cameras Made From Real Human Skulls

By on January 7, 2009

If you follow me on Twitter, you likly already saw this from my morning tweet, but I couldn’t resist posting it here as well. It’s just too unbelievable not to share. This photo (left) is of a functioning 4×5 camera made from aluminum, titanium, brass, silver, gem stones and a genuine 150-year-old human skull.

Seriously.

It seems that the maker of these camera, photographer Wayne Martin Belger is a complete purist and only willing to make his cameras specifically for each photo project in which he engages:

“I don’t see how I would be able to connect with my subject and produce what I want using something made in Germany or Japan. I don’t even own a camera that wasn’t made by me.”

I initially wanted to write Belger off, but after looking at a few interesting pictures and reading more about him, I couldn’t. While it’s not at all my style–or anyone’s style that I know–from a philosophical perspective he makes an interesting point about this and his other pinhole/skull cameras:

“With pinhole, the same air that touches my models can pass through the pinhole and touch the photo emulsion on the film. There’s no barrier between the two…what you get is an unmanipulated, true representation of a segment of light and time.”

Purist or purely nuts?

I don’t need unaltered pictures or the same air that touches my subject to hit my digital sensor, but I have an odd respect for someone who does. A poke around his website for those with an open mind (and a strong stomach) is certainly interesting. Ultimately the cameras he builds and the intention behind his art are more impressive to me than the actual pictures, but arguably the story and the process add considerably to the depth of the art. And Jorg Colberg knows as well as anyone that this begs a much deeper question about art.

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(via notcot)

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