UPDATE: If you missed our Sarah McLachlan video shoot/performance there’s a re-broadcast of the internet feed here on YouTube. Check it!
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First we kicked off chasejarvisLIVE, then creativeLIVE… so you figured out I really dig this LIVE thing. Well, today, I’m excited to share that I’ve also been working hard with a little coffee company down the street called Starbucks to help bring you StarbucksLIVE. To kick this off, I’m TODAY at 12 noon PDT (3pm NYC time) doing a LIVE photo/video shoot with multi-platinum, Grammy award-winning musician, Sarah McLachlan. Sarah will be performing live from a little nook inside the Starbucks headquarters here in Seattle, and we’ll have a few cameras and a few mics pointed at her.
WHAT YOU’LL SEE: In our typical style, the setting should be pretty relaxed. We’ve set up a baby grand piano, some basic lights and cameras and we’re going to make some great video images while Sarah plays from her new album, Laws of Illusion. Besides Sarah’s beautiful performance, the other thing you’ll see is me and my crew actually working. How bout that. This is the real deal. If you tune in a little early you’ll get to see us Continue Reading →
This may well be the most important behind-the-scenes video we’ve made to date. Not because it’s fancy or sexy, but because it covers arguably the most essential information on a set of topics that every photo and video person should understand: workflow, storage and backup of your precious images. This video covers all the ins and outs, the theory and the details of our complete photo and video workflow from capture to archive and everything in between. So whether you’re a seasoned pro, an aspiring amateur, or just starting out in photography or video we’ve worked hard to make this worth your time.
While there is no “right” digital workflow, ours has been shaped in the professional environment over the past 10 years. More importantly the techniques we use, the gear, the methodology, everything discussed herein been time tested and entirely scalable depending on budget, experience and where you’re at personally in photography and video, wheter you’ve got millions of images or just hundreds. Ultimately, this is a template, a summary of our experience piled into one video and one blog post. Photography, video, and filmmaking are my passions, but they’re also my livelihood, so–as you’d imagine–I take workflow, storage and backup solutions very seriously.
There are, of course, a number of ways to do this stuff, but several key concepts remain consistent no matter what your level of experience. In recent years, workflow, storage and backup has probably been the most requested topic I’ve been asked to cover…and rightly so. It’s important. While I generally don’t actively ask, I’m going with a different approach on this one. Since I’m hoping to re-ignite the dialogue on this entire subject, I would love for you to embed, share, retweet, re-post or share this with your friends. Arguably these principles–especially the parts on storage and backup of data, apply to everyone, not just us photogs. It’s my goal that this becomes a living reference, a launchpad for further discussions on this sorta nerdy–but important–topic. I fully expect there to be questions, counterpoints, and alternative views. It’s all welcome. The comments section of this post will be another place for great information and discussion.
In addition to the video above, there’s a HUGE RESOURCE of written workflow and backup after the jump. You’ll find additional images, a downloadable pdf, even B&H links to all our workflow gear after the jump, so please dig in… Continue Reading →
95% of the gear I use to create high-end advertising images, videos, and commercials is the highest end stuff you can buy. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment and production often comes together for much of the commercial work you see. This gear all serves its purpose, and there’s good reason for every single piece of it, but….
PROBLEM: I understand that, for a huge cross section of this community, this high end gear is completely outta reach. You probably don’t own a RED camera or a fleet of Nikon D3s’. You don’t have Fisher dollies and and a Digital Asset Manager to wrangle your data after every shot. So, for a long time, one request that’s regularly come up from this community is, that when I get the rare chance, to please feature some mid range or lower end gear, some more DIY solutions, and some ways to keep things on the cheaper side while still getting cool results.
SOLUTION: Not long ago, I shot the launch campaign for SanDisk’s new line of Extreme Pro cards, and SanDisk was kind enough to let me share the “making-of” that campaign, with tweets, Facebook posts and daily videos while I was creating the work. Was the first time anything like that had been done, and it was a blast. Well, we’re back at it and just wrapped another campaign for SanDisk (images will be sprinkled throughout summer and fall). No play by play this time, but there’s another interesting twist: It was part of my assignment to shoot images with a wide range of cameras and cards for them–from point and shoot cameras with standard cards, all the way to the top of the line Nikon gear with the Extreme Pro cards, and lots in between. Totally unique approach. SanDisk were again cool with me making a behind the scenes video, and this time they even provided me with a a clean slate and some vid budget to do what I wanted. So I figured, what a perfect time to deliver on a long standing wish to marry a wide range of gear with some inexpensive and effective DIY solutions to get some cool and unique photos and to manage data. That said, we baked that down into the above video, and I’m happy to present ChaseJarvis RAW: 12 Tasty Photo + Video Tips. If you’re a pro, this vid won’t make you salivate, but if you’re an aspiring shooter, you just might pick up a thing or two that could unlock your next great picture or video.
AND: I’d be remiss for not thanking SanDisk for again backing my desire to share the black box of photography with this community. Big ups to those guys. And I’d also be remiss if I didn’t let you know that they’ve got a contest going on right now, giving away several thousand bucks to inspire your best summer shots. Check it out.
Lots of behind-the-scenes photos, some snapshots, and…alert for gear freaks…and entire gear list after the jump Continue Reading →
Whew! What a week it was last week… Last Wednesday, I brought pal and photog instructor guru Zack Arias into my studio for another episiode of chasejarvisLIVE. We chatted photography for 2 hours and took questions from the live Twitter audience via #cjlive. Was a blast. While about 20,000 of you caught the interview LIVE–it seemed like I got at least that many tweets/emails/fbook requests to post it again here on the blog, so… As you wish. Here ’tis.
From there, we shipped Zack and his crew into our creativeLIVE studio where he put on one heckuva studio lighting course all day Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully you saw the interwebs booming, especially with the @creativeLIVE and #askzack tags. I’m pretty sure Zack swiped some ratings from the World Cup. Or at least we had fun trying. I wanted to give a huge shoutout to Zack and his team for an amazing effort. You guys and gals nailed it. Also a shoutout also to all the manufacturers that kicked in gear for Zack to give away, as well as uber thanks to B&H Photo Video for their support of the creativeLIVE studio and G-Technology for keeping our gobs and gobs of data safe. They support us, please support them. I hope lots of you tuned in. And if you didn’t but wished you had, the course is available for download here.
While I’ve got you, I wanted to ask for your feedback. Not somebody else’s…YOURS. In the comments below, we’re looking to find out a few things with the goal of making creativeLIVE the best it can be. Tell us whatever you want, but please help us by answering some or all of the following particulars about our LIVE, free, worldwide creative education platform:
1. What makes the creativeLIVE approach different, better, worse? How does our class format compare to others?
2. Where do you live? We want to understand the breadth of our audience with the comments on this post. Where are you from, and when are you watching the LIVE feed?
3. Does this live worldwide format really work? This is the important part. What does the experience feel like to you? Can you help describe this format to someone who’s never seen it? Continue Reading →
Controversial? Perhaps. But I love it. From the New York Times:
The project, called YouTube Play and conceived as a biennial event, is intended to discover innovative work from unexpected sources. It is open even to entrants who don’t consider themselves artists, and actively encourages the participation of people with little or no experience in video. “People who may not have access to the art world will have a chance to have their work recognized,” said Nancy Spector, deputy director and chief curator of the Guggenheim Foundation. “We’re looking for things we haven’t seen before.”
Remember when I did the original chasejarvisLIVE photo shoot way back in winter? If you recall, I was shooting the album cover image for alt/punk country band Brent Amaker and the Rodeo. We also did post production and editing on the images LIVE as well a few weeks after the shoot. Well now it’s time to print these suckers on a limited edition run of vinyl and there is somewhat of a debate on which image is better.
Simply put, and with no further explanation, I thought I’d ask for your thoughts. So which is better, A or B?
Vote in the comments. Also love to know ‘why’ if you care to explain. 500 px wide images after the jump…
[ also, reminder that if you like music and you like chasejarvisLIVE, I'm hosting rising hip hip star RA Scion (of Common Market and Victor Shade) TODAY in 90 minutes at 10:30 pacific/1:30 eastern (GMT - 8). Interview with RA and Village Voice/Time Out/Stranger cultural critic Charles Mudede, plus RA performs LIVE at the end of the show. Hope to see you http://www.chasejarvis.com/live today....] Continue Reading →
I’m pumped to bring two new episodes of chasejarvisLIVE to your desktop this week. I hope you’ll tune in to join me.
First, tomorrow I’ll be hosting my good friend, one-light guru, photo instructor, and the best beard around: Zack Arias. We’re bringing Zack to Seattle for his creativeLIVE workshop, and I’m stealing an hour of his time before hand to talk shop in my studio. Think Barbara Walters meets Jon Stewart meets Photography (meets the Sesame Street?). You, me, Zack, and worldwide photography audience just rapping in a casual environment. This will be a great chance to have your photography questions answered and get to know Zack better. We’ll be taking any/all questions online via twitter at hashtag #cjlive.
What: Chase Jarvis Hosts Zack Arias on chasejarvisLIVE Where: just visit http://www.chasejarvis.com/live When: Wednesday, June 9th (that’s tomorrow/today depending on where you live)
1:30 – 3:00 pm west coast PDT (that’s -8 GMT)
Second, when I think of what’s influenced my creativity, right behind my personal experience it’s no doubt been popular culture. Music, culture, fashion, art, food, etc. Just recently I snapped awake in the middle of the night and said to myself, “Damn, I know some amazing people, why don’t I do a better job sharing them with the world? So I’ve set out to supplement all the photoshoots and behind-the-scenes rhetoric at chasejarvisLIVE with as many of my culturally relevant friends as possible–some underground, some popular some of whom you’ll know, some you won’t. But all of whom have impressive backgrounds by any measure.
If this is of interest, tune in this Thursday (day after Zack, above) where I’ll host two fascinating cultural legends: the amazing RA Scion (MC of the acclaimed Common Market) and the renowned writer, filmmaker and cultural critic Charles Mudede. In a casual but evocative round table Continue Reading →
I wish I had a better plan, but I’m trying to make a film about the world right now through my eyes. I’m trying to use some of this technology we have right now, like our cinema truck and our snowmobile systems and our helicopter systems, to tell the story of the world today in a different way. -Curt Morgan
What do you get when you get when you combine some military spec gyro stabilization with a CineFlex and Phantom HD camera, a filmmaker turned ‘tech geek’, some great athletes or perhaps even a mountain goat or two? You get some damn sweet footage. Learn more about Curt Morgan and Brain Farm in this vid above, and check out more great stories on fascinating creative minds at The Creator’s Project.
Anybody got a credit card they’re hip to me hammering with about $350,000?
There’s some fun and evocative smack talking going on over at Uproxx.com that caught my attention:
“Granted, some of this is entirely the fault of the indie film scene itself, which is always rife with idiocy, and these days is basically celebrating incompetence because competence is just too Hollywood, man. The hot movement, mumblecore, seriously got its name from the fact that the filmmakers lacked the technical competence to point a microphone at an actor’s mouth. And “The Room” and “Birdemic” are epic train wrecks well beyond just your standard bad movie, although they’re still better than anything the mumblecore movement craps out.
But that’s the thing. You no longer need technical competence to achieve the two main goals of indie filmmaking: getting into the pants of disaffected hot people, or making boatloads of cash. And this is both a great thing and a problem.”
The article changes tone later in the piece to basically read “don’t get me wrong, there’s gonna be a lot of good stuff to watch, but you’ll just have to wade through the bad…” But I say too little too late – it’s tough to claim both sides of the fence.
You know what else I say? I say bring it on. You know why I say it? Because we have to.
I’m bored with the industry rhetoric around keeping something like film making “pure”. It Continue Reading →
Seems like every week I’m reading another story of the rights of photojournalists getting stomped on. Today, no exception. In this Virginia case, the cops seized unpublished photos from the James Madison University newspaper using a search warrant that violates journalist’s privilege under the First Amendment, the Virginia Constitution and common law.
“The settlement ends a month-and-a-half long debate over the photos, which began when someone from the prosecutor’s office called the student newspaper a few days after the riot and asked for copies of unpublished photos. The Breeze staff declined to do so, citing the journalist’s privilege under the First Amendment, the Virginia Constitution and common law, according to the settlement. The prosecutor’s office also contacted the university’s director of judicial affairs and general counsel, who declined to intervene, according to Garst’s statement. The next day, Garst received a search warrant for “all electronic devices” that are “on the premises or possessed or owned or leased or used by ‘The Breeze’ or by any of its employees, agents or members,” so they could obtain photos, videos or other images recorded that weekend, according to a copy of the warrant. Garst and a number of plainclothes officers then executed the warrant…” -Washington Post
Turns out that somebody at the prosecutors office realized this was a no-no. The Washington Post reports Continue Reading →
Yes, I know you’re a master of lighting, that you’ve used every light modifier known, that you’ve been going to PhotoPlus for ten years, that you were one of the first bloggers, you used Twitter before it was cool and you can gauge light temperature in your sleep. Yes, I know that you sit in front of your computer reminding other photographers that they’re using the wrong gear for this job or that job.
But what have you made? Where are your pictures hanging? Where are your campaigns? Your commercials? What about your new book or your portfolio? What have you done with your skills that has been worthy of criticism, that moved the dial and that changed the world?
Go, do that.
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The above is a slightly modified cut and paste from this Seth Godin post to make it more relevant for our own industry. Seth is a wizard. We all need a kick in the rear. Let this be yours.
UPDATE: If you missed our Sarah McLachlan video shoot/performance there’s a re-broadcast of the internet feed here on YouTube. Check it!
