On Audio Slide Shows ...

I love audio slide shows. They are wonderful journalistic creations, able to mix the depth of still images with the power of a subject's voice. I teach all my students how to do them - and they do them well.

The wire services have started to push them out, as well, which is fantastic. There are so many stories that can be told so well this way.

But ... and you knew there was a but ... not all of them succeed. It is not enough to just do one anymore because they are easy to build with programs like SoundSlides. They have to be crafted, they have to be shot for this reason and they need to have a story.

Take, for instance, Brian Synder's foreclosure auction piece on the Reuters site. Snyder, who I've known for 15 years, is an amazing photographer - and the images here prove that. Good variety, strong technical skills and great moments.

But the audio - of one auction, start to finish - doesn't tell us a story and it doesn't match with the photos very well. During our workshop last week, one of our editors was showing me a few audio slide shows his staff had done. Thirty seconds into one of them - one which was beautifully shot - I stopped the player and said I couldn't watch anymore. There was no connection between the photos and the audio. There was no sense of synchronization, there were really good photos AND really good audio, but they weren't working together. The timing of the transitions didn't make any sense. Even the types of transitions didn't make any sense.

It's time we stop playing with audio slide shows and start telling stories with them. It's not enough to say, "Gee whiz, that's cool!" when one finishes watching. You need to have a deeper understanding of the story.

And I feel the same way about video ... when did we decide to abdicate storytelling and just play with technology?

Don't Take my Kodachrome Away

I admit, it's been years since I ran a roll through a camera, but this AP story on whether digital imaging has killed off Kodachrome has me thinking of ordering up a few rolls. 

For you young'uns, if you've never shot a roll of film, once, just once, borrow your parents' (or grandparents') camera and run a roll of Kodachrome 64 through it. Send it off and wait for that little box of magic to come back to you ... so worth it.

Flip Ultra vs. Canon HD

David Pogue at the New York Times pointed this out ... Kirk Mastin, from the University of Washington, shot a story on a Canon high definition camera and a Flip Ultra, then edited them exactly the same way in Final Cut Pro ... and the results are, well, surprising ...

It is not the gear, folks. It is the story.

"7 Bad Habits"

One for everyone - "7 Bad Habits of Digital Photographers."

Passed Along ...

While heading to lunch, one of my colleagues, Dr. Hugh Martin, said one of our shared students came in to class on Monday a little frazzled. Seems she'd spent most of the weekend working on an audio editing project and said, "I now know what an 'um' looks like ..."

60 Ways to Find Inspiration

Over on the Photopreneur blog, they've got a list of 60 things you can do to get inspired.

More on Bokeh

I mentioned this concept of "bokeh" in class the other day - the term for how a lens renders the out-of-focus areas in an image. (I think I likened it to trying to explain to a high school friend why the silence of CDs was important in 1986 ... he kept asking why anyone was paying attention to the time between tracks ...)

ANYWAY ... The Online Photographer has a nice bit up about bad bokeh.

Joel Meyerowitz on Printing

HP has a video on Joel Meyerowitz - shooting and printing for a Paris show. Yes, it's a puff piece for HP, but there's some good information in there and he talks about the creative process.

Filter Ethics

I've been sitting on this one for a while because I'm not sure how I feel about it. Part of me is angry, part annoyed and part ... well, just accepting.

CNN.com posted a video several weeks ago about a Scottish farmer who is refusing to sell his land to Donald Trump. Trump wants to build a golf course, the farmer says his family has lived there for generations and he has everything he wants. Trump claims he's stalling to drive up the price.

Good story, and being of Irish descent I tend to migrate to the little-guy stories like this. While watching the video, though, something didn't seem quite right. I've never been to Scotland, though I've spent time in Ireland. The skies in the video seemed ... very blue. Which was fine, until I noticed this sequence of images. Watch the way the "line" of blue moves.



Based on how the depth of blue never changes as the composition does, I suspect there was either a graduated filter dropped in front of the lens or this was punched up by an editor. Either way, in a news story, I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this.

Thoughts?

Stop Talking About Gear

And start thinking about how to use it better. Ken Rockwell, who has a ton of information on his site about cameras and lenses, wrote a diatribe a while back about why the camera you use doesn't matter. Some of his analogies are weak, but this one always rings true:

We all know how to play the piano: you just press the keys and step on the pedals now and then. The ability to play it, much less the ability to stir emotion in those who hear your playing, is an entirely different matter. Don't presume the most expensive gear is the best. Having too much camera equipment is the best way to get the worst photos.

Nothing has prompted this, but I had bookmarked the page and reread it this morning. Well, maybe that's not true ... I stumbled across a photo of a Makina 67 - a camera I'd never heard of - and have been somewhat fascinated by them for the last few days. If only I had that camera I could do ... what?

I can't answer that. I mean, I have an answer in my head, and maybe I could make a different kind of photo that the average reader would be able to identify. But probably not. (And since they're selling for $1500+ on ebay, I'm not buying one.)

Likewise, when I started shooting football this year I hauled out my 300 mm f/2.8 manual focus lens and 1.4x teleconverter. I bought both of those - used - in 1993. Before every game, my wife listens to me fret about how I really should spend the money and get a newer 300, an AF-S Type II and a new converter. And as I edit, I see where I missed on the focus.

Now, there is a legitimate reason to replace the lens - the helicoids are worn and the focus is a little sloppy at some points. But, you know, my clients aren't complaining. I am, but they aren't.

Would the pictures be better? Hmmm ... maybe there would be a higher percentage of sharper images, but the moments are the same.

Yes, sports is different - shooting Moonrise, Ansel Adams probably had a little more time then I did to catch a flying Ole Miss defender, so that newer lens maybe - maybe - would have made a difference.

Well, now I'm rambling. The idea is the camera doesn't matter as much as any of us think it does. I crave a Leica M8. The Makina 67 looks really sweet. And that new 300 probably would help me make better images. But it's not the lens or camera, it's the eye and brain - exercise those more and your photos will get better.

One Flash, Lots of Effects

Back in February, PhotoshopTV had Joe McNally on talking about using a single strobe for some of his work. Go to the 12:30 mark for his bit, runs about seven minutes.

The Forgotten Lens

Well, hopefully none of the 3710 students have forgotten this lens as each of you was issued one last month ...

Regardless, an interesting treatise on the wonder of the basic 50 mm lens over on Gary Voth's site. I've decided my 24 mm is my standard lens, but have been thinking a second body with a 50/1.4 would be a great walk-around kit. (I learned on a Pentax Spotmatic with a Super-Takumar 50/1.4, though "my" first camera had a Rikenon 50/2.0 on it.)

We just don't talk about image craft enough anymore ... need to do more of that.

Ack!!

Okay, some of you know how much I loved and miss my Leica. It's a great camera, but it is not a camera for amateurs ... even if the amateur happens to be one of the greatest guitar players to ever live ... or a famous celebrity who I wouldn't notice walking down the street if not for her outrageous wardrobe.

Hope that makes your day, too.

Pretensious Pretentions

I have often read the Leica-infused writings of Erwin Puts but a recent post on his site has me thinking I'm done there. He argues that because the workflow in digital is different from the processes involved in silver halide films that digital is not photography.

Baloney.

If that's true, then all those Tri-X shooting masters who switched to Kodachromes stopped being photographers, too, since no one ever did a K-14 process in their cellar.

Call it art, call it journalism, call it precision technical writing, but photography is, at its core, the capturing of a moment and the sharing of it with others. Regardless of the processes involved, a great photograph lets someone who wasn't somewhere experience that moment in some (limited) way. That's it.

The boxes of my father's slides which surround me in my office, waiting to be scanned, are photography as much as the leftover prints from my college newspaper days and the digitized images of my step-kids' first day of school.

How do I know the latter is true? Because I sent them to their grandfather and his one word response was, "Priceless!"

"Caretaking the Rare Glass"

Our friend (I hope he doesn't mind that) David Burnett has a great post on acquiring a new/old lens - and brings up the idea of not owning older gear but merely being the caretaker of it.

I so want a Speed Graphic ... 

The YouTube Aesthetic

Khoi Vinh has a short post on the YouTube Aesthetic - how television commercials are now trying to look more amateurish. 

In a few days, I'll be set up to start scanning old slides again. I've finished my grandfather's collection (well over 6,000 photos) and am about to start my father's. Most of these photos have a lot of family value to them, but I expect to see a marked technical difference. My grandfather shot photos to record his life, as did my dad. But my father was a more technical person - he had a greater level of control over the mechanics of photography, though I'll be interested in studying the aesthetics of his imagery.

Why do I point this out? It used to be that "amateurs" strived to create "professional" type images, whether in stills or home movies. Now, it feels that the general public has given up on exerting a higher level of control over their work and will accept whatever comes out of their cell phones. And the "professionals" are now down-grading their work to match the "user generated" content they see on web sites like YouTube and Google Video.

Is this all about content trumping control? I don't know. If it's a great moment, it's a great moment and you accept the limitations of the photographer or their equipment. But when we have the option to produce high quality content and choose not to ... well, that bugs me a little. 

Open to thoughts.

From the "Why Didn't I Think of That:" Strobe on a Rope

Over at The Strobist, there's a neat way of using what you've got to get better light during outdoor shoots.

And, not to plug Nikon gear any more than necessary, but with my D200 and an SB800 I don't need the synch cord anymore - the D200 has a "commander" mode that will completely control an SB800 or SB600 in manual or TTL mode. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet.

PostHasteScript: Lighting 102 begins today there, too.

Sky Visions

NPR.org has a nice audio slideshow on Michael Collier, an ariel landscape photographer.
The story that aired on Morning Edition has slightly different audio - including the reporter, Howard Berkes, talking about his air sickness patch. Both are worth a few minutes of your time.

NYT Fashion Shoot

Ever wondered how the New York Times does a fashion shoot? Check out this three minute video ...

Don't Delete - So Says Avedon. Sort Of.

If you've sat through one of my classes, you know how paranoid I am. I show up early, I stay late, I have backup gear and escape plans. Need to transmit? I find two or three ways of doing that.

I'm like that.

On top of that, I never delete files. Not at home and, absolutely, never in the field. (Have I told you about the Marine sargent I once had as a student? The day after lecturing the class to never delete an image in the camera, he called me to ask ... how to recover an image he deleted in the camera. So I made this gunnery sargent tell the class what he'd done.)

Anyway, this is a long way of getting to this blog entry about not deleting images by Chase Jarvis (which I found off of John Harrington's blog). I hadn't heard the Avedon story, but I like it.