Photo Technique

variations on the photographic arts

Kenneth Josephson’s Legendary Camera Work

A. D. Coleman

Master of Romanticism

Kevin Then Fast Track Photos of Race Car Photographer Jesse Alexander CHRISTY LEE ROGERS Underwater Magic ARAS KARIMI Light in the Abstract JAMEY STILLINGS The Bridge at Hoover Dam Creating a Photo Essay

David Vestal Dover’s History Part IV May/June 2011

Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller Texture Masking Uli Staiger Extreme Fantasy Collage

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Due to the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and resulting tsunami that struck on March 11 and the subsequent nuclear disaster, northern Japan is facing a crisis of huge proportions on every level imaginable. imaginable. The devastation has taken the lives of more than 10,000 people and continues to affect millions more. These include our many friends and colleagues involved in every aspect of the photographic industry whose offices and equipment manufacturing plants were located in the devastated area. Let our hearts and hands reach out to offer assistance by supporting any one of a number of relief efforts for Japan.

The Japanese Red Cross has a highly organized effort in place. The international community can also offer assistance through a number of relief organizations that include: Volunteer Center for International Disaster Information www.cidi.org/individuals/6-volunteering-after-a-disaster Make a Donation The American Red Cross 1-800-RED-CROSS American Red Cross PO Box 4002018 Des Moines, IA, 50340-2018 United States www.redcross.org

To find a list of many other relief efforts for the Japan Tsunami, visit InterAction’s website at www.interaction.org/crisis-list



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Portfolios

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16

An Interview with Kevin Then: Redefining High-End Wedding Weddin g Photography

Getting up to speed with a legendary racecar photographer

A Hasselblad Master shares images and techniques of his romantic style

Chuck Graham

Paul Schranz

Commentary 4

23

Duncan Beebee

Photographs that define visual thought

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Perspectives 8

David Vestal

Journey to the Bridge: the Story of “The Bridge at Hoover Dam” Photo Essay Taking a major photographic project from concept through execution

Dover’s History Trip Part IV The final installment of a series in which David Vestal gives insight into historic photographs selected from Great Photographs from Daguerre to the Great Depression

Christy Lee Rogers: Speed of Light Rogers’ images of underwater figures in a neo-baroque fantasy

Photographic Seeing: the Camera Work of Kenneth Josephson A. D. Coleman

Jesse Alexander: Iconic Images of Motor Racing’s Heyday from a Master Photographer

Jamey Stillings

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Light in Air Images by an Emerging Photographer Aras Karimi



EDITOR’S NOTE: May/June 2011

Vol. 32 No. 3

Publisher S. Tinsley Preston III

Intellect, Imaginat ion, Passion and Solving Proble P roblems ms

Editor Paul R. Schranz Creative Director Lisa Cordova Copy Editor Bonnie Schranz

Photography has never been a game of f-stops and shutter speeds any more than the colors in a dig ital photograph are numbers of red, green and blue. All of these are merely numbers, and like any mathematician can t estify, numbers are a way to solve problems—a way to see a pattern of action. I remember many years ago Ansel Adams Ad ams had a book out on photographing Yosemite Yosemite with dates of the year, times of day and filters to be used carefully noted. And yet, armed with this th is information, no one has ever photographed photographed “The Great Earth Gesture of the High Sierras” the way that Adams did—even with knowing all the numbers. That is because numbers become useless in tr ying to make ma ke a photograph look like someone else’s. else’s. Not that that t hat pursuit is a very high one. We We need a greater g reater aspiration to use our tools, our chemistr y, our our physics to realize our passion and our vision. These are tools of the intellect. In this issue, we unconsciously put together photographers who find their vision in a wide array of environments. Kevin Then doesn’t just photograph weddings, he creates true romantic narratives. Christy Rodgers works in an underwater studio for her vision, while Aras Karimi works in the air, photographing the light itself. Jamey Stillings shows the jewel-like delicacy of industrial design and Uli Staiger creates believable architectural fantasy collages from concepts in his mind. Bettina and Uwe Steinmueller add new depth to imagery through th rough creative textures from unexpected sources. There is passion, but there is also expanded intellect in finding un ique vision. photo technique attempts technique attempts to show a new and wider vision of what photography can do. It reaches around the globe globe to find photographers in pursuit of passion and vision using any and a nd all means possible and solving their own unique set of challenges and problems in achieving their imager y. But this spark of passion and v ision is not new. new. Our history is rich in it, it , which leads us to also offer historical remembrance that higher vision has always been this medium’s goal, as shown in the photography of racecar photographer Jesse Alexander, in A. D. Coleman’s piece on the legendary Kenneth Josephson, and in the final installment of David Vestal’s thoughtful look into photographic history histor y. We also want to draw attention to our Innovations−an array of products that have a vision of their own, drawing us into the future of the photographic medium and the industry that supports its journey toward new ideas and directions.

Production Roberta Knight Marketing Manager Janice Gordon Online Content Coordinator Bree Lamb Project Manager Norma Vechot Newstand Distribution Curtis Circulation Company 730 River Road, New Milford, NJ 07646-3048 201-634-7400 Fax: 201-634-7499 Retail Distribution 6600 W. Touhy Ave., Niles, IL 60714-4516 847-647-2900 Advertising Sales Manager Roberta Knight [email protected] ______________ List Rental Rickard List Marketing Gerald Petrocelli 631-249-8710 x 118 Subscription Service NCS Fulfillment Inc. P.O. Box 567, Selmer, TN 38375 Subscriptions: U.S. - 1 Yr/$29.99; Yr/$29.99; 2 Yr/$49.99 Yr/$49.99;; 3 Yr/$69.99 Yr/$69.99 For new subscriptions, renewals or change of address call 866-295-2900 or email at [email protected]. __________________

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Paul Schranz, Editor photo technique magazine

bimonthly by Preston Publications, Div. Preston Industries, Inc., 6600 W. Touhy Ave., Niles, IL 60714-4516. Periodicals postage paid at Chicago, IL and additional mailing ng offices. Copyright Copyright 2011; reproduction without permission strictly prohibited. Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40030346 Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Station A, P.O. P.O. Box 54, Windsor, ON N9A 6J5 email: [email protected]. ______________ PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. by St. Croix Press Inc.



News 21

What’s Important and Exciting in the Field of Photography: Books Memorials Workshop Wendy Erickson

Innovations 38

Promote Control A full featured time machine

pg. 12

I.P.S Inflatable Photo Studio Portable controlled lighting

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The Digital Silver Darkroom The new-fashioned route to real black and white prints

PocketWizard: AC9 Strobe Adapter & AC3 ZoneContro ZoneController ller PocketWizard expands control of portable flashes and studio strobes

Tech 12

Phantastomaniac: Building a Phantastomaniac: Complex Photo Collage Steps to building a fantastic assemblage with Photoshop and Cinema 4D Uli Staiger

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The Art of Texture Blending: Photography Beyond Realism Textures transform images from dull to dynamic Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller

pg. 38

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COMMENTARY:

Polapan

Photographic Photograp hic Seeing: The Camera Work of Kenneth Josephson A. D. Coleman A bare suspended lightbulb illuminates four black & white Polaroid prints of images of (presumably) that same lightbulb, taped to a wall. The reflection of a French mountain range in the roof of a car appears to sprout an actual rock formation. Another car, in Stockholm, leaves a perfect silhouette of its profile in a dusting of snow on the pavement. A crouching woman, mostly obscured by a little girl, makes a close-up portrait of the girl’s face with an amateur camera. Attached to a black & white print of that image with family album-style photo corners is a second print, presumably of the image made by the woman at that moment, showing the child apparently reaching for the woman’s camera.

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photo technique M/J 2011



THE CAMERA WORK OF KENNETH JOSEPHSON A. JOSEPHSON A. D. COLEMAN

Stockholm

A black & white Polaroid photograph photog raph of a naked woman’s pelvic area lies atop the dark dress of (presumably) that same woman, positioned in her pelvic area. A hand holds a postcard image of the summer palace in Drottningholm, Sweden, taken in the warm weather, while the owner of hand and postcard confront the same vista in the winter.

Kenneth Josephson’s photographic works do not reduce well (or at all) to t o words. In that way, among others, they distinguish themselves from most conceptual photography and photo-based art, which often starts from an articulated art iculated or written premise and can equally often find satisfactory sat isfactory summation in words to which the images, uninteresting in and of themselves, serve as mere illustration or demonstration. Concept dictates percept. Josephson’s work functions otherwise. His images fall somewhere between the visual puns of René Magritte and the elliptical, labyrinthine conundrums of Jorge Luis Borges. He shares with both a spare, stripped-down aesthetic, a fascination with layers and an inclination toward the recursive and self-reflexive. His pictures begin as optical

experience, to which he then applies analytical consciousness. What his photography exemplifies one might define as visual thought, in which percept embodies concept. The quarter-century between the end of World War II in 1945 and 1970 remains a particularly fertile period in the history of photography, and surely the least closely studied and most misunderstood. Kenneth Josephson’s oeuvre exemplifies lif ies the fecundity and complexity of the medium medium’ s field of ideas during that era; his elaboration of them down to the present day demonstrates the durability and substance of the questions he and others began asking—and answering, at least provisionally— provisio nally— as they explored the medium. That Josephson has only recently begun to become securely positioned in the histories histor ies of photography, photography, conceptual art, and photo-based art speaks to his decision to inhabit a largely unmapped territory in the decades between then and now. The several generations of photographers who came of age and entered the field committedly in the United States during those 25 years constituted the first cohort to engage with their medium in the

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COMMENTARY:

Josephson studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology in a program headed by Minor White, whose ideas (evolved from Edward Weston and others) augmented those of MoholyNagy, and whose teaching method proved no less committed committ ed to a questioning of the medium, though from a very different standpoint. He went on to do graduate work at the Institute of Design itself, under Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. One can see clearly the imprint of all three of these mentors on Josephson; some of his early pictures resonate as homages to them even as they extend his precursors’ lines of inquiry. Yet by the end of the 1960s Josephson had come fully into his own, generating images that looked nothing nothing at all a ll like theirs. Anissa, Chicago

college, university and art-institute context. More than a few of them learned their craft much as photographers had done for the previous century: autodidactically, from a hobbyist relative, by apprenticeship in various applied modes, in vocational courses in the military, milita ry, via the avuncular amateurs who populated the still-thriving camera-club network. But the combination of the G.I. Bill and the postwar economic boom in the U.S., which poured funding into i nto the higher-education system, created an unprecedented opportunity−seized by many— through which one could opt for formal study of photography in either the polymedia environment of the art school or the interdisciplinary milieu of the liberal-arts college. Whichever alternative one chose, at that juncture in this country the curriculum most likely li kely derived derived from the model devised by László Moholy-Nagy in pre-Nazi Germany and transplanted by him in 1937 from the Weimar Bauhaus to Chicago’s Institute of Design as Europe lurched toward catastrophe. Moholy-Nagy believed in laying out the entire toolkit of the medium for students, requiring them to experiment with and master numerous approaches thereto thereto and conside considerr it infrastructural i nfrastructural ly ly.. He also emphasized photography as an ideational process, and taught that the raw material with which the photographer worked was not the physical stuff of the “real world ” but light itself. Moholy-Nagy’s pedagogy became the foundation on which post-secondary photography education in North America got built. Not coincidentally,

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The term “photographic seeing ” had considerable currency in the discourse around photography during that phase. As a catchphrase, photographic seeing sought to pinpoint two significant distinctions−the first between the habits of everyday looking and the active observational process of seeing, the second between seeing as one does with one’s own alert eyes and mind and seeing with the concomitant awareness of how camera, lens, film and then photographic processing and printing could translate that reflected light into marks embedded in (most commonly, in those days) particles of tarnished silver on emulsioncoated sheets of paper. Which is to say that these photographers−those who studied it, those who taught it and those who then (like Josephson) went on to practice and/or teach it in turn−did not have a naïve, uncritical, theory-less relationship to their medium. Nor did they do their work in ignorance of what other image-makers past and present pursued in other media, or oblivious to the artistic and cultural ferment that characterized their own time. To the contrary: they engaged fully and deliberately deliberately with photography on both a perceptua perceptuall and interpretive basis, aware of its history and field of ideas but not constrained thereby, devoting themselves to the evolution of a relationship to the medium mediu m that took for granted its necessary existence within what one of their number, Carl Chiarenza, proposed as “an integrated history of picture-making.” No photographic body of work created in the second half of the 20th century centur y better demonstrates




THE CAMERA WORK OF KENNETH JOSEPHSON A. JOSEPHSON A. D. COLEMAN

Drottningholm, Sweden

these concerns than that of Kenneth Josephson− although none, of course, can represent by itself the breadth and complexity of the medium’s field of ideas in that era. Like that of his close friend, the late Robert Heinecken, Josephson's project with its implicit challenges and provocations has reverberated in the awareness of photographers and others since it commenced its public life. These images of Josephson’s, individually and cumulatively, do not ignore or deny the existence of the “real world”; instead, they insistently address the act of photographic picture-making as a means of knowing that world, requiring of maker and viewer alike an attention to the implications of that act, to the technological process that enables it and to the light that makes ma kes it possible in the first place. Photography as a creative medium and a respectable tool for picture-makers of all kinds can be said to have entered the marketplace for art and the field of ideas of art-making activity circa 1970. At that juncture, hardly any critics of art knew anything at all about the history (including the intellectual history) of photography or the

activities of this medium’s practitioners and few have taken the trouble since then to inform themselves on that score. Photography commands center stage in the global art environment as we move into the 21st Century, but the “integrated history of picture-making ” remains unwritten. Unquestionably, however, within that hypothetical account still to come, Kenneth Josephson ’s name and accomplishment have already been inscribed and extensively annotated. © Copyright 2011 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. By permission of the author and Image/World Syndication Services, ___________________ [email protected]. Ken Josephson’s images are presented with the permission of the Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, IL. ______________ stephendaitergallery.com A. D. Coleman has published eight books and more than 2,000 essays on photography and related subjects. His work has been translated into 21 languages and published in 31 countries. Coleman's widely read blog “Photocritic International” appears at photocritic.com. Since 2005, exhibitions that he has curated have opened at museums and galleries in Canada, China, Finland, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and the U.S. In 2010 he received the J Dudley Johnston Award from the Royal Photographic Society (U.K.) for “sustained excellence in writing about photography.”

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PERSPECTIVES:

117.. Wright Brothers Postcard , 1915, by Unknown Photographer (cut-and-paste collage, airplane added to Main Street photo) 117

Dover’’s Hist Dover Histor oryy Trip - Part IV David Vestal This is the final installment of a series in which David Vestal gives insight into historic photographs selected from Great Photographs from Daguerre to the Great Depression, published by the Dover Press and used with their permission.

117. Wright Brothers Postcard , by Unknown Photographer, gra pher, 191 1915. 5. This is a booster postcard postc ard promoting the wonders of Springfield, Minnesota. It is a good cut-and-paste job, a bucolic equivalent to the montages of avant-garde art photography. It’s well calculated to get our attention, but would not have fooled Sherlock Holmes.

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“Observe, Watson, the direction of the sun, as shown by light and shadows on Main Street. The sun is directly to the left, is it not? Look now at the lower wing of the airplane. The shadow of the upper wing that is seen through the lower wing’s translucent tip shows that for Wright’s Flyer, the sun was above and behind. We do not have two suns that shine shi ne simultaneously from different different positions in the sky. Ergo, the airplane was cut from another photograph and pasted onto the picture of the street. And what, pray, is an airplane, vintage circa 1909, doing just above the main drag of an alert community that boasts, ‘Wide awake and up




DOVER'S HISTORY TRIP PART IV DAVID VESTAL

118. Bucks County Barn , 1916, by Charles Sheeler

to date/No better town in any state’ in the year 1915? We miss, do we not, the large, dramatic shadow of the airplane that would fall, were this scene wholly wholly natural, upon the street and buildings at the right of the picture.” “Once again, Holmes, you astound me.” “Elementary, my dear Watson.” Nice postcard, though. 118. Bucks County Barn , by Charles Sheeler, 1916. When this photo was taken in rural rura l Pennsylvania, Sheeler had lived for some time in an old stone house and had photographed and painted the whitewashed rooms and stairway of that house. He was well acquainted with old farm buildings in Bucks County. I don’t know of any painting paint ing by him based on this photograph, photogra ph, but would would be surprised surpris ed to

find that he made none. Some of his best drawings and paintings are almost exact copies of his own photographs, cleaned up and, in some areas, made more visible by changing the tones. Except for a large and lucrative lucra tive job photographing photographin g Ford’s Ford’s River Rouge factory in the late 1920s, he made his living mostly from the sale of his paintings. He was a two-medium man. He would have liked to exhibit his photos together with his paintings, but his otherwise excellent art dealer talked him out of it. She wished he would quit photographing and stick to the painting that she understood. This photo certainly stands on its merit and makes me wonder about any paintings that he might, correction, may may have made from it, cleaning it up, making things more visible, eliminating clutter. In many cases, though not all, I prefer his photos to his paintings and drawings based on them.

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PERSPECTIVES:

121.. Armco Steel , Ohio, 1922, by Edward Weston 121

Photography records the small accidental things that go a little wrong and lend conviction to a picture. Judging from his other work, the matching paintings, if he made any, would be more impressive, while the photograph is more true. 121. Armco Steel, Ohio , by Edward Weston, 1922. At the beginning of his photographing, Edward Weston was a kidna kidnapper, pper, as old-time photographers called those who went from door to door begging to photograph babies and small children. It was a selling job as much as a photographic one. But soon he graduated to the kind of artistic photography practiced by camera club kings. He did extremely well at that and won all kinds of medals and ribbons. In an old photo annual I saw a photograph, copyright 1914 by Edward Henry Weston, that I could not forget. Titled Toxophilus , it is in part a

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125.. Prostitute , 1920s, by Eugène Atget 125

beautiful soft-focus photograph of a eucalyptus tree in a mist; but at its foot is an unintentionally comical young man with a bow and arrow. It’s a very funny photo. Weston then met wise women who had a real grasp of art, and he learned and learned. By 1922 he was making good unsentimental photographs like this one. When he went to New York in the 1920s he showed some Armco Steel pictures, among others, to Alfred Stieglitz, who was encouraging. Weston was not impressed by the interview. He said that Stieglitz had given the most praise to pictures that he, Weston, had outgrown—the ones that were “striving for effect.” He liked words like “strive;” still, that was a good self-critical observation. And this photo, which has no need to str ive, is excellent. 125. Prostitute , by Eugène Atget, 1920s. Probably dry plate and gold-toned gold-toned printing-out printing -out paper: Atget




DOVER'S HISTORY TRIP PART IV DAVID VESTAL

was old-fashioned. Title by Dover, fairly likely true. Berenice Abbott captioned this picture rue Mouffetard , but according to later scholarship, that was the wrong street. To me this is a marvelous picture, though I can’t tell why, so I’d better leave it at that. Imagine putting those boots on; and the almost vertical pavement at the left is amazing: good thing it’s fenced off. The place has an air of very rich decay. The woman seems at home and content. 131. Allie Mae Burroughs, wife of Floyd Burroughs , by 131 Walker Evans, 1936. I don’t know what Fortune , a magazine of and for big business, was thinking of when they sent Walker Evans and James Agee to Alabama in 1936 to photograph and write about sharecroppers, but unless I am dreaming, it happened that way. Evans took leave from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to go on that trip with Agee. Fortune , of course, did not print their story, and Evans and Agee later combined their work in a book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men , that was published with just 31 uncaptioned photos and a long, meandering text, to very few sales, in 1941. The Alabama photographs, of which this is one, are in the FSA files in Washington, D.C., and like all al l FSA photos, they’re in the public domain. Anyone can publish them, no permission needed. The book worked out pretty well, though not at first. Later it was reprinted with more photos and sold better. I suppose the fir first st edition must go for real money at auction, now that its authors are dead. Your price goes up when you die.

131.. Allie Mae Burroughs, wife of Floyd Burroughs , 1936, by Walker Evans 131

and starting over, learning the picture, but not with any certainty, until it became acceptable. I won’t call this print good, but yes, when the light on it is right, it’s acceptable. Great Photographs from Daguerre to the Great Depression

I can’t imagine what Allie Mae was feeling when Walker Evans took this picture. pictu re. I’m sure she wasn’t comfortable. She has a tense look and faces the camera with anxiety and determination. Maybe the tight line l ine of her mouth was meant to be a smile. At her age she should have been a pretty woman, but her life was too hard for that, or so it seems. She is both strong and fragile, and the picture is like that, too. Printing it in inkjet i nkjet was elusive elusive rather than difficult. diff icult. The least bit too light or dark, and the least bit too soft or contrasty, and it’s just wrong. I had to make quite a few changes, going back to the beginning

presents “139 Royalty-Free Designs” in jpeg format in a “CD-ROM & Book” as part of its large series, “Dover Electronic Clip Art for Macintosh® and Windows®.” System requirements: Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, XP, Vista or Macintosh, all versions; CD-ROM drive. The price of the book and CD-ROM is $16.95. To use more than ten of these photos in one project requires special permission from Dover. David Vestal is a photographer, and teacher whose publications include The include The Art of Black & White Enlarging (1984) and the Craft the Craft of Photography. His photographs are exhibited internationally and are found in numerous private and public collections. A selection of his early New York photographs was exhibited at the Robert Mann Gallery, NYC in 2010.

To ask a ask a question or comment on t his t his article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com Forum: www.phototechforum.com

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TECH:

Reichstag

Phantastomaniac: Building the Complex Photo Collage Uli Staiger “Phantastomaniac” is a term that for me is the most powerful expression of digital retouching: the ambitious post production and digital composing. In order to make images look realistic, I follow the law of logic wherever possible. It’s also very important for the artist to have a sense of an image, so that it is possible for the viewer to find a meaningful interpretation of the content. To achieve both sometimes isn’t easy, because my images often consist of several hundred layers that have to follow a master plan so that they appear as a completely new scene. My inspiration comes out of my own fantasy. I’ve always been fascinated by technical things and fan-

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tastic scenes and images from the worlds of science fiction. So it was a logical step to bring together photography and fantasy with Adobe Photoshop to create my own zoo of unlimited unl imited possibilities. Believe it or not, the main trick, when it comes to planning a composition, is to divide the process of image creating into three parts. That also means that I have to create images ima ges not only once, but three times. Before I grab the camera or switch on the computer, I develop the image mentally. The only borders that limit this process are the borders of my very own fantasy and apprehension. Both phantasy and apprehension are very important tools when planning a compo composed sed image.




PHANTASTOMANIAC: PHANTASTOMA NIAC: BUILDING THE COMPLEX PHOTO COLLAGE ULI STAIGER

When the creative brainstorming is done and the image is ready to leave my mind, the second step follows: follo ws: the visualization vi sualization of the idea with paper and pencil. At this point of the process, it’s important to first create a simple sketch. I never use any digital equipment for these drawings, but just concentrate on the idea without being bothered by any technical issues. Of course, this usually does not lead to a masterpiece, but a sketch that shows all of the objects the image consists of in the right places in proper perspective is good enough!

in many categories, including skies, waves, water surfaces, plants and all kinds of technical structures. This means I always carry a camera with me; good motifs are hard to anticipate. The key characters, which often are planes, space ships or other fantastic vehicles, are created or photographed specially for each composition, because beca use I need the object I want in

The third step, the work with camera and computer, follows the sketch. The most important factor while taking pictures is the lighting. Not only the intensity of the sun, but its color is relevant. Is it neutral like between 10 am and 3 pm, or rather orange like just before sunset? Summer warm, or bluish and cold like on a mid-January day? I plan all the shots necessar necessaryy for the image related to the position of the sun and try to take all image components in the same lighting situation. Besides the light, perspective is another issue I think about before starting to shoot, because a change of perspective is almost impossible when working in Photoshop. That is the reason I photograph all image components with the same lens. Themes all appear in a very dynamic way because I mainly work with lenses from 20 to 28mm. These short focal lengths emphasize the foreground and make the background look smaller than it is. This makes the image look wide and gives room for the main subject, giving the images a look that is both dynamic dyna mic and full ful l of energy. In addition to photographic image files, I also use computer generated imaging for some of the most ambitious compositions. When it comes to fantastic flying objects or imaginary vehicles, I use the 3D software Cinema4D. This program is very compatible with Photoshop. For example, it is possible to change the render settings so that light and material attributes like shadows, transparency and reflection get their own layers once the image is opened in Photoshop. But even this advanced technology requires more than a computer. The background and the surrounding environment of the 3D model are both based on photography−because nothing is more real than reality, even if it is just photographed. You’d be surprised to see my image archive because it is relatively small. Images that I use frequently in different sizes and perspectives can be found

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TECH:

well-balanced light with a certain focal length from a clearly determined perspective−too many attributes for reasonable archival storage. When all parts of the image are photographed or rendered, render ed, I begin to combine the individual parts and forge a new image that looks like all of one piece. Even Even the smallest things are important, because nobody would ever think that it is necessary to draw a shadow for a detail only three pixels in size. But if this isn’t done, it would look fake!

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scene. The cloth is thin cotton tissue without any design, which will work as the background material for the mapping later. I masked the studio scene and combined it with the architectural photograph and started to cover the real façade with parts of an old concrete wall. The concrete pieces were transformed and darkened by a levels adjustment layer where necessary.

There is still one of the most difficult things to handle during the t he process of creation: determining determining when to stop. There is always something to improve or to change, but looking at the entirety of the image, it is necessary to t o say “No” in order not to lose control.

In the next step, I photographed the white hanging cotton cloth. After masking it, the image was saved as a matrix. Then I used the displace filter, which requires the matrix in order to know how far the pixels of the facade should be displaced. The darker the pixel, the further the displacement of the pixel. I used a dif different ferent closeup closeup shot from the façade and applied the same filter used for the cloths in the foreground.

Making of Reichstag Reichstag Like in most of my work, the topic for Reichstag was something I was thinking about for a long time. How can I visualize the t he conflicts of politics? On one hand, politicians have to act overtly as representatives of the will of the people, while on the other hand politics could never exist without behind the scenes diplomatic digressions. So I decided to take an architectural shot of the Reichstag, the building of the German parlia ment in Berlin. After having shot the building on a nice evening in August, I photographed the studio

Making of Sky Train The making of the Sky Train required Photoshop’ Photoshop’ss capability to handle 3D files. The background consists of two images that I took some time ago while visiting New York City. The lighting was quite diffused on that day, so I masked the backs of the buildings and darkened them using a dark grey layer and the blend method “linear light.” The train itself I built in Cinema4D, which can be combined easily with Photoshop. Positioning and lighting of the train both are accomplished with Photoshop. Photoshop versions since CS4 handle




PHANTASTOMANIAC: PHANTASTOMANIA C: BUILDING THE COMPLEX PHOTO COLLAGE ULI STAIGER

3D files pretty well, as it is able to add textures to the train. Along with the color, there are transparent, distorted surfaces (bumpma bumpmap p surfaces ) and reflections that can be allocated to the meshes of the train. Using Photoshop CS5, the render option looks quite realistic, because the renderer uses ray tracing in order to imita te real lighting. The finishing finishi ng of the image was also done in Photoshop. Photoshop. The lightning is drawn, and a copy of its layer is blurred with the Gaussian Blur to make it look even brighter. The smoke is necessary for the atmospheric impression. You can use just a simple brush tip, hardness 0% , opacity 5%, 5% , or you load load a cool brush set from the Net. In this case, I used the xplosion brush set from QBrushes.net. Uli Staiger was born 1966 in Tailfingen, Germany. After completing a photographic apprenticeship, he worked in New York York and New Jersey as a freelancer. Back in Germany, he attended art school and in 1998 founded his own studio, "die licht gestalten," in Berlin. Staiger specializes in creating hyper-realistic scenes, using both photography and computer generated imaging.

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Product Resources Cameras: Canon EOS 5D Mark II; Lenses: Canon EF 20mm 1:2 8L, Canon EF 24-70mm 1:2 8L USM, Canon EF 70-200mm 1:2 8L IS USM; Studio Flash: Broncolor; Mobile Flash: Metz 45 CL2; Computer: Mac Pro 4x2, Macbook Pro; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4 & CS5, Maxon Cinema4D R12, Filter Forge 2.0, QBrushes. Sky Train



PORTFOLIO:

Jesse Alexander: Iconic Images of Motor Racing’s Heyday from a Master Photographer Chuck Graham Strolling through photographer Jesse Alexander’s Carpinteria, CA studio of black and white motor racing images is like taking a step back in time to the sport’s infancy. Mostly self- taught, Alexander has been a photographer since high school, evolving into a photojournalist and fine art photographer. His primary focus on motorsports began in the early 1950s, with the birth of the sports car movement in the United States. The walls of his studio are adorned with portraits of legendary motor racing personalities and dramatic action imagery throughout Western Western Europe Europe and America. Racecar drivers such as Phil Hill, Alfa Romeo, Johnny Neumann, Karl Kling, Juan Fangio and Hans Herrmann were always favorite subjects. However, motion is prevalent in Alexander’s work, certainly in a sport that thrives thrives on speed and precision. precision. Some of Alexander’s most compelling imagery is captured on rain- soaked racetracks like Le Mans, France and Monte Carlo and through the course of his career, a throng of Grand Prix races. Whether freezing the action of a race car at 150 mph, or easing the action down with a slower shutter speed, the droplets of water spinning off saturated tires captures the feeling of speed as well as the risky nature involved in a dangerous sport. “Action is captivating,” he says, “but portraits capture the ambiance.” Alexander’s work has been featured numerous times in Car in Car & Driver, Road & Track and Automobile. Automobile. In 1967 1967 his images appeared in Sports Illustrated in a feature on motorcycle racing. During the 1996 Summer Olympics, Alexander’s Alexander’s work was part of an exhibit of sports photography. photography. Scores of other images that aren’t visible in Alexander’s studio have been available in his books: Porsche books: Porsche Moments, Driven, Fort y Years Years of Motorsport Photography and and Ferrari Ferrari Grand Prix Moments. Moments . From his neatly organized and elaborate archive that not only fills his studio but also three storage rooms, Alexander completed the painstaking task of selecting imagery that appears in a new book. Inside the Archives was recently published by David Bull Publishing. Many of the images have never been seen before. Now at the age of 81, Alexander shows no signs of slowing down. The passion is still the re, evident in his eyes even after 60 years behind the lens. When I asked him if he ever thoug ht of retiring, he scoffed at that notion, as well he should. “No, are you kidding? I’m still very active.”

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INTERVIEW WITH JESSE ALEXANDER CHUCK GRAHAM

Giacomo Agostini, champion motorcycle rider, is posing on his bike at a slow speed, shot from the back of a convertible FLAT, a perfect solution for capturing the action and facial expression. The camera was a Leica and the shutter speed was probably 1/60th.

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PORTFOLIO:

The Ferrari mechanic is holding the signboard to tell the driver his race position, and I hold the camera on him as I push the button when the car passes. This is an example of a lucky shot when the image works. Shot with a 35mm Leica and a 50mm. Shutter speed is probably 1/125th- perhaps slower, as the car is quite blurred.

His iconic images are currently appearing in galleries including the Patty Look Lewis Gallery in Santa Barbara, CA the Peter Fetterman Gallery in Santa Monica, CA and the Staley+Wise Gallery in New York. “I feel very fortunate,” said Alexander as we discussed his life’s work over lunch at Sly’s Restaurant in downtown Carpinteria, where more of his work is prominently dis- played. “I’ve had a great life, and I’m still going strong.” Here are some highlights of our conversation: Chuck Graham: What attracted you first, motorsports or photography? Jesse Alexander: I’ve always been attracted to automobiles. My dad had an old Packard. They were awesome.

CG: When did it become a career? JA: When I went to Europe in 1954. I needed to earn some money. I had a friend who had a car magazine, so he wanted me to send him photographs from Europe. It began to steamroll from there. CG: You photographed at Le Mans in 1965 for News- week . What was the biggest challenge for you shooting that race? JA: It’s a 24-hour race, shooting at night. It’s a photographer’s delight because it usually rains, so you get wonderful wet imagery and good action. There was a huge crowd there like a county fair. CG: How did you go about choosing which races you wanted to photograph?

CG: What was the draw to photographing motorsports? JA: I was photographing an activity which I really en joyed. It was exciting. I didn’t really have any sense of a career, or any ambition of making a career out of photography. It was fun just hanging out next to the cars.

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JA: Back then I didn’t have to choose. I always had an assignment. My favorite tracks are Spa in Belgium and Nürburgring in Germany. Access was never a problem. I worked for magazines who gave me a letter from the editor. Once one establishes a reputation, access is




INTERVIEW WITH JESSE ALEXANDER CHUCK GRAHAM

The drivers are running to their race cars in a Le Mans type start at the 1959 1000 Kilometers of the Nürburging. There was time for just one frame and then wait until the cars begin to roll to click another shot to make a sequence.

The portrait of Sir Stirling Moss was taken in practice for the 1958 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. The camera was a Rollieflex, and the shutter speed was 1/125th. The Rollie was a great portrait tool – beautiful negatives and even more beautiful black and white prints.

never a problem. However, this is not true today, as the freelance photographer is up against stiff competition from the numerous agencies. It’s a different world today. today. CG: What kind of camera gear were you working with back then? JA: Beginning in the 1950s, a Leica Rangefinder, and an old Rolleiflex Twin Lens medium format camera, which took beautiful negatives. Later on it was Canon SLR cameras. Film, I was using Super Double X, Kodak’s Tri X Film and Ektachrome. My last film camer a was a Canon EOS 1N. I went to digital five years ago. Now I’m using a Canon 5D Mark II. I’ve used Canon equipment since they began. The lenses are great. CG: What types of techniques did you use to photograph races? JA: Often times I did not want to freeze the action— shutter speeds are a creative tool. Speeds as low as a 60th or a 30th of a second were perfect. Today the pros use much slower shutter speeds. It all comes down to the creative skills of the guy behind the camera and his

or her enthusiasm. Pictures taken from the grandstand can often be as exciting as those taken from the pits. One thing that's important is that I welcomed rain. The combination of a slower shutter spe ed with water coming off the tires was a natural. I used the Leica F Series and Kodak Super XX at 400 ISO max. Kodachrome was wonderful, and you really had to pay attention to metering. After all these years, those slides still look great today. CG: You used to process your own film when you were working with black and white negatives? JA: In the early days I did have my own darkroom. I’d airmail images to New York where the magazines were. The result was archives of images. It’s very hard to throw away stuff. CG: You are mainly a self-taught photographe r, but who were some of your early influences in the field? JA: Edward Steichen’s photojournalism of World War II battlefields was great, as was Rober t Frank’s post World

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PORTFOLIO:

Sir Stirling Moss is practicing for the Belgian Grand Prix in the rain at Spain 1955. I am panning my Leica with a 50 mm lens.

War II imagery of America. I als o enjoyed Eugene Smith for his vivid World War II photos. CG: Do you have a favorite car that you’ve photographed? JA: That would be a 1955 Mercedes spor ts racing car, a very famous car. They only made a few few of them. I like old cars, Porsches, Ferraris. CG: In stark contrast to your motorsports imagery, a small section of your website is devoted to bird photography, particularly birds in flight. T here’s a lot of motion in your photography though, so in that sense the two subjects go hand in hand.

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JA: My wife and I bought a home on Sand Point Road in Carpinteria in the early 1970s. We lived there until 2009. That’s where I discovered shorebirds. I love watching birds. A lot of my best bird pictures were taken there. Some of my favorite birds are the blackcrowned night herons, brown pelicans and elegant terns. What can be more wonderful than capturing an image of a beautiful bird? Chuck Graham is a freelance writer and photographer living in Carpinteria, CA. His work has appeared in Outdoor in Outdoor Photographer Photographer,, Shutterbug, Nature Photographer, Men's Journal, Backpacker, Canoe & Kayak and and The The Surfer's Journal. Journal. To view more of Jesse Alexander's images, visit www.jessealexander.com. visit www.jessealexander.com.

To ask a question a question or comment on t his his article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com Forum: www.phototechforum.com

Product Resources

_______________________ ____________ _____________________ __________

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Cameras: Leica Rangefinder, Rolleiflex, Canon EOS 1N, Canon 5D Mark II; Film: Super Double X, Kodak Tri-X, Super XX, Kodachrome, Ektachrome.




NEWS: Wendy Erickson

Books In After Photography, a Fascinating Look at the Perils and Possibilities of Photography in a Digital Age (W.W. Norton and Company, 2010) author Fred Richin takes the reader on a journey observing ways digital imaging has affected and altered the way people receive visual information. I originally took this book out of the library to read, but after a brief look, I realized I must buy this book. It is best taken in small carefull y read doses. Written in essay format, the book rais es many questions about digital photography, questions that require thought before answeri ng. Fred Fred Richin is former picture picture editor of the New York Times , professor of photography and imaging at NYU, and the director of PixelPress. www.pixelpress.org Studying Photography, A Survival Guide by Douglas Holleley (Clarellen, 2010) is just that. I wish I had had this 121 page paperback

when I was a young undergraduate photo student. The book i s a manual for the student of photography, from navigating the ‘ways of academia’ right up to good practice s, copyright and the law. It’s written with humor and experience and il lustrated the same way. What type of student are you? “ A Feedback Junkie” or maybe “The Eternally Disappointed” one? Go to www.clarellen.com and order a copy for your favorite photography student. Publish Your Photography Book by Darius D. Himes and Mary Virginia Swanson (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010) takes readers

on a journey to understand the proc ess of producing and publishing a photography book . Covering the history of photo books through marketing avenues and more, it offers a wealth of information and resource s for photographers contemplating making their own photo book. www.papress.com

Centerfold Team Brings Centerfold Team Workshops to Vegas Shoot The Centerfold , the unique photographic enter-

prise formed by current and former Playboy photographers Arny Freytag, Jarmo Pohjaniemi and David Mecey, will present a two-day seminar and workshops at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas on June 4th and 5th. The event will feature Playboy centerfolds Ashley Hobbs, Kassie Lyn Logsdon and Shanna Marie McLaughlin, whom participants will photograph with hands-on assistance from Arny, Jarmo and David. The seminars will include presentations from each photographer, explaining the techniques that have made their work world-famous. Studio time will also feature photo shoots by the three photographers, discussing their sets, lighting and posing techniques while answering students’ questions.

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The price of the event is $995. Make reservations at www.shootthecenterfold.com.

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NEWS: included those entitled Native Americans, Yemeni, —his photographs Family of Miners and Appalachia —his truthfully narrate the lives of the people he met throughout his lifetime. Rogovin’s children Mark, Ellen and Paula, are collaborating on ways to get their father’s photographs into classrooms around the world. Mark Rogovin recently said, “My father was a social documentary photographer and he made these photographs because this was essential material —because —because these were images of people who had beauty, did the tough work in society, and that these images could be useful , and now 50 years later I’m starting to understand what he meant.” Visit the Milton Rogovin website to view the portfolios and learn more about his life in photography. Teachers take special note: There are educational materials including comprehensive guides in English and Spanish with class projects and methods for teaching with photographs. Click on the Education tab to locate them. http://www. miltonrogovin.com/ Hans Kuhlmann, 1939-2011

The former President of Consumer Imaging at Agfa Corp died January 31, 2011. Kuhlmann was with the Agfa-Geveart Group for 40 years. Other positions at Agfa were National Director of Sales and Vice President of Sales. Born in Recklinghausen Germany, he first came to the US as an exchange student in 1961 where he attended DePauw University in Indiana. He later graduated Columbia University with a Masters in Business Science. Kuhlmann was instrumental in expanding Agfa’s US manufacturing. He received many industry awards in his lifetime, including Man of the Year from the Photo Marketing Association, Lifetime Achievement award from PMDA and Outstanding Leadership and Dedication award from the United Nations’ International Photographic Counsel. He was also awarded the top award award from IS&T, the Lifetime Achievement Award. Well liked by ever yone in the photo industry, he enjoyed photography—his cheerful motto was “keep smiling.”

Camera Obscura Gallery Closing Milton Rogovin

In Memoriam Milton Rogovin, 1909-2011

After once being blacklisted as “Buffalo’s Top Red” by the Buffalo Evening News , activist Milton Rogovin turned to making photographs as a way he could continue to do political work. He was 48 years old when he began his serious career in photography. When he started, he knew his local subjects who he dubbed “The Forgotten Ones.”

Sad news in the recent PFA newsletter announced the Camera Obscura Gallery in Denver, CO closed at the end of April. Hal Gould had been director of the gallery for the past 30 years and has been a cornerstone of the photographic arts in Colorado for half a century. He will retire to work on his memoires, return to the darkroom and organize his personal archive. Associate Director Loretta Young-Gautier will return to her personal work full time. Those who have been familiar with the Camera Obscura Gallery will miss visiting the home of some of the finest photography on the planet and will recognize an end to an important era in photographic history.

Classified as a Social Documentary Photographer by the Library of Congress, Rogovin used his camera to capture social issues, culminating in 13 different portfolios made from 1953 to 2002. His photographs of poor and working people

22 photo technique M/J 2011



Christy Lee Rogers: Speed of Light Duncan Beebe Knowing that light travels slower in water than air is the first step toward understanding the magic behind the luminous photography of Christy Lee Rogers. Rogers is a photographer and filmmaker from the island of Oahu, Hawaii. In her hands the play of light, water, color, movement and optics combine in elegant underwater photographs. Her new series, Odyssey , explores the quiet battle between spirit and flesh, depicting inner adventures and couplings of mythological figures drenched in color and frozen in time. Rogers’ methods have long been as mysterious as her photography, but for the first time she is willing to share them here.

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PORTFOLIO: Rogers has been experimenting and pursuing this process for over seven years. All of her images are created in camera and not by the use of post-productio post-production n manipulation. Instead she relies on the elegant physics of water and light to aid in the creation of her otherworldly images, employing the light deviation between a body of water and the air above it. With refraction as the foundation for her work, Rogers has succeeded in crafting unique and mysterious images. This mechanism, which she has explored tirelessly, is deceptively simple: light moves more quickly through air than water. Light bends when it passes from a substance of one density into a substance of a different density—this is called refraction. Rainbows are caused by refraction and reflection of the sun’s rays in drops of rain. Have you ever tried swimming down to the bottom of a pool to retrieve something and realized that it was not where it appeared to be from above? What you’re experiencing is refraction. Rogers utilizes this phenomenon of light as it passes from the air, which has a lower optical density, into the water, with a higher optical density. In air light travels at about 186,000 miles per second, but in water light travels only about 140,000 miles per second. She then causes subtle motions in the layers of the water or with her subject to create her effect. There is a fine line between disaster and perfection. If used correctly these effects can produce fantastic optical illusions: intensification of colors, blurring, blending and a painting-like final image. “I feel like a magician, except I’m not trying to trick or fool people but to open their minds to something that’s not always visible to the eye.” The combination of body and wind movement increases the volatility of an already fragile fragile environment. Rogers accounts for this chaos and captures it in these moving, striking images. As light changes medium, its angle changes and its velocity decreases or increases with fascinating consequences. Rogers’ mastery of this phenomenon allows her to create sun-dappled figures afloat in dim waters, and figures whose clothes take on a Baroque complexity and vibrancy. Through this very sensitive process, she has found a myriad of ways to create images, manipulating only water depth, light and movement. Despite the highly technical source of the effect, Rogers is only interested in the science insofar as it allows her to express herself through her art. “It’s a means to an end. I’m interested in whatever allows me to produce my vision, and I had to search for and perfect a method

that would allow me to deliver the images I had already conceived. But it had to be a way that wouldn’t dilute them or concede to the limitations of reality.” With two major bodies of work completed, Rogers describes her initial intentions for the work: the ideas which set her on this path. She wanted to express a sense of wonder and tranquility, to provide some solace for people from their occasionally hectic and relentless lives. These motifs appear throughout her oeuvre. Her latest series has yet to be shown in its entirety. entirety. It’s quite possible that Odyssey is it, the body of work that will complete her own personal Odyssey. In an art world seemingly saturated with post-modern, self-aware, or process-based work, it is refreshing to meet an artist who believes in art’s power to penetrate reality and inspire us, a Classical idea, which is at the core of the work. Rogers firmly and wonderfully believes that beauty can change man. In order to achieve a sort of photographic mise-enscène, she had to find f ind a new way to create her images. They couldn’t be fictitious, as that would undermine her intent to demonstrate that there are still mysterious, impossibly beautiful things on Earth—not solely in our imaginations. The work of a true artist lies in manifesting their inner world externally. To accomplish this she turned to water. “It became an obsession of mine to communicate through my art that there was more to man than a body controlled by the peculiar nature of the physical universe; that he or she was more capable than ever imagined. I dedicated most of my time to conceptualizing and planning how to communicate that message.” To accurately execute her latest body of work Odyssey , Rogers started by keeping notes of her ideas and inspirations in notebooks that travelled with her wherever she went. During this period she scoured the streets, beaches, forests and thrift shops for props that would help animate her vision. She also began to search for subjects. She met with many artists, musicians, dancers and selected a group for their authenticity, their willingness to improvise and experiment and for the way they inspired her to do the same. Months of planning and sketching would pass before she felt prepared for her first Odyssey experiment. For this series Rogers used a Canon EOS 5D Mark II and a Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, depending on the shoot. Working alone, she employed halogen spotlights and any available light sources from the pool and above. Star Crossed

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PORTFOLIO:

Upon the Cheek of Night

“I need to work alone with my subject, in peace and quiet with no restraints or distractions. The water is distracting enough and the process requires total focus.” Rogers typically spends three to five hours with her subjects, starting by preparing them for the technical difficulties of performing underwater, lightly discussing her process beforehand since there is very little time for her subjects to talk once the shoot has begun, and most importantly, ensuring that her subjects are relaxed and ready to open up. “I don’t give too much instruction because I don’t want to overwhelm them. I want them to experience the beautiful weightlessness of the water and to react naturally.” Each novel moment that her subject encounters during their exploration of the new environment is an opportunity for Rogers to capture the portrait that she’s been seeking. With a carload of props and fabrics, Rogers experiments with every possible object she can find, including tree branches, vines, costumes, masks, flags, knives, body paints, ropes, yarn, Christmas tinsel, hula hoops and even toy sharks. “Each color and and prop, as simple simple as it may be, is an integral part of my character’s story.”

Only a visionary such as Rogers could take refraction as a point of departure and from it create such evocative work. The unique environment, trusting models and ancient mythology coalesce into these tremendously powerful photographs. Her endless ingenuity has produced images which are distinctly her own and a style which accentuates the potency of her work. Duncan Beebe is a writer and gallerist in Santa Monica, CA. He has written for such publications as Eyemazing, as Eyemazing, ArtLA and and Fingernails Fingernails.. He is currently writing his forthcoming novel, With Abandon, Abandon, a work concerned with family, identity and loss. Christy Lee Rogers grew up in a family of musicians in the small beach town of Kailua, Hawaii on Oahu’s windward coast. She is a self-taught visual artist, indie-filmmaker, poet and musical lyricist. Her work is currently represented by and on exhibit at Barclay’s Club in Monaco, outside of France; James Gray Gallery, Bergamot Station in Santa Monica, CA; Laura Rathe Fine Art in Houston, TX; Graphite Galleries in New Orleans, LA and Cedar Street Galleries and Fine Art Associates in Honolulu, Hawaii. Visit www.christyrogers.com Visit www.christyrogers.com

To ask a question a question or comment on t his his article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com Forum: www.phototechforum.com

Product Resources Camera: Canon EOS 5D Mark II, Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III; Computer: Apple MacBook Pro; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS3, Canon Digital Photo Professional Software.

Break the Wall Dividing Us

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An Interview with Kevin Then:

Redefining High-End Wedding W edding Photography 28




The Inner Side

Many wedding photographers work with an established scenario carried out in a predictable way. Kevin Then, however, is a photographer whose work redefines the genre of high-end wedding photography. Named Hasselblad Master under the Wedding Social category in 2008, Then has continued to demonstrate aesthetic brilliance and command of the latest photographic technological developments in fashion and design. The result is an international client base and invitations to speak about what he does to raise the bar for excellence in wedding photography. Some photographers, especially those whose work is recognized internationally, may find that a particular style is associated with their name. Then has picked up the title, at least in a number of online blogs, as the “Master of Romanticism.” It’s It’s title he can live with, he said in a rece nt interview with photo technique . What follows is what Then explained about creating the amazing images that have built his international reputation.

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FEATURE:

PT: What is the inspiration for your “romantic” style of photography? KT: I think that the term “romanticism” does describe the intense feelings I have always had while shooting. It later became my style. Working to achieve an image that is both dramatic and majestic turned out to be considered romantic. PT: Is most of your work involved in shooting actual wedding par ties, or do you also do work in advertising? KT: My work involves both wedding and fashion photography. My clients include actual brides and grooms, but I also create images for designers of wedding dresses and shots for magazine layouts where I use professional models. My published work is found in a wide variety of media sources, including newspapers and magazines, on the Internet and my social network has helped to market my products worldwide. PT: You are also known for using Hasselblad equipment. Do you have a formal relationship with Hasselblad? KT: I’m involved in their promotion for the launch of one of their newest models, the Hasselblad H4D-40. I’m proud to say that I am one of three photographers chosen worldwide for this promotion and the only Asian. PT: As a Malaysian photographer, do you find that your work reflects the culture of your country? KT: I think I portray the culture of Malaysia through the models’ customs, actions, traditions and most importantly, the ambience that can be felt through the settings of my photographs. PT: You work in both a studio and on location. Which of these do you prefer? KT: I mostly prefer working on location even though I also do enjoy shooting in the studio. I like working on location where I can exert my creativity by wholly shooting outdoors. Furthermore, it is much more challenging to be shooting outdoors.

Often, there are some undesired circumstances and situations occurring, such as controlling the different brightness from the light rays, and I do need to adjust the lens in order to capture the image brilliantly and majestically. The advantage of shooting in the studio is that I am able to control and adjust the lighting the way I want it to be. PT: When you create an image, is the concept decided before the shoot, or does it develop during the shoot, or both? KT: Well, I would say both. In handling each individual task involved in the shoot, I always take the time to review the location beforehand. This might be my principle responsibility for success in my job. While I am at the location, there are some aspects that I have to attend to, such as the lighting source, the view and surrounding environment to produce the most brilliant and desired photograph. PT: Who selects the locations—you or your clients? KT: Mostly, I am the one selecting the location. Even though a site may be suggested by my clients, I always look at the bigger picture to see how it might work for them. In this situation, I do give my opinion to them, in a way to let them have another option to co nsider,

Fantasy

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FEATURE:

The Royal’s Romance

given my professional experience in photography. My highest priority in taking the photograph is to make my clients look their best in a manner that most suits them. PT: Please describe the way you work with lighting on location. KT: For example, in the image of the model in the forest Fantasy , my concept in setting up the lighting is using a main light source at a 45 degree angle in front and an additional backlight directly behind the subject. For The Inner Side , there are equal amounts of lighting set both behind and in front of the subject to create the desired image. I also use available light as a light source. In fact, that’s one of my favorite sources of light. I always attempt to make use of every source of light and element available for the image during a location shoot. PT: Do you work with a staff to help with the shoots? KT: To me, a perfect well-captured shoot can only be done with the help and effort of everyone on my team. In the same breath, it is just like a family working hand in hand to produce a majestic image that every one of our team has imagined.

PT: Do you do post-production work yourself? KT: Yes, for some certain projects, I do handle it myself. However I also do have my own art design team. PT: What inspired you to become a photographer? KT: My interest in photography and the enthusiasm and satisfaction I get from my passion for photography has motivated me to keep on improving myself, especially in my photographic skills.

Kevin Then, born into a family of artists, received a degree in Hotel Management from Stamford Stamford College, Singapore. He began photographing with his brother-in-law and was amazed and inspired to make a career change. change. With professional partner Kenneth Lau, Then has operated a we dding dding studio for almos t a decade. Visit Visit www. www. ___ sgbridalhouse.com and sgbridalhouse.com www.hasselblad.com. __________ and www.hasselblad.com.

To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com Forum: www.phototechforum.com

Product Resources Camera: Hasselblad H4D 40; Lenses: 150mm, 28mm, 80mm; Lighting: Bowen Travel Kit GM 500 with reflector.

(Right) Blessing

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TECH:

The Art of Texture Texture Blending Blending:: Photography Beyond Realism

Oak Tree

Bettina & Uwe Steinmueller Adding textures to paintings and photographs is as old as these art forms. This article focuses on artistic aspects of Texture Blending, Blending, starting with a brief overview. Texture Blending Overview With film, photographers created texture blended images by exposing multiple times with different textures and the main images. It could also be done by creating sandwiches of different negatives or blending in camera. Today the process is much easier to control by using Photoshop.

The idea is to blend a picture with one or more textures and let the result become more than the sum of the photos used. For us, Texture Blending is always an exploration process. This is done primarily by utilizing Photoshop’s Blending Modes to blend the images. Texture Blending in not a me-

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chanical process. Experimentation is key, and we always try to get surprised. You will learn that good textures are as important as your so-called main images. We create new textures all the time by photographing, collecting from the web (always respecting copyrights) and Texture Blending of textures. It is not easy to get textures of a good resolution. Sometimes texture resolution does not matter, but then in other cases it does. Making textures smaller is easy, but you cannot create artificial artif icial resolution. resolution. Photos and Paintings Do we want to create images that look like paintings? We don’t really think that way. But in some ways, our images have a certain painterly look. When we work on our images, we think about enhancing their visual impact and not what painters would do. We always think about the mood of the photos.




THE ART OF TEXTURE BLENDING BET TINA & UWE STEINMUELLER STEINMUELLER

In most cases, the base image is a very realistic image. It then gets enhanced using abstract patterns (sometime we use simple collages). In the end we may use techniques like painters, but we don’t think in terms of painting. Some Photography Myths Photographers are often fixated on sharpness and resolution. Texture Blending will actually often reduce the sharpness and detail. It is all about the mood we want to create. We also do not care much about “correct” colors. First of all, we would need to define what this is (except in the world of pure product photography). Again, the color is a major element to create the mood we like. Dark colors play an important role for us.

Dreamy

When we captured this girl at the beach, we liked the posture and the hippie-like skirt. But we were not too keen about the shoes and the boring ocean surf.

We often shoot in light many photographers would avoid and not much at the so-called golden light of the morning or evening. We love early morning light and also some soft overcast. In the end, we create some of the light with our Texture Blending. The Art Of Texture Blending All these images were created using our own Texture Blending technique and they demonstrate a variety of reasons to apply Texture Blending.

These wildflowers shot at Big Sur using a long focal length were not intentionally photographed to be a texture.

Now the photo looks more like how we felt while capturing the scene. The posture is the key element, the boring background gone and the shoes well-hidden.

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TECH: Abstraction

We like the image because it is quite abstract. What we see is actually compressed cardboard at a local recycling yard. In this case, the B&W conversion was created using our special B&W texture with frame. Both the main image and the texture image were taken with an iPhone.

Too Clean

These are the handrails of some stairs in Monterey, CA. We found the original photo “too clean.” In contrast, the blended photo invokes a more interesting “mood.” We used a photo of a dirty wall for the texture.

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Surreal

We also like to create some more surreal looking images, like this one based on a realistic photograph of the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. Again the boring sky and the too clean look made the photo uninteresting, though we liked the framing. The texture this time is a blurred version of a different beach photo.




THE ART OF TEXTURE BLENDING BET TINA & UWE STEINMUELLER STEINMUELLER Skies Can Be So Boring

Near our home we have beautiful oak trees. It is hard to do them justice because the skies are most of the time just plain boring.

When the image is blended, the trees can show why they are special.

On one hand, you have to photograph these trees against the sky to show their beautiful shape and on the other hand, it is hard even to imagine the ideal sky.

Painterly Painterl y Look ( Etching)

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This photo looks like an old etching. We had no intention of simulating an etching look, but this was the result of our exploration process. The original photo was a digital infrared photo taken with an IR modified camera. The texture used is a photograph of the metal fish container surface in Monterey. References Digital Outback Photo www.outbackphoto.com German photographer Uwe Steinmueller and his wife and partner Bettina came to live and work in the United States over a decade ago. They concentrate on taking photos for fine art prints, mainly nature and urban landscapes. Owner and editor of Digital of Digital Outback Photo (www.outbackphoto.com), Steinmueller has authored numerous books and articles about digital workflow. To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com

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INNOVATIONS: Promote Control

A Full Featured Time Machine If you are a photographer who takes time-lapse photography or HDR sequences, this is a camera timing device that fits your needs. This is far more than an electronic cable release−this is a time manager. The Promote Control comes in a sturdy hard case with two cables. There is an optional camera specifi c cable that really needs to be purchased in order to fully use the capabilities of the control options. The Promote Control offers time management in several ways: First, you can focus the camera from the device, providing you use both cables. One Shot Mode is pretty much what other cable release systems have. However, it is in the other modes the Promote Control excels. In Time Lapse mode, you can set exposure, the interval between images, the number of frames and even set a delayed starting time. After determining your mid-exposure through test shots, change the Promote Control to HDR Mode. Set up the EV difference from 0.3 EV to 2 EV. Then set the number of exposures. You can also set a Time Lapse repeat of the sequence. You have the option of starting the sequence from the midtone, the lowest shadow or the brightest highlight. Hit Start and Promote Control runs the entire sequence. For exposures over 30 seconds, you need the camera-specific cable, as well (another reason its purchase isn’t really an option). Promote Control will handle exposures up to 1/4000th of a second. Promote Control also has a Hyperfocal Distance calculator. Set the desired hyperfocal distance, select the focal length, choose a crop factor and Promote Control gives you the correct f-stop. It will also reverse calculate by choosing the f-stop and then give you the hyperfocal distance. You can even do Time Lapse HDR creating a combination of HDR sequence exposures and different HDR series at time intervals. The unit runs on two AA batteries and costs $329.00. The needed camera specific cabl e is an additional $18.95. For more information, contact www.promotesystems.com.

I.P.S. Inflatable Photo Studio

Own a Portable Studio for a Few Months’ Rent Need a studio for a controlled shoot on location, or even better, multiple locations? The innovative Inflatable Photo Studio could just be the answer. The inflatable Studio comes in sizes from 20' x 15' x 13' to 30' x 20' x 15'. Each unit is made of 5-7ml thick UV coated polyethylene and has a black interior and your choice of white or black exterior. There is also an option for a diffused white translucent ceiling. Units wrap up to an easily transportable roll that weighs less than 100 pounds not counting the drum fans. Simply unroll the studio, stake or tie down the bottom and turn on the fan (two for the larger studios), and the studio inflates in about three minutes. The fan is then set at a lower speed that keeps the studio inflated while letting air out the door slit to keep the floor from overinflating and bowing. The 30' x 20' x 15' Libertine model with two 24-inch drum fans costs only $2,299.95. The smaller 20' x 15' x 13' Hooligan model is $1,879.95. For more information, contact www.ips-studio.com

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INNOVATIONS: The Digital Silver Darkroom

The new-fashioned route to real black and white prints If you don’t have access to a darkroom or the skill and experienc e, it doesn’t mean you can’t make a traditional black and white print—high quality silver-gelatin black and white prints are only a few clicks away, and you will never have to work under safelight conditions or stand in front of an enlarger to achieve them. Using your images, computer and Internet acce ss, you already have the tools available to make black and white photographic prints on traditional silver halide paper. All ‘prints’ referred to in this article are real black and white silver-halide photographic (not inkjet) prints. With only a handful of labs in North Amer ica making digital black and white prints on real photographic paper, one lab with a real passion for black and white is Digital Silver Imaging (DSI) in Belmont, MA. Owner Eric Luden shared information about how his lab is able to make these professional quality prints. How it works

A photographer uploads a digital file to the lab. The file is exposed onto photographic paper at the lab using laser exposure in a digital enlarger. After exposure, the paper is machine processed in print processing chemicals, and the result is a digitally exposed black and white silver-halide print. Although they look and feel exactly like traditional photographic prints, the real difference lies in the emulsion technology. These emulsions are panchromatic, and optimized for digital laser exposure. Luden’s lab uses Ilford Ilfospeed RC Digital and Galerie FB Digital papers and exposes them with a Durst Theta 51 digital enlarger. This sophisticated digital lab system uses a modified laser designed for true black and white printing from digital files. Imaging is at 400 pixels per inch, and prints may be made up to 20" wide and 15 feet long. The paper is machine processed in standard darkroom chemicals, then washed to produce archival silver images. Fiber base prints get an additional wash to ensure the permanence of the prints. DSI offers sepia and selenium toning and protective wax coatings as additional services. When the lab does the conversi ons, a digital proof is sent bac k to the photographer for approval before printing. Files are RGB (not grayscale) at their native resolution. Uncompressed JPG, TIF, or RAW formats are accepted. Luden’s team extensively uses NIK Silver Efex Pro 2 for color to black and white conversions. Well known for innovative digital workflow solutions, NIK incorporated special algorithms in the software that translate into user-friendly darkroom-inspired tools. When asked about comparing prints made in a regular darkroom vs. using the digital enlarger, Luden said, “Even with the best of master printers in the traditional darkroom, there is no way to reproduce a silver print exactly from print to print, and there is the beauty of that uniqueness to a ‘handmade’ print. With digital printing, however, there are ways you can open up shadows and control highlights in the file itself, so once you have that, using digital workflow, you can get repeatability from print to print. We’re able to provide something that isn’t available to photographers and that’s the traditi onal darkroom print—we’re print—we’re helping people learn to see in black and white again.” Resources: Digital Silver Imaging, Imaging, www.digitalsilverimaging.com; Durst, www.durstus.com; Harman Technology Ltd., Ltd., www.ilfordphoto. com; NIK Software, www.niksoftware.com ___

PocketWizard Expands Control of Portable Flashes and Studio Strobes PocketWizard has added two new accessories to their radio control Mini TT1 and Flex TT5 remote flash controls. The AC3 ZoneController allows you to set up to three flashes in separate zones and control both the lighting ratio and the power of the flash itself from simple dials on top of the camera. The three separate dials work using an Auto setting that controls E-TTL output for each of the three flashes. Each flash can be changed from +3 to -3 power in 1/3 EV increments. Even more impressive is the fact that more than one flash can be assigned to a zone. The ZoneController fits on top of a Mini TT1 transmitter and each flash unit needs a Flex TT5 receiver attached to each flash. In manual mode, the AC3 ZoneController can control actual flash power from 1/64th to full. This unit works with both Nikon and Canon cameras. But there is more. PocketWizard has also introduced the AC9 studio strobe adapter that works with Alien Bees, White Lightning, and Elinchrom RX studio strobes. The unit sits on top of a Flex TT5 and attaches to the studio strobes via an Ethernet cable. A plug is used to disable the optical slave unit. Using this system with the AC3 ZoneController a llows you to control studio lights in up to three zones independentl y from the top of your camera. The AC3 ZoneController costs $79 and the AC9 Strobe Adapter costs $62. The camera requires a Mini TT1 or Flex TT5, and each individual flash requires its own Flex TT5 receive r. For more information, go to www.pocketwizard.com.

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JOURNEY TO THE BRIDGE JAMEY STILLINGS

Bridge at Nevada Hairpin, July 28, 2010 . The old hairpin turn on the Nevada side, the bridge structurally complete and the illuminated sky of the

Las Vegas metro area.

Journey to the Bridge: The Story of “The Bridge at Hoover Dam” Photo Essay Jamey Stillings It is at the intersections of nature and the hand of man that the greatest visual, philosophical, environmental and political energy exists. At these intersections, we discover something important about ourselves and our relationship to the world.

Early in the first quarter of 2009, the studio phone went silent; no portfolio requests, estimates, or assignments. Nothing. I have been through a few recessions and each has presented a new and unique set of challenges. The Great Recession of 2009 would be no different. I decided immediately to capitalize on the slow period, turn tur n it to my advant advantage age creatively, if not fi financia nancially. lly. “Let ’s go on a photo road trip!” I said to photographer Mike Sakas, my good friend and first assistant. Anything we

found interesting was fair game. Thus it was one evening in March 2009 that we drove over Hoover Dam and encountered the bridge under construction starting its aerial journey across the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. I had not previously known about the bridge and the Hoover Dam Bypass. Our immediate decision to spend another day and evening photographing at the dam and bridge has resulted in one of the fullest and richest creative experiences of my career. The evolving bridge sparked my imagination. Watching the bridge’s construction, especially at night, was both inspiring and captivating. I needed to find a way to return to photograph the bridge. But how how could I gain access? Headed by by the Federal Federal Highway Administration,

Arizona Arch Segment, April 28, 2009. Pre-visualized in March 2009.

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PORTFOLIO: (FHWA) responsible parties for the Hoover Dam Bypass Project included several federal agencies, the Arizona and Nevada departments of transportation and several private contractors. Construction had been ongoing for years. No doubt, all their systems were firmly in place, including policies and procedures for photography. I concluded my best bet was to secure an editorial assignment and felt intuitively The New York Times Magazine would be an excellent excellent fit. They might appreciate appreci ate the photographic aesthetic emerging in the first few images and grant me the freedom to pursue this vision. With the help of Sharpe+ Associates, my reps, we approached approached the magazine. As luck would have it, the pending architectural issue would be on national infrastructure. With a small guarantee for first editorial rights and a letter of assignment, I made my plans. I learned the policies, procedures and limitations of photographing the bridge. Most of my ground-based access came through proper permitting with the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) at Hoover Dam. More limited entry within the construction alignment came by carefully following established procedures and protocol with the Federal Highway Administration. Six days of photography in two trips culminated with a dawn helicopter flight over and around the bridge.

politics of successfully compl completing eting a federal/state/p federal/state/private rivate infrastructure project ultimately prevented my access to make these portraits. In order to maintain the limited access I did have to the construction alignment, I needed to follow policies, procedures and protocol meticulously. The ultimate benefit of being road-blocked on two of three creative directions was that I became free to pursue the landscape body of work with even more dedication and passion. The bridge, Black Canyon and Hoover Dam became a three-dimensional chessboard of sorts. We poured over satellite photos to better understand the terrain’s complexities. With the cooperation of the BOR, Mike Sakas and I scrambled up and down ridges and cliffs to scout prospective viewpoints in the summer ’s 122º heat. We charted the sun’s path, thought strategically about important stages of construction and the best points of view. From this research a matrix evolved throughout the project to develop the photo essay by continually adding interest, variety and insight. A construction site active 24/7 and lit at night had a surreal quality. The key was to photograph the bridge in a visually evocative and compelling way while respecting personal aesthetic sensibilities. Constant technical care and attention to detail was necessary for success. Anything could prevent a photograph from reaching its potential.

The New York Times Magazine was very thin in June 2009.

Advertising pages were down with a corresponding decrease in editorial ed itorial content. content . However, However, the newly newly redesigned magazine included one full-page aerial image of the bridge as “Endpaper: Bridge to Somewhere,” along with nine photos in their online edition. The coverage was well received. Initial relationships and procedures were established. In mid-June, I made the decision to pursue the bridge as a long-term personal project, eschewing the editorial support of other publications in exchange for complete creative freedom. I wanted to create three separate bodies of work: a documentary essay in the midst of construction, a “studio on location” portrait series, and the continued observation of the bridge within the landscape of Hoover Dam and Black Canyon. I was not granted access for a documentary essay on the bridge’s construction. Citing safety and proprietary concerns, this option was taken off the table. For over a year, I actively pursued permission to create the portrait series, even driving to Denver in a January snowstorm to present a formal proposal to the Federal Highway Administration. But the complexity and

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Step one was to eliminate potential vibration during exposures. I needed to worry about wind, movement on scaffolding scaf folding and the special requirements requi rements of long telephoto lenses. I obtained Gitzo’s most robust carbon fiber tripod and ball head. Second, I needed to ensure accurate focus in low light scenarios. I switched to manual focusing focusing using Canon Canon’s Live View View mode at maximum magnification. magni fication. Third, I tracked my optimal primary exposure both aesthetically and using the camera ’s histogram. Then I bracketed exposures to allow for greater dynamic range during duri ng imaging imagi ng work on the computer. In an ideal world world for nighttime photography, I would have utilized a four or five exposure bracket, but because the camera would only allow for three exposures automatically, I chose the expeditious route. My exposure bracketing varied from +/- 2 to +/- 1 stop(s) from my primary exposure. Fourth, I butted up against the optical limitations of some lenses. Lenses that are fine for everyday assign-




JOURNEY TO THE BRIDGE JAMEY STILLINGS

Aerial View, June 30, 2009. Morning clouds on the eastern horizon.

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PORTFOLIO: fresh perspectives and visual inquiry. The opportunity opportunity to spend extended time with wit h a single subject brought a depth of visual understanding both to the approach and the resulting body of work. It has been and continues to be a great experience experience.. The Bridge at Hoover Dam is now an exhibition, which I

intend to travel nationally and internationally for several years. To date, the work has been exhibited at the Las Vegas Springs Preserve, Etherton Gallery in Tucson, Arizona and photo-eye Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Phoenix Art Museum has scheduled the f irst museum exhibition for August through November 2011. I have been honored to see the work published in numerous editorial publications. And I am actively working to create the best book publishing opportunity. Stay tuned. Colorado River Bridge, September.

ment work, especially where corner sharpness is not an issue, suddenly met their match when used for the task of documenting the bridge. I started testing lenses more critically and found myself moving back to prime fixed focal length lenses. During this time, Zeiss began to issue iss ue its DSLR manual focus lenses for the Canon mount. I tested several. Ultimately, a group of Canon and Zeiss lenses became my “prime” allies during the project. Finally came the challenges of quality aerial photography. photography. It is easy to photograph in the daytime with high shutter speeds and lenses stopped down, quite another task to shoot at dawn and dusk. I used a single Kenyon gyro for all aerial work, but even this sometimes met its match when shooting f2, 1/125 second, ISO 3200 out the open door of the helicopter. Many lenses that are amazing for portraits are not spectacular when focused at infinity. Many lenses that shine when stopped down 2-3 stops are less than stellar when shot wide open. Finding the very best optics for aerial photography is still a work in progress. One definite change is that I will i ntegrate a double gyro system for future aerial work. Between June 2009 and January 2011, I made more than a dozen trips to the bridge, racking up almost 40 days and nights of photography in the process. The photo essay that developed from my initial encounter allowed me to meld photographic and aesthetic sensibilities with a reawakened sense of childhood curiosity and awe. The bridge as subject has been creatively and technically challenging, dynamic and transitory transitory.. Over the two years of the project, as the bridge evolved, each visit required

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How a structure and its creation are documented greatly impacts how it is remembered in history. Construction of the bridge downstream from Hoover Dam was unique both for its historical importance, by its proximity to the dam, and for its technical achievement, bridging the Black Canyon over the Colorado River with the longest concrete arch span in the western hemisphere. The bridge challenges us to examine the juncture of nature and technology on a scale that is both grand and human. The overarching goals of The Bridge at Hoover Dam are to acknowledge the collective talents and labors of those who built the bridge and to place the bridge within the historical and aesthetic context of Hoover Dam and the American West. Without the hard work and talents of hundreds who built the bridge, these photographs would not exist. Jamey Stillings’ work as a photographer spans fine art, documentary and advertising. A passionate interest in people, world cultures, social and environmental issues are the guiding forces in his photography and life. Recent clients include The include The New York Times Magazine, Magazine, Toyota, GE Global, and First Republic Bank. He was awarded the Director’s Choice Award, First Place, 2010, by CENTE R for, “The Bridge at Hoover Dam.” See Dam.” See www.jameystillings.com and www.jameystillings.com and www.bridgeathooverdam.com www.bridgeathooverdam.com

To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com

Product Resources Camera: Canon 5D Mark II; Canon Lenses: 17-40mm f/4L USM, 24-70mm f/2.8L USM, 24mm f/1.4L USM, 35mm f/1.4L USM, 50mm f/1.2L USM, 70-200mm f/2.8L USM, 85mm f/1.2L USM, 300mm f/4L IS USM, 400mm f/4L IS USM; Zeiss Lenses: Distagon T 18mm f/3.5, Makro-Planar 50mm f/2, Makro-Planar 100mm f/2; Tripod: Gitzo GT5561, GT3541 XLS Head; Compute r: Apple MacBook Pro, Apple Mac Pro 2; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS5, Adobe Lightroom 3; Other: Kenyon KS-6 Gyro Stabilizer Kit, Tamrac Big Wheels Rolling Backpack-LP8, Tamrac Aero Speed Pack 75.




THE SILENT & THE PLAYFUL: LIGHT ARIS LIGHT ARIS KARIMI

The Silent & the Playful: Light Aras Karimi My fascination with light started early in my life. When I was about five years old, I was sitting in a room by a window with shuttered heavy curtains, leaving only a small distance in between them, where a miracle was happening: I could see the movement of dust in the air. I was mesmerized, not just by seeing the dust, but feeling something powerful and beautiful for the first time: light. I left the room, not knowing that for years to come light would keep stealing my attention. And from the light

circles on the bazaar’s floor, reflection of colored windows in daytime and the last moments of a fiery sunset in a Persian Gulf port where I used to live, I could see light declaring its inimitable splendor over and over. That childhood fascination has paved its way to be the central theme of my work as an abstract photographer. But unlike the usual process in photography where light is the modest messenger of a story, in my work light itself becomes the

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PORTFOLIO:

storyteller and objects become the messengers letting light expand its playful presence on them. Light is truly the “subject” of my works. It comes from my urge to share the way I see and experience the world around me, a world full of light moving, turning, twisting and dancing on different surfaces and spaces with everything else in view as a background. The process I use in taking photographs wasn’t developed overnight. My earlier efforts to capture light through photography were total failures. Although I was trying to record light, the results were pictures of still objects such as chair, table or curtain; I needed the objects to capture the reflections, to use them as the medium. But somehow those “preset subjects” could easily become the center of attention of my pictures, and light would become merely a tool to depict them. The cause of my dilemma is simple: light does not create a distinct mental portrait. Potentially and historically, light has always been the modest medium for portraits of other people or things. And those portraits and their stories effortlessly become

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the dominant subjects of the photographs. None None of the viewers of my earlier photos had an “image” of light as my actual subject in their mind or anything of that nature to compare my work to, or to feel the importance of light, regardless of the object in the picture. No matter how I would play with the contrast, color, brightness or sharpness during photography, the results failed to communicate the essence of what I wanted to reveal. Therefore, my effort of giving subjectivity to light seemed impossible. This struggle went on until little by little I discovered that if I take pictures with longer shutter speeds and move the camera, shapes of objects start to break and the border between them fades. They are still there, letting the light reflect on them and announce its playful existence, but the deformed objects cannot dominate the attention of the photo anymore. I constantly try to dominish the objects in my photos, abating their structural presence to magnify the qualities of light that is shaded on them. This opens the opportunity to see new things, feel new things, an abstract ethereal world free from




THE SILENT & THE PLAYFUL: LIGHT ARIS LIGHT ARIS KARIMI

structure, arrangement and definitions, filled with brightening pleasure and liberating movements. Recording light is like a chase for the untouchable; patience and persistence become inevitable. I take scores of shots to choose one that satisfies me with its revelation of light, the unearthly mood, and the aesthetic composition I want to create. And after years of doing photography I can now imagine the results better; I can better predict how the photos will turn out with different camera movements in my hand. My process has grown from absolute experiments to a now more controlled technique. I work only in digital format. I started working with film, but I switched to digital photography about seven years ago. It’s more convenient and cost-effective. I can see the results faster. I move the camera while taking the picture, and with a digital camera that has preview, it is easier for me to capture better composition. This collection is dedicated to the reflection of natural light on different surfaces such as glass and plastic. None of the pictures is taken from dust, smoke, or moving objects. The feeling of movement in the photos comes from two sources: the movement of light itself, and the turn and swing of the camera in my hand with a long shutter speed. Natural light always offers surprising twists and turns, as well as the gradual matchless changes due to the change of sunlight. I don’t use filters. Colors result from the natural light reflection on objects, or light decomposition when passed through glass. In post-production, I use only two Photoshop tools: burn and crop. I use burning for higher contrast and to darken some elements in my photos to give attention to other elements. Once in a while I use the cropping tool to change the composition. Like my other collections on light, the photographs of this collection are purposefully untitled. I like to give viewers a chance to experience their own emotions while they are interacting with an expression of mine. And it seems unnatural unnatural to me to apply a rational meaning to something that is the opposite of a product of intellect. Ideally I would like my audience to see the photographs in large print format. I produce 20" x 30" inkjet prints on Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl Paper (285 msg).

All of my works are reflections of my vision and emotion at the moment the shot is taken. They are an invitation to re-experience light, an invitation to a world where one can touch the mercurial presence of light, far larger than what we tend to see in daily life. Born in 1983 in Iran, Aras Karimi began photographing at the age of 16. He is an emerging artist based in Los Angeles with several awards on his resume, including 10 honorable mentions in the International Photography Awards Awards in the past three years. years. He studies fine art at Santa Monica College, CA. His work will be presented by the New Art Center, New York City Nov 8 -29, 2011. His website is www.ArasKarimi.com. is www.ArasKarimi.com.

To ask a ask a question or comment on t his t his article, visit our online Forum: www.phototechforum.com Forum: www.phototechforum.com

Product Resources Camera: Canon EOS 10D; Lens: Canon 16-35mm f2.8 II; Software: Photoshop and Lightroom 3; Paper: Hahnemuhle Fine Art Pearl.

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