Multimedia Monday

When catching up on my October archiving, I decided to add two new categories in which to place future articles - business and multimedia.

The former has grown in interest on the site because of the transitional-pro nature of many of the readers. And the latter is an exploding genre of photojournalism that is just going to keep getting bigger.

Neither will detract from the main mandate of Strobist, which is to teach lighting. But if you are serious about the craft and/or profession, you want to be up on these areas.

This is a very exciting time. We are jumping in whole hog at The Sun, learning all we can and trying to get ahead of the curve. We have a projects board up in photo with a list that would choke a horse, and it seems like everybody has something going on.

I have just finished shooting a 3,000-frame, time-lapse project on fall which should be up within a week.

One of my Fellow Sun shooters, Monica Lopossay, just did a neat piece on a regular, drop-in bluegrass jam session in a small town in Maryland. Check it out if you get a chance.

The big news this week was the "auctioning off" of a multimedia piece by Mediastorm. The piece is a stunning example of new-media photojournalism by Ed Kashi on Iraqi Kurdistan. I cannot wait to see the final product.

Just as important is the way in which it came to market. Mediastorm auctioned it directly to the market, with MSNBC.com winning the bidding.

The important takeaways here are (a) this is an exploding new medium for visual storytelling, and (b) how the digital nature of the entire process allows forward thinking shooters and agencies to retain control from conception to sale.

It's heady stuff.

I will do a separate post on Iraqi Kurdistan when it debuts. It will be a watershed moment for photojournalism in several ways. You'll wanna be there to see it.

The Hot List, Oct 2006

Before we get to the October Hot List, I have to say that I like Pieter's match photo so much I am just looking for excuses to stick it up.

Pieter, if you have a problem with this becoming the Hot List icon, please let me know in the comments and I will swap it out for something else.

In what will be no surprise for regular readers, Harrington's biz book was numero uno with a bullet. As far as I am concerned, he should just give the thing away for free and charge you budding pro's one percent of your increased incomes. The book is gold.

Someone is apparently still shooting naughty pix in the garage, and PDN makes an appearance this month. But other than that, the usual suspects shuffled around but remained largely unchanged.

That said, on to what Strobist readers (via Amazon) are reading:



The October Hot List:

1. Best Business Practices for Photographers

2. Secrets of Lighting on Location: A Photographer's Guide to Professional Lighting Techniques

3. Matters of Light & Depth

4. Art of RAW Conversion: How to Produce Art-Quality Photos with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Leading RAW Converters

5. Light - Science and Magic, Second Edition: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting

6. Master Lighting Guide for Portrait Photographers

7. Photo District News

8. Photojournalism, Fifth Edition: The Professionals' Approach

9. Garage Glamour: Digital Nude and Beauty Photography Made Simple

10. The DAM Book

Exposure with a Grey Card

Chad Miller says, "your camera is stupid" in this Flickr Technique thread because it wants your image to be middle grey, like the square pictured here. Your camera can't know whether you're aiming it at snow or cinders, so it splits the difference.

Steve Traudt has The Fifty-Cent Solution for Apogee Photo Magazine.

David uses the back of his hand in a very similar way in this installment of On Assignment.

By Mike H.

TGIF! Time for the Reader POTW

It's Friday, which means that (a) I push the boundries of what is considered "casual dress" at work, and (b) time for a Reader Photo of the Week.

This week's image is by Strobist reader X-Pose, who has really sprouted antlers since getting his Dean Collins DVD's. The guy is kicking butt, IMO.

Truth be told, this not even is my favorite photo of his that he put up this week. But being the corporate, extra-work-safe grunt that I am, I hesitated to put this even better one (a tad work-uncomfy, depending on your environment) up on the blog's front page.

X-Pose is doing these tres elegant photos with just one, small Canon speedlight, shot through a large, homemade diffuser which is placed just outside of the frame. He used the technique for both photos and many of the other pix in his Flickr stream.

This is a classic Collins technique which brings all kinds of soft-light-smooth-falloff goodness to your pix.

Keep those photos coming. You guys rock.

On Assignment: Shade is Your Friend

One of the first things to consider when balancing strobe and ambient light is whether or not you can knock the ambient down a bit, to give you more options with your small-flash lighting ratios.

And for my money, nothing does that quicker and easier than the shady side of a building.

If I am doing a strobed outdoor portrait (as in the above photo of two prep football standouts) I will typically use a building as a "sun gobo" whether I include it in the photo or not.

Even if I am including a bright sky in the background, I'll use the shade of a building to drop my subject to near black when underexposing a stop for the sunny sky. You get more lighting control this way.

If I am starting in full sun as my ambient, there are only a couple of stops of wiggle room before I get to my tightest aperture and max synch speed. No matter how powerful your flash is, that's the end of the light balancing line for you.

You can cheat it a couple of stops with an ND filter, but that is another story (and the subject of an upcoming post.)

But the fact that the shaded area was 2-3 stops darker than the area in full sun allowed me to drop the ambient down some for a more dramatic effect in this photo. When you realize that this photo was taken in the middle of the afternoon of a sunny day, you start to see the lighting ratio advantages that shade can give you.

I had my flashes set on half power, and placed them as seen below.

(FYI, the front/left strobe was on the 85mm beam setting, allowing me to let the light fall off below the guys' faces.)

For you home-gamers, the thought process is as follows.

1) Set the camera on max synch speed.
2) Cross light the two guys, with the flashes on manual at half power (full power if placed further back.)
3) Fire some quick test shots while adjusting the aperture until the lit subjects are properly exposed in your cool little cheater screen on the camera back.
4) Your ambient-lit areas will be very dark. While keeping the chosen aperture constant (to make the strobe happy) open your shutter speed up until the lighting ratio looks as smooth (or dramatic) as you'd like.

With a little practice, this is a very fast process, and does not require a strobe meter.

And with the money you save on the flash meter, you can get another light...

Next: Sometimes it's Not the Photo, it's the Process

Jack O' Lantern Winner

Congrats to bmp_digital for winning the quickie pumpkin assignment.

He actually balanced four light sources - two flashes, one streetlight and a candle to get this positively Halmarkey-looking Halloween photo.

Sez bmp:

"Shot in my driveway, ambient streetlight illuminates orange leaves, upper right, Sunpak 522/blue gel lights rest of background. A Canon 550 w/diffusion and orange gel lights pumpkin left, Canon 580 w/diffusion lights pumpkin right, Pocket Wizards throughout.

Canon 5D, ISO 1000, 1 second @ f5.6. The main problem I had was the candle (1 tealight!) was too bright @ 1 second, so diffusion was added to the pumpkin interior to bring exposure down. "

There was some cool stuff - I really liked the one with the transparent cat - and thanks for all who contributed photos.

I'd also like to give a shout-out to this particular pumpkin, which was impeccably carved and transcended the genre to the point of being fine art.

The subject matter choice was truly stunning, and will no doubt be imitated all over the world next Halloween.

How cruel that the ravages of time (and some hungry bugs, most likely) will shortly claim your masterpiece.

BMP - If you could Flickrmail me your mailing address, I'll get your book out to you!

Election Day + Featured Videos

Greetings, everyone. How's that candy hangover today?



Now that the Halloween revelry is over, it's down to some serious matters. First, Election Day is around the corner in the U.S., so if you're over 18, don't forget to vote. These might be midterm elections, but there are still some important issues at stake, namely the balance of power in the Senate and the House, not to mention some fierce local races. You've probably noticed a lot of politicians using YouTube to showcase their campaign ads; we've built a special area to highlight just some of the candidates. We encourage you to explore YouTube to find other politicians relevant to your area, party or ideals.



Second, we've noticed a rash of videos and commentary claiming that "the only featured videos we're seeing [on the YouTube home page] are paid advertising videos." This is totally untrue – anything you see in the box marked "Featured Videos" has been selected by a team of editors who are constantly thinking about what might appeal to you, the users, and trying to balance the types of videos and subject matter seen here. We don't always nail it, but the intentions are never commercially oriented, we can promise you that.



Cheers,

Mia

The YouTube Team