DINFOS Rocks.

Man, am I whupped. I just got back from teaching the back half of a week-long intensive lighting seminar at the Defense Information School (DINFOS) at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Here's the deal. Photographers are chosen by portfolio from among the U.S. military shooters all over the world. They are sent to a one-week workshop, courtesy Uncle Sam, at DINFOS where they fan out and shoot assignments of just about every nature.

They are learning and competing - a great combo. The cool prizes (Nikon cameras, strobes, Lowepro bags, etc.,) are second only to the bragging rights for the winners. It's almost worth heading down to the army recruiter to sign up, just for a chance to get in.

Almost.

In addition to the photojournalism groups, there is one group of five shooters chosen to be on the Advanced Lighting Team. That lucky group is normally taught by none other than Joe McNally for a whole week, where he works with them in an intensive, small-class environment.

Well, Joe M. couldn't make it this year, so the duty was split between myself and a former Patuxent Publishing coworker of mine, Joe Eddins of the Washington Times. He got them first and then handed them over to me. Joe had them for Mon-Weds, then I got them for Thursday and Friday. The presentations and dinner were on Saturday.

My guys had been out all night pretty late the night before, so we mercifully kept them in the dark A/C all day on Thursday and overloaded their brains for about 9 hours. Besides, Friday was coming.

When Friday arrived, we were pretty much screwed a little behind the eight ball. We needed to do a full photo presentation on Saturday, and all of the stuff that they shot with Eddins had already been shown to the main group.

So we turned in a 17-hour day on Friday. We started shooting at 10:00am, finished at 9:30pm and then edited and produced the QuickTime show until 3:00am. These guys totally rocked, and I could not be more proud of them.

I'll be putting a YouTube version up in a few days. But I have to swap the music out first.

Suffice to say that when you are choosing music for a next-day show at 2:00am the night before, copyright and DRM are just fleeting little theoretical thoughts that are not on your top ten list of worries...

Matt H., Matt L., Andy, Jason and Sean, if you are reading this, there will also be some "On Assignments" popping up over the next few weeks featuring your photos and the techniques behind them.

And you mere civilians will definitely want to check out their stuff as it pops up. We did six shoots in a day and they all yielded strong photos. Lots of setup shots, too.

Sorry if I have seemed a little nonexistent on the website this week.

I am sitting at the BWI Airport waiting to catch a plane to Florida for a week, where I'll be looking to get my first good night's sleep in quite a while and then hit the Q&A post for Lighting 102. The first real classwork will be up shortly after that.

We'll then settle into a (roughly) weekly schedule for the L102 tutorials, discussions and assignments after that.

Oh, and on behalf of my Advanced Lighting Team (The "Serial Flashers") at the DINFOS photo workshops, I would like to offer our sincere thanks (to those of you who are U.S. taxpayers) for picking up the tab.

Aye YouTube on iGoogle

Interested in being able to watch YouTube videos from your iGoogle homepage? How about the ability to search YouTube from this very same gadget? If you don't yet have an iGoogle homepage it's easy to get started. Our friends at Google have this nifty thing called iGoogle, which essentially lets you personalize your home page with all kinds of gadgets, RSS feeds, search boxes, and more. You can even change the look with different themes. Get started today and install the new YouTube iGoogle Gadget!



Cheers,

Igor

YouTube Engineer

Update on New Embedded Player

Thanks for all the feedback - please keep posting your constructive comments here, as this is a huge help for us in gauging community needs. The designers are continuing to evolve the embedded player to address some of the concerns raised here while still providing new ways for people to discover videos. You may have already noticed the following changes: related videos only show when the menu button is pressed, mouseover function is no more, and the menu for related videos now displays at the end of the video you've just watched.



You'll see more changes coming up which will allow deeper customization of the embedded player -- whether you want the "classic" single video playback or some great new ways to display a variety of videos on your website, profile page or blog. Bottom line: we want this new feature on embeds to work for you.



If you'd like to turn off the option to see related videos through your embedded player, simply add "&rel=0" after the video ID number in the embed code. Here's an example of what your embed code should look like if you'd like to turn off this feature:



<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie"
value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxx&rel=0"
></param><param name="wmode"
value="transparent"></param><embed src="
http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxx&rel=0"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425"
height="350"></embed></object>



Cheers,

YouTube Team

Presenting Four Eyed Monsters

When artists Arin Crumley and Susan Buice first met, they agreed they would only communicate through visuals. What followed were scribbled notes, drawings, vlogs, etc., that chronicled the start of their relationship and would eventually become their first feature film, Four Eyed Monsters.



The film was accepted to festivals, won awards and was praised by critics. That could have been the end of the road, but Crumley and Buice did something unique: they created podcasts about the making of the film and their struggle to get it released. The videos went on to garner over 1 million views and built such a large and loyal online audience that they were able to self-distribute their film to six major markets.



Crumley and Buice are a great example of a new era of artists using the Internet to take the distribution of their work into their own hands. And as you can see from fan interviews, the two aren't interested in using new technologies only for themselves – they want to see all artists empowered.



Now, as YouTube partners, Four Eyed Monsters are able to share their full-length, forward-thinking creative vision with you. Check it out.







Yours,

Sara

YouTube Film/The Storyboard

Stellar by Starlight

Here's your scenario: You are assigned to shoot a wedding on a beach. Brief ceremony - about 10 minutes long.

Oh, and did we mention it's at night? With no lights at all? And when we say 'no light' we mean that the bright part of the night sky reads (at ASA 400) f/2.8 at twenty seconds.

The goal: General coverage of the event and one stunning photo.

Matt Adcock gives us the rundown on how a couple of fellow Atlanta wedding photogs handled this nightmare assignment over at FlashFlavor.com.

You Choose '08 Spotlight: Tom Tancredo

Currently reaching out to voters in the You Choose '08 Spotlight is Tom Tancredo, the Colorado Congressman who's nationally known for his tough stance on illegal immigration. Tancredo's Spotlight video asks you to weigh in on the immigration issue by telling your personal stories about how illegal immigration has affected you.







Governor Mike Huckabee got back to the YouTube community last week with this reply video to his question, "Do you want to see the IRS disappear?" Click below to hear Huckabee talk more about his plan to institute the Fair Tax.







The Spotlight is your chance to speak directly to the candidates about the issues you care most about. We'll be announcing a similar opportunity very soon, when we release the details of two live presidential debates that YouTube is producing with CNN.



Keep your eyes and ears peeled,

Steve of Citizentube

YouTube News & Politics

L102: Light Controls Overview

Today, we'll run through the various lighting controls to give you some context for later.

If these are all old hat, you may be in for more than you think. While they may sound simple to some of the more seasoned readers, I am discovering new techniques all of the time simply by studying these controls on a one-by-one basis. And I expect to learn a lot just by going through this process myself.

Each control has a range of possibilities, and offers both advantages and disadvantages that can be exploited or avoided for a given subject.


Lighting Controls Overview

1. Varying the Position

Changing the angle of your light position is what will allow your flash to define the three-dimensional shape of your subject. This is where on-camera flash fails us. It illuminates, but does not reveal shape. Getting your light off of the camera is the most basic control, so it is our first of the seven.

In addition to varying the angle of your light source, you can also dramatically change the effect of your light by varying the distance to the subject. In particular, altering the distance of the light to the subject as it relates to the distance from the light to the background.

2. Varying the Apparent Size of the Light Source

Note that I said "apparent." In photography, size does not matter. Apparent size matters. How a subject sees your light source will determine many things.

Size of light source can be altered by reflection off of a diffuse surface, or transmission through a translucent material. In addition to changing the apparent size of the light source, this will lower the intensity per square inch. This, in turn, will alter the way your light interacts with your subject.

We also will spend some time in this section talking about how the various surface properties of your subject come into play with your light source, and how to exploit those variables.

3. Altering the Relative Intensity

This is about balancing light - with the ambient, other strobes, lightning, glowing swamp gases, whatever.

It is not about the light level. That is easily compensated for by your exposure settings. The magic is in the relative light levels, and where you place your exposure settings with respect to your various light intensities.

This is a sticking point for a lot of people, so we are gonna hit it hard.

4. Restricting Light

Even more important than where your light goes is where it does not go. We'll be using various light restricting tools and exploring their effects in a methodical way.

Snoots, grids, gobos, cookies, (man-made and natural, oatmeal and chocolate chip) beam-width adjustment, feathering - it's all good. And we'll be hitting each one in turn.

5. Refraction and Reflection

You do it without thinking about it every time you zoom your flash. That little fresnel lens in the front bends your light to suit your mood. Or at least your lens. But there are other ways to bend light, and we will be exploring them.

Water, glass, mirrors, the extreme gravity around a black hole - whatever it takes.

6. Altering the Color

We're talking gels, gels, gels and more gels. Sure, white light is clean and predictable, but you have a whole color spectrum to play with. We'll make sure we get the basic color correction stuff in. But we'll also be looking at altering light color to develop a theme in a photo.

There are subtle things you can do, and not-so-subtle things. Most people are about as subtle as a ball-peen hammer when they start out with gels. But, just as the vinophiles will tell you, the real fun is in the slight variations.

Layering colors from a given family, complimentary color cross lighting, deliberate in-camera color balance shifting and more.

If you do not have a Rosco or Lee sample pack, beg borrow or steal one. And if you have a good source for said sample packs, please sound off in the comments. Especially out-of-US sources. I never, ever turn down a sample pack. Ever.

Go ahead. Offer me one and try me.

7. Time

Flash is impossibly brief, but continuous light is variable with respect to time duration. This gives us another creative lever to exploit.

Yes, light is light. But elapsed time adds a fourth dimension to a three-dimensional world, and offers results that simply cannot happen in a single instant.

_________________________________________

So, there you go. Seven straightforward concepts that together yield a world of possibilities.

We will explore them, dissect them, discuss them, occasionally curse them and finally get to know them on an instinctive level.

That accomplished, the goal will be to control them without letting them distract us from more creative thoughts.

When you tie your shoes, you do not consume mindshare by remembering that the little bunny has to go around both trees before it hops into its hole. (Can you tell I have kids?) You just tie your shoes while you are thinking about more important things. That's how you want to be when you position your lights, for example.

I have noticed a lot of questions popping up in the comments and the L102 thread on Flickr. So before we dive into "position," I will answer as many questions as is practical in the next L102 post, to minimize confusion going forward.

If you have a question, try to stick it in the L102 thread in the next few days. I'll go through and answer as many as I can, assuming they have not been answered by someone else.

FYI, I am teaching for the rest of the week at the Defense Information School at Ft. Meade in Maryland. It is put on by the US Department of Defense and Nikon. I have three days with a hand-picked class of six military photographers to teach an intensive course on location lighting. With such a luxurious amount off time and such a small class, I am chomping at the bit to get started.

That's right folks, join the Army and learn to light. ("Just sign on the dotted line, son, and those SB-800's are yours...")

Following that, I am headed down south with my family for a week to see my folks in greater metropolitan Umatilla, Florida. But I have some interesting stuff in the hopper all ready to go during my so-called vacation.

And two more big announcements when I get back.


Next: L102: Questions and Answers