Industry - The Making of

"Industry," featured today at FILE magazine, was initially conceived as a response to some of John's work with dioramas and his particular use of depth of field to create a macro effect in large scale environments. Both posts begin to examine the viewers willingness to suspend their disbelief. I've always been interested in the point when a photograph ceases to be perceived as its content and emerges as an object in its own right. A similar point exists during a play when the curtains are drawn back but before the actors interact with the set. For a brief while the structures remain inert and obvious. It's not until the scene is set and the dialog begins that the viewer forgets the theater.

I was mulling over these ideas while driving and snapped a few photos of the passing factories to experiment with later. The technique I wanted to recreate was famously used by Walt Disney in the introduction of Bambi. Several glass panels were painted, then set behind each other and filmed while moving at different speeds. This gave a unique depth to the animation.


Composite:

I think the final image gets at the paradox of what industry symbolizes in a post revolution eco-conscious paradigm. The glowing lights and horizon reminded me of a description of Sir Henry Bessemer's smeltery which reportedly ran 24hrs a day lighting the sky and producing the first controllable purification of iron into steel in the western world. In essence giving birth to the material process which built our great cities.

Thanks again to FILE Magazine and those interested in RedTown's process.

RedTown 2.0

We have a new website! Here's to a great 2010 with amazing new work from your favorite photo duo, RedTown!

Portrait of the artist as a young man

Photo taken by Maria Davis on the first day of my 28th year.

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From the Archives

What can I say

And now for something completely different

Laura

Great shoot today! Laura Penn (www.laurapenn.com - hire her!) is a Chicago actress with a great personality, beautiful smile and a very youthful look. Looking at her images on her website, I could see she had all that covered well enough. I wanted to make her look a little more glamorous and grown up. She showed up right on time (talk about professionalism) and came fully stocked with wardrobe and makeup ready to get to work.

When the shoot got started I began to get a little nervous. The photos were ok, but nothing was getting me excited. We tried some different poses, and we laughed a bit to get us in a good mood, but the image I had in my head still wasn't showing up in front of the camera. Maybe I couldn't make her look anything other than "cute". She has a lot of energy and every shot I took either showed too much youthfulness or the pose was too cheese. I had my work cut out for me.

But I learned something important today. As the shoot progressed, she became more comfortable and I found what looks were and weren't working and became more comfortable giving direction. Soon we had a great rhythm and was firing away some great photos shot after shot. So the lesson I take away from the shoot is this: it's never the model's fault if you're photo's aren't coming out the way you want them to. Sure you may find it challenging at first, but with a keen eye, good communication and an ability to adapt to the shoot to fit the model, you will always come away with something great.

Thank you Laura for being such a great model today. I hope my photos help get you a great gig!

Self Portrait

Testing light for a shoot I'm doing today in studio and decided to bust out the hassy for a thru the viewfinder self-portrait. Kinda fun...

Size Matters

Actual P30 output image (left) next to equivalent output by my 12mp Nikon (right)

So it was back to the studio to reshoot Alberto who deserved to get at least one good photo for putting up with my pretty fail-tastic outdoor shoot a week or so previously out in the freezing cold. My new friend Angelica who works at the local toy store (big name photo store in town, sshhh don't tell) brought over the PhaseOne P30 system for me to check out. I am totally in the market for a digital back for my Mamiya AFD and have been dying to test out a digital back for it since forever. The whole reason I bought my AFD, in fact, was to buy a digital back for it and make some glorious, oversized photos with that tasty Mamiya 3D-ness that I love whenever I shoot with that camera.

Why shoot MF? Did you see the size of the photo on the left? MF digital sensors are finally huge, and huge enough to enjoy the great dof we all loved when shooting MF in our film days. Images just look so professional when they're shot on an oversized sensor. I'm too lazy to look up the actual specs but I think we're talking 33x48mm. This is way bigger than a full frame slr and let's not even talk about those aps-c/h sensors. I love the detail and sense of space when I shoot MF, even at small apertures. Even cooler was working on a fully 16 bit image with 12 stop exposure latitude at a native 16x20" print size at 300dpi! WOW! I didn't think my little macbook pro could handle it, but it sucked it up and spat out a massive 850mb layered PSD when it was all said and done (i'm good at keeping my layers to a minimum, but still had over a dozen for each final image, so...). What more can be said about shooting MF digital other than "yes please may I have another?"

We set up the camera to shoot in tethered mode, and while it takes us forever to figure out the Capture One software and whether or not it's saving to the CF card simultaneously while tethered by firewire, and why does the white balance feature become grayed out when it's plugged into the camera, and how do I go back to the main menu on this damn digital back?!, we finally iron out enough kinks that we can start shooting.

And oh how glorious it was.

Couple of things- so while I'm more concerned about getting interesting and compelling images than I am about the toys (I think far too many photogs are in it for the gear instead of the image, but that's for another post), this was a great opportunity to play with a new toy and also learn some sweet tech skills on my own time. Now Angelica and I can both fudge our way onto a shoot as a tech if we absolutely needed to. The Capture One software is pretty intuitive once you play with it. It's not too unlike Lightroom or Aperture in most regards, even though it's a bit dated. The other negative for me about the back was that if you're like me and rely on the lcd on the back of the camera to help you figure out if you've got a decent exposure, you can kiss that goodbye with the p30 back. Sure, I use a flash meter to get me where I think I need to be, but I'm so spoiled by these 920,000 pixel lcds on the current gen slrs, I really miss it when I don't have that to preview my images. I mean, come on, this back w/camera costs almost $30k. Why does the lcd suck so badly? So I was a little miffed when I was trying to get my lighting right and ended up proofing with the Mark II. Finally the lighting was good, the tethering was online, and Alberto had arrived and it was time to get to work.


The shot setup was actually very simple. After trying and failing at what I thought was going to be a straight forward background setting with some big v flats as my white seamless (instead of using an actual seamless) set in a row in a very straight, boring manner, I decided to go a little unconventional and set up a mini corner ala Irving Penn. But instead of a closed corner allowing only one light to illuminate Alberto, I used to inverted V flats, leaving a gap between the two with another V flat facing backwards a few feet behind the first two. I then used a 7B w/reflector at fairly high power to bounce light onto the V flat and create some back lighting on Alberto. Situated in front of him and above, tilted down slightly I put a beauty dish on another head set to a fairly low power (maybe a stop or two below the back light) to give a nice flat finish to the scene while creating interesting definition and shadows in the face. The result is a very glowy effect with some significant fall off in the corners which I have to say I'm very impressed by. This could be done on a seamless I suppose, but the airiness and gradation would be hard to match. Overall I think the effect is pretty neat.

So for two hours Angelica and I took turns playing photographer and tech until finally we decided we had what we had come for: another great photo for our portfolios, a chance to play with some sweet gear, and an opportunity to do right by my model and get him something he can use for his book. All in all, quite successful. Big props to Angelica, who gave some great ideas during the shoot and for being enthusiastic the entire time. I hope we will work together again soon and play with some other great toys.

Here are two finals to enjoy. There were many strong images to choose from and in fact I have at least 4 more I would like to complete. Maybe I'll post them another day.

A Rose by Any Other Name

From the camera

One of the many problems I face as a budding young photographer is finding my style. What is style? How does one go about finding it? I know that I need one if I'm going to be successful and distinguish myself from the thousands of other very talented young photographers working out there, and yet, I can't help but feel like I want to try it all. I think I definitely have a visual preference; I certainly like moody, usually single-lit images. And for the most part, I think they speak to me in a way most of my more "production heavy" photos don't. I think this is generally the case with photography. The dynamic image is usually bold and brash, allowing us to see in stark unflinching contrasts providing us with a dramatic, and therefore different, view of the ordinary. Single-lighting provides that contrast and the old axiom "less is more" seems really appropriate in the case of photography. But even though I think photography is 99% about the light, it's also 99% about the subject. And according to my fuzzy math, that's pretty legit. Where most of us go wrong is that we choose the wrong light for the subject, or vice versa. Light is the best tool I have for telling my story visually, but I also know that without a good subject, or the appropriate combination of the two, no one really cares what I'm shooting. A photo is just a photo is just a photo, until it's a photo.

For this post I wanted to share some variations on a single image that came from a recent shoot with Jeff. Hands down my favorite model so far and I can't wait to throw some actual paying work his way, because the guy is great. He poses well for me and I think he has a great look. Can't wait to work with him some more in the future. But for this shoot, I can't seem to decide which style I want to process the photo. To make it especially challenging, I've chosen a difficult photo in terms of its shortened dynamic range and very high contrast. I thought it would be fun to see how effective my PS work would be at changing the visual style of the image. I think I have a favorite look from the five shown, and I think it's thanks to exercises like this that I continue to form my style. Enjoy.

Color Corrected - plain jane

B&W - Moody

Desaturated - Subtle blueish hue

cross-process

retro color funk?

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When it doesn't go your way.

Working with a flexible and patient model can make all the difference in the world. I recently did a shoot with a new model named Alberto as part of a series I'm working on featuring night time scenes throughout the city. Unfortunately for Alberto, it being February and well after sunset didn't really click in my head until we arrived on location to do the shoot and our teeth instantly started chattering. To make things worse, the wind was driving through this underpass like we were in a wind tunnel (go figure) and I was having trouble with my lighting. So after wasting 20-30 mins with my head on backwards, and my fingers frozen from fiddling with the equipment, and poor Alberto spasming uncontrollably, we finally were able to start shooting. And luckily for me, Alberto really sucked it up and gave me some great poses. Unfortunately for both of us, I wasn't able to get as many solid photos as I would have liked, so we end up with a less than great collection of photos to choose from. That said, I think there is a valuable lesson to be learned here about working with models who take this seriously enough to put up with freezing temperatures and photographers who aren't 100% on. I may not have a lot of options from this shoot, but I did get a few solid photos instead of going home completely empty handed. Bravo Alberto for being a sport and I can't wait to photograph you again.

Monolith

There is something ethereal about empty parking garages at night. Alone with acres of concrete and the flickering green of the overhead fluorescents, these monolithic tombs of our automotive cultural identity become surreal landscapes of proportion, scale and symmetry. The most efficient parking structures have proven to look nothing like the ones we build here in America, and yet with all our desire to increase traffic volume and fit more suv's per square foot we continue to make these monstrous, multi-leveled ziggurats in the fashion of our own rather lazy western notions of space and urban planning. And as utilitarian and stripped-away of excess in order to be as cost-effective as possible as they are, their vastness and blandness turns into a gorgeous arrangement of contrasts and forms which gives way to some really beautiful photography. When the cars have all gone home the purpose of their existence seems to fall into question and it allows you to re-contextualize their form and see the beautiful landscape we build within our own cities.

Band: Nimikri

In the spirit of sharing and enriching the blog experience, and because our fans demand it, we're going to be a little more loquacious with each post. Pretty pictures seem to me to be so much more impressive when you're given a chance to understand more. So, from here in, we'll do our best to talk about the why and the how of each photo we post so you learn, and with any luck, become inspired to try some of it yourself.

To kick it off, we have a pretty cool post for you. This weekend I had the opportunity to photograph a band called Nimikri. (www.myspace.com/nimikri) As you can see from their blank myspace page, they're in desperate need of an image (and a bassist and voc alist, send them an IM if you're interested).

Like most good shoots for the beginner photographer, this one started thru the magic of Craigslist. I've been having a run of decent luck there, finding people to photograph on a pretty consistent basis. Not nearly as many people skipping out on me at the last minute like last year *knock on wood*. There really is no excuse to not have a respectable portrait portfolio when there are so many people online looking to trade services and be apart of your project. It's a simple matter of mutual back scratching, and so far, people get that if they're willing to play along with my bizarre photo concepts, they usually go home with some cool photos.

Portrait: Ashok

Looking Like a Pro

Irish Troll Bridge

M@

Padre Ed

What a cool old man Padre Ed was. Matt and I ran into him out on the street while waiting to cross a busy road. Out of nowhere strolls up this tiny old priest cussing and hollering at us. After a few minutes chatting with him it was clear he was the funniest, most sharp tongued 85 year old man I've ever met. He was on his way to catch a bus to the library and was nice enough to pose for a photo.

Steve Lee

George Redux: Now With More Awesomeness

Finally developed the film from my shoot with my buddy George. So much better than digital. What more can be said?