AsukaBook: Building the Perfect Wedding Book

I am not a wedding photographer. I do not enjoy weddings, funerals or birthday parties featuring magicians and clowns. However, in my line of work one needs to try anything one, so when my brother requested that we shoot his wedding last July as their gift, I decided to bite the bullet. Personal goal: make my family happy by capturing a key event in their lives, especially after the loss of my father the previous week. Professional goal: produce a perfect wedding book with neither cost nor profit being the object.

Since I began working as a photographer, AsukaBook, a publisher who prints in Japan but is based out of Oregon, has appealed to me as an option for my first big portfolio book. They have a special opening offer to all professional photographers (you need a website, I think), to print the first book for 50% of regular cost. Fifty percent is significant when you consider that the cost of this book was going to be $525 for 40 pages originally; this is not small peanuts for a book, but fair when one considers that a quality, single print edition of anything has to be expensive to make it worth the time spent in production. In the end, after shipping, taxes and currency exchange, I will have spent a bit over $400 for the book. Worth it?

I chose a large format of 12×12 inches for the book. I feel that this is a perfect print size for archival prints, and when you consider that this book lays flat for a full spread of 24×12 inches, it is quite impressive. I also went with matte finish, even though I prefer glossy metallics for my personal work. I was aiming for a Martha Stewart wedding look and her books from the 1990s often featured a matte finish to bring out an emotional feeling of polish.

As you can see from these few simple shots of the book, the colours are rich and the package is about as high quality as could be conceived. I would caution any would be professionals to be aware that their small point and shoot or Unlce Louis’ dslr are not going to cut it, at least not straight from the camera. A large portion of what I do relates to post-production of the images, colour syncing to a particular palette, retouching and layout. I was unable to use AsukaBook’s proprietary software, so I had to lay out the book in Adobe’s InDesign CS6. If you are not regularly working on large publications, which I do for my school, then this might kill you. For me, it worked fairly smoothly and I was happy to have tech support question a few of my bleed choices in final production.

The pages a almost a foam core style of thickness, and this makes for a seriously heavy book that feels akin to a Bible of coffee table masterpiece. I have seen nothing like this in small print production before, and it screams of quality in design. The wraparound cover and hard case allow for custom design – I went for two different photos on the actual book, and a full wrap of the case that shows a field shot: unique and compelling.

So it only took me 6 months to scan the Kodak Porta film, process the photos, lay the book out and get it back in the post. Would I do it again? Nope. Never. Doubt it. The book was gorgeous and flawless, but I would never make any money unless I charged about $5000 to shoot a wedding, and the only take away would be the digital negatives and this book. The time it took, and the behind the scenes work make weddings tough to work for profit unless you are constantly working through the exact same workflow, and you outsource the tedious work to others, which I just refuse to do.

The real question will be whether the couple like it, love it or hate it. I just put the dvds and the book into the shipping box to be mailed tomorrow back to Prince Edward Island. If you want to see this masterpiece for yourself, then I am certain they will be inviting friends and family over to relive their happiest of happy days.

The South: Deep Rivers, The Woods and Houses Haunted

The South is a different place. It is greasy, barren, and hollow, but is also bursting with energy, rich with music and pregnant with possibility. The American states that make up the Bible Belt are filled with contradictions which renew my faith in human nature with every visit. Poverty runs rampant, but there are beautiful buildings in various states of disrepair that harken back to a better era. Music is a business in the South, but it is also a way of life; a voice that rises above the Mississippi to soothe the poor and forgotten.  Food ranges from comfort foods like grits and white gravy to quintessential flavour of the Creole-influenced Oyster and Absinthe Dome featured at Commander’s Palace. For our eight day trek we drove from Nashville to Memphis and back again, and then onto New Orleans through  Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Total time in the car was about twenty four hours of driving spread over the week, and while it was reasonable, I would have preferred to take stopover breaks in a place like Birmingham in hindsight.

The purpose of this particular journey was founded in seeing Old Crow Medicine Show play their sold-out show at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Through our love of bands like Mumford and Sons, Whitehorse and Johnny Cash, we found our way to the song “Wagon Wheel” and felt that it would be worth it to spend time and money tracing American music through the blues, jazz, rockabilly and country genres. Memphis was our first stop. Even I have to admit that it was pretty cool to walk along Beale Street, up Union Avenue and hear Marc Cohn’s lyrics from “Walking in Memphis” ring true. Perhaps following the ghost of Elvis out to Graceland was misguided (between the lines for the parking to take a bus to get a ticket to get on a bus to cross the street it would have taken us hours to follow believers through Elvis’ house – the best I could do was hit a gift shop to pick up a small gift for our dog-sitter and friend, Jennie); still, it was important to at least see the house from the road as we drove by twice to exit what is generally a poor, seen-better-days area. The King left that building many years ago.

Sadly, The King and The Killer also left the tourist-traps of Beale Street and Sun Studio. Do not get me wrong, it was a privilege and fascinating experience to see the buildings where so much of American culture seeped into the walls. My father  would have loved to see the place where Elvis recorded “That’s Alright Mama” and Jerry Lee Lewis recorded “Great Balls of Fire”, but today Sun Studios is a tour bus depot. U2 may have recorded a few tracks there for Rattle and Hum, but really it is now a cafe that sells t-shirts and tacky gifts for your enemies or Bingo partner.

Beale Street was a different story. I doubt that it was ever more than what it is today: a strip of bars that provide booze for visitors and venues to play for people to make a basic wage. Our first night had us listening to an older couple singing random songs at Rum Boogie Cafe for a largely transient tourist group who would go from bar to bar until they had “hear it all”. Cover songs for those who need to hear the familiar and feel that it is new. The second night was much different: by 3pm The Plantation All-Stars had hit the stage of the Blues Hall (also owned by Rum Boogie and with whom a bathroom is shared). This was the blues incarnate. It was greasy, funky, smoke-infused and fun. There were no $3000 Gibson guitars or even a single instrument that was not rubber-banded together, but these boys could play set after set of blues standards inflected with their personality. I should also mention that they were a fully black quintet playing for a mixed audience. People who were black stayed for the first few sets until the white tourists moved in to take over for the white band that played the main set. We left with the Plantation All-Stars, but not before talking with a bass player who was transplanted from Chicago in his search for paying gigs. He was playing a Squire five string bass with four strings borrowed from a friend while his was “in the shop”. It was blues at its best, and we felt blessed to find it among the tourist traps. B.B. King’s was best left for a t-shirt purchase and a walk-by.

Our dive back to Nashville had us stopping into Duck Bottom Reserve for a beautiful view of the river and a passing doe running from the path. Nashville was a sharp contrast to Memphis: there was money, there were vintage guitars, and it was all about the music business. From our walk along Music Row to our night listening to bands at Whisky Bent and Robert’s, it was clear who were the Nashville players and who were just filler bands that bars hire to support the whims of tourists seeking the “real” country music. If you are looking for songs by Brad Paisley, Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, then you might be in luck. If you seek George Jones, Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard, then the digging will be difficult. Still, we found killer players at Robert’s. From Chris Costello and The B Squad to The Don Kelly Band’s set, we heard some of the finest picking and showmanship imaginable. I learned a Bible’s worth of tips on how to play music for an audience who is filled with rhinos only in town for “the football/basketball” game. As we stood in Ryman, the Mother Church of Country Music, to hear OCMS play hits and a few classics with their opener, Dale Watson and his Lone Stars, we knew that we had found the best traditional Country music we were going to find in this town these days.

The end of the journey was New Orleans. NOLA is a city where it all comes together and nothing is ever as simple as it seems. It is the birthplace of jazz, the melting pot of music and food. It is a city where slavery began and ended, but also where the mix became a gumbo and forced America to become something new. For me, New Orleans is also where my loves come together: jazz, food, vampires and voodoo all meet in this city, and no matter what tourism masks it remains a magical town. We made a pilgrimage to Anne Rice’s former First Street Mansion, to Preservation Jazz Hall, the French Quarter, the Garden District, Bourbon Street, Magazine Street, and even walked along St. Charles all the way out to Audobon Park and Loyola University. The trees grew deep and sprawled into the sidewalks, and the magic still continues to seep from the air of what should be an destination for any traveller wanting to feel alive in a way unavailable any other place in the planet.

 

Our journey took us from one place to another, but each stop in The South was part of a bigger picture. On the trek I carried my Hasselblad SWC camera with a CFV 16 digital back. Not a simple camera to drag through dodgy areas, but sticking it into a bag that I paid little attention to seemed to protect the $10, 000 worth of gear inside from being swiped. Using a camera like this for travel photography is challenging, but after the West Coast Trail where I shot fully with film, I decided to try out the SWC with a digital back for this trip. Given the super wide angle of the camera lens (38mm in medium format), this is not a snapshot camera. The idea was to shoot scenes that represented the journey in a manner that would always remind me of the best moments even if they were not the ones featured in the shot.  The resolution is astounding on the digital back, and surpasses what I can scan with my Epson scanner. The challenges remain: expensive to break or lose, the mechanical shutter and the trigger cabe do not always signal the back to expose the sensor, the lcd screen is good for nothing other than basic exposure, the sensor is cropped compared to film, and with the SWC focus is tough as it has no mirror. Worth the hassle? I believe so, but I would never take this combination outside of a city or controlled atmosphere. It would require a completely different H5D or Phase One camera to even consider such work. Still…an amazing series of photographic moments from a perfect adventure through the deep south.

More photos will follow, as will more thoughts on specific restaurants and experiences we had along the way.

Relax, Refocus and the Art of Breathing: Summer Begins The New Cycle

I live my life in cycles based on the school year. I have targets to persevere through, I have times of the year that I love, and there are moments that never fail to provide surprises and growth. Summer is my time to renew, reflect and enjoy two months on the road with friends and family. 2013 remains the most productive and personally fulfilling year of my life; I am thankful for the success, the challenges and failures the universe has offered up to me, as I truly believe that each second of 2013 has been pivotal in finding my dharma: my life’s chosen path.

The past week has found me hosting a bachelor’s party for my best male friend, has found me dancing in the streets with new friends for Pride Toronto, cooking cupboards clean before I head East and then West for outdoor and wedding adventures, and I even had time to practice my bass playing in a serious fashion. As I sift through the week’s most interesting photographs, what strikes me most is how the littlest fragments captured can speak so deeply about the world around us.

As I walked through the Pride Parade aftermath in Toronto with friends, I found myself not snapping the “big shots” with a giant lens. I was not looking for images to sell or even share, but rather I wanted to remember what my eyes actually saw as I drifted with the crowds towards stages and patio parties. My eyes part-objectified the world around me: I saw necks, hips, backs, feet and the messages written across bodies for aficionado to find and decode.

As I slow down, sleep in (first time sleeping more than 6 hours in a year or two), and even catch some tanning time by the pool, I feel healthy and capable of whatever my mind seeks out. I have been reading Plutarch, essays on food and identity construction, short narratives about how Time and the Modern Area clash and our need to reconnect with Nature, and even a few Estonian fairy tales about gnomes. I have watched a rabbit attempt to build a burrow in the middle of a freshly cut lawn, and I have spent a few hours observing a pair of young cardinals build a nest in a smoke tree. Time continues to pass, but unlike any other time in my life, I am present and making sure to fill each second with worthwhile, enriching activities and personal connections.

Food is another story. With time on my hands and a need to leave no food behind to rot in my absence, I have been playing a game with myself: what can I cook from the random ingredients at the back of cupboards and in the back of freezers. Mealtimes have become Iron Chef competitions with myself. I entertain friends with recipes that come from my imagination and creative mind; I also make the effort to swim, run, lift weights and drink less coffee in an effort to balance out the calories and late nights. Balance is key.

While I am not a fan of Italian cannoli, in general, I do have to admit that despite the sublime perfection of my own experiments with pineapple-upside down cakes, molten chocolate cakes, bread puddings, and plum crumb cakes, the cannoli from Toronto’s La Strada bakery beat me hands down and into submission. After munching three of these little beauties I was in a bit of Heaven. In fact it somehow inspired me to try my hand at cooking pork shanks on the barbeque after a few hours of pre-cooking in beer and spices. While I was aiming a a German beer garden taste I ended up closer to great southern barbeque. Next time, there will be less boiling, more brining and an oven used to crisp the final product into my Munich aspirations.

Next step has me preparing all week for Friday’s trip to Ottawa for a wedding. I got a sweet room at Chateau Laurier, and am so looking forward to hitting the road even if my bank account would prefer to not have to pay to board my two dogs for a few days at a time. Regardless, the cost of boarding them is worth the unexpected freedom: priceless.

 

Working With The Big Pixels: Shooting Base Camp X with the Hasselblad CFV 16

Summer time is upon us. I live for the time when I am no longer beholden to my employer to provide my full day to earning a living. Summer is a season when I hit the road, meet back up with old friends, sleep more than six hours a day, and exercise for the pleasure of using my body for what it was built for. Some days I find extra work projects with new clients, while on other days I shoot for my main clients and learn how to use my extensive equipment collection in new and exciting ways. This week has me mostly resting and colour correcting the white background shots that I shot for Base Camp X the week before.

A large majority of my portfolio has been based on shooting products on white backgrounds. While that may seem simple, white backgrounds are an art form that demand a photographer who is aware of shadows, white balance, perspectives and accuracy. You will be hired for one session if you have equipment, but unless you are accurate, then you will never be hired again. Case in point is Base Camp X: for the past year I have built a solid partnership with the company based on my ability to provide photographs of axes that are accurate and do not manifest the problems faced by most product shots of items larger than twelve inches. Perspective warping in no one’s friend, and to shoot Graeme’s axes demands that I balance my camera on top of a six foot ladder, handholding it until an overhead shot is complete. This was difficult with my Canon EOS 1DmkIII, but it is nightmarish with the new Hasselblad CFV 16 digital back. However, the quality…the quality is far, far superior.

Yes, you can take clear, accurate photos with your cellphone. The preceding image taken at Brother Jimmy’s Ribs in NYC is pretty darn solid. If you are blogging, building a travel album of your adventures or using things for social media, then I am a big fan of the iPhone. If you want to shoot, and I mean where you make money, then I would ignore Chase Jarvis’ iPhone assertions and accept that you need to invest in a camera system and lights that will provide consistent colour, speeds and resolution. For me, the Hasseblad system is the one I invested in for a myriad of reasons, and, frankly, so far it has been the best choice I could have made for my studio needs. All of my gear is based on the now discontinued V System, and all of it has been purchased used from KEH.com in Smyrna, Georgia.

From this shot of a carbon-tinted Pathfinder axe to the first shot taken outdoors in the afternoon sun, the CFV 16 back has delivered both a superior resolution and a depth of field unattainable in a dslr set of lens/camera body. I cannot shoot sports or wildlife in the jungle with it, but for fashion and products it has met all of my actual needs. Next month I will shoot my first wedding with it, and hope for the best. I will be carrying lots of film, and a few digital options to ensure nothing is lost should failure of batteries or lighting issues occur (the CFV is not for low light shots), but I am confident that it will crank out one hell of a wedding book collection.

Tonight has me watching my bass hero, Me’shell Ndgecello, sing Fats Waller/Nina Simone standards at the Horseshoe Tavern with Jason Moran as part of the Toronto Jazz Festival. I can only hope that the tattoo I had done today does not start paining while I am crammed inside on a hot night. Regardless, it is better to know the pain of life than the numbness of death.

The Canoe Trip: A Photo Montage

Kitchen Knives and Vegetables: The Hasselblad CFV 16’s First Session

The mastery of any craft demands three components: time devoted to learning technique, the set of tools the craft demands, and a passion for the previous two that will make the sense of time and tools disappear. The photography studio rebooted for 2013 with the aim towards improving both my workflow and to reinvent the abilities I have been working on for the past five years. My time had been spent on learning to take better photographs with each and every new opportunity that came along. I shot a book cover, a cd cover, a large scale poster, catalogue work, advertising, portraits, sports photos, drama, head shots, babies and children, art work, naked bodies, food and lifestyle, events, and even engagement photographs. It was never about “that’s not what I do; that is not art”, but rather “I might learn and improve my craft while being paid to do what another human will appreciate.” Time was spent on small details and learning how to do each session just a little bit better.Without the hours of actual work I doubt that my skills would ever do more than marginally develop. Many people own cameras and read about photography, few do more than machine gun their way along through what are really a series of snapshots, and then they fix their mistakes in Photoshop or an Instagram-style of filters. Sloppy in – pig in lipstick out.

Tools cannot be ignored. Picasso might be able to create art from a bicycle seat, but he lived and breathed time into his craft at an exponential rate compared to what we might be able to do. Jack White might choose to struggle with unplayable instruments so as to develop his techniques and sound, but he developed his aesthetics while apprenticing as an upholsterer: the ideas of one craft transfer to another. In my case, I have worked my Canon EOS 1D mkIII to its borders in terms of resolution and the ability to produce a competitive digital image. The artefacts of a small sensor (10MP) being used with 20 year old, medium format lenses began to tear at the seams as I started being commissioned for larger prints and digital media. I faced the choice this year of either using the Canon until clients complained (or stopped calling), or taking on the burden of $15,000 plus in debt to be able to purchase my way into the medium format realm where my lenses would perform at peak and wherein the resolution would permit cropping without much loss in quality. Introduce the Hasselblad CFV 16…

Fortune smiles on those who know what they seek but who wait patiently for delivery. Just after the Phase One World Tour demo, I decided to go with a used Phase One back for my Hasselblad system. Before making any purchases, however, I decided to check out KEH.com to see if they had any digital backs for sale; I had never seen any before. Miraculously, a CFV 16 in EX+ condition came in for the cost of $3546. Yes, it would be three generations behind the current CFV 50. Yes, I would be buying used technology, which never makes sense due to obsolescence. Yes, I might get a beat-up lemon and regret the loss. I chose to take the risk. KEH has always been great to purchase cameras and lenses from, so I felt good about the risk and the $7000 savings compared to a similar purchase in Toronto. The risk appears to have paid off.

The session last night had me shooting a knife set and cutting board for Paderno Cookware. The shots themselves had to be in sharp focus throughout the image: one white background and one hero shot for packaging. I shot with the CFV 16 on my 501 C/M body using a 50mm f.4 lens. The settings were around f.16 at 1/500 with two Profoto D1s with 3×4 and 2×3 softboxes. For the purpose of the blog, I am posting test shots straight out of Phocus versus the actual corrected images. Despite a few hot pixels and dust/oil on the sensor (I will need to buy proper wipes when I travel to NYC in two weeks), these are the cleanest, crispest images I have ever shot. The white background shot ended up being of the highest quality of any photograph I have taken, and the hero shot could be endlessly cropped and corrected with no loss of detail. The photo featured here is a 1/2 crop.

I should also note that I shot while being tethered to my new MacBook Pro Retina. Tethering is what the CFV was built for, as the actual LCD screen is pretty awful. With the super light MacBook Pro and Phocus the workflow was smooth and compact. I will always shoot this way with the Hasselblad now. As well, the focusing screen in my 501 will need to be replaced to make sure that I see where the crop factor comes into play. I should note, that the 50mm becomes an 80mm lens effectively due to the crop factor of the sensor. This actually works in my favour as I only shoot product at this focal length and the 50mm lens is the best one in my stable of CFi lenses in terms of sharpness and colour accuracy.

There will be more to come from the studio soon, as I want to practice with a few items lying around. In the end, each camera I own does one thing in a way that no others can. The Hasselblad CFV 16 shoots products in a manner that can force me to develop my talent until I reach another plateau five years down the road. Until that time I have the best tools available and the wherewithal to push myself to adapt to a bigger pond. If not now, when?

Rhubarb Pie: Learning How to Photograph From Square CFV 16

Learning any skill is difficult, but unlearning old habits so as to improve upon one’s technique is supremely frustrating. Case in point: learning how to shoot food with my Hasselblad CFV 16 digital format back. I love this new piece of used gear. It feels solid, the files have a completely different look than my other work, and it allows me to use all of my Hasselblad V lenses without an adapter. The problems arise however when I try to use dslr technique (multiple exposures, low light, shallow depth of field) or film technique (big shot wide, fast shutter speed) while shooting with the medium format digital back. Try these tricks with the CFV and you might as well try to draw the photograph with a crayon. Get your technique down, and the machine is brilliant. Tonight I decided to work on technique while baking a rhubarb pie from scratch.

Medium format has a much more shallow depth of field than a dslr. It is a sliver really, and since I had been using a V lens to Canon body, the image circle tended to only show the focal sharp area. Do not get me wrong, the bokeh (blur) is gorgeous and artistic, but getting the focus to where I want it to go is a challenge. The next challenge is actually getting in close enough for the lenses to focus or to get back far enough. Without lights being set-up I need to use my 80mm f.2.8 just so that I can get an exposure at 1 second with 100 ISO. The 80mm still shoots pretty wide, so then I need to add either a 16E or 32E macro extender…then I am too far away. Basically I need to relearn what the lenses do, which is kind of fun, but also a nightmare if I need to do a paying session before I can visual each focal length.

Colour. Colours. Arrgghh. I need to shoot with a ColorRite target if I want my white balance to be accurate. Simple. Stupid. Simple. When I shoot for clients I always use the target to ensure that I can get accurate colours if they need them, but lately for the blog I have just shot with the iPhone or my Canon. Worst case scenario and I might tweak the shots in ColorFX Pro to give them a pleasing color cast. Good luck with the CFV files.

The good news is that these are all techniques that I can improve. Each of these areas will be what makes me a unique, masterful photographer which is my life goal. I am not in this business to be uber-cool and shoot the Pepsi ad campaign, to cover of Vogue or even for Martha Stewart; I want to create a personal art style that expresses how I see the world while still delivering a compelling visual product. Lighting with the Profoto D1s should help exponentially. With a simple, proper set-up like I normally do I should be able to transform the inaccurate, fuzzy shots from above into the sharp, colourful image below which I shot with the SWC and the same back in the midday sun off tripod with not focusing at all. The blue is like an ocean, the lines of the buildings are crisp, and the image knocks you down ever though it is nothing special.

What does the final pie look like? I am waiting for it to bake, but then I will shoot the rhubarb pie with Profoto lights, a 120mm lens, a ColorChecker passport and at a reasonable f.8 aperture. Given that I have been working on getting my mom’s pie crust recipe right for 20 years, it only seems reasonable that it will take a few weeks to get the Hasselblad CFV 16 up to spec and running perfectly. The final pie shot will be added in a few minutes when I update the blog post. Until then…dream of Rhubarb Pie.

Okay…I am getting closer. I used one Profoto D1 light overhead with a beauty dish. The aperture went from f.4 to f.8, but I forgot to take a grey card reading (or light meter for that matter). Would I be happy with that photo? Actually, yes. The framing is an issue because what I see in the viewfinder is not the framing of the sensor so I am not sure where the crops occur. While I can shoot loose and then crop without issue due to the sensor resolution, I will probably pick up a new focusing screen at BH Photo in NYC next month that has the screen crops engraved on it already. Plus, in a real situation I will be shooting the CFV tethered to the MacBook Pro. What I can tell you is that the smells of three rhubarb pies baking in my studio is going to send me to sleep easily tonight, but with a bit of desire for pie in the early morning.

GoPro Hero 3: Seeking a Camera For Travel Photography

Traveling with a camera on the road can be a challenge; traveling into the wild with a camera can become impossible, especially when hiking through wet conditions. As I prepare for the West Coast Trail hike, 78kms through rain forest and shoreline, I need to make a careful decision about what camera equipment I will take with me to ensure that I capture what might be the most transformation journey of my life. It is one thing to carry a Canon 1DmkIII into the Peruvian rainforest when you are transported by steamer down the river, and it is quite another thing to drag that same camera on your back for 14 km a day in harsh terrain.

Fortunately, I have a wide variety of options to choose from. I have both a Hasselblad SWC and 501C/M, the Canon 1DmkIII, a Leica M3, a Yashica 4×4, a Canon EOS 3, a Canon 35mm Waterproof Sureshot and a GoPro Hero 3 Black. Unfortunately, each option has its pros and cons to deal with relating to weight, resistance to moisture, size of file or negative, film options, lens options and resolution. In the past, I have taken the SWC, the 1DmkIII and the EOS 3 into wet terrain and come away with good results but with the cost of weight. Hence, my attempt to see whether the GoPro Hero 3 Black will provide me with the options I need or fail me totally.

To test the camera I walked around the school to see what kind of file the GoPro would give me at 12mp Wide Angle. Ideally, I hoped for files that would have a high definition and that the still frames would translate into decent image files. In some ways these files are amazing, especially at “blog size” and on a retina display. However upon close inspection the resolution is pretty fuzzy and artistic. Maybe I am now spoiled by the image files I get from film and the new Hasselblad CFV 16 digital back, but unless I plan on only using the files from this adventure on my blog and maybe a coffee table book, then the GoPro will not meet my expectations.

Still, as crops from the basic file, these look pretty solid, and in a hostile environment where I might not want to take out a “real camera” for snapshots, the GoPro seems to have taken good quality stills. Certainly I intend on taking it along for the ride as it will provide me with a reasonable weight to content ratio for video footage of what the trail feels like. While I do not always do too much with video footage, in this case, the trail might offer up a few surprises worth filming. If nothing else, then it will keep a few memories for me that I never, ever will want to surrender to the strains of Time.

My next step for the jury will be to compare the 7mp shot resolution to the 12mp crop. If I can get a decently sharp file, then the GoPro will at least provide a back-up should my main camera fail. On my Haliburton canoe trip I hope to test out the film functions while canoeing. I might affix one of the mounts to the side of the boat, but we will have to see about options.

Where does this leave me for West Coast Trail options? The SWC Hasselblad remains the easiest to shoot and forget. It survived the Peruvian jungle, but it was housed in a heavy Pelican case for the main part of the trip. Would it fair so well in a big Zip-loc or stuff sack? Plus, it would not allow for any real focus, and would require me to drag along a light meter to boot.

The 1DmkIII is possible, too, as it is a brilliant all-around performer. With a LensBaby and one other focal length I could turn out a brilliant collection of images without need for film development. The EOS 3 is my expendable choice. I could use the same lenses, have a lighter body and not worry if it died enroute.  The Leica, the CFV back and probably the 501 C/M are most likely out. The Leica is not for the woods and it weighs a ton. The CFV back is not for the outdoors, let alone for a rainforest. The 501 C/M will work beautifully and I can focus it, but I would be stuck with one lens, and none of them are really wide enough to capture the feeling of the trail.

At the end of the day, I was both impressed and disappointed with the GoPro’s ability to capture still frames. The fact that it froze in the middle of learning how to use the settings is not a comforting sign. If there is one thing that I have learned: if you rely on what failed you in good times to work in bad times, then you are a fool.

The two self portraits were taken with my two option cameras: the Hasselblad SWC and the GoPro Hero 3 Black edition. The SWC has the CFV back on it which reduces its 38mm to about 60mm in focal length, and I did correct the GoPro file to compensate for a bit of its distortion. To my eye the difference is striking, but maybe I see too much detail; both photos are keepers, but only one of them could be blown up past 8×10″.

Back to the lab again…

The Hasslblad CFV 16: The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Photographers

Never underestimate the power of underestimation. The past little while has been spent shooting portraits and paintings for clients, working through the 3000 odd images taken for the school yearbook, and then contemplating the best way to move forward with my photography quandary of a five year business plan. Reality tells me that I can plan all that I want to, but that the actual narrative will require me to be open for the opportunities that will undoubtedly roll my way. Fortune smiles on the fool who finds a way to see a bigger picture so as to be able to find the pieces as they fall at his feet in lieu of in a set preconceived order. Enter the Hasselblad CFV 16 digital back…

If you have been following my blog, then you would know that my main focus this month has been to find a way to buy into the medium format digital arena. I have spoken with the wonderful Walter Borchenko from B3K Digital and Jim Anderson from S1 Group here in Toronto, and have been trying to figure out a way to come up with the scratch to get into the bottom rung of the Phase One camera system. I need the quality of the larger sensor and the dynamic range that such a system will afford me. It is not about Gear Acquisition Syndrome, but rather that I am trying to keep my superb collection of Hasselblad CFi lenses while still moving forward.

At $10,000 for a used digital back,  I could just not afford the next step. Renting would work for a while, but there is a larger learning curve with medium format systems than dslr cameras. If I have a big session, then too much time will be spent learning how to best shoot and light for the camera sensor. At $300-500 a day the challenge felt overwhelming, but so did committing to a system’s technology that might prove finicky. My nerves were shot, and despite the kindness of strangers, I felt like I had to take a chance…to risk it all in a game of pitch-and-toss.

During the week I found myself purchasing a new Profoto RFi 2×3 softbox kit, a Hasselblad to Mamiya/Phase One lens adapter, Lomography film scanning holders, 127 format and 120 format film from New York and a second Avenger light stand. If I could not get the back I needed, then I would be wise to at least invest in the surrounding equipment that makes the biggest difference to my time on a shoot: lighting, processing time and lens choice make all of the difference to me. I know that Profoto equipment is brilliant, and the Avenger stand feels like a tank that a real pro would use to hold his lights. About $1000 in, I felt pretty confident in my choices for the long term. Then came the Hasselblad CFV 16 from Keh in Smyrna, Georgia…

I have bought every single Hasselblad piece of gear that I own from Keh. Delivery has been flawless, prices are about half of what I pay in Toronto, and the quality of used gear has been between okay for what I paid and astounding. Randomly the first ever CFV digital back came up for sale on Monday. I bought it within minutes for $3,100. It was listed as EX+ which from my experience means that it is going to be pretty close to new. Still…$3000 is a lot of coin for digital bits and bytes. The back might look pretty, but be a lemon. The CFV could be beat up but work nicely. Hard to say, but given that a similar demo [the ii version] was selling for $7999 in Toronto, I felt the risk was worth the taking.

I have had the back for a whopping hour. I spent the first ten minutes admiring the perfect body. Next came realizing that the battery was dead so I would need to power up with a firewire 800 cable, which I fortunately own in an industrial variety. Ten more minutes realizing that the CFV sucks in low light and that my trigger technique needed to be worked on to properly signal the back to avoid weird colour casts. Then…I shot a series of images with the junk on my table, a D1 with a beauty dish reflector, and the CFV attached to my 501 C/M. The lens was an 80mm CFe, and for the close ups I went with a 32E extender.

What did I learn? I love this digital back. It will be the most important step forward for my work since the Profoto lights. Yes, there will be a few challenges, as I need to improve my actual camera technique and lighting. I will need to procure a CFV focusing screen with the smaller mask of the sensor ($225), but that is more for accuracy than the quality of the CFV.  At f.2.8 there is only a sliver of focus [as one can see from the images above], and that will force me to shoot at f.4 or higher if I want anything to be focus. The images featured here show what the camera can do with little or no practice. What I love is the richness of the colour, the huge dynamic range of the sensor, and the resolution is astounding. When I cropped the artichoke and blackberry image, the details pop out instead of turning to fuzz. The oil and fruit come to life where once they were just part of a composition. With the types of product work that I do this will prove invaluable to the client when he tries to blow my photograph up to a poster or crop it down for a catalogue or package.

So was the risk worth it? Yes. The game play resumes at a new level.

Building a History: The Next Five Year Business Plan for Photography

Progress is never a simple path. Business is often about “the money”, but in photography it is also about relationships. Trust, connection, creation and reliability are values that must find their way into one’s work if you are going to build anything beyond a few tricks learned while snapping shots. My five year business plan has come to an end this month. I have reached so far beyond my actual goals. I have done catalogue work, done a book cover, a cd cover, done art reproduction, shot portraits, shot baby photos, and covered countless events. I have had photos that have now been seen by millions. My blog has over a hundred readers a day, and more than twenty Facebook friends use pictures that I have taken of them for their profile pictures [little vainglories]. I have paid off my camera gear, and this year I totalled $27,980 in invoices to clients. I own a full range of Hasselblad CFi lenses [50mm, 60mm, 80mm, 120mm, 150mm, 180mm and 250mm], a Leica M3, a Linhof 4×5 Color and the best of the Canon L series lenses. I own two Profoto d1 lights with a collection of modifiers.  I have built a travel portfolio of photographs from Morocco, Paris, Tokyo, Rome, New York, Vancouver, South Africa, Peru, California, Oregon, Germany and Spain. So the question has to be: so now what?The “now what? is what I have had to focus on for the past week. Between having three local companies attempt to acquire, without payment, images I had taken at various events, I realized that over the coming business term I would need to push harder to ensure that I was seen as a professional photographer versus “the guy with the camera who takes really great shots”. As good as my Canon camera was, it is now getting past its prime. I thought that I had found my solution: I was going to simply rent a CFV-39 back from Headshots Rentals in Toronto for my commercial work. Such an option would make it easy to use my classic Hasselblad lenses and my SWC 38mm seamlessly. Perhaps it would be awful for focusing, but I could work around that….until Headshots pulled the CFV-39 from their rental stable last week. I could buy the back for $10,000, but that would leave me with no upgrade path nor any major technological advances in the long term.

Other options? I could buy a new Canon 1DX for $7000, but that would not truly offer me any compelling advantages over my current set-up beyond another five years. I could buy into the Hasselblad H5D system through Headshots for $22,000, and use the V lenses via the CF adapter. I could also purchase a Phase One kit from Vistek for between $15,000 and $25,000 depending on what I decided worked best for my needs. I might focus all of my energies to shooting film despite its dwindling opportunities to develop and even procure rolls. I could remain in a status quo situation until my clients questioned the validity of the quality of my images in a retina-display world. None of these felt like reasonable options, and I have felt more than a little lost at a time when I have an energy to my work that I do not want to lose. I have had terrible experiences with Vistek over the years, so I would never invest in a system through them. Headshots feels like they are withdrawing from where I needed them to go [especially as Henry’s owns them and are moving more towards to consumer market]. Film…see my last blog entry; plus, if all other major pros abandoned it, then it probably is not the way to move forward in the long term. Enter B3K and S1 Group…

Ironically, yesterday morning a colleague brought me a gift of her grandmother’s Yashica 4×4 camera in mint condition. The contrast between this beautiful machine that is useable if I find a source for 127 film and where I need to go was palpable. I need to accept that the latest and greatest might be the best place to start: a Phase One body and a Scheider Kreuznach lens. Recently, I attended a World Tour Event at S1 Group in Toronto. I did not attend to hang out with photographers or pixel peep on Eizo monitors, nor was I there to demonstrate my prowess shooting test photos with the model-for-hire; I went to get a sense of who Jim Anderson and Walter Borchenko were as people. The technology is useless if I cannot connect with the men who sell and support the product I want.

While other attendees asked questions to hear their own voices [and inflict their random Canon versus Nikon versus Phase One questions in reference to creating compelling art], I left the room to speak with Mr. Borchenko and hear what he had to say about the Phase One system, the DF+ body with IQ backs, and the Schneider Kreuznach leaf shutter lenses. I have to admit that I was impressed. I expected that the DF+ body would be similar to the Mamiya AFD camera I had owned and shot with in Japan. I expected the lenses to be of high quality, but of a similar build-quality to the Mamiya lenses I used. Nothing could have been further from reality; nothing could be more dangerous to my credit line. 

After speaking with Walter for twenty minutes, he left me in the hands of Jim Anderson from S1 Group as I needed to know what I would need to do to rent Phase One kits from him over the next year. From the firm handshake to the impassioned conversation about the state of the photographic industry in Toronto, I knew that Jim would be a man I could work with in the long term. He made it clear that I would be best to get some type of photographic insurance to cover any potential loss or damage if I wanted to rent from S1. I had to agree, I was a nervous wreck putting $15,000 damage on my AMEX for the CFV-39 back; too many things could go wrong without any recourse despite my meticulous treatment of equipment.

Where am I? I see the forest and the trees. The Phase One felt like an extension of my body. The lenses from Schneider were equal to the build quality of my Hasselblad CFi lens collection. The people selling and renting the system spoke with integrity and experience. All that is left is for me to decide how much further I want to push my business into the professional arena, to decide how best to pay for such a large investment in a single production tool, and to decide whether to sell off other parts of my gear collection to move solely into Phase One or to keep it all together to allow me to continue to shoot a myriad of styles. My decisions will not be easy, but I am pretty certain that after a few Phase One rentals the vision for the road ahead will become more clear, perhaps as clear as the Phase One DF+ viewfinder and 80mm LS lens…if not now, when?