Five Things Your Studio Needs You Won’t Find In a Photography Store

Over the years I picked up a few hacks for shooting in a studio you can’t find in a photography store. These are things that are especially handy to have if you’re going to be shooting all day.

Knee Pads

My last studio had a concrete floor and I actually discovered how nice these were as a volunteer firefighter. We would train by crawling around in the station after filling it with theatrical fog. Only took one training session before I started wearing knee pads under my turnouts.

The next day I tried them on a portrait shoot and loved them. I didn’t realize how much time I spent on one knee or the other as a photographer until I got these. Because they’re under you, you don’t have to worry about a green cast on anything you’re working on.

Power Squid

Photography doesn’t draw as much power these days, but everything has a power connector. Not all the connectors will fit right on a regular power strip and you’ll lose outlets to odd size plugs. Not with a power squid, these are made to accommodate odd size connectors.

Some have heavy duty fuses.

Aircraft Cable

I got this tip from a guy who used to design the stage sets for the rock band KISS.

Aircraft cable has boxes and boxes of different types of ends and connectors, available at any big box hardware store. Perfect for hanging backgrounds, especially when you’re working with a higher vertical than a background holder can handle. Some aircraft cable and a box of clamps and you can cover or hang almost anything.

Bungie Cords

Indispensable in a photography studio. You can bungie light stands so they don’t get knocked over, or wrap a couple around the base and anchor them to 1 gallon jug of water for light stand or tripod ballast. I also use bungie cords to bundle light stand bags for easier transport.

 

Gaffer Tape

Okay, you might find this indispensable tape in photography stores. Invaluable because it holds tight, but doesn’t tear or leave glue residue when it’s time to peel it off. Great for so many uses it’s almost impossible to list them. I used to have a big bungie cord loop of gaffer tape on my step ladder.

On movie sets it’s not unusual to see people with loops of gaffer tape on their belt. I even saw an AD using gaffer tape to hem a pair of slacks one time.

Will Film Follow Kodak To The Grave?

Is filmed doomed to the same fate as Kodak?

It’s been a rough month for film. Kodak had to shush rumors about a possible bankruptcy and offer a red-faced explanation about why they’re hiring a law firm specializing in helping big corporations going out of business.

Added to that was CreativeCow pointing out that ARRI, Panavision and Aaton have all ceased production of film movie cameras, shifting their design and production focus to digital. Those companies will still produce special orders for film cameras, but will no longer manufacture production film cameras.

Following the trend away from film in Hollywood, FilmCraft, a commercial film photo lab in Detroit, closed their doors, leaving Astro in Chicago as the sole film lab in the entire midwest. With theaters switching over to digital projection as fast as the screens can be converted, even the market for distributing film prints to theaters is on death watch.

The moves in the film world could have a roll up effect on photography, as movie production and distribution are the last big corporate markets for film. What’s left in the photography film market? Disposable plastic film cameras at the drug store, an ever decreasing handful of hobbyists still shooting film, and certain specialty markets like x-ray film. You even have to hunt at big box retail stores like Walmart to find a display of roll film.

We’re now in the long trailing tail of film. How long Fuji and AgfaPhoto will continue to make photographic film is anyone’s guess. Every year that ticks by sees their market diminish.  Economics will win out in the end.

It may still be a hobby for a handful of photographers, but it may not be a hobby you’ll be able to indulge in much longer.

Five Trends In Wedding Photography

wedding photography
Retro styling is making a comeback - By Ícaro Moreno Ramos

There’s a fine line between the words “trend” and “fad” in the world of photography. The word “trend” implies gradual and sustainable growth over time. The word “fad” has somewhat negative connotations among photographers because it implies glitz with no substance. Those of us in the business a while recall infant portraits in an over-sized tea cup with just the twinge of a shudder.

In wedding photography the market changes fast and the difference between trend and fad is sometimes hard to distinguish. There are some changes I’m pretty confident calling as a trend at this point.

Photo Booths

These can be the old style retro photo booths where guests pose for pictures, or a more modern digital equivalent. The idea is instead of just signing a book, guests sit for a quick picture. Instead of a simple guest book full of incomprehensible scrawl, the happy couple has a digital guest book of the people just as they were that day.

Overall I like this trend, but it adds to the overhead because the mechanical type need to be staffed.  You don’t exactly want to clamp your Nikon D700 to a tripod and let people shoot self-portraits with it.

Proposal Photography

I’ve filled in on at least three proposal shoots this summer. This has moved from the fad to trend column in a big hurry, to the point now it’s almost an expected part of package along with engagement photos.

It’s more work, but at least it’s fun. While a wedding is a huge amount of work to shoot right, proposal pictures really are snap-snap, goodbye. In, out and done in thirty minutes.

Boudoir Shots

This is hardly a new trend. Boudoir photography came into existence about 15 minutes after the first successful photography process was developed back in 1826. Boudoir popularity has kind of ebbed and flowed since then and is making a comeback lately.

Usually not part of a standard package, it is getting to be a more requested as an add-on. If you’re a guy, you might want to think about partnering with another female photographer in town because some customers will be more comfortable with a woman shooting those shots.

As a purely professional precaution, I take my wife along if I’m going to be shooting one, or a female assistant. That way there’s no questions about propriety.

Wreck The Dress

Wreck the dress
Wreck the dress is your chance to be creative - Karl Leopold Imagesforever.net

Another one of the more enjoyable trends in wedding photography, this is your chance to go crazy on a lovely wedding dress. Pictures in the pool, a mud pit, the ocean, let your imagination run wild.

Probably the best one I’ve seen was one done at the paintball park, it was certainly the most colorful.

Again, more work but also more fun.

Slideshow At The Reception

This is a little more tricky, but is definitely a hit with the guests. A slideshow of the wedding photos play on one or two big screens at the reception. It gives everyone a chance to imprint those memories, for better or worse, while it’s still fresh in their minds.

You’ll probably need a gear mule to help with this and the equipment is not cheap. But this points to a growing desire for real-time photo sharing.

Look for this trend to continue as well as a desire for near real time posting on Facebook and other photo sharing web sites.

The ABR800 Ringflash

The ABR800 Ringflash is a solid performer - by PC

I’m probably going to date myself a little, but I still like big ring lights. The ring flash look hasn’t really been big in fashion photography since the 70s, but a good ring flash is still one of my favorite keys because of the versatility. Ring lights gained fame for lighting that eliminated shadows on the subject and the distinctive catch light in the eyes.

My weapon of choice for a ring flash is the Alien Bees ABR800, made by Paul C. Buff up in Nashville. There have been some criticisms that the light is a little off in some of the Alien Bees line. If that’s true, it’s not in the ABR800. It’s got plenty of power, travels well and is incredibly versatile.

Paul C. Buff himself - by PCB

Most often you’ll be using a ring flash with the lens poking through the center of the ring. The lighting surrounding the axis of view creates an edgy, high contrast look that almost completely eliminates shadows on the subject, but can create a shadow halo around a subject near the background.

I like being able to move in close and change the perspective without moving the lights around for every shot.

Even if a ring flash isn’t right for a particular shot, nothing stops you from putting inside one of the 30 or 56-inch moon units and using it as a key or fill, or just bounce it into an umbrella. I really like the moon units, but agree that those can be tricky to set up.

I’m not the only one who likes the ABR800.

How Safe Are Your Photos?

Data center
How good are your backups? - By Altrensa

Everyone thinks they have good backups, few actually do. More than a few people, including many professionals, are relying on systems that are putting their photos at great risk.

In the data world, like the real world, disasters are rarely a single point of failure. Rather they are a series of events, each in themselves insufficient to cause a disaster, but when they happen in a certain sequence, a catastrophe results and data is lost forever.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your image work flow and data backup scheme:

Are all your photos stored on the same device?

Are all your photos and backups in the same building?

If someone stole your backup data device, would they be able to access the information on the device?

The good news about data backup solutions is there is no one right answer. What’s right for you will depend on your work flow, the amount of data you’re storing and the time and money you have to put into it. The security of your photos will ultimately depend on how willing you are to guard against low probability events.

If all your photos are on the same device, usually a PC or laptop, then one day soon you will be one of those panicked looking people rushing into a PC repair shop, desperately hoping their data can be recovered. You need to take action today. External hard drives are cheap, sophisticated encryption software like Truecrypt is free.

If you use Gmail, you can now upload any kind of file to your account through GoogleDocs. There’s absolutely no reason to have all your eggs in one basket. Get going right now.

If all your photos are in the same building, you need to take action soon. Offsite storage at places like iDrive is inexpensive, the first 5 GB is free. The advantage to iDrive is the files are encrypted and you keep the keys to unlock your own files. I prefer to create my own encrypted containers and store them offsite, but with a site like iDrive it’s all menu driven.

If you have multiple backups of your photos, including at least one copy offsite, and you’re using some type of basic encryption on those devices, you’re probably in good shape for all but the most low-probability events. If the earth was devastated by an asteroid collision tomorrow, how big of deal is it if you lost some pictures? At a certain point you have to draw the line.

A Word About Cloud Storage

A word for those of you depending on outsource providers like Picasa, Kodak Gallery, Flickr, and Imgur for offsite backup should consider their situation carefully. Images stored with a third party are subject to the Terms of Service for that provider, most of which are heavily skewed in their favor.

What most people don’t realize is that if the parent company goes bankrupt, the data and customer information on their servers are part of the company assets. Companies purchasing that data in bankruptcy court may not be bound by the ToS you signed or limited in how they use it.

While in most cases copyright law should protect you, all bets are off in bankruptcy court where the court determines who owns the company assets and dictates the terms of sale. Whether a bankruptcy sale trumps copyright law is up to legal scholars to decide. What you want to avoid is footing the bill for an expensive legal fight to find out.

If your data is encrypted, it’s less of a risk.  Few companies are going to go through the effort to brute force an encrypted container to get a look at your pictures.