I shot a baby deer today. And I didn't feel bad about it.

Dr. Cunningham and the baby deer.

Dr. Cunningham and the baby deer.  Post processed.

(edit: 7 july 2010:  Thought I'd step out of character and post the final edited shot right below the quick, jpeg proof shot I pulled off the raw file last night when I got home.  I've changed color balance, cleaned up the color in the sky, opened up the shadows.  Done a lens correction.  Thought you might want to see what I would probably deliver..... KRT).

I'm keeping pretty busy these days.  One of the things I'm doing is shooting photos for some medical practice advertising.  One of the marketing reps I work with is running a series of ads showcasing their physicians.  We thought it would be a good idea to ditch the white coats and the office location backgrounds and shoot these guys in their off hours.  Try to catch another side.  See what makes em tick.

When the marketing person mentioned that this doctor was raising a baby deer who's mother and twin sibling had been struck by lightning they had me at "Bambi".

We made arrangements and I loaded the car with the following:  One Profoto Acute 600b battery powered flash system,  a 20 by 30 inch softbox, a 48 inch white, pop-up diffuser, two light stands, a Canon 5d2 and a 24-105mm lens.  I took a light meter and a hoodman loupe.   And two sandbags.

 The first thing I did was to sit down with the Dr. in the living room of his house and really talk to him.  Interview style.  What makes him the person he is?  What do I want to come thru in the photograph?  He's committed to giving back to patients and people who can't afford medical care.  He does missions and tons of volunteer work.  He's a man of great faith.  I wanted to show that, somehow, in the photos.

We selected a spot with some Texas landscape in the background and I got to work while he went back to  the house to get the baby deer.  The sun was coming in on the right of the frame but I blocked out the direct light on him with the reflector on a stand.  A tree also provided some shade for the general area.

I set up the light and the softbox about five feet from the subject's right (my left)  at a 45 degree angle when measured on the direct line between the camera and subject.  The bottom of the softbox is just above the doctor's chin.  I set the exposure so that the metered value for the subjects is about 1/2 brighter than the background.  We shot about 60 shots at nearly full power.

When the deer pooped on the doctor's hand and jeans I knew the shoot was wrapping up.  The deer was amazingly cute.  The doctor amazingly patient.  The shoot, amazingly calm and happy.  As I drove away I thought to myself, "This is what makes it all worthwhile.  Meeting amazing people---who do amazing things.  Not because they imagine that someone will think they are cool.  Just because it's the right thing to do".

This is right out of camera.  I haven't gotten in and pushed the pixels around yet.  When I do, this image or one of the other selects goes right into the portfolio.  It's days like this that are the reward for a life in photography.....

A reprise from early 2009. Just because I'm in the mood for Lisbon.

FRIDAY, JULY 31, 2009

Street shooting in Lisbon

Do you shoot out in the streets? It's hard if you live in one of most American cities, for a number of reasons. There are really very few places to shoot. People live in their cars and at the malls. And people in American tend to dress down. Cargo shorts and white t-shirts with logos on them. Comfortable and tacky. And we do tend to be the one of the fattest countries around, per capita.

If you live in New York City or San Francisco, save your energy. I know your towns are walking towns with a plethora of rich visual targets, just right for fine photography. If you are large, given to wearing bright t-shirts, cargo shorts with stretchable waist bands and running shoes, please try to look out for photographers and maybe don't loiter too long in front of obviously cool landmarks or architecture.

But if you are really into shooting in the streets you'll want to find towns where people strut their stuff on foot and where the ambulatory culture keeps the people looking good. You'll want to head to a European city. Grenoble's great because a huge swath of the downtown is pedestrian only. But one of my favorites has always been Lisbon because it seems anchored to a time warp that keeps everything five years slower.

Back in 1998 I went to Lisbon to photograph a project for a subsidiary of IBM. The project went well and I engineered some down time in the the city. Two days before the event and two days after. Every morning I left my hotel with a Leica M6, a 50mm Summicron and a 75mm Summilux. I kept a pocket full of slide film, an open mind, an open agenda and a nice pair of hiking sandals and a desire to dive into the city life and come up with some fun images.

Here's the problem for me with street shooting: I get so involved/immersed in everything that I forget sometimes to take the photographs. I found a fabulous little neighborhood bakery and I was in line so quick I forgot to lurk around and try to sneak good shots. Then I was enjoying my creme filled confection and hot, earthy coffee so much I forgot to even meter.

But after a while my basic sense of discipline kicked in and I came back with hundreds and hundreds of images that I really like. The above is a smattering. A taster plate. A flight of photos. When you go out to shoot I think it's best to throw away intentions and schedules and let yourself slide into the process like a you slide slowly into a hot bath. If you go looking for the right moment you'll generally never find it.

It's some perverse law of the universe. It's in the same set of laws that mandate if you see a great scene and vow to come back the next day to capture it the scene will never present itself again. Once Belinda and I were staying in Mexico City, in the very hotel that Trotsky used to live in, oh so many years ago. We were only in Mexico City for a few days and I kept meaning to make some cool photographs of the Hotel's interior but I didn't. Something else always came up. I decided I'd get the photos next time I was there. Of course an earthquake weeks later leveled the hotel.

It's also the same perverse law of the universe that demands you do things here and now. If you delay anything it will be changed, diluted, and made more crass. Put off going to Rome and the Rome you could have experienced will no longer exist having been replaced by a different and more homogenous version.

It's the same unfortunate law of photography that says, "Print now or you'll never see this image again." We have the right intention but we need the right follow through. When an image jumps up in your face and fascinates you the time to act on it is in that moment. But most of us put the images into a folder, go out and shoot more and then put those new images into folder and so on, waiting until life slows down and we have time to luxuriate with our little treasure and to photoshop them just so and make them perfect before we sent them off to the printer. But we wake up to find the moment gone, the image left untouched. And we think they will continue to exist but a certain physical/metaphysical relationship has changed and we'll never come back to the same image in just the same way.

These images remind me that the only time is now. Carpe diem.

Being there.

The Vatican.  Mamiya Six.  75mm.  T-max 400 CN.

There's no substitute for going out and being in the middle of life.  It's where all the pictures happen.

SOME HOUSEKEEPING STUFF.

I write this blog for my pleasure and to share my limited knowledge with anyone who cares to read it.  In the back of my brain I assume that if people like what I write it might also motivate them to try one of the books I've written.  Also,  if you click on one of the Amazon links to buy something, I get a small percentage of that sale but it costs you nothing more.  Not a cent. (not too pleased that my wife recently bought the Adobe Creative Suite for her business without linking through......).  If I write a review about something I either bought it myself or I acknowledge upfront that I'm reviewing a product that is on loan from a manufacturer.  I'm squeaky clean on all this stuff.

From the outset I've made it clear that I reserve the right to a.)  Change my mind.  I may really like a product but in the following months some other company may come out with a product I like better.  Owning camera gear is not like marriage there is no promise of, "till death do we part."  And frankly, I like finding out about new gear, coming to grips with it and then moving on to the next thing.  Chances are you are the same or you wouldn't find this blog very entertaining.  b.) Go into as much depth, over time, about any subject that I want to, including Olympus cameras, 50mm lenses, the "evil" of technology (please note satiric intent, cued by use of parentheses: for the nuance impaired), the redundancy of assistants and anything else that I want to write about.  c.) Diverge from common opinion.  d.) Disagree. With anything.

I do have some credentials.  I've taught.  I'm published widely as a photographer (and as a writer).  I've actually touched and used everything I talk about.  If I write something about the photo business it's probably because the situation being discussed just came up.  Or is ongoing in my own business.  I've also worked in the ad business.

One of the things I really like about writing a blog is that I can get good feedback from smart, opinionated people.  And when it runs counter to my beliefs or ideas it makes me really sit back and think.  It challenges me to not be lazy in the thought process and to be open to other points of view.  If the comments didn't exist I probably wouldn't pursue this whole thing.

But  (and it would be nice if everyone paid attention here for my short but important rant)  if you're just an unpleasant person (edited)  and you want to call me names and infer that I'm lying or have something to hide or some hidden agenda,  if you have something nasty to say about someone I've written about or linked to,  in short, if you're just here make trouble,  I'll use my trusty moderating skills and reject your comments.  If you are not happy with that you could make it easy on both of us and just stop reading the column.  This blog doesn't exist as a vehicle for you to use to rip my day.

One or two readers (and one rude person) have commented on the fact that the images posted recently have no exif info.  Not sure why.  Must be a setting in LR3 that I've mistakenly ticked.  This has led to a conspiracy theory (on the part of one reader)  that my recent addition of Canon gear has filled me with overwhelming remorse for having once bought and happily used Olympus cameras and lenses and speaking glowingly about them.  Last I looked there are a number of Olympus bodies and lenses scattered about the studio though I will admit that I've come to like the EP, m4:3rds cameras best......  I think I make the provence of the gear most evident when it's the focus of the post.  If I'm talking about the collapse of western civilization I don't really think anyone should care about whether the display photo was taken with a 1995 vintage Mamiya 6.  ( having a hard time getting the exif info out of that camera as well.).  I'll fix the exif info if I can figure it out.  I am not a software geek and have never pretended to be one.

So to recap:  1.) Smart and polite people are always welcome to post comments and have a 99% chance of seeing them appear.   2.) Rude, vindictive people will no longer stand any chance of having their comments survive the ruthless moderator process.  3.)  I will continue to write about just what I want to write about until such a time as the subscriber base falls to near zero, the hits to the blog sag to under a thousand per day, or so, or until I get carpal tunnel syndrome.

The exif stuff will return as soon as I figure out where it went.  If you left a bitchy, anonymous post this morning, thanks for helping me get started on this housekeeping post.  You'll probably be much happier over in the forums at DPReivew.  You're welcome to stay and read and post interesting comments.

That's about it.

I don't usually do wedding photography..........

But I thought I'd try my hand.  Actually, this is the wedding scene from Zachscott Theater's version of "Our Town".  We shot these during the dress rehearsal.  Maybe the next step in wedding photography will be to build sets and light everything with stage lights or studio flashes.  Heck, we could even put marks on the floor with exposure info next to em.  "Stand here for f5.6 @ 1/125th ISO 400."  Produce them like we do big production ad shoots or videos.  The photos would be pretty cool.  Brides might like that.  Naw, who am I kidding?

On another note:  I was out walking today in the downtown area.  I was near the intersection of the lake and Lamar BLVD. when I actually spied a serious photographer, with a serious camera, just out messing around and taking photos for fun.  Really.  Just out in the heat and humidity having a good time.  If he reads this:  Go for it!  Good for you.

Happy Fourth of July!

Is technology destroying art? Does anyone care?

This is the naked die of a micro something or other.  We shot it last month for the semiconductor company that makes it. Its brethren will go into some sort of consumer product that will make some person's life more efficient.  And the promise of that increased efficiency should have meant more free time for that person to do things for themselves.  Play with their kids,  wash the car, see a movie,  or do art.

But it isn't working out that way.  Society is using the increased efficiency to get more out of the next person.  More lines of type per hour.  More lines of code per day.  More products more quickly to the marketplace.  Cameras that autofocus faster and have aquarium modes. More profits to the shareholders. More stuff.

Cellphones seemed like such a good idea.  They would free us from the umbilical cord that tethered us to the desk or to the house.  But it didn't really work out that way.  Faceless corporations found that they could get more "free" work out of their workers by using a virtual umbilical cord that keeps workers connected to their offices nearly continuously.  And injects a sensibility that there's duty to make the job one's life.

And please, make no mistake, when I say workers I don't mean it in the old communist way:  as a description of the uniformed factory people who made things with their hands or dug for coal.  When I say workers now I also mean the lawyers and executives and nearly anyone who has a job working for anyone other than themselves.

I've watched the progressive strangling of people's time by new technology.  Executive dads sitting in the bleachers frantically jabbing at Blackberries with their thumbs trying to get in front of a new "issue" while little Johnny makes a soccer goal that dad doesn't catch.  I watched three investors glued to their iPhone screens in the middle of a play and wondered why they'd taken the time to come to the theater.  You could quiz them and they wouldn't know whether they sat thru "Oklahoma" or "Romeo and Juliet".

Everyday I watch couples at restaurants staring into their screens instead of each other's eyes.  They seem afraid that they'll miss something.  That the world will introduce the next miracle and they want to be in on the genesis and get the announcement.  So much so that they miss all the important stuff.

So, efficiency was supposed to give us time to exercise and relax and invent and enjoy and do our own art.  But what it's really done is increase the work week of the fully employed, robbed them of their own un-contracted leisure time, convinced people that a salaried position means 24/7 contact (and mindshare) and left them ragged and unable to concentrate on the present and the  here and now.  It robs them of living life as it's happening.

And the ability to process great volumes of information hasn't done much for us either, as far as I can tell.   May be it's good for predicting sales or elections.  Data mining can't stop hurricanes or earthquakes but endless data availability progressively robs us of our privacy and financial security.

But none of that really bothers me.  I understand better than you might think that the nature of western man is constant innovation---for good or bad.  No, what bothers me is that we've used all these tools to turn our lives into something that's measured based on productivity.   Volume.  Throughput.

I heard a great actor speak two days ago.  He defined art.  It's not about which lens renders hairs on the kitty photo the sharpest or who's got the best toys.  And it's certainly not measurable.  He defined art in this way:  Art teaches us what it  is to be human.

But this is a problem because art is notorious for being unmeasurable.  And in a society that values ranking and measuring above all else it gives one the feeling that art, which teaches us what it is to be human, is being replaced more and more by craft just for the sake of craft.  And the craft is powered more and more by precision, performance and production and less and less by ideas and translations of human experience.

It starts in school.  We, as a society, need to give as much weight to the study of art and art history, music and drama as we do the math and science courses.  We need to make sure our kids are as content literate as they are process literate.  I can assure you that, as technology becomes more and more pervasive the real value; the "gold",  will be content.

Multitasking?  I've got a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in......

A quick look at a recent editorial job.

My friend, and one of my favorite "lifestyle" models, Ann.  In Book People Bookstore.

Contrary to the idea that all professional photographers are competing against each other constantly, this job came to me as a referral from a photographer who was booked up on an architectural project and trying to make hay while the sun shown.  He nicely recommended me to his client of many years.  It was a shelter magazine and they were doing an article on the ethics and results of shopping locally, instead of sending all of you money out of your community by spending it at national chains.

The editor had lived in Austin and remembered one of the great remaining independent bookstores in the country,  Book People.  Three stories of great book inventory right in the heart of Austin's downtown.  Could I find a model, go there and shoot some variations and send them some selections?

Their directions were clear and concise.  We quickly came to a contractual agreement and I sent a letter of agreement to them with all of our terms and a description of the project.  Business part done.  Now it was time to get down to business.  And I made a mistake.  I should have shot this with conventional gear and gotten down the road.  But I was in the middle of "micro 4:3rds fever"  and I grabbed an old legacy Olympus lens and an adapter ring and pressed my EP2 into service.

Ann and I did a bunch of shots around the store.  We followed the brief.  But the light in the store was pretty low and, not wanting to go past ISO 800 on a magazine job that might require the images to be used as a double-truck (two page) spread I shot a lot of stuff wide open and at slow shutter speeds.  

The camera was fine.  A bit noisy maybe, but nothing I couldn't handle with some judicious noise reduction in post production.....It was the lens that was the Achille's Heel.

I should have spent more time testing that particular vintage lens.  I'd shot some stuff outdoors and it looked great at f5.6 and f4.0  but down at f1.5 and f2 it was a whole other story.   But not one that was readily apparent on the camera's LCD.  When I got the images back to the studio I blew them up on my cinema monitor and looked closely.  The lens just didn't have the bite it needed.  In it's defense, at f1.5, not many do.  As to my own defense,  hubris comes before the fall.  I thought I could pull off more than I could.

I called Ann back and she graciously agreed to shoot again.  I grabbed a full frame camera and a well corrected lens and shot the whole thing over again.  This time I shot at f4 and smaller most of the time.  And I carefully blew up test frames as big as they would go on the LCD screen to try and make sure that I was getting critically sharp stuff.  I came back and edited through the second take and sent along 30 different files.

This was all invisible to the client.  I met their deadline and sent the images they needed.  Fortunately the quality control came from my end first.  And yet,  I don't feel like I made the worst of decisions.  It's good to try new stuff and push envelopes and boundaries.  The first stuff I shot had a great feel to it on one level.  But it was too far into devolution to pass the publication test.  If I posted it here I'll bet few could see the differences between the files.  But my QC department can be tough.  Especially when the client comes from a peer recommendation.

Why am I sharing all this with you?  I don't know.  I guess I'm going against basic marketing by admitting that we're all only human and making mistakes is part of the deal.  I don't always follow the standard play book.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  But I know one thing:   If you're going to screw around with "alternative gear/processes"  leave in enough time buffer to do it over again.......

Rainy day here.  Rainy week.  Cancelled shoot.  More blogs.

Ken Rockwell's Prediction for the future of professional photography

Sometimes I'm accused of being less than optimistic about the future of photography for professionals.  The usual suspects tell me to become better and smarter.  If I could I sure would.  But most people just tell me that the world is cyclical and that I should hold tight and hope it all comes back.  I've got my own opinions but I'm always interested in what other people in other markets think.


I know many of you hold Ken Rockwell in less than high regard but in the last five years of reading his stuff on his blog I can't recall a single time that what he says hasn't turned out to be pretty darn true.  In a column a few days ago he went through his mailbox and answered a few questions for us.  Most were along the lines of, "what camera should I use?" But this one had to do with this question:


3. Future of photography & photographer's role in it?


And I find his answer quite interesting and along the same lines as what I would say.  That I agree with him doesn't mean that I'm personally depressed.  Or that I am a "sore loser."  Or that I need to get over myself.  Or that I should be irrepressibly Pollyanna about the future.  It only means that I dispassionatly agree with his assessment of the future of photography for money as we practice it today.  If you click the title of the blog it will take you to Ken's site.  Scroll down the page a bit to find this list of answers.  Without belaboring it further, dig in:  


(The following is from Ken Rockwell's blog.  ©2010 Ken Rockwell.  Don't pass it along without attribution, please!!)

3.) Downhill, and less of a role in it.

Why?

The future is downhill because photography, which is the art of seeing, has beendiluted into becoming a hobby for computer people, instead of an art practiced to excite the imagination of others.

Photographers will play less of a role in it, as most pro photographers will no longer be needed because today's cameras do all the technical stuff for which paying photography clients used to have pay someone with basic technical skills. These people with basic tech skills, but little to no vision, used to get by by calling themselves "photographers," even if they were simply camera jockeys who could wrangle a light meter, but had little ability to see the picture in something, or see it from a new angle. Now that anyone can snap a technically decent picture, only those with the ability to see the real image inside something will survive as photographers.

Photography is exactly like sculpture. When you start, you've got a big block of something that means nothing. The artist is the one who sees the final work living inside this big block. The final carving away of the unnecessary bits to release your vision into tangible form is simply the final mechanics, not the art. With photography, you're removing the irrelevant parts, leaving only what matters. It's seeing it in the first place that is photography or sculpture, not the carving or the snapping.

Tomorrow, all we will need are the real photographers with vision, while clients who don't need vision, but merely a decent record photograph, can do it themselves.

We've already seen this in stock. Guys no longer can pull in $30,000 every month through formal stock agencies renting out old slides of people standing in airports holding phones, or holding blank signs, or pointing to globes. Today, everyone can and does snap these same boring images and sells them via microstock online. (Hint: why not photos of hot girls holding phones? Why aren't those images sold as stock?)

Photography is the art of seeing. Photography is showing people things in ways that they didn't see for themselves. Photography is the art of seeing the picture that's already standing in front of you, but that no one else has noticed. Photography is the art of recognizing the hidden beauty in everyday things. Photography is the power of observation.

Photography has never been about cameras. The hard part about photography is seeing something. The trivial part is taking the picture of it once you've seen it.

A rather boring article about how I lit a portrait on location last week.

One of my most important tools.  The standard apple crate.  Used in film and video productions everywhere.


I was shooting some executives at an industrial company here in Austin last week and the client let me know that there were one or two execs in other cities who would also need to be shot.  They weren't going to budget for me flying out of state just to do one or two head shots so they asked if I would document the set up and be willing to share the information with photographers with which they have relationships in the other cities.  Of course.  I'll share just about anything.

I used this handsome devil as an example because it was easy to get a model release from him. :-)


It's pretty standard lighting.  In a nutshell it's a big soft light from the left, a big white reflector from the right, a gridded flash on the light gray background and a small flash in a small softbox from the back of the set.   The image I chose to use as an example doesn't have the backlight added in.  Sorry.  You'll just have to imagine it.

Above.  The view from the left of the camera.  You can see that I'm using a Softlighter 2 60 inch umbrella with it's diffusion "sock" on the front.  It's hooked up to a 1200 watt second Elinchrom Ranger RX AS pack but it's on the low power tap and set to a fairly low setting.  Though the wide angle lens I've used to make this image distorts the size/distance relations the light is really right next to the chair.  Almost touching it.  The camera is a Canon 5dmk2 and I'm using the 70-200 f4 L lens at around 135mm as my taking lens.

Above is the view from right behind the camera and it gives you a better idea of the various relationships between the lighting instruments.  I use the apple crate to stand on because I am five feet and eight inches tall while some of the taller subjects were six foot, three and six foot, five.  (Mutant giants?)

I always use this zany Lastolite pop up target to set custom white balances with.  I like this Will Crockett version because it has a target to focus on.


I use an incident light meter to meter every light source and get them all in the right target zone.  I base my whole exposure around f5.6.  I fine tune it for each person.

Here's what I'm using for the light on the background.  It's a Vivitar 383 df used in the slave mode.  I like them because in the slave mode they are triggered by an optical slave and the setting overrides the auto shutoff.  Since the light is basically direct it only takes 1/4 power to give me the spot I want.  The box on the front is from Speedlight Prokit.  It's a multi-purpose little light modifier.  You can use a grid on the front or a softbox style diffuser.  It's a pretty good accessory for taking the edge off direct light and softening out the edges.  With a grid in place the fall off is very pleasing.

This is a view from the right side of the set up.  The combination of a 60 inch softlighter diffused umbrella and the 48 inch white reflector is the basis of most of my quick light set ups for indoors.  By moving the umbrella closer and further from the subject I get more or less contrasty light.  By moving the reflector closer or further from the opposite side of the subject's face I get more or less fill in the shadows.

And where oh where would I be without the Barbie kit?  Most of the executives I photographed needed just a touch of translucent powder to shut down the shine on their foreheads and noses.  Please note the white barber's drape which I put over the subject's clothes.  Keeps light colored powder off dark colored jackets.

There's nothing special about the back light.  I just want the barest touch of back light so I use another Vivitar 383 df down at 1/8th power and it seems just right.  I think people make a very common mistake when they use a back light bare.  The light just doesn't seem to match the rest of the light in a conventionally lit scene.  A small box works well.  If we were working in my studio I might have used a big piece of foamcore to flag the light and prevent spill but the space was big enough and the ceilings far enough away that it just didn't become a problem.  A grid on the front of the box would be a good addition as well.

Here's what the scene looks like with my back right up against the grey a paper looking out toward the camera.  Not too intimidating.  Pretty straightforward.  It's nice to have a standard set up that you can fall back on when you are working quickly and need repeatable results.

I like the Elinchrom and I also like the Profoto battery units.  It's nice when you are in a big setting not to have cables running to distant sockets.  And at the low power settings I was using that particular pack is good for several thousand flashes.

We set up starting at 8:00am and finished testing the set up at 8:35am.  My first of ten portrait subjects, the COO, arrived right at 9am.  We finished our last shot just in time for lunch.  My default for delivered food on industrial shoots is usually Jason's Deli.  I order the quarter Muffaletta.  Good stuff.

After a "walking lunch" I broke down this set up and we proceeded to our afternoon shoots around the factory using mostly available light and a good tripod.

So, what constitutes a good tripod?  That's coming up.

Learn how to do the big group shot. You never know when you might need it.

©2010 Kirk Tuck.  The Rollingwood Waves.  At the Westwood Country Club Pool.


This is a very short blog.  I have very little actual advice to give about shooting group shots.  My first piece of advice is to stop spending time fidgeting around with your gear!  This was what we call a "grab shot".  You throw out a suggestion and hope people respond.  When they do (like these young ladies instantly snapping into a line up and throwing arms around their comrades) don't waste time fooling around with how you might compose or whether the exposure is "just" right.  Just push the button a few times till they get bored and then move on.  In the tradition of Zen Buddhism there is no "right" or "wrong" way to do something.  Just decide and go.

My second piece of advice is to always take advantage of overcast days.  Groups in full sun squint, are uncomfortable and the results are way too contrasty.  If you can't wait for clouds look for shade.

My third and last piece of advice is to start with small groups and move your way up to the larger ones.  Get a feel for being in charge and then come to grips with the fact that you'll never truly be in charge.
If there's no money on the table it's a hell of a lot more important to have fun.....and be in the fun....than it is to make everybody miserable getting the  "perfect shot".

©2010 Kirk Tuck.  Practice on the smaller groups first....  If you're in the shade you don't even need fill flash.

Trumped by a graphic designer.

photo of the mighty "Rollingwood Waves" fourteen year old boys.  ©2010 Belinda Yarritu.


I've been photographing my kid's Summer league swim team for the better part of ten years now and I like to think my photos are pretty good.  Last Saturday was the last swim meet of the season and, to tell the truth,  I was too burned out to lift up the camera and hit the project with gusto one more time.  Had too much on my brain.  So my wife, Belinda, (who is also a wonderful graphic designer) grabbed my Canon 7D and asked me how to use it.  I was going to give her the long explanation but she just wanted know know if the focus would lock when she pushed the button half way down.  Yes.  I put the camera on "P" for professional, set the focus for center group, one shot and she was on her way.

When we did the final slide show on Sunday night, for all the parents, kids and coaches, this was the hit image of the evening.  Now, looking at stats on Smugmug this is by far the bestseller from that day.  And she did more.  Many more.  Like this one:

photo of a mighty "Rollingwood Wave" five year old boy in the lake.  ©2010 Belinda Yarritu.


She captured the exuberance of the kids in every shot.  Mine seemed so posed by comparison.  The amazing thing is that she did about 250 images using just one lens.  It was the only one I brought along (I figured we had more than enough images for a good slide show by that point in the season-----silly me).
It was the 60mm macros for Canon's smaller sensor cameras.  Equivalent to about a 96mm lens on a traditional 35mm camera.  No zoom.  No wide.  Definitely a "zoom with your feet" optic.

She shot everything in jpeg.  Large/fine.  And it was weird when I went to process the stuff.  No exposure comp was really needed.  After she really got into it she was able to really connect with the kids as well.  I love this photograph because it's so close and so full of energy:

photo of the mighty "Rollingwood Waves" ten year old boys.  ©2010 Belinda Yarritu.


When I look at the photos it makes me wish I could start all over again and unlearn so much of the "safety" stuff I've subconsciously taken on over the years.  But most of all I wish I could compose like she does and ignore the technical stuff like she does.  One of my wry, female, creative director friends saw the images and pronounced (loudly and with a certain amount of serious intent....)  that I should become Belinda's agent and assistant.  I could do the techno stuff and Belinda could do the art.  Been thinking about it ever since......

She's a very good graphic designer.  Here's her old website:  www.belindayarritu.com  the new one is just waiting for me to write some copy........

I shouldn't be surprised that Belinda is a good photographer.  She was shooting with an Olympus OM-1 before I ever picked up a camera.  And if I remember correctly she only had one lens.....the 50mm 1.8.  And she's worked with the best photographers in the business for the last twenty years.  I guess having a point of view and the visual chops is the counterpoint to so much of what I get around to talking about here.

Anyway, I just wanted to share.  Drop a comment her if you like her stuff.  Sometimes she gets around to reading the blog.