/photoblog

Collaborating with Mello | July 27, 2015

Right from our first contact, even before he showed up on my door step, it was clear that Mello has clear ideas about our session, just as much as I do. So when we sat down to chat at the kitchen counter, as I do with every portrait subject before a session, he laid out his proposed approach, not so much as my subject for the series on African Canadians in the arts, but as someone with a mission and purpose. This session has to fit with his own agenda, not just mine. So it became a true collaboration. Mello was well prepared with ideas, allowing me to riff along. Showing off Mello's (Yoga tuned) physique? Check. Wearing formal attire? Check. The latter contrasted with an african mask? Check! 

But the conversation, oh the conversation. We covered so much ground in our first hour. We talked about the symbolic impact of his last name (White), his "day job" of helping spread the principles of diversity across Ontario's government bureaucracy, his love for poetry and spoken word performance and social activism. We even touched on my other favourite topic: cooking - and our very different approach to it. His a creative free form experimentation, and mine, following recipes, almost to a T. But somehow, it all balanced out. A good session indeed. 


Gregory's French | July 11, 2015

"...the first move you do is smiling!..."

Doing the series on African Canadians is rewarding on many levels, not the least of which is getting to know my subjects. The story unfolds while sitting at my kitchen counter for an hour leading to the photo shoot. Here's Gregory who came to Canada from France with family roots in Congo. He swears by Toronto's welcoming demeanour and wide open opportunities. Gregory's fluid personality is warm and thoughtful. Yet when we step into the studio additional layers are peeled. An upbringing in Paris shows through his breezy urban sophistication. But as a dancer with his roots and love for African sensibilities he's morphed into a strong, grounded physical presence. During the shoot he tells me about "La Sapologie", a social movement centered in Brazzaville, the capital of Congo, embodying the elegance in style and manners of colonial predecessor dandies as a means of resistance. Its a subject which resonates with Gregory because it brings together his love for French culture and its local permutations in the African continent, but also a dark history of colonialism and oppression. And I'm thinking to myself how, when and with whom do I bring "La Sape" to my studio. 

Esie and Ghana. Connecting her dots | July 10, 2015

Having a long conversation with Esie leading to our session was enlightening. A passionate African Canadian who takes this hyphenation seriously, she's a first generation Canadian with roots in Ghana, and is purposefully weaving her family's history and roots into her art, dancing and choreography. After meeting Esie and a few other dancers recently, I am  struck by their strong entrepreneurial drive. They are out there creating opportunities for themselves to showcase their art, and create a dialogue between their heritage, represented by traditional African dance, and current zeitgeist in the dance world. Esie is about to mount a show she has been working on for a couple of years called Akoma. 

Herz Frank - Ten Minutes Older | July 3, 2015

I came across this wonderful short from the 70's, filmed and conceived by the documentarian Herz Frank. I did not know about Frank who died in 2013, until very recently. He came to my attention because of his controversial documentary about the assassin who murdered the late Israeli prime minister, Rabin. This link to a YouTube short, was one of the first that came up in Google when I searched his name. And it is remarkable. A nice juxtaposition between film and photo, It's also a study of facial expressions and how beautifully they reflect our emotions, especially with young children. It's mesmerizing to watch how we respond to stories, or in this case, how a very young person responds to it in the most visceral way - letting those emotions drift across their faces, changing completely from second to second. Just like the ebbs and flows of their impressionable minds. The film's name - Ten Minutes Older, captures this idea of accumulating experiences perfectly. This short only needs an updated sound track (or none at all). 

 

Back Alleys | July 1, 2015

Sometimes inspiration is just a few feet away from home. In this case in the back alleys of Toronto's Cabbage Town. Taking a strobe light setup is a chore (calling it "a schlep" is even better), but it's like carrying a controlled personal sun light setup. It brings out details and textures that result in a unique look. On rare occasions I come across natural sun light conditions that produce similar results. But this only happens when a perfect combo of "golden hour" combined with heavy haze or semi cloudy conditions that allow sun beams to stream through for a precious moment in time. Obviously, having light on demand makes things a bit easier. I tackled Toronto's back alleys before, but never with the aid of strobes. It merits more experimentation.

Flora Light - Caledon Hills pt. 2 | June 24, 2015

I am continuing to explore technique as well as subject matter for my series on nature and artificial lighting (strobes in this case). I was accompanied by my friend Zvi and we set out to Caledon Hills, North West from Toronto on a blistery and overcast day. I've encountered a number of issues. Stability of camera (due to winds), positioning of light modifier inside of the frame (and its removal in post) as well as overall lighting conditions. I am not entirely happy with the results, but they're pointing in the right direction.

Revealing by concealing | June 22, 2015

In two separate portrait sessions, I stumbled on shots where my subjects, in this case Tracey Erin Smith and Goni Alter, had their heads turned away from me, and in both cases I went ahead and snapped the shot. It is the moment just before they turn their gaze back to the camera for the next shot. On the face of things (pun! I love puns!) this pose goes against the purpose of portraiture. The latter is an act of disclosure. It is meant to reveal more of the subject. Here we have both subjects faces mostly hidden. But to me, it seems that we get to experience quite literally another intriguing side.

Caledon in the bush | June 20, 2015

Was out and about today, looking for ideas and subject matter for my strobe series. Ended up in Caledon, a nice area just North West of here. At this point I'm still searching. It's not obvious. Unlike my portraits, I am not entirely sure what will work with this technique. But today I saw enough interesting stuff worth coming back for with my gear in tow. I managed to snap a couple of photos including this naturally backlit tree. It's a nice counterpoint to the use of front pointing strobes. And while none of them was taken with my strobes, it points to an idea: how to use light, natural or artificial, that reveals more of the subject. 

 
 

Pulga's portrait session | May 21, 2015

Pulga Cesar Muchochoma dropped by for a session. He showed up with his "Hummer" street bike, bright yellow and ready for business (the bike, not just Pulga). Just before he left the studio I pulled him back in dressed in his riding gear and all other manner of street paraphernalia, and straddling the bike for a few fun shots. The session as a whole focused on body, movement, light and what I'll now call "image mindful movement". I asked Pulga to move around his body's axis, respecting the confines of my studio but allowing him control over when I take some shots: quite simply only when he decides to pause.

Strobes and flora? Who would have thought? | May 12, 2015

Strobes out of the studio? That's pretty normal - I take my portrait studio strobes with me if I need to light my subjects outdoors. I started to think about using strobes in a totally different way. So I went out to Rouge Valley park in search of opportunities. I lucked out. 10 feet away from the parking lot I found this patch of bushes, trees and a fence. This was shot in full day light. The results are intriguing enough as to encourage further exploration of this nascent idea. I am hopeful that this technique will draw the eye and highlight interesting shapes and patterns.

Getting the most out of your dSLR's large format sensor | May 3, 2015

I am using a high pixel count camera from Nikon called the D800. At the time ( a few years back) it was unique in this category of digital SLRs in that it contained a 36 megapixel Sony manufactured sensor. When it was released, only digital back mounted medium size cameras provided such high resolution options. Even today it is rare to find dSLRs with this kind of sensor resolution. Sony introduced the 36mp Alpha a7R and Canon just released its 5Ds with almost 50 megapixels. 

Putting aside pixel wars and "pixel peeping" and all their geeky permutations, there are a couple of substantive advantages for such high pixel count. It allows for more agressive cropping in post, which means more creative freedom to reframe the picture after it was taken while still ending up with a file that contains decent amount of details (depending on how much is cropped). But it's most useful for printing larger prints, which is my main reason for using all the megapixels I can get my hands on. I should add that the Nikon D800/D810 can be configured to take photos using less resolution for situations when such high resolution is not needed. 

For landscape and even portrait photographers the Nikon D800/810, Sony Alpha a7r and and now the Canon 5Ds are a boon, especially in light of the prohibitive costs of medium size camera systems, their bulk and very expensive lenses. But there's a price to pay for all those megapixels: you quickly lose the advantage of crisp, sharp, detail saturated images, if you end up with blurry images due to lax camera and exposure handling practices. All you end up with are very large files (especially if you shoot RAW format). It therefore requires that you adopt classic medium and even large format techniques that have been around for a long time. 

If you want to extract every bit of sharp, pleasing details from your high res camera, you should adopt some of these practices:

  • Fast shutter speeds: If you hand hold your camera, make sure you can use shutter speeds of at least 250th of a second or more. That means 1) lots of light 2) fast lenses 3) and even higher ISO settings
  • Tripod: Whenever you can, attach the camera to a solid tripod, and if you're using large telephoto lenses, make sure they're attached directly to the tripod head
  • Reduce impact of mirror vibration: Even when using a tripod, it is important to control mirror vibrations. SLR cameras use a mechanism that raises a mirror just before the shutter opens to redirect the light coming through the lens, from the viewfinder to the sensor. This movement results in vibration. Most advanced cameras will allow you to specify how much time after the mirror is raised, the shutter will open and allow the image to register on the sensor. Delay will ensure vibration is minimized. But if you thing this sounds obsessive, I go one step further by using a remote trigger instead of the camera's shutter release button. You can see mirror motion and shutter release sequence in this video (you can go directly to minute 2:50 in the video)
  • Ensure image is in focus: this may seem obvious, but here again your ability to ensure perfect focus makes a big difference. Whenever I can, I'll use a live preview option (seeing the image on the camera's LCD monitor), electronically zooming in as far as possible to see the subject's details and then using the lens manual focus ring

So to summarize: for those of you who can see the value of very high resolution sensors either because of print size advantage or greater post production creative freedom, following more rigorous techniques to minimize blur is a must.