Economic crisis hits poorest of the poor

It's been a while since I last posted, and I guess it's time I back-filled some of the things I've been doing over the past few months.

Here's a story I published in The Australian in May, about the affect of the economic crisis in Bangladesh.

Times are tough Down Under too. The media industry has been hit hard by the global recession, and those of us that are left are clinging to our hats and just hoping the storm passes before the ground washes away beneath our feet.


http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25447123-25837,00.html

Choreographer portrait

I've been busy and a touch slack with blogging lately, but I'll try to keep up to date henceforth, and back-fill some of what I've been doing over the past couple of months.

Here is a portrait of a choreographer I did a few days ago: strictly speaking the assignment was a press call to see excerpts from one of his performances, but the room was so dark it was almost impossible to get a clean shot (see inset).

I managed to swing a few set ups with a couple of dancers using strong cross-light (flash), but they lacked spontaneity. You can't always get away with a portrait, but in this case the story focused on the choreographer so it worked OK.

I wanted something that place strong emphasis on him as a character, while simultaneously eluding to his athleticism or association with dance by way of a quirky pose. Here I have placed him in an abandoned railway carriage perched on some kind of bollard thing. Obviously rusty rolling-stock aren't always apparent so just do the best you can with whatever is available.

The set up was simple: one flash from the side out of sight set to full power (about 10 feet away zoomed to 105 mm), I picked the lowest ISO and max sync speed, guessed the aperture and then adjusted till I got it right. This technique works well in bright sunlight if you're in a real hurry.

These press call things can be appallingly badly set up so don't be afraid to throw your weight around - gently - with the PR people to try to get something better; remember they're there to make your life easier not the other way around.

'Email the author' problem

It appears that the 'Email the author' links provided by Feedburner on my blog have not been working, so if you've tried to contact me that way I probably didn't receive your message. If you would like to get in touch please post a comment or email me directly until I can work out how to get the problem fixed. Thanks A.

Simple lighting under harsh sunlight

Here's a simple technique for effective lighting under harsh sunlight.

Set your camera to its lowest ISO and highest sync-speed, and dial down the aperture until your ambient is one to two stops under exposed.

Set the flash to full power and cross light your subject. Cross-lighting, in this context, means positioning the flash and the sun so that they are diagonally opposed, such that one is the key and the other provides rim light.

Simply adjust the distance between the flash and the subject until you obtain the correct exposure.

Sydney to Hobart

The boxing day start of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race provides an annual challenge for local photographers: those in choppers and on boats almost always get the best view, and the rest of us are left to try and convey a sense of place and context that identifies with the viewing public.

Doubtless this shot has been done many times before, but not by me. After agreeing with the editors which area I would cover I used Google Maps to plan my angle, and then searched the archives for a similar shot from which I chose my lenses.

In the end the whole thing went down fairly easily, I rather like this frame showing people watching the leading yacht pass through the mouth of Sydney harbour with the rest of the field and the city in the background; the wide version also showed the gap between the lead boat and it's nearest competitor. The line of heads at the base of the frame are important as they make connection with the audience's perspective and experience.

Magician portrait

This is a recent portrait of magician James Galea that was published in The Australian's Review supplement.

The lighting is very simple - just a single brolly to camera left.

James is pretty handy with a pack of cards, but it still wasn't easy to get right.

Because the flash recycling is slow, you only really get one or two usable frames per attempt. If neither are right it means picking all of the cards up and starting over again.

The wide angle style follows on from my 'wide-angle portraiture post below.'

Wide angle portraiture

Wide angle portraiture seems to be vogue at present. The style was popularized by Richard Avedon, and has been used more recently by the likes of Platon, who won a World Press Photo award for his image of Putin for Time magazine.

Used skillfully, this style of portraiture can facilitate a sense of intimacy between the subject and viewer. But wider-than-normal-perspective lenses introduce distortions that can be ugly or distracting if handled carelessly.

This image of former Australian Attorney General Philip Ruddock was made in great haste, at Sydney Airport recently.

I used a single flash zoomed at 105 mm positioned high to camera-left. A CTO gel and tungsten white balance turned daylight in the background blue, creating separation between the subject and his environment.

Anyone familiar with Ruddock's public persona will understand the pose. I think the image is fairly successful, although I wish I had adjusted the light a little to reduce the ugly shadow beneath his nose.

Canon 5D MkII video capabilities

Doubtless you've all heard about the 'life-changing' Canon EOS 5D Mark II - the first digital SLR to shoot high definition video - but for what it's worth I'll add my two cents.

I've had a chance to play with one of these on loan from Canon a few times - both the day it was officially released when they were so nervous they wouldn't even let me put a card in it, and subsequently when they've been a bit more relaxed.

From my experiences to date I would say it's a great stills camera, but there are still some major limitations with its video capabilities. Doubtless you've all seen examples of Vincent LaForet's spectacular video shot wit the 5d2; don't imagine you'll be doing this straight out of the box.  Here are my top gripes:

1. Lack of manual video exposure control: this is my single biggest gripe and one that renders the camera effectively 'point-and-shoot' in video mode: there seems to be no way to manually set the aperture, shutter speed or ISO for video recording; as soon as you start recording the camera takes control of all those things automatically, leaving only the exposure compensation and exposure lock functions for creativity.  In practice this means that to achive the sort of dramatic underexposure that Vincent Laforet has used in parts of his video you have to point the camera at something bright, then quickly hit exposure lock before it has time to adjust.  What's more the fluctuating gain/ISO can be annoying in Post, and you can only do large aperture stuff under very dark conditions - in bright sunlight the camera just goes stright for something like 1/40th at F22 and there's nothing you can do.  In short it's like being forced to shoot stills in P mode (with auto ISO) all the time - you can get a frame but the results are frustratingly unpredictable.  


2. Inadequate stills capture during video: following from the previous point, you can press the shutter release whilst shooting video and the recording will pause, take a frame, and continue; but there is a noticeable lag time (about one second) and the exposure settings are adopted from the video:  what this means in practice is if your stills exposure is say 1/125th F5.6 @ 400 ISO, but the camera chooses 1/40th F22 @ 1000 ISO for video (not sure if those numbers work but it's not important) then when you press the shutter during video recording the 1/40th F22 @ 1000 ISO will be used to capture the still, not 1/125th F5.6 @ 400 ISO which you manually selected.  This may seem trivial, but it means that if you're shooting video and something unexpected happens and you want to take a still, then your still will likely be blurred; to get the correct exposure you have to stop the video, turn off Live View, take the still, turn Live View back on and re-start the video all manually - or in other words don't even bother.  
   
   
3. Poor/no autofocus during video:  The lack of autofocus during video capture is probably the most widely publicised limitation of this camera; while it's not a killer it means it's pretty hopeless for running news, which is where a lot of the market will be.   I suspect the lack of reliable autofocus is why the autoexposure algorithm seems to prefer large depth of field at virtually all cost.  There are two rudimentary autofocus modes - standard and face recognition - but they're unreliable, hunt a lot and cause unattractive exposure fluctuations; in short they're pretty much useless.  

I don't want to sound overly negative - the 5D2 is a great body for stills and I commend Canon for stepping out with new concepts; that said, there's still a long way to go.  This camera is like a beefed-up version of the old 5D with a handycam stuck inside; pro-video it is not.  

Triguboff slideshow

Here is a slideshow I've been meaning to post for a while. It's not one I put together my self, but I think it raises a couple of interesting points.

The assignment was pictures of a leading Sydney developer to accompany an article about the state of the property market. I made a few brief portraits and then shot part of the interview to add variety to the set. I didn't really have the web in mind, but afterwards somebody compiled my images with audio from the journalist's tape recorder to make this slideshow.

Even though the audio quality leaves room for improvement, I think this presentation shows how easy it can be to splice informative content and images into something people want to watch; stick a video camera on a tripod and a multimedia presentation is just a few steps away.

Px3 Water deadline extended

Px3 have extended the deadline for their latest competition 'Water' until 15th December 2008.

This one costs a few bucks to enter, but fees are subsidized for lower-income countries and there's a few thousand in prize money.

Px3 is an organisation linked to IPA which started running competitions a couple of years ago. It's a good one for up-and-comers as many of the big boys don't get around to entering.

Obama moment

Rescued from the jaws of chaos by America's first black president? Well that remains to be seen; but I did get this great shot of an African American man in Sydney overcome with emotion as Obama's victory was declared.

Capturing this type of image is - in my mind - the essence of good news photography: finding a shot that portrays the emotion of an important but unpredictable moment to illustrate a story occurring over a defined period of time.

There are no rules, but in my experience it has a lot to do with good instincts and anticipation; knowing who the key players are and predicting how the story is likely to unfold. In this case myself and several other photographers realised this guy could be a good subject and maintained a position nearby as the critical time approached. The room was very dark and I was shooting with a slow shutter and some tungsten (CTO-gelled) fill flash, but as he stood up light from a TV camera passed over his face and I flicked off my flash to capture this image.

One could say that perhaps the key to great news photography is to see your shot before it happens and be sufficiently familiar with your equipment to get it when it does.

For more great election coverage check ou the New York Times photographers' journals, Time magazine and the VII network.

Profit results briefing

Here are a couple of examples from an assignment using several of the techniques I've mentioned previously.

Profits briefings are held by most publicly listed companies several times per year. Sometimes they resemble press conferences but increasingly, with the advent of high-speed communications, a bloke talking to a room full of empty chairs is more common. The challenge is to create a set of interesting images from what is often a poorly lit and unremarkable environment.

In this case no TV cameras were present so I was able to position a snooted speedlight close to my subject and make a series of dramatic images during the presentation (see inset below). By swapping for a CTO-gelled flash and choosing tungsten white balance on a daylight background, I also captured a brief portrait (right) before the CEO left the room.

It is generally worth hanging around for a portrait if you have time as most publications prefer to run a unique shot and you never know what else might be on the same page.

DIY snoots and gobos

A number of people have previously touted the benefits of using DIY directional lighting modifiers - snoots and gobos etc - with speedlights. The most popular apparatus seems to involve an ingenious combinations of cardboard, duct tape and velcro; such as the one shown in this article on Strobist.com.

While I've no doubt the cardboard thing is highly effective, I've always favoured a more minimalist approach: I take an old black plastic bag used to store photographic paper, cut out a roughly A4 sized sheet and stick it around my flash using duct tape. This approach has the added benefits of being small; if you want a shorter snoot just fold the sheet in half; and for a gobo you can just fold it up further and stick it to one side... (a 'gobo' for those unsure is short for go-between and is used to prevent stray light from creating unwated reflections or flare).

I used this technique recently to make the above portrait of a businessman for a story related to the ongoing global financial crisis. I like the way the controlled lighting allowed me to maintain detail in the overcast sky and cityscape without destroying the moody feel of the room.

NPPP closing Sunday

National Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 entries close this Sunday 2nd November. Competition is open to Australian residents and carries a $25,000 prize.

See http://www.portrait.gov.au/static/nppp.php for furter details.

Jerry Lewis down under

Veteran American comedian Jerry Lewis, pictured at his hotel after holding a press conference to publicise his upcoming Australian tour.

The event was a typically frenzied affair: several dozen photographers, journalists and cameramen each with their own ideas and briefs... I negotiated with his handlers to trade a walking shot in the hallway for a quick set-up afterwards, but unfortunately the PR misunderstood and neither worked out.

With a bit of further negotiation I managed to arrange a brief portrait as compensation for their mistake: I got two frames during prep, three as he stretched out his hands, and further two or three as he walked out of frame; the whole session lasted maybe 15 seconds at most.

I've never met or photographed Jerry Lewis before, but during the press conference he lived up to his reputation as humorous and engaging with a ceaseless desire to elicit mirth from his audience. I like this portrait as I find it captures something of that character; certainly for an 82 year old, he is quite a guy.

ARIA Awards

Just back from covering the ARIA Awards (Australian Record Industry Association); call me old - and I probably am - but what on earth are these people wearing? I feel like my dad.

Watch the weather

"Never forget the weather," an old-salt photographer once said to me; "it can be your best friend and worst enemy, but you have to work with it either way." True of course, but he neglected to mention that unusual weather can also yield a great photo on its own.

These images were made within minutes of each other, during a brief squall over Sydney harbour, with one hand clinging to an armful of gear and an umbrella intent on blowing away. Neither is particularly spectacular but they go to a point: good weather pictures are usually fleeting moments and can be hard to find so grab one if you see it. For picture editors on a slow news day a good weather picture is like gold dust, and for aspiring freelancers that can be a great way to get your foot in the door.

From a staffer's point of view, even if it doesn't work out too well you might still save some other poor bugger standing in the cold for hours later on in the day.

Photographing theatre and stage performances

Someone asked recently about photographing theatre and stage performances. There are of course many nuances and details that come with experience, but the bare bones go roughly as follows: the first - and probably most obvious thing - is that most images are made during rehearsals and media calls, so don't go showing up to a performance with your camera expecting to be allowed in. On the odd occasion where you may be asked to photograph on the night it helps to use a camera with a silent shutter mode and keep the number of frames to a bare minimum, lest you find yourself ejected at the behest of the audience.

Rehearsals can become tedious unless you are particularly interested in a `behind the scenes' look: actors / performers are often not in costume and may jump erratically around the script focusing on short sections that can be boring to shoot. Try to get yourself invited to a final dress rehearsal, or better still a press gig where everybody will be present in full glory, ready at your beck and call.

Lens choice is a personal thing, but personally I like a couple of decent zooms: a 70-200 / f2.8 is my primary choice, and I keep a 24-70 /f2.8 on another body nearby. Pick an exposure for the highlights being careful not to blow the detail on your main subjects - this can be tricky if the lighting changes a lot or is uneven across the stage, you may have to meter different areas and adjust as the characters move. White balance is also important as many performances uses coloured lighting that can fool the camera's automatic setting: Tungsten is often appropriate, but can bee too blue for some lights, particularly spotlights; do a custom white balance if necessary. I prefer to do everything manually, but if you must use rely on the camera for metering try to use spot-mode off skin tones. Always bump up the ISO rather than under-exposing and correcting later, which introduces too much noise to the highlights.

The best position in medium sized theatres often falls somewhere between rows J and G (assuming A is closest to the front). I prefer to sit at roughly waist- to chest-height on the performers, close enough to frame head and shoulders on 200 mm, but it's important to make sure you can still do full length landscape on 70 mm right to the front of the stage. Depending on the show it may be worth moving around, but since stage performances area already directed towards the audience the best views are often front and centre.

Typically for a press gig the director will choose a couple of excerpts to showcase, each of which will usually be performed twice. In my experience there are usually only one or two stand out moments to be had: use the first run through to cover bases and find the best shot, but if you are lucky enough to nail it first time then move around or try some slow shutter ... maximise your options.

If you need more light or more time ask for it - you're there to make them [more] famous - if you're still not happy then ask to do something else at the end: The two pictures shown here feature Richard E. Grant and Taryn Feibig in a production of My Fair Lady; the first is from an excerpt of live performance, the second from a single piece of dialogue requested by one of the agency photographers and shot with more ambient light and a bit of CTO-gelled fill flash; in the end, another brief portrait I did of Grant on his own ran in the paper.

Head On People's Choice 2008

I'm delighted to announce that my image 'Who Are You' was voted winner of the People's Choice Award at the 2008 Head On alternative portraiture competition.

I'm very happy to have been chosen by the people as it is of course the reaction of the audience that ultimately determines the success or failure of an image.

This is the first year I've entered Head On, but I must say I have been very impressed by the quality and presentation of work entered, as by the dedication of its curator Moshe Rosenzveig. If you have suitable work I recommend entering the next round which opens in early 2009.

See http://headon.com.au/ for further details.

Using coloured gels on the fly

I've written several posts about using coloured gels in portraiture, but there are of course many other cases where they may be of use: catwalk and red carpet, indoor balanced fill, adjusting skin tones, or indeed just creating separation between the subject and background.

In this example I had been photographing a group of rugby league supporters watching their team impose a crushing defeat during a grand final match. Initially I used a CTO gel to balance the flash with the ambient light in their apartment. When the game finished and they ran down to the beach to celebrate I chose to leave the gel and white balance settings in place to increase separation between them and the background, and add emphasis to their shared emotion by maintaining the appearance of a warm glow.

Nachtwey launches XDRTB story online

Veteran photojournalist James Nachtwey has launched his latest project documenting the challenges of Extremely Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis (XDRTB) in a worldwide multimedia presentation, and is appealing to others to help draw attention to the story.

Nachtwey, a co-founder of the VII Network, has devoted much of his life to covering conflict and is widely regarded as one of the most influential war photographers of his generation.

His moving essay exemplifies the hard-hitting style of his many portraits of human suffering, and provides some chilling insight into the progress of this devastating disease.

Nachtwey's choice to break the story online testifies to the growing influence of new media over traditional forms of publication; proof that much like the music industry - whose artists increasingly release their work independently in a variety of formats - photojournalists too must adapt and innovate if they are to maintain relevance and legitimacy in the public discourse.

See Nachtwey's work online at http://www.xdrtb.org, or attend a public screening http://www.tedprize.org/nachtwey/eventlocation.html.

Simple and effective lighting

A few photojournalists I've met - certainly the minority - maintain a persistent objection to using flash in news photography; this is a personal choice, one that is often necessary for reportage; but in many other circumstances I find a bit of careful creative lighting can provide a rewarding antidote to the dull image.

Several previous posts have mentioned techniques involving off-camera lighting: most of these examples used a simple portable lighting stand with or without umbrella and a portable strobe such as the Canon 580 ex II triggered using a wireless infra-red or radio slave. This portrait of an artist with his prize-winning work employed much the same approach.

By keeping the light close to the subject I was able to maintain good separation from the background; the cross-lighting on the figurines lends pleasing emphasis to their forms.

For more information on simple lighting techniques I recommend reading http://strobist.blogspot.com/.

Using coloured gels: part II

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about using coloured gels with flash/stobe lighting. In the first example I used CTO and CTP gels to emphasise different subject matter with contrasting gold and blue light; in this example I used only a yellowish CTO gel and natural light to create the blue effect.

On the right I have a portrait of US actor Brendan Fraser, made during a one-on-one interview whilst in Australia promoting his new film. For anybody not familiar, these things usually take the format of a 25 min interview with up to 5 mins for photographs - variably perplexed by officious PR types - so you have to be pretty on the ball with what you want to do.

In this context I used a single flash on a stand above and to the right of his head, and a mesh curtained window as a backdrop. The contrasting colours are created by placing two layers of CTO gell over the flash head, and setting the camera's white balance to tungsten, such that daylight appears blue.

I find this effect works very well in some situations but not in others - the most effective I've seen recently being a colleague of mine who used it to portrait a nuclear weapons expert.

Sad day for journalism

Today was a bad day for staff at Fairfax Media - one of Australia's largest diversified media companies. At their offices in Pyrmont around two-hundred members squeezed into a small room, some sitting, some standing, a few crying; there were no tables or chairs, only a large banner reading 'Fair go Fairfax: Don't discount journalism'.

The meeting was convened by union officials following the announcement of a planned third round of sweeping job cuts across the company's Australian and New Zealand operations.  A total of 550 staff will go, 390 in Australia and up to 150 from editorial positions at masthead metropolitan newspapers, such as the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, sources inside Fairfax said.

National President of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance Chris Warren said the Sydney Morning Herald now employed a third-less staff than it had two decades ago and this was undermining its quality. "Only media companies investing in good journalism are making an money," he said; citing Rupert Murdoch's recent acquisition of the Wall Street Journal as an example.

I cant comment on the strict veracity of Mr Warren's statement - doubtless there are many who would argue gutter-trash tabloids still make a buck or two - but his comments reminded me of a recent article I read on SportsShooter.com, where former New York Times photographer Vincent Laforet argues that the outlook is grim and we all need to diversify in order to survive.

While I don't entirely agree with Laforet's argument - I think there is a lot more life in the industry than he gives credit for - I strongly agree with his point about the need to diversify, be open minded and build value into our profession. A good motto could be as follows: Find something you're good at and do it to the best of your ability, make it unique, and if you've accomplished all that you'll probably be able to persuade someone to pay you to do it too. More on this to come no doubt, for the time being my thoughts are with industry colleagues who face loosing their jobs.

Ebb tides in a flood of despair: APY Lands

Here's an audio slideshow I compiled, following a recent trip to the remote communities of APY Lands in northern South Australia (see earlier post).

The challenge of collecting and collating information in this way is that - because there is such a structured sequential link between the the presentation of textural/audio content and images - one must illustrate each point precisely, even though it's relevance to the unfolding story may not be clear at the time of collection.  One might say this is true of all journalism, but I think here it is particularly acute since photographs can be such powerful singular statements, and where they clash with eachother or do not match the audio, the jarring is really quite clear.  

I don't pretend to be an expert in achieving this goal, indeed I am very much learning myself and there are some clear oversights in this example; however, I think this process will present some particular and interesting challenges to photojournalists as they come to terms with realising their multimedia ambitions; but ultimately, our/their work will be greatly improved.  

Access restrictions and blind faith

This has to be one of the harder jobs I've done recently, in terms of access anyway.

I was covering a ministerial visit to a remote aboriginal community in South Australia; the area is notoriously hard to access so it was also an opportunity to gather material for future stories.

The crux of the minister's visit related to aspects of aboriginal housing; however, sadly many aborigines are very shy and afraid of being shamed for opening their homes, which are often overcrowded and unsanitary.

It took all of our efforts -- the journalist and myself -- to come close and fail to access properties several times. As the deadline to depart came closer, ministerial press secretaries became nervous and everyone agitated to leave. I kept stalling, and negotiating with the locals, and telling tales about how many good stories are done on a dime and sure enough, in the last five minutes, after everyone else had left, we came thorough: an exclusive insight that few if any other major media organisations have been able to deliver from this area in the recent past.

I don't draw attention to this to blow my own trumpet, rather to elevate the value of investing every possible second to get what you need.

Using coloured gels

Late Friday afternoon I headed down to the Sydney Biennale in the Museum of Contemporary Art to try to get something to illustrate a story about the importance of visual education.

The brief was fairly simple: get a page stopping 'what the heck is that' type shot. in addition to the fairly pedestrian options you see below, I wanted something striking that could hold up a colour page.

Upon discovering a large model plane with crucifix attached hanging from the ceiling, I thought this could be an ideal opportunity to test out the new coloured gels I acquired from a TV network a few weeks ago.

Using two flash guns zoomed to their max at 90 degrees to the camera, I doubled-gelled one with CTO (cooling) and the other with CTP (warming); and set the camera white balance to flash.

I enlisted two volunteers to hold the flash guns and a wireless transmitter to set them off, and hey presto. At first I thought the result might be too kooky for publication, but my efforts were rewarded when, on Saturday morning I discovered that a version of the frame on the right had been chosen to hold up page 5.