Photo Techniques 2010 07

Jul y/August 2010
variations on the photographic arts

www.phototechmag.com
MICHAEL NELSON
Before the Curtain
SEN DUGGAN
Using Pinhole
A. D. Coleman
The Photographs of
Steven Katzman
Barry Haynes
Correct Digital Exposure
Douglas Dublers
Fashion Photography
Tyler Stableford
Stetson
Campaign
Dan Moughamian
Photoshop
CS5
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THE WORLDS NEWSSTAND
Previous Page | Contents | Zoom in | Zoom out | Front Cover | Search Issue | Next Page
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EDITOR S NOTE:
Photography is everything I do, and anything different from that isnt photography.
Thats a paraphrase of statements made in a number of letters Ive re-
ceived regarding specic, though distinctly different, articles weve pub-
lished in the rst three issues of photo technique. Since the 1880s, there
have been a number of attempts to dene what photography is and isnt,
and none of those have been universally adopted.
Photography is currently the most creative medium in existence. We still
have all of the critical power of capturing an event in time and the ability
to visualize not only in a moment, but through an extended time in view-
ing the printto fully understand its impact and nuances.
As photographers, we make exposures of events in real time as partici-
pants in the real world around us. This has been and continues to be the
historical strength of the medium. The synthesized image had always
been the strength of painters, but it is no longer exclusively their domain.
Our ability as photographers to manipulate and collage photographic
images has opened many new avenues to using photography in amazing
ways to create new realities.
Neither of these is the sole denition of contemporary photography.
In fact, the only one who determines what are the necessary tools, be
they analytic or synthetic or a combination of these, is the photographer
trying to make an image that conveys information, creativity, emotion.
Each chooses the tools and techniques appropriate to making the nest
image and the most effective personal statement.
Our medium is expanding. It is still everything that Niepce thought of as
a mirror of reality. It is also the technology that allows us to manipulate
that reality, to create a whole new mental and emotional terrain through
our images.
I like what is happening. I like celebrating the historical as well as the
contemporary. It is the best of times to be a photographer.
Paul Schranz, Editor
photo technique magazine
July/August 2010 Vol. 31 No. 4
Formerly PHOTO Techniques Magazine
Publisher S. Tinsley Preston III
Editor Paul R. Schranz
Creative Director Lisa Cordova
Copy Editor Bonnie Schranz
Production Roberta Knight
Marketing Manager Janice Gordon
Online Content Coordinator Bree Lamb
Project Manager Norma Vechot
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____
__________________
__________________
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Portfolios
Beauty Avatar
Film-inspired fashion shoot
Douglas Dubler
Before the Curtain:
Portraits of the Atlanta Ballet
Interview with Michael Nelson
Artifacts of an
Uncertain Origin
Pinhole Photography
Sen Duggan
Innovations
Machine Wash Deluxe
A great texture system now a
Photoshop plug-in
Acratech Ballhead
A perfect mate for a ber tripod
28
On the Cover:
Photography and Creative Direction: Douglas Dubler 3
Model: Aleksandra Marynyuk, Q Model Management NY
Make-Up: Patrycja Korzeniak, rep by Halley Resources NY
using Make Up For Ever
Hair: Hikara Tezuka for Elnett/ LOral USA
Styling: Ise White, rep by Timathy Priano NY
Fashion: Proenza Schouler
Hat: Designed by Makins, courtesy of Samuels Hats NY
Digital Enhancement: Willie of cursorctrl.com
www.cursorctrl.com.
Studio: Splashlight SoHo NYC
Inspiration: Sarah Dubler
Contents
16
23
43
Tech
Adobe Photoshop CS5
Content-Aware Workow
Dan Moughamian
Proofing Your Negatives Digitally
Critical Scanning Techniques
Jean-Christian Rostagni
Perfecting Digital Camera Exposure
Your meter reading isnt always
the best choice
Barry Haynes
11
19
38
Insight
In the Face of Forgiveness:
Steven Katzmans Epiphanies
A. D. Coleman
4
pg. 4
pg. 28
Feature
Corporate Photography
on Location:
The Stetson Campaign
Interview with Tyler Stableford
30
6300 Series Printers
Introducing Canon USAs newest
wide format printer
Strobies by Interfit
Amazing group of light modiers
for portable ash
29
pg. 29
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In the Face of Forgiveness:
A. D. Coleman
Steven Katzmans Epiphanies
4 photo technique J/A 2010
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If God had a face what would it look like? / And
would you want to see if seeing meant that / you would
have to believe in things like heaven and in Jesus and the
saints / and all the prophets?
Joan Osborne, One of Us
Photographers have photographed believers in all
the worlds major religions and many of its minor
ones while engaged in the act of worship. Often
they have done so as outsiders to those creeds,
with attitudes ranging from the respectful and
curious to the skeptical or even critical. But more
than a few of those photographers grew up within
a particular faith whose practice and practitioners
they subsequently described in images. No doubt
some of them remained followers of those belief
systems, so it seems safe to assume that while a
number of them may have lapsed in their faith, or
paid only lip service to it thereafter, others surely
sustained their convictions to the point where we
would consider them devout.
Therefore we can say that religions have been
photographed, as it were, from the inside. How-
ever, I can think of no photographer who has given
us a rsthand account in words and images of his
own spiritual crisis and conversion
especially to a
religion with which he had no previous connection,
and against which he had decided prejudices. No
photographer, that is, until Steven Katzman.
Writing about The Face of Forgiveness, Steven
Katzmans act of bearing witness, necessarily in-
volves addressing not just the human spirit but acts
of faith, the evidence of things not seen, even the
possibility that God might exist
whether as the all-

powerful, omniscient Being that the conventional
wisdom assumes or else, in Joan Osbornes words,
as one of us . . . Just a slob like one of us, just a
stranger on the bus, trying to make his way home.
This project tells us what Katzman believes, while
implicitly asking us what we believe, proposing that
we put those cards on the table.
In the accompanying text to his 2005 book Katzman
describes how he came to make these images and
what happened to him in the process. Its a long
story, and I commend it to you in its moving,
Tampa,
Steven Katzman
Left
coherent entirety. I dont share Katzmans particular
convictions, but I dont disbelieve a word of what
he has to say. And, as a writer, I know an authentic
voice when I hear one.
Recently, I asked him to reflect back on that period
of his life and the experience of religious conversion.
He replied, in part, as follows:
People have always asked, What got you interested
in revival? I would always reply, I saw an ad in
the Sarasota Herald Tribune: Come to the miracle
tent, come to the miracle tent. Witness the blind see,
the cripple walk, the deaf hear . . .Thats a pretty
hard act to ignore, with all of that Southern polyester
singing praises to the Lord under a party tent. As
I found myself studying my subjects through my
rangefinder, I became fascinated with the worshippers
devotion towards their belief system, regardless of
whether it was in conflict with mine.
During the rst service that I documented, the preacher
saw me kneeling down, twenty pounds of equipment
around my neck, perhaps my own personal albatross,
and pointing his nger directly at me he said, Faith
has no religion. Those words somehow freed me from
religion s dogma.
It wasn't until I was speaking [about the work] at a
gallery opening that the question arose again, What
led you to revival? I repeated the story, but this time
it was different. For the very rst time I realized it
was I who was blind, it was I who was deaf, and
it was I who was crippled. But now I am able to see,
walk and hear. Holding back my tears, steadied by
the supporting wall, I casually told the audience what
had just happened.
Perhaps not coincidentally, that controversial 1995
lyric of Joan Osbornes served as the theme song
for the regrettably short-lived TV series Joan of
Arcadia, which astonished me not only because it
made it onto network TV but also because I found
myself drawn to watch it regularly. Its premise
that confused teenagers (or at least Joan Girardi,

its eponymous heroine) may be on a mission from
God
bemused me. But I found the shows great-

est value in its portrayal of blundering, flawed,
phototechmag.com 5
IN THE FACE OF FORGIVENESS A. D. COLEMAN
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Tampa,
Steven Katzman
Right
vulnerable, wounded, everyday people engaged in
a search for meaning, attempting to figure out the
right thing to do in mostly ordinary if not always
easy situations, and striving to treat each other
decently and lovingly.
In short, it concerned the way that those I think of
as fundamentally good people, whether known to
me or not, try to live their lives everywhere on this
planet, regardless of their religious persuasion. By
that I dont suggest that I consider their faith, or
conscious acts of agnosticism or atheism, irrelevant.
You can use almost any belief system as a weapon
with which to injure yourself or as an excuse to
harm others. Or you can use it as a reflecting pool
to show you the trace of the sacred in your own
poor slobs face. Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu,
Buddhist, agnostic, atheist
anyone can do either,

which is all I mean by regardless. In my exper-
ience, what you choose to believe matters less than
how you apply it to your existence on earth.
The people Katzman shows us surely qualify as
pilgrims, seekers of enlightenment, and he renders
them with all his considerable skill as a photo-
grapher at moments in which they have surrend-
ered themselves to a possibility, the instant of each
ones act of faith. You cant photograph faith itself,
of course. Photographs describe the light that boun-
ces off the surfaces of objects, nothing more, and
both faith and revelation remain private, invisible
inner experiences.
You can photograph people testifying, feeling the
spirit
but thats not the same thing. The outward

appearance of a spiritual experience inevitably
becomes more open to interpretation. If we decon-
textualized Katzmans electrifying images and re-
captioned them, presenting his subjects variously
as attendees at a James Brown or Tom Jones or
Britney Spears concert, customers at a comedy club,
victims of a tragedy, or subjects of a hallucinogenic
drug experiment, theyd lose none of their visual
power. But their meaning, and our understanding
of them, would shift dramatically.
So our reading of what these pictures signify de-
pends to a great extent on what Katzman tells us he
underwent at the Brownsville Assembly of God in
Pensacola, Florida in 1999, and thereafter through
2004. His riveting account of entering this environ-
ment as a documentary photographer pursuing a
sociological project and exiting it transformed,
perhaps permanently, by his encounter with an
energy both terrifying and rapturous turns his
photographs into what detectives call trace
evidence
insufcient in itself to fully prove the

case, but corroborative of other evidence, sup-
portive of a specic interpretation of the events.
Typically, in a documentary project such as
Katzman initially intended to create, the photo-
grapher interviews selected subjects of his or her
images, transcribing and editing their statements
to allow those represented to speak for them-
selves. This empowers them, by giving them voice,
while at the same time distancing the photo-
grapher from the situation, casting him or her in
the relatively detached role of translator, facilitator,
or intermediary.
Katzman, clearly, will have none of this. Or per-
haps I should say that whatever has possessed him
wont allow it, won't permit him to stand aside,
pretending to impartiality and noninvolvement.
In a superficial reading, this results in a seeming
disconnect between the pictures
which employ
conventional tropes of ostensibly and even clinically
objective modernist documentary photography
and Katzmans intensely subjective, highly emo-

tional, rst-person confessional narrative, entirely
uncharacteristic of the artists statement that nor-
mally accompanies such a suite of photographs.
In that testimony Katzman makes a point of
mentioning several times the importance to him of
using strobe ash for his images. Im inclined to
take that strobe
and, by extension, the pictures

he made with it
metaphorically rather than lit-

erally. Like Diogenes with his lantern, searching for
an honest man, Katzman behaved with his camera
and strobe as if he could discover and expose (rst
for himself, then for us) the essence of revelation
merely by putting a bigger bulb in the socket. Unlike
Diogenes, he wasn't making a philosophical point,
but behaving in a way we might call presumptuous.
Katzman aspired to produce in his photographs
a visual analogue of what he calls the throng of
lost souls being blinded by His light. Powerful
images result from this, pictures that suggest how
we might appear as motes in an omniscient Gods
eye, but they don't take you inside the individuals
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phototechmag.com 7
IN THE FACE OF FORGIVENESS A. D. COLEMAN
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encounter with the divine
because they cant.

How could a mere photograph convey the actual
presence, the immanence, of the Holy Spirit?
Yet if one approaches these pictures not as factual,
scientic proof but as a form of this photographers
testament to his own ambition, epiphany and con-
version, they take on different, deeper, auto-
biographical resonances. When Katzman states, I
am the lost soul in my photographs. . . . I realized
that I was no longer a stranger shooting from the
outside, but I was now . . . on the inside looking out,
his images and text recombine in a much different
and more potent configuration, as manifestations
of his own personal search for salvation. Think of
them as self-portraits, each one an aspect of
Katzmans own yearning for the state of grace,
and they fit exactly with his words, merge with
them perfectly.
Heres what I take away from this: Katzman can
show you his intense, charged photographs of
religious ecstasy manifest in the faces and bodies of
human beings, with whom he so closely identies.
As one who now has undergone it himself, he can
tell you in his own eloquent, convincing words
how that actually feels
especially what it means

to a nonbeliever (perhaps like yourself) who, to his
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Mozambique,
Steven Katzman
Left
Tampa,
Steven Katzman
Above
utter astonishment, totally without warning, found
himself swept away. But, no matter how finely
wrought and persuasive, Katzmans representations
constitute mere reports, not the event itself as it
registers in a receptive heart, mind, soul. Someone
or something taught Steven Katzman a lesson, and
hes passing it along. His true message (or the mes-
sage of whatever force speaks through him here):
You cannot have this experience at some remove; it
happens firsthand, hands-on, or not at all. But it does
happen. It happens to others. It happened to him. It
could happen to you.
The issues that Katzman confronted in this project
seem to run through his subsequent explorations.
Theres a long, ongoing series about derelict life on
Dr. Martin Luther King Blvd. in Sarasota, Florida,
where he and his wife Sharon reside for part of the
year; its a meditation on the legacy of the slain civil-
rights leader and his example of worldly service to
a higher cause. Cowboy Convict, addressing guilt
and redemption, consists of studies of the inmates
of two maximum security prisons: Oklahoma State
Penitentiary, McAlester, OK, predominantly white,
and Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola, LA, pre-
dominantly black, where eighty percent of the
inmates are serving life for murder, says Katzman.
phototechmag.com 9
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A. D. Coleman has published eight books and more than 2000 es-
says on photography and related subjects. Formerly a columnist for
the Village Voice, the New York Times, and the New York Observer,
Coleman has contributed to ARTnews, Art On Paper, Technology
Review, Juliet Art Magazine (Italy), European Photography
(Germany), La Fotograa (Spain), and Art Today (China). His
work has been translated into 21 languages and published in 31
countries. Coleman's widely read blog, Photocritic International,
appears at photocritic.com. Since 2005, exhibitions that he has
curated have opened at museums and galleries in Canada, China,
Finland, Italy, Rumania, Slovakia and the U.S.
Copyright 2010 by A. D. Coleman. All rights reserved. By permission of
the author and Image/World Syndication Services,
imageworld@nearbycafe.com
Technical notes for The Face of Forgiveness:
For this project I worked with my Mamiya 7II with a 43mm lens,
and a Quantum ash mounted overhead. Film: Kodak T-MAX 100,
occasionally T-MAX 400, all developed in T-MAX Developer, printed
on a DeVere 8x10 enlarger with a Rodenstock 100mm ApoRodagon
lens, all of which have been sold. I dismantled the darkroom; now
it's a print studio. This was also the last project that I shot with
lm. I personally did the scans for the book, using an Imacon 848
scanner." Steven Katzman
To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our
online Forum: www.phototechforum.com
And the bluntly titled Death series includes
images of cadavers undergoing cremation and un-
nerving still lifes involving several species of dead
creatures. It seems that Katzman remains a spiritual
searcher at heart, just a stranger on the bus, trying
to make his way home.
Authors note: Steven Katzmans book, The Face of Forgiveness,
was published in 2005 by powerHouse Books. It received sup-
portive response from the New York Times Book Review, Psychology
Today, and numerous other publications in the U.S. and Europe.
The above essay is a considerably revised version of the intro-
duction I wrote for that book. You can learn more about
this photographer, and see samples from all his projects, at
stevenkatzmanphotography.com.
Royal Albert Hall,
Steven Katzman
Above
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PHOTOSHOP CS5 DAN MOUGHAMIAN
phototechmag.com 11
This is the rst of three articles on the signicant
changes in Photoshop CS5: Content-Aware Fill,
Painting Techniques, and HDR.
Its no secret that Adobe Photoshop provides
photographers with many tools for accomplishing
similar or related retouching tasks. Photoshop CS5
ships with two special Edit commands that work in
new ways and achieve high quality results.
The new Content-Aware Fill and Content-Aware Heal
provide an intelligent means of removing dis-
tracting elements in a scene, by predicting what is
behind these selected elements and then lling
the selection or brush stroke with new textures that
blend with their surroundings (Fig. 1).
Photoshop CS5:
The Content-Aware Workow
Dan Moughamian
The Challenge
Compositionally, this photograph has a couple of
areas that require attention. The rst is the lamppost
closest to the camera (along the walkway at right).
To my eyes, it pulls attention from the Lighthouse,
unlike the other two more distant posts. Stemming
from that problem, well also need to remove the
reflection of the lamppost. These tasks will be hand-
led with a Content-Aware Fill workow.
The composition also needs to be tightened, by
bringing the points of interest on either side of the
lake channel closer together without creating arti-
facts or removing important details. This will be
handled with the Content-Aware Scale command,
accompanied by an alpha channel we create.
(Figure 1)

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Working with Content-Aware Fill & Heal
Lets tackle the lamppost rst; lets call this our
target. I nd it is helpful to rst zoom in some-
where between 50 and 100% magnification, depen-
ding upon how large your image is and how much
detail you can see at those settings. The idea is to
get a good look at the textural details around the
target. This is helpful for determining whether you
should attempt to replace the target with a single
selection and ll, or if a segmented approach is
better (Fig. 2).
Typically, a Content-Aware ll target has multiple
texture types nearby, as in scenes like this one
where a single lamppost might cover areas of con-
crete, vegetation, water and sky. Attempting a single
selection when multiple textures like these are
behind your subject will often result in Photoshop
guessing incorrectly which replacement textures go
where. Here were mostly concerned with the veg-
etation and sky, but given the close proximity of
the other lamp heads to the one being targeted, I
attempted to take care of it in a single pass.
Step 1
Working on a separate layer, I used the Lasso tool
to select the target, taking care to leave a bit of space
between the post and the marching ants, while
maintaining an accurate shape outline. Remember,
you do not want the selection touching your target
generally, and you dont want to leave too much
space or else Photoshop may become confused
as to what youre trying to replace.
Step 2
Next, choose Edit > Fillthis will invoke the stand-
ard Fill Dialog. Under Use, select Content-Aware.
For this image the options for transparency, blend
and opacity were left at their default settings (Fig. 3).
Content-Aware Fill produces the initial result.
Often, if you have a very homogenous area of
texture around your target, one pass is all it will
take to get a perfectly natural looking result! For
more challenging situations like this one, it is not
uncommon to get a partially awed result. The
lower area of vegetation, some artifacts on the curb
and some soft details need further work.
To handle the imperfections in this ll, I selected
the awed areas by shift-dragging around each area
(Figure 3)
(Figure 2)
(Figure 4)
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phototechmag.com 13
with the Lasso tools, and then performed another
Content-Aware Fill. You can see the second attempt
produced a pretty convincing result, even at high
magnication (Fig. 4).
For our nal replacement, both Content-Aware Fill
and the Spot Healing Brush can be used in com-
bination to replace the reection of the lamppost
with simple watery tones. I started with the smaller
reections zoomed in to 300% to get an accurate
assessment of what needed to be replaced and
what should remain, and again used the Lasso tool
to carefully select those areas.
Because puddles like these often produce subtle
gradients of color, I wanted to replace only the
regions of black. After selecting the targets, I ran
a Content-Aware Fill; the result is almost flawless.
Despite the size of the two smaller reflections, I
found the Fill was more effective than the Brush,
because the fill did not soften the area and repro-
duced the color gradients more accurately (Fig. 5).
Finally, the larger reflection was a good candidate
for the Spot Healing Brush, because of the homo-
genous tones and colors that surround it. All that
is required is to click the Content-Aware option
before making a corrective brush stroke (Fig. 6).
Once I had set up my Spot Healing Brush, I made
a single swipe across the lamppost reection and
it was gone. All that remained was a small touch-up
for the tip of the lamp (left of the main reection).
Zoomed out to normal viewing magnications,
there is no hint that the lamppost ever occupied its
concrete perch (Fig. 7).
Working with Content-Aware Scale
Once the extraneous or distracting elements of a
composition are removed, it was time to tighten up
the composition. Content-Aware Scale requires a
couple additional steps beyond Content-Aware Fill
to get your rst correction, but it is, nonetheless,
a fairly intuitive process once you have tried it a
couple times.
Step 1
The rst thing that needs to be done is dene the
areas that need to be protected from the Content-
Aware Scale algorithm. To accomplish this I used
the Lasso tool to select the two regions of my
(Figure 6)
(Figure 7)
(Figure 5)
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(Figure 8)
(Figure 9)
image that most dened the composition: the
walkway and the lighthouse. Next I clicked the
New Channel from Selection button in the
Channels panel (Fig. 8).
Step 2
I hide the selection and then choose Edit >
Content-Aware Scale. This produces a set of
transform handles around the edge of the doc-
ument and provides basic transform options
and settings in the Options Bar. I always then
choose my Alpha Channel from the Protect
pop-up menu, to make sure I dont accidentally
scale the wrong parts of my image.
Step 3
I clicked the center drag handle on the right
edge of the image and dragged left, being
careful to watch for any obvious distortions
along the channel walls or trees. Once you
get close to the image width required, you can
drag the Amount slider; the lower the value,
the less distortion will be allowed.
For this image I settled on a value around 40%.
This ensured the harbor wall and buildings on
the left did not take on a crunched appearance
at normal magnications. Note that a value of
0% produces the same or very similar result as
using the standard Scale command. Also keep
in mind that the finished result usually ends up
looking smoother than the live scale viewyou
see prior to accepting your changes (Fig. 9).
The results for this command usually take a
minute or two to process depending on image
size and hardware congurations, so be pa-
tient. Once nished there will be an area of
transparency along the original boundary of
the image. That can be cropped away to com-
plete the edits (Fig. 10).
Optional Step
In some situations, you may notice slight
fault lines outside the boundaries of your
Alpha Channel/safe area. Adjust the hardness
of your Spot Healing brush accordingly to
remove these with the aforementioned Content-
Aware Heal mode or some quick cloning if
TECH:
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Dan Moughamian is a fine art photographer and instructor,
having more than 16 years experience with Adobe Photoshop.
He is a veteran of Adobe's testing programs and a published
author, contributing to the Photoshop CS4 Bible, as well as
feature articles at Peachpit.com. Dan has also authored a series
of in-depth Adobe training videos. His upcoming titles from
Nonlinear Educating include: Image Retouching & Adjustment
with Photoshop CS5 and Raw Foundations with ACR 6.
To ask a question or comment on this article, visit our online
Forum: www.phototechforum.com
(Figure 10)
there are obvious patterns that have been broken.
Here I xed a few small errors on the channel
wall, removed a power box along the sidewalk
and a seam in the concrete to wrap up.
While no tool or command gets perfect results
every time, I think you will nd that when used
in the right scenarios, the Content-Aware Fill and
Content-Aware Scale commands are indispensible
retouching tools that can save you a lot of time in
post-production.
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_______________________________
______________________________________
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BEAUTY AVATAR DOUGLAS DUBLER
When I was rst presented with the assign-
ment of producing a cover for photo technique,
I immediately began the initial and most
important task of conjuring up a strong
concept from which the visual image could
emerge. I use the verb conjure because
the process is both evocative and mystical
with little logic.
As a beauty photographer, I look for inspiration
from many diverse sources: museums, mythology,
lms, cultural events, opera, ballet, etc. I had just
been to see James Camerons Avatar and was com-
pletely captivated by all aspects of the filmso
much so that I went to see it twice. I was drawn to
the obvious, such as the camera work, the story and
the technology, as well as its subtle parallels to the
treatment of the American Indians, gross neglect of
our own planets ecosystems and Eastern inspired
spiritual philosophies. For me everything came to-
gether in a marvelous way. He is a master story-
teller, and I think it is his best lm to date. It really
resonated with me on a very personal level. Here
was my inspiration!
Since my approach to photography is neither literal
nor linear, I used the film as a point of departure.
It inspired my choice of color palette, lighting,
make-up, and of course, the fabulous feather hat
by Makins, which was the basis creatively for
the cover shot. I wanted everything to have that
organic, wild, tribal feeling. A very important part
was also the fashion. I chose a silk jersey top from
Proenza Schoulers Spring 2010 collection. I felt
their animal design motif was perfectagain not
literal, but very interpretative. To have used some-
thing more literal like a traditional animal print
would have been, for me, too obvious. Using two
subtractive primaries, magenta and green, creates a
sense of color depth as the eye is unable to focus on
both simultaneously. It is one of several techniques
that I am frequently inclined to use in order to en-
hance the perception of three dimensions in a two-
dimensional art form.
The lighting is from a single Broncolor Lightbar
120 with a Para Soft 220 SB as a very weak ll.
Power was provided by several Broncolor Scoro
A4S packs. The Lightbars spread was reduced with
barndoors to narrow the beam of light and raise
the contrast. The lighting conguration provides
even coverage, good modeling with smooth fall-
off under the chin. My signature shutter drag
technique created a slightly off-register secondary
image while maintaining an ultra sharp primary
image. This is a technique that I have been devel-
oping over the years which adds a 3D look to the
image and softens the profile of the model. This
is even more appropriate since Cameron chose to
lm Avatar in 3D.
I used the new Phase One 645DF camera made by
Mamiya with an AF 150mm f2.8 IF lens. Capture
was with the new Phase One P 65+, whose virtually
full frame sensor produces an impressive 350MB
file in 16-bit with extreme resolution, very smooth
tonal transitions and great skin tone. The camera
was set at 50 ISO to insure maximum file quality.
This camera/back combination has become my
new favorite for medium format digital capture.
phototechmag.com 17
Beauty AVATAR
Douglas Dubler
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The second look was an extension of the original
concept, but even more interpretive. Loose feathers
were woven into the models hair, which had
been wound around a Styrofoam form. The color
palette was more minimal with the focus being the
futuristic eye make-up and the free-form hairstyle
with contrasting colored feathers. The nude lips
further accentuate the eyes, which have a distant
gaze. I had the make-up artist add a collar of gold
and silver leaf to play off the metallic eye colors and
bring a textural element to the tight beauty shot.
The jewelry is 19th century Victorian Bakelite.
The lighting for this shot was an unusual
arrangement of Broncolor Lightbar 120 Evolutions
in a horizontal line at camera height with a Pulso-
Spot 4 on top of the camera as a fill light. Their
combined effect gave me that deer in the head-
lights effect which I thought went with the styling
and coalesced all of the visual elements. I tried
several variations on the mainlight before settling
on this configuration.
Capture was with my Nikon D3X 24.5 megapixel
D-SLR with Nikons new 70-200mm f 2.8G ED
VR II zoom. The close focusing ability of this lens
enables me to get tight beauty shots while main-
taining the distance I need for the lighting setup. I
also like the compression afforded by the longer
focal length. I captured the image at 50 ISO to
virtually eliminate noise and processed the les in
Capture NX2 software.
Accurate gray/white balance for both shots was
achieved by using the X-Rites ColorChecker
Passort each time the lighting or camera was
changed. In addition, all images were captured to
the Apple Mac Pro computer using Phase Ones
Capture One Pro soft-ware, which enables multiple
camera connection without reconnecting or restar-
ting the software. It supports tethered capture with
Phase One, Leaf, Nikon and Canon cameras.
After the images were edited, the selects were
electronically sent to my retoucher, Willie of Cursor
Control in Australia (www.cursorctrl.com). We have
been working together for about 14 years, long
before retouching came to the Apple platform. I
think his skin technique is the best in the market
and conveys a sense of moisture, translucency and
transparency while maintaining the dimensional
quality of the original capture. After several min-
imal revisions, I had the two files that were the
completion of my initial vision.
The final chapter for me is always the execution
of the print, so I made two prints on my Epson
Stylus Pro 3880 on Epsons new Hot Press Bright
paper. They exceeded my expectations. I could
nally rest.
This shoot, like most of mine, required con-
siderable thought and meticulous planning, which
are necessary if one is attempting an accurate ex-
pression of an abstract concept. There were many
meetings, many more phone conversations and
more than enough text messages to insure that all
of the creative team was on the same page on the
day of the shoot. At that point, I like to leave ample
room for creativity so the images that I shoot look
inspired, not produced. The difference between the
two is what separates good and excellent. And time
is often the best barometer of what is trend and
what is enduring. In this case, I hope time is on
my side.
Douglas Dubler is a fashion and beauty photographer who
seamlessly joins craft and creativity to produce some of the
most memorable images in editorial, advertising and fine art
photography. Clients include Max Factor, Revlon, Clairol, Coty,
Redken, Avon, Charles of the Ritz, Sally Hansen, Alexandra de
Markoff, CNN, Epson, Broncolor, Nikon and Nik Software, as well
as celebrities Jacqueline Bisset, Jane Fonda, Shirley MacLaine,
Dolly Parton, Brooke Shields, Andie MacDowell and Sharon
Stone. Recent assignments find him working as both creative
director and photographer. Dubler has been recognized by the
industry with awards from the Starch Report, Communication
Arts, Art Directors Club and Clio. Teaching venues include The
School of Visual Arts, Brooks Institute, The International Center
of Photography, Hallmark Institute of Photography and Palm
Beach Photographic Workshops.
Product Resources
Cameras: Phase One 645DF Camera w/ AF 150mm F2.8
IF lens, Phase One P 65+ 60.5 MP Digital Back, Nikon D3X
24.5 MP DSLR Camera w/105mm f/2 DC Nikkor lens, AF-S
VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8G IF-ED lens; Lighting:
Broncolor Scoro A4 and Grat A4 Power Packs, Para Soft
220 FB, Para Soft 220 w/diffuser, Lightbar 120 Evolution w/
barn doors, Ringash P, PulsoSpot 4; Kobold 800 DW HMI
Par Lights; Software: Capture One Pro 5, Nikon NX2, Adobe
Photoshop CS5; Color Management: X-Rite ColorChecker
Passport, X-Rite ProlerMaker 5, Color Eyes Display Pro,
Color Think Pro; Printers: Epson Stylus Pro 9900, Epson
Stylus Pro 3880; Monitors: Eizo CG303W, Eizo CG243W;
Computer: Apple Mac Pro 8-Core 3.2GHz w/16 GB DDR3
Crucial RAM, Apple iPad 3G 64GB, G-Technology external
hard drives, Lexar UDMA 600X Compact Flash cards;
Meters: Sekonic L-608 exposure meter, Sekonic C-500R
Prodigi Color colormeter; Graphic Technology Print viewers,
Wacom Cintiq 21UX, Intuos4 tablets.
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PROOFING YOUR NEGATIVES DIGITALLY JEAN-CHRISTIAN ROSTAGNI
You are not alone; I still shoot lm, too. Actually
that is mostly what I shoot, mainly because most
of my cameras or black and white lms dont have
a good digital equivalent. My goal is to proof my
films into full frame files that I can use for sub-
missions or on my website, without apologies or
large expenditure of time.
Hardware
Planarity is an absolute requirement when scanning
lm. There are only three ways to achieve that:
Drum scan, obviously not an option for proong
Imacon/Hasselblad scanners, which flex the
lm, thereby achieving excellent planarity;
aside from sizeable investment, not really a
productivity-oriented choice
Scanning between two glasses
I choose the latter for proof scanning. In essence,
this is a variation on the contact sheet process,
allowing absolute full frame, a must, yet not easily
achieved by most film holders.
For this, the Epson V750 paired with SilverFast Ai
6.5 is the best choice I know. It is a flatbed scanner,
less than perfect for lm, but quite good, efcient
and adaptable for about $850. It is superior to the
V700, which does not have a fluid mount or high
pass optics addressing flare issues in unmaskedscans.
Setting Up
First, set the options accessed in the main dialogue
general tab. Auto is the least intuitive, but I cant see
why one would need other settings, short of being a
prepress specialist. Check the Levels boxes when
scanning press clippings or the like in order
Proong Your
Negatives Digitally
Jean-Christian Rostagni
Lance Armstrong hitting the ground racing, prologue of Tour de France 2009, Monaco, Shot with Noblex 135U, Kodak Ektar 100. See additional Tour de France
photographs from proong scans made using the Epson V750 paired with Silverfast Ai 6.5 software at jean-christian.net/art/socialistvacation/letour/letour.
phototechmag.com 19
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to get a whiter background. Then calibrate your
scanner; the Epson V750 ships with IT8 targets.
SilverFast targets make the calibration even easier.
Scanning Area & Holders
The scanner has two film modes; the full area
allows scanning directly on the bed in an 8x10
zone. The lens used then is of lesser performance.
When using the holders or the fluid mount, the lens
system changes to a higher resolution that focuses
about 2mm above the bed. I only use the fluid
mount, with a top glass (not delivered). I get full
frame and the film is perfectly flat, hence the sharp-
ness is optimized. Fluid would make the whole
process a little more involved, so I dont use it.
Instead I use Anti Newton glass in order to avoid
Newton rings. In black and white, one A.N. glass
is enough, as the emulsion side will not generate
rings. A top A.N glass is then the way to go. But in
color, the emulsion is often too slick and an A.N.
glass is necessary on both sides. One A.N. glass is
of no consequence to sharpness, but two will add
some noise that has to be compensated for later
with noise reduction software.
Replacing the bottom glass in the fluid mount
requires removing 14 screws with a 2mm Allen
wrench. Focal Point (http://www.fpointinc.com) is
the source for A.N. glass. Whether one scans emul-
sion down (best), or up, does not matter, as
SilverFast can be set to flip the image (Fig. 1).
The yellow thread is here for an easy lift of the
top glass. The semi opaque strips on three sides
create a space between the two glasses allowing
air to escape without blowing the strips out when
positioning the top glass.
Note: Because of the lamp movement and the ab-
sence of mask around the frames, it is necessary to
position 35mm strips parallel to the shorter side of
the fluid mount. In the other direction, scans get
projections of the perforations. Without masking,
no matter what, there will be a slight orange color-
ation of the edges of the strips (color). Aperture 3
has some brushes that can take care of that.
SilverFast Workflow
The most comprehensive way to scan with
SilverFast is the HDR format. This means doing
RAW scans at 64-bit in multiple exposures, harves-
ting all the data that the scanner can extract. The
(Figure 2) In this view of the SilverFast bed, the frame is active. The frames have been
rotated to correct orientation.
TECH:
(Figure 1)
This is the uid mount in the scanner.
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PROOFING YOUR NEGATIVES DIGITALLY JEAN-CHRISTIAN ROSTAGNI
(Figure 3) Main dialogue with
auto adjust button second from
left and grey point dropper left
of Professor. Options gives
access to general settings.
(Figure 4) I typically do
not use the Standard
tab, but I move the Brightness
and Contrast sliders a fair
amount.
(Figure 5) This is what appears after clicking Scan. The
les here go in a folder 135-NB-2255, which is my lm
reference. Each le will be named 135NB2255-n where
135NB2255 is the constant (File naming); SilverFast
then adds the relevant number for each frame. I have
unchecked Reset for every batch scan, As this is the
second batch for that lm, and I want the counter to keep
accruing.
scans are edited later, as many times and for as
many different applications as necessary. This is the
scanning equivalent to a RAW workflow. For proof
scanning, I choose a more immediate workflow,
as follows:
1. In SilverFast one prepares a batch in reverse
order, starting with the last scan. I arrange the
marquis around the last frame, with a comfortable
bleed for easy positioning. I scan in 16-bit in order
to have some reserve for post scanning editing and
use auto sharpening, which is perfect for proong.
The frames may be tilted in order to adapt to the
position of the strips (Fig. 2).
2. The SilverFast software shipping with the scan-
ner does not include Multi exposure, which
achieves a higher dynamic range. This is different
from the older multi-sampling technique. Upgrade
online at http://www.silverfast.com.
3. I scan at resolutions that make viewing at 100%
in Photoshop too wide for my 22" monitor. The
scan size is a compromise between magnication
potential, scanning time and impact on storage.
Once I have created my rst frame with the appro-
priate crop, ppi amount, ICE or not, film prole,
etc., I save it in the Frame-Set menu in the general
tab for the next time I scan a film in this format.
4. When a frame is over an image, SilverFast
instantly adjusts for the specicities of that image.
Next I click on the diaphragm icon (second from
left in main dialogue Fig. 3). This automatically
adjusts density contrast, saturation. I can use the
grey point picker (actual picker in the second icon
from right in main dialogue) and drop a neutral
point to control color tint. It is possible to have
up to four grey points in one frame. If an image
does not have a good neutralizing zone, some
settings from another frame might work better.
It is possible to save those and recall them in the
NegaFix dialogue. Click on the Professor icon,
the dialogue expands. The Save and Recall settings
options are at the bottom of the expansion tab.
5. At this point I often modify what the auto adjust
has assessed by sliding the cursors in the Picture
Settings Dialogue (Fig. 4). The orientation of the
scan, landscape or portrait, also needs to be set,
and that is done in the Densitometer palette. If I
were out for perfect scans I would then use the
phototechmag.com 21
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(Figure 6) NegaFix dialogue with curve of lmprole.
Auto tolerance adjusts contrast and warmth of
the frame.
other tools offered by SilverFast in order to refine
what up to now takes ve seconds or less. For
proof scanning, I make necessary renements in
Aperture or Lightroom.
6. At any rate, when the rst frame is done, I drag
it over the next one while holding the option key.
This duplicates the frame over the next one with all
its parameters. That was fast, and I can either reset
some parameters to zero, or modify their value,
if warranted. Renew for every frame, and then a
batch is ready to scan.
7. Select Batch Scan in the General tab of the
main dialogue; click Scan. A dialogue appears
(Fig. 5) for details. Click Save, at which point it is
all out of your hands.
8. I scan in TIFF in order to preserve the maximum
integrity of the data.
It is in fact more difcult to describe the process
in relatively few words than to actually follow the
steps, which are fairly intuitive. Also, SilverFast
provides screen casts for just about every function
of the software, and often those movies are directly
accessible from the interface.
There is one golden rule in SilverFast: save your
prefs. A number of incidents may cause SilverFast
to get out of whack. That is typically remedied
by trashing the prefs (user/library/Preferences/
Lasersoft Imaging), hence the need to save prefs
in order not to lose custom film proles, frame-
sets, and general settings. I save my prefs (the
entire Lasersoft Imaging folder) each time I create
something new. If I need to reset the preferences,
I can replace the prefs that Silverfast recreated
by my last saved set, assuming that one was not
corrupted. I typically keep several months worth of
those prefs in case I need to go back in time. Save
prefs in the Documents folder.
Creating a Custom Film Profile
For proof scanning I typically lower the contrast of
the profiles that SilverFast provides. To lower the
contrast or to adapt an existing profile to a new
film, go to the NegaFix dialogue (Fig. 6). Click on
the Curves tab, and then on the pencil icon. At this
point the curve can be modied. While holding the
Command key, drag the points you want to affect.
Clicking on the second icon from left will smooth
the curve. When nished, click on the last icon on
the right, which will save this new profile under a
different name.
TECH:
A native of Frances Rhne valley, Jean-Christian Rostagni discov-
ered photography at 15 while traveling with his parents around the
Mediterranean sea. He has since devoted his life to its practice. His
commercial career began in France and has continued in central
North Carolina, USA since 1993, where he has collaborated on
projects with writer Clyde Edgerton, exhibited, taught and presented
lectures on photography, and received honors from the Durham Arts
Council and others. Rostagnis publications, in addition to photo
technique, include Le Monde, Elegant Bride, Marie-Claire and the
O.E.C.D. Observer.
Product Resources
Cameras: Leica M6 TTL with summicron 28m, 35mm, 50mm
and tl Elmarit 2.8/90mm, Hasselblad 503 CX with 4/50mm
FLE, 3.5/60mm, 2.8/80mm, 4/120mm, 4/180mm, Flexbody
and Arcbody with 4.5/45mm, Noblex 135U; Scanner: Espon
V750; Software: SilverFast AI Studio 6.6 with dual exposure;
Film: Kodak Ektar 100, Ilford FP4; Other: Focal Point A.N. Glass.
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BEFORE THE CURTAIN MICHAEL NELSON
What sparked Michael Nelsons Before the Curtain series was a shoot with
a model who was a dancer. Fascinated with a concept of photographing
dancers on a much larger scale, he embarked upon an extensive pro
bono project with the Atlanta Ballet Company that took him into two
worlds the theater from the vantage point of the audience and the other
world backstage that the audience never sees.
Nelson worked on the project for two years almost a decade ago, and
he looks back on that time not without some emotion. He describes it as
magical, as well as something I could contribute to, because of the
non-commercial nature of the project. He considers it great fortune that
Before the Curtain
Portraits of the Atlanta Ballet
an interview with Michael Nelson
B. Lynn Simonton
Christy,
Michael Nelson
Above
phototechmag.com 23
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the companys artistic director gave him free rein
to photograph both from the house and backstage
during the ballets rehearsals, and his resulting
portfolio holds images captured from both vantage
points, though he suggests that the most meaningful
for him are the backstage portraits.
A commercial portrait photographer, Nelson con-
siders all of the shots in this series to be portraits,
whether group or solo. Images he likes best are
those that tell a story about someone, and this series
has quite a few strong examples. And while he once
thought there was some separation between his fine
art photography and his commercial assignments,
he says he has come to recognize the same heart
and passion for what he sees and photographs is
true in all of his work.
While in some ways similar to photographing a
single dancer in his studio, there were signicant
differences doing this large-scale project. Married
to a former dancer, Nelson took instruction from
her in the terminology of ballet. He says it also took
a little time to establish a relationship with the per-
formers and backstage crew, who came to realize
that he was not the typical jobber shooting publicity
shots. Nelson knew this had happened when he
showed them Polaroid proof shots and they re-
sponded to the intensity of the moment he had
captured with them. He became something more
than just a guy with a camera, and he became
almost like another crew member in the darkness
of the stage wings. Many of the dancers didnt
know when he was photographing them, he says,
and when they did, they were comfortable enough
with his presence backstage not to care.
Serenade 1,
Michael Nelson
Caught,
Michael Nelson
Below
Right
The contrasts between the lighting situation onstage
and backstage admittedly presented a challenge.
Nelson had the benet of making use of stage
lighting set by a talented professional lighting crew,
and he worked with what they provided when
he shot dancers onstage from the house. But the
contrast in light levels is incredible, and he had to
carefully balance the difference between the stage
floods and the single 100-watt incandescent bulb
allowed backstage. No flash at all was permissible
where it would distract the dancers. He made one
posed pre-rehearsal shot, Christy, for which he
used an old Bardwell-McAllister 2000 watt tungsten
fresnel light and reflector, but the rest were all what
he calls quick shots using available light.
Some images like Serenade #1 had to be shot
from the audience. Nelson especially wanted to
capture the gorgeous effect of the blue background
with the white onstage. Choosing not to use a sharp
contrast lm, he made the image with a Mamiya
RZ 67 with Agfa RS1000 color transparency lm
and a 180mm lens.
Caught is another image shot from the audience,
and for this staged sequence, the ballet company
got some assistance from the photographer. In this
instance, the dance was contemporary, not classical
ballet, and the goal was to illuminate the solo dan-
cer in freeze-frames as he did a series of leaps across
a black stage. On Nelsons suggestion, they rented
two large commercial Speedotron power packs
using them on a low-watt setting. The dancer
carried a remote transmitter in his hand, which
he would trigger when he wanted to be seen by
the audience frequently at the height of a leap.
What added to the effect was the complete ab-
sence of light onstage and in the audienceeven
the aisle lights were extinguished. Nelson captured
his photograph of the performance through one
long exposure.
In addition to controlling light, Nelson drew upon
his awareness of musical timing to anticipate the
dancers timing while shooting the dance company.
In essence, dancer, musician and photographer
moved to the same rythm. He learned to take shots
when the dancers paused, and they paused when
the music of the ballet directed them to do so.
PORTFOLIO:
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BEFORE THE CURTAIN MICHAEL NELSON
Without knowing anything about the specic ballet
being performed, he could be guided by its rhyth-
mic cues to create images during the pauses. One
of his favorite images from the series is of a soli-
tary dancer. He waited for the moment she paused
to capture that frame. Part of the high of the whole
experience for Michael Nelson was photographing
a company under the direction of the intern-
ationally recognized choreographer Bobby Barnett,
who pretty much allowed Nelson to work where
and how he wished during their countless re-
hearsal hours together. One of the most telling
portraits for Nelson is one of Barnett and a dancer,
Jessica Mylene, deep in conversation about her
performance. The photograph perfectly captures
the relationship between the two subjects through
body language that communicates their master/
student roles.
Backstage where Nelson shared the limited wing
space with the dancers, he used a wide-angle lens
to work close to his subjects. He put the Mamiya
RZ67 on a monopod to enable necessary quick
maneuvering out of the way of the dancers as they
rapidly entered and exited the on-stage area. He
was amazed at their transitionelegant dreamlike
characters in performance were revealed only
backstage as esh and blood humans with the
evident aches and pains of their profession. He
captured both of these views in his portraits.
Looking back a number of years to the execution
of the project, he admits that he is still very old
school, and while he now does occasional
commercial assignments digitally, he still enjoys
working with lm. Kodak was a sponsor of the
Before the Curtain project, and many of the images
were shot with 120mm T-MAX lm, which he
processed and printed himself. Color work was
done with Fuji RHP and Agfa RS1000. Polaroid
has been a big part of his photographic life, as
well. He spent some time working with Polaroids
emulsion transfer process. He admits to having
some coveted boxes of T-55 4x5 B&W and some
phototechmag.com 25
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Solitary Dancer,
Michael Nelson
Above Left
of the medium format 665 Polaroid lm to use
selectively. Theres something unique about the
imperfections of lm, he says, to show whats
really going on. He did a recent shoot with a
young model who had experienced only digital
cameras. She was amazed when he put a print in
her hand made with Fujis proong lm.
Before working on this project, Michael Nelson had
no prior familiarity with ballet, nor had he ever
experienced the Degas paintings of the subject. He
says that Before the Curtain became for him a clas-
sical exercise in the exploration of beauty and grace,
form and function. His visual response to the danc-
ers art was intuitive, a combination of eye and heart.
Direction from
Bobby,
Michael Nelson
Above Right
Product Resources
Cameras: Mamiya RZ-67; Lenses: 65mm, 110mm,180mm;
Film: Agfa RS1000 color, Kodak TMY B&W, Fuji RHP color;
Lighting: Bardwell-McAllister 2000 watt tungsten fresnel
light and reector, Minolta Auto Flash Meter 4, Polaroid
669 metered; Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4; Scanner:
Umax Powerlook 3000.
Michael Nelson has been a professional photographer for over
20 years, following diverse experiences that include working
in business, as a firefighter and paramedic, SCUBA diving
and sailing, flying and teaching photography. His only fear is
mediocrity, and his approach to life and work is the same full
of humor, spontaneity, and a lot of passion. Among his numerous
corporate clients, Baker Books has chosen one of Nelsons images
or the cover of the soon to be released book, The Fine Life. For
more information, visit Nelsons website www.michaelnelson.com.
PORTFOLIO:
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___________________________________
Machine Wash Deluxe
This is a huge improvement over the former Machine
Wash Action sets. The system is a robust rebuild of a
great texture system that has moved to a Photoshop
plug-in lter with an intricate but intuitive workow.
Machine Wash Deluxe is downloadable software.
It is based on loading one of four sets of textures
with the option of buying additional sets. Each set
costs $99 and includes the initial software system
with the rst download. It is intricate in that it can
create three layers of textures with elaborate
customization of each.
The rst layer is the primary Wash layer. It is
important to check the box that makes this texture
application on a separate layer above the original.
This allows further manipulation with blending,
opacity and masks. You choose a texture from a
preview screen that shows all of the textures you
purchased, plus those in sets you have not
purchased. Once a texture is chosen, you can
change the category, scale and placement.
In the Surface Tab, you can choose another texture
and apply scale, texture depth and tone for giving
the image the illusion of being a paper relief. In the
Background Tab, you can choose another texture
and place this as a layer below the image for further
blending. You can also change the color tints of the
highlights, midtones and shadows independently.
Click OK and the three layers are shown in the
Layers panel.
The only drawback to the software is that Machine
Wash Deluxe is only active with 8-bit images.
However, the textured effects can be really amazing.
For more information, go to www.misterretro.com.
Acratech GP Ballhead
An increasingly popular brand of
ballheads and tripod accessories is
available from a company called Acratech Inc. in
California. Made from solid stock aircraft 6061-T6
aluminum, these precision-made accessories are of
the highest quality.
In addition to various brackets, including popular
L brackets to retain the lens position when shifting
between vertical and horizontal, of particular note are
their ballheads. The newest is the Acratech GP. The
head weighs less than a pound, but it can support up
to 25 lbs. Its the perfect mate to any ber tripod to
keep the weight down while keeping camera capacity
weight up.
The mount itself is Acra-Swiss compatible, which will
t a wide variety of mounting plates. The head has a
bullseye level at the mounting base.
An interesting feature of the Acratech GP is the two
rubberized knob system for the ballhead. One knob is a
tension knob. This controls the tension in the movement
when you use the major release knob. This helps keep
the head (especially with an attached camera) from
falling abruptly.
With a long lens mounted using a lens collar ring and set
to the side via the ballhead, a combination of the lens
vertical movement and the rotation ring movement work
as a gimbal head. A gimbal head balances the camera
and lens at their natural center of gravity, thus making
the lens weightless in terms of tilt. The smoothness of
the adjustment is a result of setting the tension knob.
Another unique feature of the GP head is the ability to
unscrew the mounting plate and mount it to the head
bottom. The ballhead is then mounted to the tripod
column upside down. With the mount and bullseye level
on the marked rotational base, you can use the rotational
marks as a guide to creating accurate panoramic images.
The price for the GP ballhead, less the camera mount, is
$399.95. For more information, go to www.acratech.com.
INNOVATIONS:
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Strobies by Interfit
Strobies is brilliant in its simplicity and incredible
in its design. It is a group of light modiers for
portable ash units that can be purchased either as
a kit or as separate elements.
We tested the Portrait Kit. For $149 you pick a base
for your particular ash unit. The base ts snuggly
to the head without requiring Velcro attachment.
Then you select options, of which there are many.
The Portrait Kit has a large white softbox, 8" x 12".
Additionally, the kit has a beauty dish, a large globe
diffuser for a bare bulb look, miniature four-leaf
barn door set, a snoot with optional honeycomb
attachments that reduce the circle of project light
even further and a larger honeycomb grid for a
focused beam.
With complex multi-ash systems being run from
inside the camera bodies, having an additional set
or a selection of separate pieces for a second ash
unit gives you the ability and exibility of creative
portable lighting at an extremely reasonable cost.
For more information, go to
www.intertphotographic.com/Strobies.
Canon Releases Next Generation
6300 Series Printers
The Canon 6350 24" wide format printer is a signicant
improvement over the previous 6100 series. While the
6350 has a 80GB hard drive built in for load and batch
printing, the specs are the same for the 6300 without
the drive, as well as the new 44" 8300.
The 6300 series uses a 12-ink LUCIA EX ink that has a
20% wider gamut than its predecessor. The color gamut
is very similar to Adobe RGB. (Note: the 6100 inks are
not compatible with the 6300 series.) There is also a
High-Precision mode that delivers less graininess,
enhanced gloss, deeper blacks and an exceptional
separation in the shadows. It reproduces ne lines more
accurately and also produces cleaner text. The new inks
have greater color stability, with reduced bronzing and
metamerism and have been formulated to improve
scratch resistance.
Like the 6100, the 6300 series has built-in calibration
that resets the printer base to the original optimal
factory settings that allow specic paper proles to yield
accurate results.
The 6300 series machine is more stable, with less shake
as the heads move back and forth. The control panel
has been greatly simplied, in both tabs and menus. The
print heads on the Canon are user-replaceable. As in the
previous model, there are two heads with 15,360 nozzles
each for a total of 30,720. It will print 16-bit les from
Photoshop and RAW les from DPP.
Similar to what is found on more expensive RIP systems,
Canons new printer has an Account Manager built into
its software that allows you to obtain printing costs for a
particular job.
In an independent review by BERTL that evaluates digital
imaging systems, Canons 6350 received a ve-star
Exceptional rating. For more information, go to
www.usa.canon.com.
Snoot
Globe Diffuser
Honeycomb Grid Four Leaf Barndoor Set
4 Leaf Barndoor Set
Mini Beauty Dish Reector
Interior Softbox
phototechmag.com 29
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Corporate Photography
on Location:
an interview with Tyler Stableford
The Stetson Campaign
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Everyone likes to think that when they do a
commercial assignment, the photographer will
have an enormous amount of control over what
gets photographed and how it will be done. In
corporate assignments, the team involved is sim-
ilar to what you would image working on a movie
set, and this doesnt even begin to account for the
number of corporate people on hand to super-
vise production. Tyler Stableford is among the
leading location photographers who worked on
an ad campaign for Stetson. This interview with
him sheds light on the complexities and nuances
of doing a corporate shoot of this magnitude on
location.
PS: Tell me about how you got the Stetson job.
TS: I think with many ad agencies, its a court-
ship that can take many months and even years.
Pure Brand Communications in Denver is one of
the top ad agenciesthey had my portfolio and
I met them six months to a year before I had a
chance to bid on this campaignthats generally
how it works. I never give my portfolio to an ad
agency and they say, Great, lets start working
next week. Its usually, Were interested in
your work and what youre doing, well keep in
touch. And then I start a relationshipIve met
the art directors and the art buyers and account
managers, and then I stay in touch with them
and say, Hey, Im continuing this work and do
things in your genre.
I think my work is a mix of outdoor adventure, as
well as industrial and environmental portraiture.
The Stetson project was double/triple bid, as
usual. What that means is the bidding comes
down to two or three top photographers being
considered in the process. They want to know
the budgetwhat would it cost to shoot this
campaign over four days in a range of places,
from the high mountains to a nightclub, to work-
ing ranches, and where should we shoot this
thingthey were thinking maybe in Wyoming.
I said, I live in a really beautiful spot that has
all thateverything from the country bars to
working ranches. We could shoot it locally
keep cost down by shooting locallyhave a
Paul Schranz
With the main softbox,
I wanted to keep
shadows on the male
model's left side but
allow enough light to
fall on his face, as he
is anchoring the scene.
We used the Hensel
Porty 12 Lithium strobe
and Wescott softboxes.
Left
For this shot, we had
our model in an open
field in the afternoon
sun. We used scrim
on the left side of the
model to soften the
sun and then placed
a large Octobank on a
Hensel Porty 12 Lithium
light for fill light on the
model. My first assistant
is holding a California
Sunbounce reflector to
fill in shadows on the
model's face.
Above
phototechmag.com 31
THE STETSON CAMPAIGN TYLER STABLEFORD
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local producer and crew." I think that was ap-
pealing. It also meant if weather changed or
things changed, my crew and I knew the area
well and could adapt quickly.
PS: I look at the photographs of the shoots, and
youve got quite a few people involved. I think
this is something that really escapes people who
would like to do a project like this. How many
people are involved in this production?
TS: I would preface it by saying that this is prob-
ably one of the largest productions that I shot
last year. Typically, as a Colorado photographer,
my productions are a little bit smaller, for shoot-
ing at a ski area or such. This production, be-
cause it was a big national campaign, and it
was fashion-oriented, the clothing and the
sunglasses were very important; there were
a lot of people who played important roles in
it. So, from the top down, there were several
people from Stetson. There was an art director
from the national brand of Stetson. And then
Stetson has some licensees of its brand, so
one company makes and sells their boots and
another makes and sell their sunglasses, their
cologne, etc. The cologne is made by Coty, and
the hats by Hatco. Roper makes the clothing as
well as boots. We have account managers on
set who know this clothing line really well, and
if things come up as we shoot a scene, where
we have a checkered shirt and we want to show
a nice t-shirt underneath, too, this person can
say yes, that shirt is going to be sold next year,
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and can match the two together. If we want to
do a scene with a t-shirt, theyll say which are
the t-shirts we want to represent, so we have a
whole wardrobe to choose from.
Then we have the ad agency people who are
really running a lot of the creative, the art
director, Jerry Stafford, the account manager,
Eric Espinoza, and the co-owner of Pure Brand
Communications, Gregg Bergan, who also acts
as creative director. And then I have my crew
there, an amazing producer named Liz Long
and her assistant who line up all of the loca-
tions, arranges for vintage trucks on location,
insurance and permits to shoot on a ranch, and
make sure we have whatever we need there.
Also, the ranch manager to oversee the loca-
tion, a garment and wardrobe stylist to prep all
the clothes and make sure they look good on
the models, and a hair and make-up stylist. And
then I have my rst and second assistants who
are helping to work with the lighting and run
all the equipment, the digital tech and viewing,
so if the clients at the shoot, we can put the
compact ash cards in the computer with a full
screen to see if were getting what they had
in mind.
PS: So what is it you actually have control over?
TS: Shooting a large campaign requires a great
mix of patience while all the moving parts come
together and the creative concepts are hashed
out with the clients, who are Stetson and the
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phototechmag.com 35
For this late afternoon
shot, we set up a scrim
above the model to
soften sunlight. We then
placed a large Octobank
softbox in front of the
model for fill, bringing
the subject out against
the bright background.
Above
agencytrying to push professionally for what
they think is best for the brand, and people have
different opinions and ones not better than the
other. It just requires a lot of discussion, and I
try to stay out of it as much as possible. Im hired
for two reasons, I think. Im hired to execute the
clients and the agencys vision, and also to bring
my look, my talent set, to the shot. Im happy to
comment upon creative direction, but its not my
position. Its up to Stetson and its up to Pure to
decide and say, This is the look we want for
our campaign. I dont do the researchI dont
know exactly who their buyers are. I can say, It
looks great with the cowboy sitting on the truck
with his hat cocked sideways, but that may
not be the look that speaks to their brand that
theyve developed over their 145-year history.
These big shoots are an opportunity for me to be
very patient, but also to act very quickly, to be
decisive, and to have a super dialed operation
with my two assistants, because weve spent
so much time hashing it out, and the sunlights
slipping away, so when we nally get the
creative direction, its action time and it needs
to happen very quickly.
PS: Working with creative direction, and yet hav-
ing your own style, how much of you do you
give up to do this, and how much of you do you
get into it?
TS: I would say that in a big shoot I think its
a general rule that a photographer will give up
some of his creative talentsand thats ne
with me. I have plenty of time in my life to pur-
sue my creative dreams, whatever those are.
When somebodys paying me to photograph, Ill
photograph puppies and Barbie dolls all day if
thats what they want me to shoot and the rates
right. I dont bring my ego or my sense of what
I should be shooting to the job, and I can keep
my creative vision for my own side.
PS: How about the lighting scenarios? Do you
control that aspect?
TS: Yes, I control the lighting, but of course Im
constantly showing my lighting tests to the art
director to see if it ts their concept. For the
photo of the model, Paul, by the vintage truck,
we used a silk scrim overhead to diffuse the
sun, and lled light on one side with a Hensel
strobe and large Westcott Octobank.
PS: Can you talk about the interior shots and the
lighting scenario and solutions?
TS: This scene at the Belly Up nightclub in
Aspen was the most intricate lighting setup of
the campaign. We used the nightclubs existing
stage lights and fog machine to start, and
added several of our strobes to light the model
in a dynamic, energetic way. It took a couple of
hours to really get the lights set up in such a
way that the scene felt energeticas though
the model/performer was just about to go
onstage during a concert. The creative director,
Gregg Bergan, was very helpful in commun-
icating his vision and helping us evolve the
lighting setups to carry energy. In this behind-
the-scenes photo, we are using some scrims
and reectors to block stray light from the stage
lights and using our strobes to bring a dramatic
look to the models jeans and boots. We used
an Octobank for soft ll and a gridded light to
paint a harder streak atop that.
PS: When someone sees a corporate brand
photograph, I dont think they appreciate the
complexity of the shot, not only in terms of the
photography, but also the negotiations.
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Product Resources
Cameras: Canon 1Ds Mark III, 5D Mark II, Lenses 24-70
f/2.8, 70-200 f/2.8, 16-35 f/2.8; Lights: Hensel Porty
Lithium 12 lights, Westcott softboxes etc, Octobanks and
diffusers; Tripods: Gitzo and Manfrotto carbon; Software:
Adobe Lightroom 2, Photoshop CS4; Monitor: Apple
30" cinema display, Wacom Cintiq 21UX; Computer:
Apple Mac Pro MacBook Pro; Other: PocketWizard radio
transmitters; Think Tank SpeedRacer beltpack.
Colorado photographer Tyler Stableford has earned a worldwide
clientele for his commercial and editorial photography. Men's
Journal recently named him one of seven "World's Greatest
Adventure Photographers and he is among Canons prestigious
Explorers of Light. He has won awards from Communication Arts,
PDN and The International Photography Awards and is an active
member of the environmental-business organization,"1% For The
Planet." Visit his website www.tylerstableford.com.
TS: As a professional, I want to know how thats
done. How much is offset, how much is posed?
That really helps me learn as a professional. Im
happy to share that any time.
PS: What other projects are you working on?
How many projects do you have going on at one
time?
TS: Anywhere from zero to a dozenit depends.
The usual freelance entropy, you know. I just
have completed a short lm on a Paralympic
skier. I am shooting a campaign for a ame-
resistant clothing company. I shot a controlled
burn this week, and were shooting with heavy
industry workers this month. And then Im com-
pleting an exciting shoot with F-16 ghter pilots
that will run in the July issue of 5280 Magazine
and also later in Southwest Airlines Magazine. I
also do quite a bit of work for Cabelas; they are
one of my top clients.
PS: Last thing. I noticed that you also do video
work with your Canon 5D Mark II. This is a new
role for the corporate photographer. Can you dis-
cuss your DSLR video experiences?
TS: Yes, when the Mark II came out about a year
and a half ago, I used it immediately to shoot
a volunteer fundraiser for a humanitarian aid
agency, and I was super impressed because I
was able to work with my existing set-up. I was
able to travel with a carry-on bag of equipment
and made a very moving, successful fundraiser
with stills to video. That would not have been
as easy before the 5D Mark II came out. I was
able to tell a very powerful story, more powerful
than shooting stills alone, for a cause thats
very important to me. And then, of course, my
lmmaking has grown. The story-telling abilities
that we have now are way more powerfulits
amazing, but you denitely have to be willing
to give up a lot of free time to make the jump.
DSLR lmmaking has allowed me to create
some of the most powerful projects of my ca-
reer, because they have three or four layers of
audio track on them, motion and stillsIm very
excited about it.
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Its critically important to get a correct exposure when shooting
with a digital camera. I shoot my digital camera exposures in RAW
mode at the lowest ISO I can use and still get the shutter speed
and f-stop I want. Although modern cameras have many different
exposure options, I have a standard way of shooting that works
best for me. I believe that the image itself is the most important
thing. Thats why the steps for getting a good exposure have to
be second nature, practiced and thought out ahead of time. That
allows you to focus on making that all important image!
Five years ago I moved to the Sunshine Coast, just north of
Vancouver, BC, Canada. Living here one becomes attracted to the
water and the natural beauty that surrounds you. Before moving
here, I never was in a sea kayak and seldom found myself in a
boat. Now being on the water in a kayak or sailboat or just the
ferry that brings us home is one of the things I enjoy most. In the
last ve years Ive spent a lot of time learning how to color adjust
waves and ripples, color and contrast of water so it looks the way I
see it and feel about it when Im out there on the water.
Choosing your Camera Settings
RAW, not Auto or JPEG
Hopefully youll nd RAW mode as one of the image quality
choices on your camera. A RAW le is exactly what the chip in
the camera captures, analogous to your original lm in traditional
photography. RAW les can have up to 32,768 tonal values per
each Red, Green and Blue color channel. If you choose JPEG for
your file type, the image is shot in RAW, then the computer inside
your camera automatically color corrects, adjusts contrast and
converts your image to an 8 bit le which only has 256 possible
tones per color channel. That JPEG format has tossed most of the
detail in your image, and then the image is usually sharpened and
saved in a compressed version that may lose more shadow and
highlight details. Because it has more contrast, the JPEG version
may look better in your cameras small viewing window. When
Barry Haynes
TECH:
Perfecting
Digital Camera
Exposure
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PERFECTING DIGITAL CAMERA EXPOSURE BARRY HAYNES
My image theme for this article is On the Water..in kayak or sailboat it's one of the things I enjoy most.
phototechmag.com 39
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you go to improve the image on your computer, by
adding shadow or highlight detail for example, that
is where the JPEG falls apart. It doesnt give you
the options provided by all those extra shadow,
midtone and highlight values that the larger RAW
le has. If you use Auto to shoot your images, the
camera is picking your shutter speed and aperture
for you.
Histogram display On, use a low ISO
You want to set up your cameras screen so you
can see the histogram display of each image right
after you shoot it. This allows you to see if you are
under or over exposed. Newer cameras, like my
G10, show you a real-time histogram display on the
cameras screen while you are composing a shot so
you can see ahead of time if you are going to over
expose, then change the exposure to correct before
you actually shoot. The histogram display shows
you a bar graph of the light values in your image.
The darker shadow values are to the left and the
bright highlight values are to the right. The shape
of the histogram graph will be different for each
image and depends on the subject matter in that
image. With a contrasty scene, like a bright sunny
day, an ideal exposure would have histogram val-
ues going from the far left to the far right of the
graph without any vertical lines at either the left
or the right edge of the graph. A vertical line on
the left edge of the graph means that you have lost
some shadow detail and on the right edge it means
a loss of highlight detail.
I always use the lowest ISO setting on my camera
if possible. That would be ISO 100 on my Canon
Rebel XTi and ISO 80 on the Canon G10. The
G10 is a 14 megapixel pocket camera so its sensor
is quite small. Im able to make 30 to 40 inch prints
with the ISO 80 setting, but the higher ISO settings
are often too noisy for large prints from the G10.
The quality of the XTi images is great at ISO set-
tings up to 200 and Ive certainly shot and used
images with the 1600 setting from the XTi, but those
require creative Photoshop techniques to disguise
the noise in the shadow areas. During my 20 years
of teaching Digital Printmaking workshops, Ive
worked with images from many different digital
cameras, and Ive found that the quality of the
pixels is, in many ways, more important than the
number of pixels. I try to choose cameras that give
me the best quality of pixels for the price. Even
though my XTi only has 10 megapixels, I can gen-
erally make larger sharper prints from it than from
the 14 megapixel G10. The key to being able to
up-sample an image and sharpen it for larger high
quality prints is to get a correct exposure at the low-
est ISO possible where the histogram goes across
most of the range from shadow to highlight.
Metering Style, Shutter & Aperture settings
With a digtal camera, I use the cameras Auto White
Balance setting, then tweak it in Photoshop when
its off a bit. When shooting in RAW mode, the
cameras white balance setting isnt permanently
applied to the le, as it is with the Auto and JPEG
settings. You can see the white balance and edit it
in the RAW lter later. When the item I want to
Above is the Histogram for an image shot with a Canon
Rebel XTi. The Display (Disp on the Canon; Info on some
other cameras) button changes the display mode. While
viewing a recently shot image, push the button until you
see the histogram on the screen. It should appear in the
camera s preview after shooting an image. Many cameras
have a mode to show the histogram in color. The historgam
above is correct for a normal contrast day, in that it spans
the full range of values but doesn t go vertical on either the
left or right.
On this histogram, notice the vertical bar on the right side,
indicating this shot is overexposed and is losing highlight
details. The picture to the left of the histogram is flashing
black in the sky to show the overexposed areas that will
be clipped with no detail in the digital file. To correct this
problem, lower your exposure until no clipping is shown.
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PERFECTING DIGITAL CAMERA EXPOSURE BARRY HAYNES
focus and meter on is not in the center area of the
screen, I just point the camera at that item and hold
the shutter button halfway down. This forces most
cameras to make their focus and metering choices.
While holding the button halfway down, I then
move the camera to reframe the shot and this keeps
my initial focus and exposure setting.
Ive learned that the shooting style that works best
for me is to set the camera to shutter speed priority.
With this setting, I pick the shutter speed and the
camera picks the aperture setting based on the
scene and meter setting to get the correct exposure.
One needs to understand the relationship between
the two, in that faster shutter speeds stop motion
and smaller aperture openings (the larger aperture
numbers) give you more depth of eld. When
shooting in this way, to get the most depth of eld,
I usually pick the slowest shutter speed that I can
use for the type of image.
Underexposing to Save Highlight Detail
When you get to a new exposure situation, take
a sample shot or two then look at your cameras
histogram display. It is most common to lose high-
light detail on a bright day, especially when shoot-
ing in the direction of the sun or when you have
lots of darker areas and fewer bright areas within
the scene. Look at your sample shots; youve lost
highlight detail if you have a vertical line at the right
edge of your histogram and/or the bright parts of
the picture on your cameras screen ash on and
off to show you that these highlights are clipped
(lost forever). When this happens, you should set
your camera to create a slightly lower exposure,
then shoot the scene again until the histogram goes
just to the right side and the ashing stops in the
bright parts.
An additional advantage of shooting in RAW mode
is that if you do overexpose a bit, you can later
lower the exposure setting in the RAW lter, and
sometimes, if you didnt overexpose too much, get
your lost highlight details back. In JPEG mode
these highlight details are permanently clipped.
Another way to solve the loss of highlight detail
problem is to set your camera to bracket exposures.
When you do this, normally the camera will shoot
one exposure at the normal setting, one under
exposed and one over exposed. I nd that I seldom
need the over exposed shot. Im often not sure if
Another day on the water, we took our sailboat through world famous Skookumchuck Rapids, straight ahead here. I find the power and beauty in this
body of water amazing!
On Salmon Inlet, BC; taken from my kayak in RAW mode
with the Canon G10.
phototechmag.com 41
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Ill need to underexpose by, for example, one f-stop
or two. Im often shooting from a boat or kayak
and cant stop to check the details, so first I set
the camera to underexpose by one f-stop. I then
go to the camera setting for bracketing exposures
and set it to shoot three exposures. Since Ive
already chosen to be shooting one stop under, the
bracketing will now set the camera to shoot one at
two stops under, one at one stop under and one at
the normal exposure. This allows me to later pick
the exposure that works best. If I choose to, I can
also take the highlight values from the two stops
under, or one stop under shot and get the shadows
and midtones from the normal exposure. To do this
would require editing the image in Photoshop or a
similar application. Aligning several exposures like
this is also much easier if they were shot from a
tripod so all exposures are of the exact same crop.
A tripod wont work from a kayak, but I still nd it
fairly easy to take clouds and sky detail from one
exposure and the rest of an image from another.
Summary of RAW le Philosophy
Images that you shoot in RAW mode often look
flatter than their JPEG counterparts. This is be-
cause the camera does no automatic correction
on the RAW les. That gives you the most options
later when you edit those les using Lightroom,
Photoshops RAW lter or some other RAW
editing application. Your main goal in exposing a
RAW le is that it should have a range of histogram
values to match the image without losing any values
in the highlight or shadow range. For fairly high
contrast, you can underexpose a stop or so and still
use the shadows. For extreme contrast, youll have
to bracket your exposures to give you the option of
using several exposures for a final art quality print.
These techniques will give you good RAW data to
shape into your nal image in the digital darkroom.
The system Ive described here can easily be
applied to most outdoor situations, and youll have
a great image to work with when you want to edit
it electronically and/or make a print.
Product Resources
Cameras: Canon Digital Rebel XTi, Canon EFS 10-22MM
lens, Canon G10; Printers: Epson 7600, 4000, 2400;
Inks: Ultrachrome; Paper: Epson Premium Luster Photo
Paper, Epson Matte Canvas; Software: Adobe Bridge,
Photoshop CS4; Computer: Mac.
Barry Haynes is a photographer and author living in Gibsons,
BC, Canada, just north of Vancouver, where he has his studio and
photography gallery. See www.barryhaynes.com for info about his
Outdoor Photography, Photoshop Printmakingworkshops, Photoshop
books, images and gallery. His Photoshop Artistry: for Photographers
using Photoshop CS2 and Beyond, from New Riders publishing, is
the 8th edition of this series. See also www.maxart.com.
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_________________
Though I have been using digital tech-
nologies in my photographic work since
1992, and the majority of my images today
are made with digital SLRs, for the photo-
graphic project featured in this article I still
have one foot firmly in the analog world of
film and simple pinhole cameras.
For those who are unfamiliar with this type of
photography, a pinhole camera has no lens, just
a tiny pinhole through which light enters and
exposes the scene. I had made occasional forays
into the world of pinhole photography throughout
the 1990s, but in 2000 I began to explore it more
seriously. The camera used for this series is a
ZeroImage 6x9 multi-format camera that is essen-
ARTIFACTS OF AN UNCERTAIN ORIGIN SEN DUGGAN
tially a simple wooden box; the only exposure
control is a small wooden slide that covers and
uncovers the pinhole. The multi-format capability
consists of wooden dividers inside the camera that
can be repositioned in a series of notches to change
the format of the negative to 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7 or 6x9
(the photos in this series are all 6x9).
For the rst test roll that I ran through the Zero,
I carried an old typewriter down to the edge of a
river, not far from my house in the Sierra foothills.
I set the ISO on my DSLR to the same as the ISO
400 lm in the pinhole camera and used the DSLR
as a light meter to determine a correct exposure for
the scene. On the back of the ZeroImage camera are
two circular brass dials, one engraved with aper-
Artifacts of an
Uncertain Origin
Sen Duggan
phototechmag.com 43
The Typewriter,
Sen Duggan
The first image in the
series; from the initial
test roll that I made with
the ZeroImage pinhole
camera.
Above
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tures and the other with exposure times. By lining
up the exposure values from the digital shot, I then
checked the position on the dial for the aperture of
the pinhole (f/235) to see what the corresponding
shutter speed was and exposed the lm for that
amount of time. In the case of the typewriter, it was
about 20 seconds (so far, the exposure times for the
photographs in this series range from one second
up to about ve minutes). The test roll results were
very good, and that shot of the typewriter was the
rst in a series of photographs that I have been
working on for the past four years.
One early creative decision came from the camera
itself. The notches visible on the top and lower
edges of the film are the notches referred to pre-
viously that are used to change the format of the
negative. I found this particular edge signature
to be visually very interesting and decided to print
the photos full frame and include the edges as part
of the image. I also liked the edge lettering, and
the use of different film types to include a variety
of edge markings was a conscious choice. With
this decision, however, the technical challenges of
using the camera increased. Because I am printing
the images full frame, there is no cropping, and
when using a camera with no viewfinder, one has
to be very careful with composition. All framing
decisions are made based on prior experience with
the camera, which provides me with a good sense
of the approximate field of view that this wide-
angle pinhole produces.
After the full frame/no cropping rule emerged,
another important rule became clear to me: there
would be no digital compositing used to place the
artifacts in the scene. I have nothing against digital
collages; I enjoy creating images using those tech-
niques, and I even teach a workshop on Creative
Collage with Adobe Photoshop (the next one is
coming up at the Mesilla Digital ImagingWorkshops
in southern New Mexico in mid-September of
2010). But for this series, a central and very im-
portant part of the photographs is my experience
in making them. And part of that experience is
viewing the actual artifacts in the scene and nding
unexpected arrangements and relationships with
the surrounding landscape. I also enjoy overcoming
the logistical and physical challenges that can arise
when making some of these photographs, whether
it involves wading through thigh-deep water in a
Florida cypress swamp (and discovering an alligator
nearby), or a winter snowshoe trek up the side of
a Sierra mountain. The process and the journey of
making the image are just as important to me as is
the nal destination of the finished print.
Once the negatives are developed, the analog
process moves into the digital darkroom where the
selected images are scanned and then opened into
Adobe Photoshop for final enhancements that in-
clude overall brightness and contrast modications,
dodging and burning of specific areas in the
scene, and final seasoning with a blend of ir-
regular toning that combines the original neutral
values of the black and white negative with two
different strengths of sepia. All tonal and color
modications are applied non-destructively using
adjustment layers and layer masks for maximum
creative exibility.
The Landscape of Metaphor
The most fundamental way to view the series is as
a combination of the still life and the landscape.
In working on this project my previous experience
with the landscape as a subject has been re-
invigorated and reimagined by pairing it with the
enigma of the artifacts I place there. Though these
images certainly celebrate the incredible diversity,
beauty and mystery of the natural world, the land-
scape also serves as the stage setting for quiet and
slightly surreal tableaus created by the presence of
the artifacts.
I also see the photographs like short stories or
poems, small fictions that suggest a narrative, in-
viting the viewer to step in and follow where it
may lead them. The photographs in the series,
individually and as a group, represent the frame-
work of a story, but one in which you only see a
glimpse of what has happened or what is about
to happen. It is up to the viewer to fill in the rest.
Ansel Adams once wrote that there are always two
people in every picture: the photographer and the
viewer. I regard the role of the viewer in finding
meaning in a photograph, even if it is a meaning or
interpretation that is only apparent to them, to be
just as important as the role of the photographer in
creating the image.
The structure of the series allows me to explore
different ideas and concepts through the placement
PORTFOLIO:
The Clocks,
Sen Duggan
Fifteen seconds in a
snowstorm
The Diary,
Sen Duggan
Top
Bottom
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phototechmag.com 45
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PORTFOLIO:
of certain artifacts in specic landscapes, or simply
enjoy the serendipitous chance of an unexpected
juxtaposition. Many of the artifacts are obvious in
what they might represent, while others are more
enigmatic. I choose artifacts based on how inter-
esting they look in a purely visual sense, as well as
how they might serve as symbols for other ideas.
Some exist not only as visual contrasts with their
surroundings but also as symbolic and meta-
phorical keys that transform the scene by opening
a conceptual portal, inviting the viewer from
a landscape of earth and sky to a landscape of
metaphor and hidden meanings.
On Pinhole Photography
I am sometimes asked why I go to the trouble of
using a wooden pinhole camera with no viewfinder
to make these photographs. Wouldnt it be easier to
photograph these images using a digital SLR and
then use Photoshop to create the pinhole look?
In some respects in might be easier, but it would
also require more work in Photoshop, and the view
would not be the same as that made with an actual
pinhole camera. But the main reason I photograph
them the way I do is that using a pinhole camera
is a very different photographic experience from
using a DSLR (which I do use for other bodies of
work). And that experience is a key part of my
enjoyment of this series. Being out in many dif-
ferent landscapes with these artifacts and using
a simple wooden camera with the same level of
technical sophistication as the cameras used by
the early photographers in the mid 1800s is an ex-
perience that cannot be achieved using a modern
digital camera.
The photographs and the experience of creating
them exist on more than one level, and it is this
multi-level quality that keeps the series fresh and
intriguing for me, a crucial component for any long-
term creative project. As I write this, the Artifacts
series is still very much a work in progress, and
though I do not know how many images the final
series will contain, I feel that I am probably more
than halfway there. I have ideas for certain artifacts
and specic landscapes to photograph before I can
call it a completed body of work. The series also
requires travel in search of different landscapes,
and the very nature of the photographs, like pinhole
photography itself, involves a slower, more contem-
The Gears,
Sen Duggan
Parts of a machine, but
no longer part of the
machine; and in the
background, the river,
the 'machine' that
made the canyon.
The Zero Image
6x9 pinhole camera
(supported by a Joby
Gorillapod) on location,
photographing an
artifact of an
uncertain origin.
The Package,
Sen Duggan
Above
Right Bottom
Right Top
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Product Resources
Cameras: ZeroImage 6x9 Multi-format Pinhole Camera,
Canon EOS 5D (used as a "light meter" for the pinhole
camera and documenting); Tripod: Joby Gorillapod,
Manfrotto 055X; Film: B&W medium format lm (various
emulsions); Software: Adobe Photoshop CS4, Lightroom;
Computer: MacBook Pro, Sony ArtisanDisplay; Epson
Perfection Photo 4870 Scanner.
Sen Duggan is a photographer, author and educator with a
traditional, fine art photographic background combined with nearly
two decades of extensive real world experience in the field of digital
imaging. He is a co-author of The Creative Digital Darkroom (OReilly
Media, 2008), Photoshop Artistry (New Riders, 2006) and Real
World Digital Photography, 2nd Edition (Peachpit Press, 2004). You
can see more of the Artifacts of an Uncertain Origin series at www.
seanduggan.com.
phototechmag.com 47
plative approach. But I am enjoying the journey
very much; the act of creating the photographs,
working on them in the digital darkroom and the
gentle swirl of ideas that accompanies them is very
rewarding. The creative muse still speaks to me
through this channel. And when the creative muse
is calling, its always a good idea to keep answering
that call.
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__________
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____________________________

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Jul y/August 2010

variations on the photographic arts

whether as the all-

that confused teenagers (or at least Joan Girardi,

bemused me. But I found the shows great-

anyone can do either,

but thats not the same thing. The outward

insufcient in itself to fully prove the

and Katzmans intensely subjective, highly emo-

and, by extension, the pictures

metaphorically rather than lit-

because they cant.

especially what it means

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