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February 6, 2011 by Schweiger Photo

Assignment Four, Project52 – Photorgraphing an Entrepreneur

Assignment 4 – Photographing an Entrepreneur:

Lighting Essentials Project 52’s fourth assignment was to shoot a local Entrepreneur for a vertical full page lead or cover 8×11.5, leaving enough room for a Title. The Forbes Magazine type of thing… Environmental Portraits..

Shooting to the provided layout of the Title was optional, but I made a conscious effort to frame the shot accordingly. For the assignment I had to deliver

2 photographs, the entrepreneur’s business description (faux, of course) and a paragraph that explains what the entrepreneur has done within their industry. They will both be vertical. One close up in environment, and one in a more expansive shot with more environment. We also would like to see your shoot planning docs, any sketches you are working with or have done for this image, and a lighting explanation

Project52 Assignment Four 386x500 Assignment Four, Project52 Photorgraphing an Entrepreneur

Ron Cortez | Project52 Assignment #4 | Photograph an Entrepreneur

But let me tell you there is nothing Faux about the Entrepreneur I photographed:

For those of you that don’t know Ronald Cortez (also known as Ron), he was born in the heartland of the coffee growing region Costa Rica. Throughout his life he’s developed an attraction to all things coffee. Being the son of a plantation worker, who was also the son of a plantation worker, gave Ron Cortez the absolute inside scoop on the coffee industry.

Project 52 Assignment 4 2 332x500 Assignment Four, Project52 Photorgraphing an Entrepreneur

Ron Cortez of Cafe Cortez | Project 52 | Assignment 4| Entrepreneur

Ron was practically born in a coffee field and for the past thirty years he as been involved in the coffee industry in every aspect. The last fifteen years he has dedicated to running a highly successful coffee roasting company, Cafe Cortez.

Not only is Ron importing and roasting green coffee, he has also became a pillar of the Metro Phoenix Coffee House Culture. As mentor and educator in all-things-coffee, Ron Cortez teaches about green beans, roasting, brewing methods and how to go about “cupping coffee”.

After all, life is too short and there is no time for secrets. In the Entrepreneurial spirit, Ron Cortez is not holding back and is always willing to share with anybody who is interested in Coffee, entrepreneur and consumer a like.

5420760284 59ebc7823f Assignment Four, Project52 Photorgraphing an EntrepreneurRon Cortez – Innovation Meets Determination, Finding a new Voice in an old Market!

Lighting diagram and set-up notes:

The shoot took place inside the warehouse of Café Cortez and I used one PCB Einstein 640 with a 30×60 Softbox. I postitioned the soft box to the left of the coffee bags on the pallette infront of the roaster. I placed another PCB Einstein 640 with the 8.5 inch reflector hiding it behind the roaster. To the right of the roaster I positioned a large silver reflector (oval 48×72). Of course there had to be a small glitch and discovered that my Paul C. Buff Cyber Commander was spontanously rebooting and the lights kept loosing sync. Changing the frequency on the Einsteins, setting them manually and using the CST trigger solved that problem. Set up and takedown was acomplished rather quickly (except I hate the assembly/disassembly of the large softbox – perhaps time to switch to a foldable one) and I did not have to worry about finding a poweroutlet.

Assignment 4 Notesjpg 620x755 Assignment Four, Project52 Photorgraphing an Entrepreneur

Project 52 | Assignment 4 | Notes

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January 27, 2011 by Schweiger Photo

Still Life Photography for Editorial – Project 52, Assignment Three

Project 52, Assignment #3 Still Life – Editorial

Project Fifty Two Assingment Three 590x590 Still Life Photography for Editorial Project 52, Assignment Three

Assignment 3 - Still Life

The third Assignment of Project 52 was to photograph a simple small Still Life with some special requirements. This image needed to be small enough to fit into a 8 x 8 format, pretending that this photo would be used editorial, as the cover for a brochure.

The emphasis was to produce a Still Life and not a product shot.

I thought to myself, but aren’t great product shots also nicely composed Still Lifes’? Reading further in the Project 52 Assignment Three instructions, Don Giannatti explains the subtle difference between the two:

“The point is sometimes to be a bit more ‘artistic’ and we don’t have to concern ourselves with showing a label, or something that is part of a product that is branded.”

After brainstorming a little bit about what to shoot and how to compose a still life I came to the conclusion that I wanted to create an image with a little bit of “sizzle”, after all the assignment was called Project 52, Assignment #3 Still Life and NOT “Still Death”.

Remembering a blog post by Atlanta-based Photographer Alex Koloskov, Water in Product and Advertisement Photography, I wanted to implement and build on that idea. After further contemplating this idea I almost did not do do it because thinking about all the stuff I did not have for this shot was starting to take the wind out of my sails. No Studio, no shooting table, no cinema foil, no flags, not enough stands and last but not least NO fish tank. But liking that idea so much it became clear that I could do this on a much smaller scale. Not in the studio – on my dining room table, with the stuff I already have. The only thing I did not have was a fish tank.

Fish tanks aren’t so expensive if you get a small one (2.5 Gallons) – So I went to the pet store and got mine for less than $15.00 bucks, stopped at the hardware store and bought small suction cups and wire. The last stop was the grocery store – 1 jug of distilled water, 2 bottles of club soda and one Green Jalapeno. The check out clerk looked at me with “Really?” written all over her face.

Fish Thank Still Life Photography for Editorial Project 52, Assignment Three

When I got home I started to set up the shot on my dining room table. I put the fish tank on a larger box to get some height (I did not feel like using several light stands). Then I cut a piece of wire, squeezed it around the small suction cup. The other end of the wire was bent to a small “hook” and I poked it right into the pepper. I prefer not having to doctor my shots in Photoshop and sticking the pepper on the far side of the glass with the wire-and-suction-cup-method worked very well. Checking through the viewfinder, the pepper concealed the wire and suction-cup perfectly.

Having the set rigged up, it was time to set up the lights and do a couple of dry-shots. All I used was two Speed Lights (one Nikon SB-800 and one Nikon SB-900), one 45 inch convertible white umbrella, one grid, one 32 inch 5-1 reflector disc, two pieces of household aluminum foil and two gels from the rosco strobist collection (one red and one orange)

After I dialed in my light and the “dry” shots looked really good, it was time to fill the tank. Since the tank was brand new it was perfectly clean. The first gallon of distilled water went in and the tip of the pepper was submerged. Pouring in the first bottle of club soda the pepper started to float up, of course I did not put into the equation that peppers are hollow, but squeezing it and letting it suck itself full of water solved the problem. Finally the fish tank was full and the pepper in place. But there was another problem. There were too many bubbles sticking on the near side of the tank. Not having one of those aquarium-cleaner-thingamajigs handy I used a silicon cooking spatula and started to “squeegee” off the excess bubbles – and it worked.

Filing the fish tank with water changed the light and exposure significantly. Of course I did not keep in mind that:

“when light travels from a denser to a less dense medium, such as water to air, there is a critical angle of incidence beyond which the light will be total internally reflected at the internal surface of the water rather than refracted out into the air”

Hot Stuff 590x393 Still Life Photography for Editorial Project 52, Assignment Three

Jalapeno Pepper under Bubble Water

The best way I can describe it in plain English is that the glass-bottom of the tank mirror turned into a giant mirror.

So I dialed the light down, added a couple of makeshift flags to my umbrella (I tapped the black cover of my reflector disc to the umbrella on the side closer to the camera, I used the outer black cover of another umbrella as a flag to prevent light spilling on the back ground) and clipped a piece of aluminum foil on the right side of the tank for a little bounce.

Finally I taped the orange and red gel in a criss-cross fashion over the grid.

I took plenty of shots and changed the exposure and direction of the back-ground light to get different effects.

All in all I spent about 3 hours shooting this jalapeno-pepper. Post processing was done in 10 minutes, picking a shot of the many was probably the most time consuming.

Here is what I took away from Project 52, Assignment #3 Still Life:

  • Big complex set-ups can be scaled down and simplified
  • Combining a Fish Tank, a Jalapeno Pepper and lots of Club Soda can be very entertaining
  • Framing a shot correctly and to the assignment specifications in the camera will save you a lot of time in post production and lay-out

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January 25, 2011 by Schweiger Photo

Portrait of a Stranger

Project 52, Assignment #2 Photograph a Stranger

Assingment Two Portrait of a Stranger 590x888 Portrait of a Stranger

Portrait of a Stranger - José

Assignment two at project52.org was to photograph a  stranger. I must say this particular assignment was an eyeopener.

I am sure that any photographer, professional or amateur, has suffered from some form of “photography-block” – including me. No inspiration, no motivation and the list goes on and on and then come all the excuses as to why you cannot take any “great” images.

Let me tell you, participating in a photography project will definitely help open your photographic eye, especially if your are not shooting on a regular basis

The assignment of photographing a total stranger was very liberating. At first I had no idea where to go, what gear to take and who to ask to photograph. But then I said to myself “screw it” and I put the 50mm prime on my camera, grabbed my smallest reflector disc (32 inch) and jumped into my car and started to drive.

Not really having a plan as to where to go I ended up at a park near my house and decided to get out of the car to look around and see whom I could ask to photograph – and there I saw this frail and elderly slow-walking man walking with a cane. I nervously approached him and asked him if I could have a moment of his time. Explaining my assignment to him, without hesitation he agreed to let me photograph him and take his portrait. And then there it was, a moment hard to describe – but it was a special moment, looking through the viewfinder, seeing a simple man who has probably endured a lot of pain, seemed full of wisdom and hope and perseverance.

At first I kept focusing only on his face wanting to just take a tight head shot but then I noticed the long shadows cast by him and some street lamps intersecting the path. Instead of waisting time trying to get this stranger into a pose I simply moved around to find a frame – The only words of instrucions from me were “Just be yourself…”

Hard to explain, but it simply clicked and I thought i just captured “it”.

After I took this picture, José told me that he was staying with his daughter and he had to stay close to his house in case there was an emergency. Jose just had a stroke about three months ago and his doctor told him that it was good for him to go on short walks.

I asked him if he would like a print of the photograph I took, but he said: “No – that’s o.k.” Then I thanked him for his time and we parted ways. This all took place in less than 2 minuts.

After the encounter with José I strolled a little bit longer around in the park and photographed three more strangers.

Wow, this assignment was quite liberating and a profound experience.

Now I know what Don Giannatti meant when he said;

Photographing someone you don’t know can be a scary proposition for many of us. I am fairly shy, or at least not that comfortable with walking up to someone and striking up a conversation. I usually will not do that.

UNLESS… I have my camera around my neck or in my hand. When I am ‘a photographer’ I can easily and without hesitation walk up to people and ask to make their picture. I do it a lot, actually.

Here is what I took away from Assignment Two, Photographing a Stranger:

  • You don’t need 8 speed-lights, 4 boom arms, umbrellas, soft boxes, beauty dishes or high-speed synced pocketwizards to take great images – Liberate yourself from all excess gear, it is quite refreshing…
  • It is cliché, but going back to the basics still applies, even nowadays!
  • Prime lenses are your best friends.
  • You don’t need a $4,500 camera body with a $2,000.00 lens.
  • Take advantage of ambient lighting, seek it, be patient and wait for it.
  • Stepping out of your comfort zone is a great catalyst for your creativity and motivation.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking strangers for their help – what’s the worst that could happen? Right, the only thing possibly they can say is No – big deal.
  • Don’t force it, just let it flow.

    • Assignment two very well could be the holy grail to overcoming lack of inspiration, lack of creativity and/or motivation – at least for me.

    Archive

    October 15, 2009 by Schweiger Photo

    Becoming a better Photographer in the Analog State of Mind

    Nikon FTN 590x391 Becoming a better Photographer in the Analog State of Mind

    My uncle originally purchased this Nikon FTn with Photomic Finder 1971 in Japan

    Even though I am old enough to have experienced the tail-end of film photography, I really hadn’t gotten into film despite the fact that one of my favorite Christmas presents was a Kodak Ektralite that used 110 film cartridges. I remember taking pictures as a little boy with it, as well as the excitement and anticipation of getting the negatives and prints back, just to see what I had captured and how the photos had turned out. This was really cool – except for the wait, it always seemed to take forever to get the photos back from the little photo shop where I used to drop off the film. After my encounter with the Kodak Ektralite I became too busy being a teenager and photography got put on hold and with that I missed “growing up” with film. Then in 1988, the first digital cameras started to grab a foothold in the photography-world. For most of us this was a blessing and today digital has become the dominant medium for creating images.

    It would really suck not having a camera on your iPhone or Backberry, wouldn’t it? Images can be downloaded immediately and sent via email or posted on the internet instantaneously. With the advent of digital cameras came convenience, immediate gratification and automation. One can take a digital SLR and snap an exposure and immediately know whether you have a good exposure or not by looking at the screen on the back of the camera.

    Like many photographers I have rediscovered photography after the glory-days of film and the most logical choice of camera when I bought mine of course was digital. Why bother with manual settings when digital cameras can figure out most everything for you? Only one thing left to do is to frame the shot and keep pressing the shutter button. Well, it was not quite that simple, but digital cameras have made creating images much easier. Easy is better, at least that is what I thought until I got my hands on a minty 1970′s Nikon FTn, a camera older than me and good enough to fly to the moon with Apollo 15. Wow, it was revolutionary back then, a camera with a light-meter right in the viewfinder with through the lens (TTL) metering, imagine that! A camera so simple with an instruction manual 35 pages long (not counting the separate instruction manual of the Photomic FTn Finder which is 25 pages). To put this in prospective, the instruction manual of my digital Nikon D300 is 421 pages long. I really had to wrap my mind around this fact, a camera so revolutionary back then, yet so basic and simple by today’s standards.

    Shooting the first roll of film following a long hiatus, it became clear to me, again, how different the analog world is to the digital – in a good way. Yes, shooting film with an old camera can make things become less convenient, but the absence of the digital convenience makes you so much more mindful about the picture you are about to take. Just the fact that I had to remind myself to manually advance the film in the camera taught me the importance of paying attention and highlighted how lazy I have become. Being limited to one film speed, 11 shutter-speed-increments between 1 second to 1/1000 of a second and 8 f-stops on the lens combined with having to manually focus and having to be aware of changing light conditions while trying to capture moving subject matters forces one to think creatively and make quick decisions. In other words, my brain was forced to go through a complex syncratic process. Perhaps it can be called “Putting yourself in the analog state of mind”; making decisions based on your experience and knowledge, the condition and situation you are facing, processed between your ears with intuition, all without the help of a computer chip just before squeezing the shutter release button.

    Since I did not really grow up using film I am unable to say that I missed it, however, I can say that I really enjoyed going backwards. I can also tell that shooting film is changing the way I see through the viewfinder. Compared to a digital camera you simply cannot be complacent, with film and an old camera you have to be alert, you have to focus, concentrate and anticipate, you simply cannot relax and rely on digital technology to do your job… which is why shooting film will help me become a better photographer.

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    October 5, 2009 by Schweiger Photo

    No Trespassing

    DSC 5664 No Trespassing

    A friend posing in an abandoned structure at the shore of the Salton Sea. This impromptu capture was taken in Bombay Beach, California during Harvest Moon. Krista was kind and brave enough to go inside this creepy place and pose to transform a spontaneous idea into a photograph.

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    September 23, 2009 by Schweiger Photo

    Full Control over Photos you share on Twitter with TweetPress

    3933011143 e748455992 m Full Control over Photos you share on Twitter with TweetPress
    cc Full Control over Photos you share on Twitter with TweetPress photo credit: waltercolor

    Tweetpress puts you in the driver seat when sharing your photos on Twitter

    By now most of you at have heard of Twitter.com in some way, shape or form. It is kind of hard not to since this micro-blogging platform is literally everywhere including the mainstream media. From the three-letter news channels to the billboard next to the freeway – Twitter is everywhere… Most people use it for fun, some use it to stay in contact with friends, some people use it for marketing and broadcasting their message, and a select few even used it to try winning the presidential election.

    Personally I have been on twitter since early 2008 and have become fond of sending images from my smartphone iPhone to share them with the “Twitterverse”. Until recently there was only one problem: Sending photos to Twitter required some kind of third party service like twitpic or yfrog. Regardless on how and whereto you upload the image you want to broadcast via Twitter, it has to be hosted somewhere and there has to be a URL in your tweet linking to that image, and since Twitter only allows you 140 characters per post, that link is better be short.

    As I mentioned before there are a lot of free service who provide free image hosting, however using them you  potentially give up a little bit of freedom and control. You know, nothing is for free and most of the time you see some sort of subliminal advertisement next to that image you just snapped with your smart phone. Oh, and have you read the terms and conditions before you started sending your photo to a third party? But that is not all, guess where all the internet traffic goes? Bingo! You just sent your Twitter followers to some other place.

    Now there is a solution to get a little bit more control on broadcasting images via Twitter on the internet if you use a self-hosted WordPress blog.  Tweetpress, a plugin for WordPress  by  Brandon Trebitowski, allows you not to worry about copyrights or licensing. You have total control and ownership of the images you share via Twitter, and probably the best of it all, there won’t be any questionable ads or commercials next to your images if you choose to do so.

    As soon as I discovered this plugin I had to install it and so far I can see a lot of benefits.

    • Full control over the images you post to Twitter
    • Drive more traffic to your own website rather than some 3rd party site
    • Customizable image gallery
    • Maintain the rights to YOUR photos

    But there are also following things to consider:

    • Hosting your images will take up room on your server
    • No commenting feature for each individual image.
    • If you want to share images from your mobile device then you will need a twitter client/app which supports Tweetpress

    So far I really like being in control over hosting my photos  (you can see my Twitter Pics here) I share via Twitter and I can see Tweetpress  to develop into a powerful traffic-booster.

    Implementing TweetPress is fairly simple and you can find all the facts of TweetPress on Brandon’s blog or directly on Wordrpess.org. Heck, if I can do it then you can, too – just don’t forget to buy Brandon a cup of coffee.

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    September 9, 2009 by Schweiger Photo

    Meeting new People while Storm Chasing in Arizona

    3902776643 1b4659d8ec Meeting new People while Storm Chasing in ArizonaSince the wet monsoon season is winding down here in Arizona, I decided to go out again and take the opportunity to get a couple more captures of lightning strikes before the season is over. At first, I did not plan going out, but driving home from a family dinner I saw some good storm activity over North Scottsdale.

    Checking on Southwest Lightning confirmed that it was worthwhile to venture out and try to get some shots. Not wanting to go too far I decided to head north on the Loop 101 and found a spot to shoot from just north of the 101 on Hayden Rd. After getting situated with my tripod and camera I started to click away.While I was concentrating on framing a shot and making sure that I was focused I heard a car pull up near to where I was parked and sure enough there was a guy getting out of his car with a tripod and a camera bag. 3904177418 1a8ac3ce1a Meeting new People while Storm Chasing in Arizona

    There was no way to ignore each other, especially considering the fact that we both spotted each other’s Nikon gear from the distance. We quickly exchanged “hello” and it turns out that this  Nikon shooter is a fellow European, from former Yugoslavia. Ivan told me that he just recently got into photography and picked up a Nikon D40 but is already looking to upgrade to a D90 very soon.

    Ivan set up right next to me and started to click along. How cool is it to keep meeting other photographers out in the desert during monsoon? Funny how small the world becomes when there is good storm brewing in the Arizona desert. Not too long ago, we ran into Tony Laubach of Tornados Kick during a Monsoon Storm, August 23rd 2009 at the I-10 and Ave 75 E Exit, east of Quartzsite, Arizona.

    I am just surprised that I haven’t run into other local Flickr storm chasers yet…

    Archive

    August 25, 2009 by Schweiger Photo

    Welcome to Schweiger Photo – My new Blog

    3459365592 8b0cd32b6a m d 1 Welcome to Schweiger Photo My new Blog

    Image © John Groseclose

    Finally I have gotten around to setting up my photography website SchweigerPhoto.com. Not too long ago I came to the realization that I should turn what most people would call a hobby into something more serious. After sharing some images with friends and family I have gotten several referrals for paid assignments and then reading Michael Zhang’s interview with Bill Wadman on PetaPixel I was finally pushed over the edge to establish the new blog; SchweigerPhoto.com

    No, I don’t call myself a professional photographer in the traditional sense or definition (one who derives the majority of his income from paid photography), however, I would not mind being “there” some day. Nowadays, it seems that EVERYBODY calls themselves a photographer. For example, just consider how many cell phones with a built-in camera are in use today and the amount of people who subscribe to Flickr.com. This fact alone should make me want to run the other way, not to mention the bad economy and the diminishing demand of print media.

    But, there is this obsession I have of making pictures and then in finding an enormous amount of satisfaction in the images I create. That satisfaction has been the reward for my personal work. So, regardless of whether or not I get paid an income from photography, my obsession with the medium remains the same. It would be a dream-come-true if photography was the only thing I had to do in order to make a living.

    So let’s see what the photographic future has in store for me… In the meantime I’ll be taking pictures.

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