Tacoma Photographer, Matt McDaniel

May

14

2012

Digital Delusion

A pixel is a pixel is a pixel… right? What is a pixel on my camera is a pixel on my computer which is a pixel of a digital or print file that I present to a photo client. True, there is no denying it, digital photographs are composed of pixels, lots of them, millions upon millions, each a single dot with a specific color representation, combining to make a final photograph. Since the birth of digital photography, photographers have been ever evolving to leverage post processing software to edit digital images. Every photographer uses these tools differently, some rely on them more than others, and I’d argue that some photographers are more graphic designers than photographers. But we are not going to get into those details today, a book could be written on those personal thoughts alone. Today I want to talk about something that has been eating at me for months, and it’s bugged me so much that I felt that I finally needed to share it with you. I’m sure this post will upset some who are just as upset as I am about the topic I’m about to discuss. That’s good! The people who are losing out are the ones who don’t feel or say anything at all.

This is my blog, it’s been home to my personal and professional visual works, adventures, advice, and personal photographic thoughts for years. There are almost 300 blog posts. I try to be as real as I can with genuine thought. This blog isn’t a marketing gimmick, it serves many purposes, ranging from visual entertainment to educational. I try not to speak out of line, and if I’m providing advice to my readership I do my best to ensure that information has integrity behind it. The one thing you will not experience reading here on my blog are lies and me feeding you, my clients and fellow photographers, a bunch of shit.

I’m a photographer, I’m paid to take photographs of people. I’ve photographed just about every age a person could be and in a dizzying array of situations. I do edit my photos in a post processing application. I’m asked to do very normal things to photographs in post, and I’m asked by some clients to do some very disturbing things in editing their images. However, contrary to many photographers out there, my job is 95% done after I’ve taken the picture. I’ve put in the time and effort required to make the photograph great at time of capture, so my editing load is minimal. For other photographers, taking the picture is only 25% of the completion. They spend countless hours in post. But this isn’t the “shit” that I’m talking about, the subject that has my feathers a bit ruffled.

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May

09

2012

Bianca’s Senior Photos

Shoots Posted by Matt

I spent a couple hours with Bianca for her senior pictures. On the fringes of the rainy season, we lucked out and were handed a beautiful day to work with. Unfortunately, everyone else in Tacoma decided to spend the day outside as well, giving us a pretty busy background. The spots we chose were spent with well-timed captures where I found a clean, people-free background.

I arrived to the location a bit early, as I usually do, to run through pre-scouted spots in the area. Light conditions change fast, and well… a location can look amazing one minute and completely lose it’s luster in a blink of an eye. I quick jog through pre-scouted locations are always done immediately prior to a shoot, ensuring they are still ripe for the pickin’.

Run and gun was the name of the game for this shoot. 10-20 clicks of the camera and we were off to the next spot. I wanted to capture six or so locations, so we got what we needed and moved on.

Biancas Senior Photos

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May

02

2012

PocketWizard FlexTT5 Hot Shoe Mount Fix

Gear / Tips & Techniques Posted by Matt

PocketWizard radio triggers… I love ‘em. 95% of the time I have zero issues and they are worth every penny spent on them. That’s saying something too, because I own 7 of them. My current PocketWizard arsenal consists of: 4 – FlexTT5′s, 1 – MiniTT1, 2 – PowerMC2′s, 1 – AC3, and 3 – AC9′s.

There is one flaw I’ve found in the PocketWizard FlexTT5′s hot shoe mount (the part that tightens to the camera end) is not built out of the strongest material. It performs just fine when mounted by itself to a camera to trigger other radios, however, if you slide a speedlite onto the Flex (it’s intended use), the added weight and torque that the speedlite can apply to the Flex’s mount can become to much and… it breaks, rendering that hot shoe mount useless. It’s kind of shocking that PW didn’t think this one through, or even make a change in future production of the product after what I’m guessing is a very large number of photographers having this issue. A speedlite/Flex rig can easily put a couple pounds of force on this single small piece of plastic (and especially stressful on the mount when the speedlite is situated sideways), and it’s only a matter of time before each and every Flex hot shoe mount will fail. Why it’s not metal to begin with is beyond me.

Good news is that you can call PocketWizard up, tell them your problem, and they will send you a new mount to replace the broken one. The bad news is that it’ll cost you $20 per replacement mount. The repair process is simple enough to do yourself in under 5 minutes, but frustrating that you have to do this to begin with.

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Apr

27

2012

Photographers, Know Your Rights

Tips & Techniques Posted by Matt

There has been a few flareups in the news over the past six months or so where people have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to their rights as photographers. In most cases, it seems that the photographers actually knew their rights, however the law enforcement who wrongfully acted upon the photographers did not. Ironic? You bet. Us photographers are breeding like rabbits, we’re everywhere, all the time. Anyone with a phone now has a camera in their pocket, ready for snapping at any time. This is all fine and dandy and everyone is happy, that is, until some kind of unexpected or uncontrolled event takes place. Photographers snap into action, doing what they do, taking photographs. Ignorant law enforcement wrongfully impede on the photographers rights in a multitude of wrongs – threatening, seizing photo gear, and in extreme cases, the damaging of gear or the abuse of the photographer. It seems that photographers are welcome until someone decides it’s not ok and act unlawfully (most likely the offended/concerned person is in the wrong and doesn’t want to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar). Photography and it’s lawful boundaries seem to be a hot and reoccurring topic these days, ya know… since one out of every three people claim to be a photographer. Knowing your rights as a photographer is very important, and so important that I cover the topic in my beginner workshop, whether a student asks about it or not.

There is a lot of grey area when it comes to the topic of rights, who has them,who doesn’t, why, and when. To keep things simple, I’ll just be talking about where you do and do not have rights to be taking photographs. It can easily be broken down into two sections – public and private property.

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Apr

25

2012

PocketWizard’s AC3 ZoneController

Gear / Tips & Techniques / Video Posted by Matt

I don’t know about you other photographers, but the vast majority of my photo shoot time is spent setting up and configuring lighting. There is a reason for that, right? Good lighting = good photograph. Carelessness = crappy light = crappy photo. It’s simple math, really, but that math adds up fast in the form of a lot of pacing back and forth from shooting position to light. Unfortunately, this back and forth dance is necessary in order to get all the lights and their powers set correctly. It seems with the addition of each extra light that the overall setup time increases exponentially. What if there was a device that could control your speedlites and your studio strobes right from your camera? Good news for the PocketWizard shooters, there is. It’s called the PocketWizard AC3 ZoneController. It works with MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 radio trigger system. Below is a video that goes into detail about the system and briefly discusses the power and convenience the AC3 will bring by adding it to the existing PocketWizard system. I’m sure after watching the video, you’ll have all kinds of ideas on how this could improve your photo shoots.

From my own experience I can tell you that the AC3 has doubled my shooting efficiency. If you shoot with the MiniTT1/FlexTT5 system, you are out of your mind if you don’t integrate the AC3 into gear set… like now. It will make that big of a difference, I promise.

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Apr

23

2012

Horse Plow Event at Mother Earth Farm

Events / Shoots Posted by Matt

The Emergency Food Network organization has been a client for… three years now. I’ve really enjoyed working on a number of projects for them, some which have opened my own eyes to the really great contribution they make in the Tacoma and surrounding area communities. My favorite and most in-depth work so far with EFN was the video I created a couple years ago, you can check that out HERE.

Horse Plow Event at Mother Earth Farm

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Apr

18

2012

DIY: Adapt Strobe Light Modifiers for Speedlites

Gear / Tips & Techniques Posted by Matt

I don’t want to get too McGyver-ie on you guys, ’cause I’m sure we’ve all seen the countless disasters of DIY (Do It Yourself) projects, especially in the photography field. People making soft boxes out of cardboard and tinfoil, for example. Some of these contraptions make sense, some don’t come close, some require just as much money making your own crappy version of the original item (not to mention a week’s worth of hours constructing it), and even in the end, if the duct taped frankenstein of a project actually does what it’s supposed to, it will never scream “professional” and you would have to be an idiot use it on a professional photo shoot in front of a paying client. However, every once in a while, a little savvy with mods to existing and legitimate photo gear can workout in your favor, save some money, and produce great results.

My off-camera lighting journey started in overdrive. It was go big or go home when it came to integrating lights in my shoots, meaning I started out and exclusively used larger studio strobes for my work (as opposed to using speedlites, also called hot shoes). Not that it was a regrettable choice, I love the big lights and I still use them for 75% of my work, but I invested heavily and exclusively into those lights and light modifiers. When it came to that other 25% of the time, when I’m not shooting commercial work or I don’t need the horsepower from big lights, I wanted to use the way more convenient, smaller, and lighter speedlites. So I bought a handful of speedlites a couple years back for just those occasions. Aside from the initial expense of the speedlites, I also had to take into account all of the light modifiers. If I wanted the same type of control that I have with my strobe lighting set, would I have to go all out and purchase the speedlite variation of all the strobe medication gear to accomplish this? I owned like… 12+ light modifiers specifically to fit my studio strobes. I initially had no problem shelling out money for the strobe light modifiers, as big lights and big modifiers gave me awesome light, and I was willing to pay for it. Once I started researching speedlite specific light modifiers, my jaw dropped to find they cost just as much, if not more, money for them! I couldn’t believe it. I knew that speedlites were very popular, but man, the photo market is all to wise to that fact, and all of us photogs are paying for it. Markup on small light gear for those tiny little speedlites is out of control.

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Apr

03

2012

LC Prom Event – Shooting For Product

Shoots Posted by Matt

I thought I’d post some more work I’ve recently done for London Couture. Along with doing their marketing photography, I also do their graphic design. This is an ideal situation for a photographer if they are capable graphic designers as well. It really helps marriage a complete, polished look when it comes to the final product. It’s so important going into a photo shoot that I have my head wrapped around the final concept. Sure, someone can ask me to photograph a person or a situation, or… a person in a certain situation, however, unless I know what the photographs will ultimately be used for, I have no idea how to shoot it. I can shoot something that looks amazing, but could really fail to translate for a particular idea or even dimension of a graphic design, and at the point no matter how amazing your photos look, they could be a create a headache in the end. All the way down the the simple things, like knowing whether the photos will be used for a magazine ad or a website or both, which will determine whether the majority of my photographs will be a landscape or portrait layout (verticals are obviously conducive to magazine ads, and horizontals for web/digital display). So whether I’m doing the graphic design or I’m handing the photos off to another designer, you better believe I’m asking all kinds of questions so that everyone in the loop of production is very happy with what they have to work with. This make life SO much easier on the designer, and leaves my paying client with a very clean, professional product that didn’t have to get hacked together with a digital chainsaw.

A lot of commercial photography is shot on either a white or black background, reason being it’s VERY easy to add more space to a design canvas if needed. Ex – shooting a model on white seamless will allow a designer to plop the image onto a white canvas any where they want, and no one is the wiser. You can add or subtract designing real-estate until the cows come home. With that said, you really don’t have to shoot as consciously with your composition (you don’t have to worry about leaving any negative space in the image for the addition of graphics and text). You can shoot nice and close, providing maximum resolution and detail, and giving a graphic designer one more reason to love working with you. Shooting on a true solid color is ideal for this editing flexibility, however, sometimes you want something different (even in the studio), or often times commercial photogs find themselves out in the wild shooting on-location. For these situations, it’s key that the final concept be well-understood. And again, it’s always a great thing if you are the designer and the photographer, as the layout is floating around in your head, and you can at times improvise even while shooting, as new design ideas pop up in your head and you can then shoot and frame for those ideas on the fly. A great luxury. Of course, if you are shooting for Nike or some huge name, the concept is concrete, which has been reviewed and ok’d by corporate big wigs. But if you are a smaller operation, you can get away with some… “creative flexibility” up until you shoot the last frame of the day.

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Mar

27

2012

Highly Mobile Photo/Light Kit – Hiking in the Woods

Behind the Scenes / Gear Posted by Matt

Ok, here’s a post for the photogs out there. This is the rig I decided to go with for my hiking trip to photograph the landslide project. Click here if you don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s super important that when you know a day of shooting will be a little out of the ordinary that you ask as many questions as possible so that you can as prepared as possible.

For this specific photo task, I knew the following:

I will be shooting both ground level and aerial shots, aerials from a helicopter.
The location is only reachable by foot, requiring a 15-minute hike.
The location will be focused around a giant landslide.
My focus for ground level shots will be the people working in the environment.
My focus while shooting from the air will be a mile-long landslide.

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Mar

26

2012

WWU Spotlight – Project One: Landslide

Shoots Posted by Matt

Oh boy, where to start with this one… I guess we can begin with the original premise for this whole shebang that you’ll see unravel on the blog in the next half year or so. I was approached a few months ago by fellow video creative and good friend, Andy Lahmann, to work on a large scale project with him. Western Washington University has a number of interesting and front-of-the-field type programs students are currently working within. The kind of programs and results that are definitely worth bragging about to some degree. WWU’s idea is to generate a website bundled with video and photographic content that we be used to present these various programs to the public, alumni, and future university donors. Along with the website, they’ll present the media via iPads while out and about talking to people of interest. One problem lay in their way – they need eye catching video and photos. Solution – Andy and myself. So, we’ve been assigned to make this stuff happen for them.

Four of these programs are going to be our focus for the launch of this showcasing project. They range from out-in-nature geological to in-the-labs highly technical, and will place us in some interesting locations and situations to produce our visual work. First up to bat was a program centered around a geological phenomenon. Back in the 1930′s, just outside the town of Bellingham, a large landslide started to take place. I say “started,” because it’s still going on, it’s still sliding. Yes, this is a slow-motion, mile-long landslide 80 years in the making. But that isn’t the weird part. It starts to get a bit odd when you analyze the water runoff that is flowing through the giant thing. Turns out that the sediment laden water contains amazingly high levels of asbestos. You know… that poisonous crap that was wildly popular in the groovy 1970′s home construction, touted for it’s fire resistance and insulating properties (among others). A rushing creek of water flows through the slide, picking up the asbestos and carrying it down to the surrounding valley. The contents of the creek are so dangerous that it’s playing a large roll in the destruction/contamination of the farm lands below the hillside. So the earth mass keeps sliding, grinding-up and producing ample loose poisonous sediment (yummy), feeding the water, and playing a continual negative roll on the community. It’s much like a glacier as it slowly moves across the earth. This is why the WWU geologist are out there, in fact, people from around the world have travelled there to study this anomaly, as it’s apparently confusing the crap out of everyone as to why here and why not everywhere else. I guess this type of event is only happening in a couple spots in the world. And who said Bellingham is just a college town…

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