AC Johnson Photography Education

SPACE

Alec — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 21:58:39 +0000

This series of images was produced around an interpretation of the concept of space. This is Dejen, a very accomplished jazz saxophonist, and we discussed the use of space in music which led to this production style.

“Miles Davis, Randy Weston, Keith Jarrett, Jack DeJohnette, and Gary Peacock all cite (Ahmad) Jamal as a major influence in use of rhythm and space as well as his innovative use of multi-tonal melodic lines and his unique extended ‘vamps’.” Wikipedia

The use of temporal space, as in fewer notes can create more feeling, is one way to interpret space in music. Along with the concept of temporal space, I wanted to work in a way that isolates a subject to its basic premise and the use of excessive physical space allowed me a way to interpret Dejen. I’ve included some music Dejen played during our photo shoot.

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State of Play

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Final shots from Santa Monica Pier

Alec — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:21:41 +0000

This set of images is of Larry Dallas Poling, a street performer on Santa Monica pier. I photographed him at the end of the day, right before sunset. I really loved his sound and guitar work, but after a few minutes he told me to beat it…that I was hurting his tips.
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Here is a youtube video of him performing on Santa Monica Pier:

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In all three images I used a speedlight with ring flash and used some creative editing techniques to get the images where I wanted them…in the first and third images I used my fixed 85mm f/1.8 and the middle image was shot using my 16 – 35mm f/2.8.

Great Comparison of Ring Lights on Strobist

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Santa Monica Pier HDR

Alec — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:20:19 +0000

Hi Gang,

I ventured down to Santa Monica pier on the last evening of my visit to Los Angeles hoping to photograph the ferris wheel, but was not happy with the lights on the wheel nor the amount of activity. It was Monday evening, cool and slow at the pier. I decided to move on and practice some HDR shots. These are definitely in the more extreme range for what I would typically produce, but thought it worked well with the subject matter.

I’m including a screen shoot of the settings I used in Photomatix as a starting point and in all images I was using 3 stop brackets. Anyone doing HDR must recognize that Photomatix is truly just a starting point and that all the finishing work must occur in Photoshop or Lightroom, etc. (click on image to see larger view). In Photoshop, I did all color work using Lab Mode and did selective sharpening using a High Pass Filter at amount = 20 and layer set to soft light blending mode.

Here’s the set of finished images. Hope you enjoy.

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Fashion and Beauty: Two Things I Don’t Understand

Alec — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 23:00:25 +0000

In my last post I spoke about how the fashion workshop helped me realize I didn’t want to shoot fashion. Ok. Fine, but that doesn’t mean that any of us should shy away from knowledge, experience or a chance to build our technical ability just because the subject doesn’t necessarily interest us. I’m really glad I took the workshop and had the opportunity to shoot in a big, professional studio, work with professional/talented models and develop a better sense of what F&B photography is and isn’t. I also learned how to better use my studio equipment in different settings, beyond F&B work. For the photogs that follow this blog I encourage you to experiment with all forms of photography, to challenge yourself, build your understanding and appreciation of them.

These cumulative experiences WILL influence your work and this makes them very valuable. With that being said, here are a few images from the workshop:

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A Morning At the Beach

Alec — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:17:23 +0000

Every field of study has its weed-out courses, the one that helps you decide whether this is for you. In some fields its just a brutally difficult and demanding course. In Mechanical Engineering it was Thermodynamics, in Chemistry it was Organic Chemistry. In some fields, its just sour tasting, i.e. Accounting or Finance.

Last weekend I attended my weed-out course in photography. I was at a fashion photography workshop last weekend in Los Angeles. One of my goals with the workshop was to determine if I really wanted to shoot fashion as a career. Melissa Rodwell, our wildly successful and talented workshop leader, said at one point and then wrote on her blog yesterday, “Look, here’s a fact: you must understand fashion design. You are going to have to communicate with editors, stylists, art directors and designers in this career. If a fashion editor has hired you to shoot 8 pages for their next spring issue and tells you that the mood for that particular issue is a “Paris 1920’s, heavily influenced by a “Brassai” feel,” you better know what she’s talking about! Do you know what political influences were going on during that era that revolutionized the way women approached fashion? Do you know what designer’s were coming into the forefront of that revolution? (I just named one of them so that was an easy give away…..). Which hair style was vey popular, what were the women wearing in Paris during the ‘20’s and by the way, who is BRASSAI????”

She recommended reading, among other titles, “The History of Fashion Design.”

That’s it. I’ve just been weeded out.

Off to the beach to do what I enjoy far more than reading “Costume and Fashion: A Concise History” or “100 Years of Menswear.” Now, the following title would surely be a page-turner for me; “The Complete, Dull and Nausiating Detail of Piers That Extend from Unsettled Beaches to well in to the High Surf of the Pacific Ocean.” So, off I went after the workshop, after the sun went down, towards Hermosa Beach to find a hotel and a cold beer. Found both, actually, but not before I did a little scout at Manhattan Beach. This first image was taken well after sunset but provided a good feel for the conditions I would face in the morning, when I wanted to shoot. With that being said, some fortuitous things happened, namely that a car had parked with its headlights on, shining right up underneath the pier. LOVED IT, much need light.

I returned in the morning to shoot again. This time I went to Hermosa Beach Pier in the dark, pre-civil twilight, but same that this pier was much newer, fancy and clean and didn’t have the character I saw the night before and really adored. So, I made a split decision and started racing the sunrise up the coast back to Manhattan Beach pier. The surf had grown to a level I really wanted to photograph and had only a few minutes to get my position established and shoot. The window of light is very small, where everything is in balance. Here is the outcome of shooting in morning “sweet light” for only about 15 minutes.

The technical data on this shot is: ISO 400, f/8 10 seconds, 16-35mm at 16mm, Canon 1Ds Mark II, tripod and cable release. No filters, no HDR processes. Most editing was done in Lab Color mode, which I’ve started writing about. Its not the “keys to the castle” of Photoshop, but it has certain advantages in certain circumstances that become HUGE advantages. I’m preparing a short tutorial to get people started with it. The colors in this image are not manufactured. The pinks are from pier lights above and the blues are from the sky and water reflecting sky light. That’s it. I could see that situation in the previous image I shot the night before and had envisioned a softer, pastel pallet in the right twilight conditions.

Oh, and I got soaked in the process, loving every minute of it. A nice guy and his nice wife from Saint Louis Park just happened to pull up. He got his camera out and naturally I started chatting with him. He was kind enough to snap this shot for me.

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Studio Fashion Shoot

Alec — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:11:35 +0000

Last Saturday was a great day; It was one of the few fashion shoots I attempt and despite all the controversy and criticism surrounding fashion photography, it still feels like the most difficult work I’ve attempted and some of the greatest fun. Maybe the fun had less to do with it being a fashion shoot and more to do with the day, the people, the energy of the shoot.

I’ve heard two commercial fashion photographers speak recently about the importance of the right team in having a successful shoot. I have a pretty good sense of what that means and there certainly is more control over picking your team when you’re paying them to work. When you’re asking everyone to work for free, well hell, you kinda take what you get, right? I must be blessed, though. My “take what I can get” team was amazing.

Elmira Lilic – The Model: A successful model and international finance expert with Wells Fargo Bank. She and I had communicated via Facebook and finally met face to face to work out the shoot. Immediately I felt a good vibe, not only with her, but with her boyfriend Kelvin. Elmira had total buy in to the shoot, literally. She came armed with $3000 worth of clothes and accessories for the shoot (I hope she didn’t loose any receipts:)) which gave us a great deal of flexibility.

Kelvin – The boyfriend: Professor, jazz pianist and all around great guy. He came to the shoot and provided some wonderful live jazz piano (there is a piano in my studio) while we worked. He was also kind enough to get the team coffee and some cake.

Chet and Amy – The Assistants: Using the word “assistants” is a little insulting, insomuch as they are both great photogs in their own right and generous to a fault. I can tell you that the shoot would not have happened without them, their attitude and natural abilities.

Oskar Ly – professional makeup and hair: Seriously, some of you have been on shoots of mine with really unprofessioinal professionals. Oskar was the antithesis. Amazing work, great energy and personality and very generous with her time.

So the team was really really strong and the only weak link was the photog….I mean this with all sincerity and I’m not fishing for anything here. This type of photography is very difficult to do well, at least in the way I define success. I pretty much missed most of my goals for the shoot and became painfully aware of how I naturally work in these situations. I learned a great deal from it and have a greater appreciation of the folks who do it well. I’ll be taking a two day fashion photography workshop this February in Los Angeles. I now have a long list of questions for the instructor!!!!!

So on with the images. I hope you enjoy them. Remember you can click on any image to see a larger version.

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Outtakes

Alec — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:45:56 +0000

Hey Gang,

This post features a number of outtakes from recent studio and location shoots that I thought were just fun images worth sharing. Hope you enjoy.

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Minnesota State Capital, HDR and Gradient Maps

Alec — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:54:48 +0000

Hi Gang,

Today I’m sharing some images I shot recently of the state capital. I’m separating them into 3 groups to discuss broad level shooting/editing approaches to each group. Hope you enjoy the images:

Group 1: HDR – this group of interiors was pure HDR work. Each image was processed with the HDR feature (vs. Exposure Fusion) in Photomatix using 3 files separated by two stops. I shot them in aperture priority, set the camera to shoot 2 stop brackets. In all cases I was shooting with my canon 16-35mm lens, tungsten white balance. In all three cases I edited in Lab color mode to expedite the color correction process and to give me more control over color correction.

Group 2: Shooting to the right and use of the Gradient Map – More and more often I’m shooting to the right of the histogram, or over exposing to the point that I don’t have any true blacks. I’m doing this in the studio, in landscapes, and elsewhere. I use the Raw Converter to pull back true blacks with the Blacks slider and make a few other minor adjustments (recovery and brightness being the two biggies), resulting in what I consider to be better looking digital files from the start. This makes sense, given the knowledge that there is more good data in highlights than in shadows in a digital file. I then used a two gradient maps: the first set to a black and white gradient with the adjustment layer set to a softlight blending mode. I then used a second black and white gradient map left to normal blending mode. Why this instead of a black and white adjustment layer? Good question and the fine points are certainly debatable. Mostly I like what the black and white gradient map does right out of the gate, especially on SKIN TONES, not featured in this post obviously, but in upcoming posts. Play with it. If you like it, great. If you don’t, great.

Group 3: HDR and Gradient Map – These last two images are a combination of HDR work and Gradient Map processing, all discussed above.

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Honorable Mention from Lensbaby!

Alec — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:02:30 +0000

Lensbaby today announced the 12 winners in their recent photo contest. The 12 winners, selected from over 2000 submissions world-wide, will be published in an upcoming book. While I didn’t make the final 12, I did receive Honorable Mention for my image of Nathan Pino, a pianist I photographed on Venice Beach exactly a year ago to the day. You can view the winners, honorable mentions, and all submissions here.

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Registration now open for The Next Level

Alec — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:59:20 +0000

Hi Gang, just wanted to get this announcement out about a new, online beginner’s photography workshop I’m offering starting in February. Please pass this on to anyone you think may be interested! THANK YOU.

THE NEXT LEVEL: Online Photography Workshop for Beginning Digital Photographers beginning Saturday, Feb. 20th, 2010

Maximum of 5 students. Cost: $179 Register now to insure your place in this one of a kind photography education experience.

You enjoy taking landscape and portrait photographs, or shooting events. You’ve been using a point and shoot camera. You now have a Digital SLR camera and want to really grow your passion for photography, understand the elements of a photograph and build your confidence. You want a solid foundation delivered to you by a professional photographer with significant teaching experience.

Begin learning how to make that camera work for you and take your images to the next level of quality. Over the course of four weeks we’ll work through four assignments, all done on your schedule and at your pace. Each assignment is focused around your photographs and each assignment will help build the mindset to create beautiful, more compelling and provocative images.

Build your confidence, understanding and passion for photography. Learn at your pace and on your schedule. Learn from a professional photographer and teacher. Let me help you get TO THE NEXT LEVEL, beginning Saturday Feb. 20th, 2010. Register by visiting: http://acjphotoworkshops.com/workshops/the-next-level-online-course/ Questions? email me: alec@acjohnsonphoto.com

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