Kitographer

The Production Company Shoot – with Photographer Colin Page

This was 2.5 day shoot that I assisted photographer Colin Page. It was a hi end portrait shoot of individuals and group shots for the Production Companies new season of shows. It was a big photography production involving, many assistants, hair & makeup, choreographers, wardrobe stylists, producers and more. It was photographed at Decent Exposure in a large cyclorama.

Colin is a lighting genius and spends lots of time perfecting the light. Every set up was major and required tweaking/adjusting to light our subjects perfectly. The lighting setup gives  us a hi detail, glamorous, show look.

We used Bowens gear, about 7 flash heads and 4-5 packs. Having the large cyclorama (cyc) was great giving use plenty of room. We blacked out much of the white to give us edges on our subject. We used medium format digi to give us large files destined for large format printing (billboards).

Final Art Work 1

Main Ligting setup:

KEY: Black Poly (polystyrene) aka foam board  - used as large white/black walls, to cut ligth out or reflect it in;

detailed lighting setup from Colin Page

Behind the scenes:

Behind Colin - hear you can see all the black cutters. Top: Can you see the leg stripe lights? To our right we can see a stand with a cutter to prevent flare in lens. Bottom: We can see the head spot lights

Behind subject. Here we can see the ceiling light - bounce flash.

More Final artwork works:

Final art work 2

Final art work 3

ASSISTING on a project like this is an amazing opportunity. It teaches you many things. The energy involved on the shoot is hi and requires an assistant to be on there feet for 10 + hours a day. Always be ready for instruction from your photographer, try think ahead and use initiative. Have your assistant kit handy (bag of goodies: gaffer, pins etc) Pay total attention to client needs, regularly check if you can do anything for them: coffee, food, phone, parking etc. They need to be comfortable.

Be ready: to change lens for your photographer. Make sure they are clean ; be ready with cutters; have a pen and tape to measure tripod if need be, check that camera batteries are fully charged, pre check that comp-camera tethering is working good.

Assisting Commercial Photographer Jorge DeAraujo.

Client = a large event hire company. They were having a xmas party and invited their clients along. Location was the Price of Wales Hotel Rooftop bar on Fitzroy St, St Kilda.

Even though the brief required just one shot, Jorge quoted 2 hours for this job. We got there 2 hours before people arrived to set up and looked at lighting conditions.

Ideally he wanted to use available light, by the time the 100 people arrived the sun was to far down. So we set up 4 lights with umbrellas.

Jorge up the ladder. There are 2 more umbrellas' behind me.

Communcation with group:

Its always good to have some help organising people. The MC at this function was willing to organise everyone and gave good instructions to people to put them into place. Then Jorge while on top of a 6 foot ladder gave final instructions to the group.

Useful information to communicate to large groups:

• Let them know that you will be taking many photos for a approx a few minutes. This prepares them that they need to concentrate and smile, keep eyes open, be visable to the camera etc.
• Let them know that they need to be able to see the camera, otherwise you (the photographer) will not be able to see them.
• Shorter people need to be at the front and taller at the back.
• Be relaxed, confident and funny – people will listen better and relax.
• Take your time, be confident and look around the group at peoples faces to see that everyone is looking (it might take 10-15 secs).
• Always take a ladder with you. Talk to client about location in detail.
• It is ideal to have an assistant as you will require a lot of gear: 4-6 lights, stands, sandbags etc.

This info can be useful also when photographing the group shot at weddings)

Final shot:

Aperture explained: what do f-top numbers mean?

In optics, the f-number (sometimes called focal ratio, f-ratio, or relative aperture) of an optical system expresses the diameter of the entrance pupil in terms of the focal length of the lens; in simpler terms, the f-number is the focal length divided by the “effective” aperture diameter. It is a dimensionless number that is a quantitative measure of lens speed.

The smaller your f number (aperture AV number) the more light your camera sensor will see and if you have more light you can have faster shutter speeds. The cost = only small amount of your subject will be in focus.

The reverse is for larger f number. Less light gets in, slower shutter speed – more of your photo will be sharp.

Keep on eye out on this post, I have many more books to add. If you have read some great books please add them in a post.

Light: Science & Magic: An Intro to Photographic Lighting – by Fil Hunter, Steven Biver, Paul Fuqua – Focal Press

Capture Magazine – In most major mag stores & published by Yaffa Publishing

Business and legal forms for photographers – by Tad Crawford

The E-Myth Revisited – by Michael Gerber

What colour is your parachute? 2010: A practical manual for job-hunters & career changers – by Richard N Bolles

Other popular books which have influenced my career path:

Blink: The power of thinking without thinking
by Malcolm Galdwell

What ever you think, think the opposite.
by Paul Arden

An ACMP Seminar coming up 7th December 2009 in Melbourne.

Simon Harsent’s Website

Great video of Photographer Simon Harsent talking about his work and about Canon gear.

Doing event photography is something I have always enjoyed. Before deciding to make photography as a career I used to take my canon ixus out every weekend and take pictures of people.

The main skill I learnt while starting out doing event photography was how to shoot in many different lighting conditions. For example in one week I could have photographed 3 events:

1. An outdoor event in the middle of the afternoon with bright blue sky.
2. An indoor event with a mixture of coloured walls and ceilings
3. Outdoor and indoor evening shoot.

All 3 scenarios pose very different lighting conditions and depending on your clients brief may  involve, long exposure shots, lots of well flashed people shots with ambient light or flashed fast moving objects. As an event photographer you need to become quick at reading different lighting situations so when you are faced with a candid opportunity you can capture the shot. More recently I have been sharing corporate events with photographers whom off load work to me because they are too busy. I am getting great feedback on my work to help me improve. This also has exposed me to to a much higher level of client.

Many social and corporate events require low light and having good quality camera’s makes life much easier. Getting a new Canon 5d mark 2 has seen the quality of my work be boosted. I can now shoot with ISO’s of 1600-3200 + and give clients high enough quality images. Where as my Canon 1d mark2 N – this is not possible. Any file over ISO 800 looks to grainy.

Preparation: Find out as much info as you can about the event. What is the main subject? What style does the client require? How many photos they require? Start and end times? etc

• Fully charge all your batteries the night before & have backups.
• Google map search the exact location and print this off.
• Be 15 mins early and suss out the environment before you begin.
• Have enough memory. 16 -32 gig
• Pen & paper – if you are asked to get names.

On the job

Meet & greet, Always shake hands with your clients. Always say goodbye. Sometimes I show my clients a few of the best photos to gage whether Im shooting their brief &  give them the confidence about my work.

• I shoot a lot on f 2.8. This gives you more light, faster shutter speed and more creative scope.
• Groups of 4-5+ people best to shoot at F5.6 and above.
• Keep people on same depth of field (DOF) – In straight line to get everyone in equal focus.
• Watch out for poles & objects near your subjects heads.

Types of shots:

• Great people shots. Photos that make your main subject look perfect.
• 
• Try creative crops. Different angles, up high, down low etc.
• Shoot detail shots. This could be product on a table, clothing textures etc. Usually I do detail on my 70-200 lens at f2.8.
• 
• Shooting people with other elements of people can give you very nice balanced compositions. It creates atmosphere.
• 
• Action shots:
• 
• Photograph the environment as a whole. As well as your subject you want to show their surrounding. So shoot with your widest lens from far back. Get to an alleviated area and shoot down.
• 
• Branding shots and branding with people.
• 

http://www.aswpp.org/

Enter here

When I assist Mark Wilson I learn new things every time. Mark has been a photographer in Melbourne for 15+ years. A large part of this time he was a photographer at Coles Myer. His knowledge on film vs digital and technical lighting is some of the best I have ever seen.

Client: Dassi

Brief: advertising material, 5 shots, showing before and after scenario of dassi service.

5 shots over 1 full day @ house in Malvern.

Gear: Maymaiya RZ67 pro2 body, phase one back. Shooting teethered to latop capture one v4.

For all but one shot we used ARRI HMI lights (HMI Fresnels). These lights do not flash, rather give a constant light source.

Ari light features:

• They can be focused by a Large switch on the bottom.
• They usually have barn doors.
• Depending on side they can fit onto a normal average size stand (Manfrotto 004’s).
• An example: Arri d5 hmi 575w
• Good for outdoor and indoor lights.
• Can be easily covered with warming & cool gels (coloured film) to vary the temperature of the light.

1st shot: kitchen floor. Showing clean vs dirty.

Camera and Tripod

This is a large standard tripod from Manfrotto with a FOBA tripod head attached onto the leg to get down lower to the ground. See pic below:

foba mini superball tripod head.

Our main light was an Ari 2000 lamp. Bouncing off the ceiling from another room into the kitchen. These lights have a reasonably warm temperature (k). I covered it with an orange gel lowering the tempertaure of the lamp to match the ambient light already in the ktichen (kitchen light was shinning in from a window).

Arri HMI 2000 w - with orange gel to cool temperature down.

Look out for the final art work to be posted here when it is made public.

More info:

• Mark Wilson’s Website
• Wiki’s def on HMI
• Photo of HMI light set

and final art work of two of the photos:

final art work 2

Many assistants and new photographers ask me all the time, “how to get their own website” up and running. Usually its something they have been thinking about for months but haven’t had the ‘know how’ or drive to get started. So this article should hopefully get you started.

If you a little creative and a tad IT savvy this will be  walk in the park for you. The hardest thing about my website was choosing the photos. I delayed making one for about 6 months because I wanted to shoot more material, but I wish I had got it started early. My advice for you is “Just Do It Now” and then spend time sorting the photos out later.

I think most photographers simply have a website to advertise their folio’s and this is not utilizing all that is available to us. On the flip side – Photographer James Buchanan spends alot of time/money on marketing online. As a result he gets more leads than he can  handle and has to turn away jobs.

This is my website: Kithaselden.com. Its features are:

1. Professional looking folio that lets prospective clients know that I offer a professional service.
2. Quick and easy to set up.
3. Its cost effective, under $300.
4. Its easy to maintain and manage.

How to set up your website:

1. Register a domain name
2. Buy or design a template
3. Add your photos

Extra: 4.  Organise a server package – to store your website info

1. Registering a domain name.

There are many domain name registrars available. This is where you make the weblink to your website official. Its the url. Or www.YOU.com etc. Doing this is benefical as it means you can have an email address with your name in it, for example kit@kithaselden.com. Rather than kit@telstra.net etc – in this email you are advertising Telstra and not you

So decide what you want to call your website. Something not to long, something easy to remember. Your name is a good start: www.firstnamelastname.com. Having a website with dot-com gives people the impression you are more international. Having a dot-com-au gives the impression that you are more local and this has its benefits. People may trust you more knowing they live in the same country as you.

Cost. On average you might pay $15AU per year for a domain name. Or much less. Its usually 1-2 year commitments.

Go ahead, be brave and register your name at:

1. Netregistry.com.au (This is who I use)
2. Ozhosting.com

2. Buy or design a template

You wont need to have a hosting package if you buy a template website. Some template websites like mine have there own “back-end” (admin zone) which allows you to easily & quickly manage the content on your website.  Customizing your website is limited in this circumstance. My website is a template thus I only have a hosting package to upload other photo galleries for clients. I make my galleries in Photoshop or Lightroom

There are numerous companies you can buy websites from:

1. Creative Motion Design
2. Clik Pic
3. Photo Biz
4. Wordpress
5. Click Booq

They all have demos too. Sign up for one, upload some pix and explore. (You can do all this without a domain name or a hosting package.)

NOTE: You will need to login to your domain name control panel and redirect your new domain name to  your new design template (company).

Back-end of my domain registrar - where I set up a redirection

Back end of my website. Where I organise pages and add photos etc:

backend of my website - its all automated

Extra: 4.  Organize a server package – to store your website info

With your new domain name at your prefered domain name provider will need to hosting package for your website. A place where the website info is kept and also space to put sub-domains (http://subdomain.example.com) and sub-directories (http://www.example.com/subdirectory) up. I use sub-directories for clients – giving them their own private website, eg click here. I forward them this link.

I dont use NetRegistry for my hosting instead use Blue Host, an american based hosting company that is mega cheap. Its been great for the last 12 months. I pay about $12 per month for unlimited usage (meaning i can upload & transfer with no limits). This is an incredible deal. You can also have a domain name through Blue Host (have them look after everything).

It took me about 12 months to get regular assisting work. I was continually networking. I am fortunate enough to have had regular work while doing all these things. I did about 15-20 hours per week as a freelance retoucher & this freed up the rest of my week to make new contacts and do my own photography work.

Here are some of the things I did to get work:

• Enthusiasm and passion really rubs off on people we meet. So talk to “everybody” you meet about what you do and be this way around them. People pick up on this and wanna help or be involved.
• Have a business card that says “assistant” and one that says photographer.
• Have an assistant website.
• Have an assistant kit. This is essentially a tool box. A bag with all your goodies in it. Your ‘kit’ may include: a light meter, gray card, gaffer tape, clamps etc (Look out for a post on “The perfect Assistant kit”).
• Write a long list of photographers in your area you like and contact them. Look at their folios online first. Email them explaining why you want to. Always follow this up with a phone call.
• Join an assistant  group such as ACMP’s Trampoline and attend their monthly meetings – great way to network.
• Go to photography seminars to meet commercial photographers, hand out cards
• Find out whom the best assistants are and ask for advice and get to know how they operate.
• Network with other industry professionals. This has really worked wonders for me. People who commonly work with photographers such as makeup artists, stylists, graphic designers.
• Familiarize yourself with equipment that photographers use. Become and expert with the industry standard gear & software, for example using Capture One – version 4. Or hire/borrow a canon 1ds mark3 for a day.
• I started using Phase One digital backs on jobs, so I wanted to become an expert with this technology. As it happened I had meet the Melbourne Phase One supplier so I started developing a working relationship with him. This has been amazing as he has recommended me many times over. I also keep in regular contact with him to see what the latest advances in tech are and also catch up on local news.
• Subscribe to Capture Magazine. This is an amazing magazine, it has a wealth of information and inspiration.
• A major one though is promoting yourself as an assistant and not a photographer. This proves to photographers that you are serious about learning.
• Dedicate a period of time to assisting, depending on your skill level this may be 12 months, or as much as 4-5 years.
• Before a big assisting job do your research. Look at the photographer’s website. If an agency gave you the job ask them questions about the photographer and what is expected from you. For example: what camera and software does the photographer use? Will there be an digi operater on the shoot? etc.
• Never give up. Be ruthless in what you do. Be super confident even though you may not feel it.
• Post ads up about yourself and your services. What makes you different from the other assistants out there? One or half page ads and put them up in studios or places where photographers hang out.
• Post ads online on photography networking websites like PICA.
• Hang-out in studios. Once you make a contact at the larger studio hang out there on sets and get to know the photographers, offer to help out. With some photographers I started out as a 2nd assistant then moved up the chain.

Once you start assisting:

1. Work as hard as you can. Be really professional. Always be busy. Some of the best assistants I know spent the whole day on their feet – always moving.
2. Go to your shoots with heaps of energy and enthusiasm, ready to learn.
3. Take notes on all your shoots. When you get home draw diagrams of your lighting setups.
4. Thank everyone you meet on the shoots and even ask for their contact details to stay in touch.
5. Keep perfect records of the jobs you do and the people you come in contact with. This will give you good records to keep in contact with important people.

Brett Odgers Seminar on LIghting @ Sun Studios