Jordi Valls at the Centre Pompidou

Appearing as his performance artist alter ego, Vagina Dentata Organ, the Catalan surrealist Jordi Valls will make a one off appearance at the Centre Pompidou on 17 April 2013. This is to coincide with the presentation of Albert Serra’s latest feature film, “Els Tres Porquets” (The Three Little Piggies) that is more than 100 hours long and deals with the themes of Hitler, Goethe and Fassbinder.

I’ve had a long and fruitful personal and professional relationship with Jordi going back many years. we have collaborated photographically more than once producing visually striking images in both colour and black & white. In between times we’ve shared food, wine and dry Martinis at the American Bar of the Savoy Hotel.

This image was made by shooting on transparency film then processing it as if it where a negative to give false colour rendition before hand printing it onto photographic paper. The unpredictability of the method means that the final result can only be ascertained from a modicum previous experience, the rest is down to chance. This image was made entirely in camera, processed by Metro Imaging, printed by my Galician friend Carlos.

Details: Hasselblad Flex Body, 50mm Distagon, 1/60sec, f4. Kodak Ektachrome E100VS X-Processed in C41

Why QP Cards?

I started my photography career with analogue and the guys who I assisted and from whom I learnt; Gered Mankowitz, Dave Sherwin, Red Saunders, Gil Galvin and others, taught me the importance of accurately exposing film in camera.

Most images were being made on E6 stock; Kodak Ektachrome 64 and later Fuji 50D then Provia 100, the latitude for error was only about 2/3rd of a stop and over-exposure was not a possibility. Therefore it was fundamental to my practice to learn to correctly use the exposure meter, proof using Polaroid (later Fuji Instant) then relate that exposure to the film. It was common that films varied in colour caste and speed rating so each film batch would vary and needed to be compensated for in camera.

I still have a box of Polaroids in the attic of me posing in all sorts of sets and locations with the exposure and lighting diagram scribbled on the reverse.

When I switched to digital I began using QP Cards as a way of gauging and refining exposure. I felt the need to continue with a rigorous method of determining accurate exposure yet rather than examine Polaroids I now find myself judging the QP Card. I do this on the camera screen, in conjunction with the histogram and on a computer monitor when shooting tethered.

Shoot with test frame selected

With the eyedropper tool selected I neutralise White Balance by clicking on the grey square of the QP Cards.

Eye dropper tool selected

Then make any additional minor adjustments via the Tool Tabs for Exposure, Black & White conversion, etc.

Tool Tabs bar for additional adjustments

Prior to copying the adjustments.

Copy adjustments

Selecting all the relevant files & applying the saved adjustments to the entire batch.

Apply adjustments

The beauty of this is the way that it simplifies and speeds up my workflow.

I use Capture One Pro 7 for my image management but Adobe Lightroom is just as suitable.

Remember that QP Cards are not fool proof, nothing is, but then neither is a histogram, a flashmeter or even a Polaroid. You need to combine all of these elements together plus your own innate experience of your camera or film and different lighting situations.

Entrance to disused Cruise Missile Bunker, East Anglia
© Julian Hawkins 2013

Details: Nikon D600, 17 – 35mm, ISO 200, 1/2sec , f10

Daydreaming

Reblogged from a solo affair:

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I usually don't write anything in my daydream posts. But I'd like to dedicate this special post to my co-worker, Katie. Although Katie is a long-time supporter of my blog, she loathes my daydreaming posts. In fact, when she opens up her e-mail to discover that it's a daydream post, this is what I hear through the office, "d-d-daydreaming! Ugh!

Read more… 10 more words

Downloading Capture One Pro 7

In preparation for January and beginning to use the Phase One camera system you ought to be downloading the Capture One software, installing on your Mac & getting a feel for how it works.

Here’s how to do it….

Go to the download page of the Capture One URL

Capture One Pro 7 download

Then add your email address as prompted and click the download button. The file should go to your downloads folder then open it up and copy to the ‘Applications’ folder.

When you open Capture One for the first you’ll see this dialogue box…

Capture One initial dialogue box

Select the ‘Run DB’ option. This will allow you to process the RAW files that the Phase generates but not those created by a third party camera such as a Nikon or Canon.

Remember that the Phase doesn’t generate anything but RAW’s!

When running Capture One make a point of quitting any unnecessary applications otherwise you may find that you machine crashes.

My opinion of Capture One, for what it’s worth – it’s the business! I find it easy and intuitive to use.

Photographic Exposure – a simple guide

This is a post intended for my BA students but others may find it useful too.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE

This is controlled by 3 different though inter-related methods:

1. ISO

2. Shutter speed

3. Aperture

Finger

ISO

This is the speed or sensitivity of the camera’s sensor & is selected by the photographer. Formally it was the sensitivity of the film that you chose to load into the camera.

At the time of writing (Sep 2012) most Nikon DSLR’s use 200 ISO as their base position whereas Canon’s begin at 100 ISO (though higher spec models have a greater range).

The lower the ISO value that is selected the less the sensitivity to light that the sensor will have and the less the electronic noise/interference that will result.

As a general rule you choose a low ISO when you have a lot of light to work with and you increase the ISO to higher values as lighting conditions become darker.

The progression of ISO values you can expect to find on a DSLR are:

100   200   400   800   1600   3200   6400 +

Each time the ISO value doubles or halves this is referred to as making an adjustment that is equivalent to 1 f-stop (more on this later).

On film the common ISO progressions are:

50   100   200   400   800   1600   3200   6400 +

Offerings at San Andrés

SHUTTER SPEED

This is the time for which the shutter is open and the sensor or  film is exposed to light.

Shutter speeds are referred to as being either slow (when the sutter is open for a longer time) and fast (when the shutter is open for a short time).

You select the speed to suit what you are wanting to achieve as well as for the conditions under which you are working.

As a general rule:

Slow speeds may result in camera shake so think about using a tripod.

Fast speeds for action photography where a clear, concise image is needed.

The progression is:

< 15sec  8 sec  4 sec  2 sec  1sec  1/2   1/4   1/8   1/15   1/30   1/60   1/125   1/250  1/500   1/1000   1/2000 >

There will also be a ‘B’ (bulb) setting. This allows you to open the shutter and it will remain open until you release it.

Some cameras &/or lenses have a ‘T’ (time) setting where you press once to open and again to close the shutter.

Both ‘B’ and ‘T’ as well as speeds slower than 1/8 sec should be used in conjunction with a cable release.

Jazz for Sax

APERTURE

This is the third (and sometimes most confusing) method for controlling exposure.

This refers to the diameter of the aperture formed by the iris diaphragm, which is a series mechanical blades built into the camera lens.

The diameter of this aperture is expressed as an f-number (f-no).

There is a set progression of f-no’s & each time you change this number you increase or decrease the amount of exposure by 1 f-stop. Thus the photographic convention of expressing exposure in f-stops. This is the inverse square law in action.

The size of the lens aperture influences both overall exposure AND the amount of subject that is in ‘acceptably’ sharp  focus – referred to as ‘Depth of Field’.

As photographers we need to consider how much depth of field we require in order to be able to achieve a given result. This in turn will influence the f-no we will want to select.

When the lens is fully open to it’s widest aperture there will be very little depth of field, when stopped down to a narrow (or small) aperture you will achieve greater depth of field.

Yet more confusion comes about because a wide aperture has a low numerical value (f1.4 or 2.8) whereas a small aperture has a high numeric value (f22).

Older, non auto-fucus lenses, will have their range of f-no’s inscribed on the barrel and sometimes also the intermediate positions which may be half of third f-stops. Thus you will hear people talk in terms of fractions of a stop when considering exposure.

The standard f-no progression is:

< f1.4   f2   f2.8   f4   f5.6   f8   f11   f16   f22   f32   f45   f64   f90   >

Beware though when using a DSLR. These cameras express the intervening fractional values as f-stops & this causes added confusion. On your cameras you will see f-no’s such as f9, f14, etc. But you will not see these marked on a lens barrel or a lightmeter.

In fact modern light/flahmeters will read a full f-stop followed by fractional units in tenths. So it just got more confusing!

An example of a lightmeter reading: 1/125 sec   f5.6 9

This translates as a shutter speed of 1/125th second with an aperture that is f5.6 & 9/10.

Your camera doesn’t work in tenths (yet!) so you have to be prepared to compromise & rounding up or down to the nearest full f-stop which, in this case, is f8 or the third of an f-stop interval if that is closest.

In actual fact a 1/10th of an f-stop is not going to make a huge difference to your exposure & if necessary can be adjusted in post.

Nighttime on the M11 motorway

Use these notes as a general guide, read around the subject for yourself & experiment so that this becomes familiar.

Further reading:

Diprose, G & Robbins, J (2012) Photography: The New Basics, Thames & Hudson

A first class read, thorough, easy to follow

Adams, A (1981) The Camera, New York Graphics Society

Old school and very technical, the best there is on the subject

I bloody love this photo (dont know quite why though).

Reblogged from Celine Marchbank:

Riding On…..From Here To Eternity

Why was I drawn to become a portrait photographer? I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked myself this question.

Bryonie Porter

In part I chose this career because deep down I know that I’ve a strong voyeuristic streak. I like the lives of others, I want to get on the inside, to be nosey, to stand within someone else’s skin and feel their life. And this has been the profession that allows me a way into those spaces and experiences that may prove difficult to achieve in other ways.

Noel Richardson

Some time ago I decided to embark on a very long personal project to document the UK motorcycle community as it was at that time. So I spent three long years photographing as many bikers as I could manage to persuade into my studio to pose with their machines. I had a connection to this world because I, too, had ridden for many years until my driving was curtailed by the onset of epilepsy in my twenties.

Joelle & Calypso (after Jean Cocteau)

I chose to work all of these as a studio series with a standard lighting set-up and background throughout. I was particularly inspired by the work of August Sander’s series of photographs, ‘People of the 20th Century’.

Dan Tze

My starting point was a background and lighting plan. I commissioned a large, painted, mottled canvas which dropped the full height of the studio and then ran out onto the floor and had sufficient slack to allow me to add folds & still fill the picture frame when working on a wide angle lens. It is 7 x 4 meters.

Two Kevs

The lighting consisted of an Elinchrom A2 head with 60cm softbox high above the camera and running from an Elinchrom 202 pack. A large ‘V’ reflector made from two 8ft x 4ft flats on the left out of which runs an Elinchrom 50 head and finally a large 8ft x 4ft polyboard reflector beneath and in front of the camera. I needed something that was simple, easy to repeat, quick to assemble and would work successfully for both individuals and small groups.

Ani Bhana & Edward

The shots were made using either a Hasselblad 500C/M usually with a 50mm lens but sometimes an 80mm. With this camera I shot Ilford FP4 Plus black and white negative. My other approach was to occasionally use a Horseman monorail camera and a 150mm lens to make black and white Polaroid negatives from either Type 55 or Type 665 film. In actual fact I used this method as much as the medium format approach.

Deno with a ‘ratted’ Honda CX500

The great advantage of the Polaroid pos/neg material was that I was able to solarise the negative. I did this by cutting the standard processing time in half, peeling the film, re-expossing the resulting under-processed negative using a speedlight on low power, then leaving the negative in a dark box to continue developing. After another 2 minutes I’d clear it using a bath of sodium sulphite to find an image with properly exposed highlights but re-exposed and thus negative shadow areas.

Vic Dickens with ‘The Mod Machine’

Finding people was the fun part. Understanding that all magazines are always on the lookout for free material I began by shooting a small number of friends and with these initial shots  put together a press-pack for the bike & scootering press. All the magazines published my images and contact details and the phone didn’t stop ringing.  This was done when the internet was in it’s infancy so social media was still just a dream.

Nikki Thomson & Rebecca Stevenson

The beauty of it was that the people just kept coming and the project developed a life of it’s own. The stories of peoples lives, events, journeys, near death experiences, love, loss, sorrow, sadness and joy were a pleasure to listen to and mirrored many of my own experiences. I lost count of the number of cups of tea that were consumed during this process but I do know that film and processing cost me close to £10,000 (€15,000 at the time) and that was without print costs.

Hairy, Scary, Ball-Buggering Bob from Barnet

In retrospect I have no regrets. I never succeeded in publishing it as a book yet I learnt an invaluable amount about my own creative process and the images that found there way into my portfolios generated interest from clients and thus additional commissioned work.

After almost 500 individuals had posed I called it a day.

All images © Julian Hawkins

Details:

Hasselblad 500C/M, 50mm or 80mm, Ilford FP4 Plus @ 125 ISO, 1/125sec, f11 1/2

Horseman 450LE monorail, 150mm, Polaroid T55 @ 50 ISO or Polaroid T665 @ 75 ISO, 1/125 sec, f11 1/2 (flash power increased to compensate for slower speed)

Ref: Adams A, (1963), Polaroid Land Photography Manual, Morgan & Morgan (out of print)