Neil Danton

…is not a camera setting to be used when shooting Caucasian people

This is one of the settings that a lot of people ignore, leaving a camera on “Auto” because they don’t understand it, or are just a teeny bit frightened of it.

I have no intention of going into too much detail about it at the moment, as it’s just a way of quickly referencing a couple of tricks I use on occasion, to jazz-up an image when I’m looking for something a little different.

Truth be told, I forgot to write today’s post, and so this is being done in a panic, waaay too early in the morning, before I head out for a busy day.

Before I go on then, a quick explanation of white balance (WB):

Light has a colour temperature. You might not think so, but that’s because the human eye is a wonderful creation, far more intelligent than all the electronics that camera manufacturers can jam-in to the latest cameras. When, for instance, the human eye receives a scene that isn’t natural daylight, it compensates for any colour shift and still displays white as white so it appears that the scene is “normal”.

Cameras can’t do that. Adjusting the WB setting on the camera tells it what is really white. The “auto” setting can do it to a certain extent, but not completely.

Light varies in colour temperature from warm to cold, with different types of light in different situations giving a different temperature. Even outdoor daylight varies, depending on whether it is sunlight, cloudy, shade etc. The “value” of the light is measured in Kelvin, with daylight being very roughly 5,000 to 6,000. Camera “Auto” can usually cope from about 3,000 to 7,000, but can still give differing results between one shot and the next. That’s why about 90% of the time it’s better to set the WB manually. At least then, even if the setting is slightly wrong, all the images are going to be wrong in exactly the same way, and can be easily fixed in post-production. Manually setting the WB allows a far greater range, from about 2,000 to 10,000.

An added complication is artificial light, tungsten & fluorescent, have a tint to them. Un-corrected, a scene lit with tungsten lighting will appear to the camera to be yellowy-orange, while a scene lit with fluorescent lighting will appear green.

When using flash as a primary light source it doesn’t matter an awful amount. Portable flash (strobes) are daylight balanced, so that will eliminate much of the problem.

Oh dear, I said it wasn’t going to get techie, and it’s starting to, so I’ll head myself off at the pass and move on.

The whole (original) point before I got distracted, was that occasionally I use a little trick to change the background of an indoor scene. This little trick (and the 2nd one I’ll mention in a moment) have to be used sparingly otherwise they start to look ridiculous.

Trick 1 then is to set the camera to tungsten WB when in daylight, or a mix of artificial light and daylight, which has the effect of turning the scene blue. Of course any people in the scene turn blue as well, even if it’s not very very cold. The solution to that is to light them with flash, and fire the flash through a coloured gel. In this case it’s a CTO gel that I use. CTO = Colour Temperature Orange, orange being the opposite end of the colour spectrum to blue. Oh dear, getting techie again.

So, turn an industrial scene with dubious lighting blue, light the subjects with a gel-covered flash shooting through a white umbrella, et voila:

Used sparingly it gives another option to change a scene.

Another trick, again occasional use only, is to use a wacky lens. In this case I mean a fisheye. You can usually tell when someone gets one of these as a new toy, because every image they produce will look like someone has bent every straight line in the world. I use mine 3 or 4 times a year I’d say, no more, but sometimes it works:

That’s it, got to run…

TTFN

…metaphorically and literally.

When on a commission I normally try and get the “safe” shots first, and then go for something more interesting. In this instance though, because of the timing being rapidly approaching dusk, I went the other way around.

This commission was to create some images for the launch of the Ashbourne & Purcell cup-finals week-end. These are competitions for 3rd level institutions (University age) in the sport of Camogie. Camogie is the ladies form of the men’s game of hurling with a few subtle rule changes. It looks a bit vicious with lumps of wood being flailed around, but has less injuries caused than Gaelic Football.

As always I was trying to think up something that would be a little bit different and when they sky started turning nice I knew I had the shot in mind.

So in reverse order of timing, the standard shot:

Two-light, no modifiers.

The slightly more interesting shot:

One light, white shoot through.

The nice sky (and the “oops missed shot”):

and the, well you decide:

Two-light, no modifiers.

TTFN

…or is that artefacts?

I love it when a plan comes together (where have I heard that before?).

Was commissioned last week to cover the launch of the UCC Library online guide to the archive of Murphy’s Brewery*. Worrying thing about PR Photography and anything that mentions “online” is you can end up with “Man in Suit with Laptop” images, and as they are sometimes the only thing available as a very very very last resort for a business portrait, I didn’t want to use up any of my very’s on this occasion.

*Murphy’s is a beer, actually it’s a porter (stout). There are 3 made in Ireland, the most well know worldwide is probably Guinness, made in Dublin, so we won’t talk about that any more (they do great tv ads though). The other 2 are made in Cork, Murphy’s and Beamish, both now owned by Heineken, makers of the yellow stuff. Murphy’s started producing the famous black stuff in 1856 when James J, and his 4 brothers built a purpose designed brewery. Photography and now history lessons, I’m starting to spoil you.

So I could have done the launch, and it would probably have been OK, but this is where I get that “go the extra mile” itch that I’ve mentioned before. Fortunately the client knows me well, and it didn’t take much pitching from me before we decided that creating some images featuring some of the artefacts beforehand would be a nice addition to the actual launch.

My client arranged access for me to the Library and the Brewery and I’m glad we did it, because it was fascinating stuff. Lots and lots of records as you might imagine (no, not LP’s and singles, written recorded information).

Note for younger readers: LP’s and singles were what the old folks used to listen to before you listened to your music by sticking those plastic bits in your ears, and annoying everyone around you by cranking up the volume so that everyone around you on the same bus / train was plagued by two hours of listening to Chnnk Chnnk Chnnk Chnnk Chnnk Chnnk.

Made a few images of the Librarian and Library Archivist with Tenant Agreements and a Register of Workmen from 1913 – 1914:

I then did some detail on some of the register entries. In the image below, entry 129 shows a man employed as a Watchman, earning 3s/5d and 74 years old! It’s not entirely clear whether the 3s/5d is per day / per week etc., but I did some digging around on the interwebthingy and as best as I can figure out, it’s per day. Could be wildly wrong there of course, so if you’re a historian (get real Neil, why would a historian be reading your blog), or know a historian and can enlighten me I’d be interested to find out.

3s/5d is old pound (Sterling) currency of course and equates to about 19 pence / 21 Euro cents (29c U.S. ish). I could find out by digging around (isn’t the interwebthingy wonderful – sometimes) that that would be around £60 nowadays, that’s about €68 / $90, so it wouldn’t seem wildly inaccurate (as if I’d know about accurate, I’m a photographer not an actuary).

If you can’t see the detail on the blog-sized image, you can (as always) click on the image to see it slightly larger in the feed from my image archive. It’s only a 10% difference but sometimes it helps the clarity!

I just love the flowery writing.

Note for younger readers: Writing is how the old folks used to communicate with each other b4 evry1 sttd txtng n twtrng.

The next two images show another man aged 41 employed in the Tun Room (entry 102).

The interesting part is the entry from the right-hand page of the register, where it says “Volunteered. To be re-instated if returns” and “Volunteered for active service 18/8/14″:

It’s the “to be re-instated if returns” part that intrigues me. Did he manage to return from volunteering to fight in the first world war? Or did he end up, as so many did, dying in a field in France somewhere? I have an urge to find out more now. I might make it a bit of a project to try and find out.

That’s it then. Client was delighted with the media coverage we received. Anything else I need to tell you? Oh yes, the lighting. The images with the humans were all one-light, using an Ezybox softbox, and the detail images were with 2 flashes (strobes), no light-modifiers but just pulling out the wide-angle diffuser on the 580EX to soften the light a touch. No the paper doesn’t look white (I could have made it white by adjusting the colour correction) but that’s because it’s not white. It’s from 1914 after all. You’ll probably look a bit faded when you’re 96 years old as well.

TTFN

…I’d ever ever EVER hear myself uttering the words “Well done Getty”, but I’ve just heard them emanate from my mouth.

Saw this last week, but only just had a chance to write about it:

From the Copyright Action website comes a heart-warming tale of someone finally getting their comeuppance for unauthorised use of someone else’s image.

Perhaps it’s a karma thing. Seeing as how Getty are one of the principle guilty parties responsible for screwing up many areas of professional photography, perhaps this goes someway in starting to redress the balance.

I can only hope they continue, and the internet thieves start to realise that just because it’s “there” doesn’t mean it’s free. There are plenty of free or ridiculously low-cost images available to legally licence. Unless you have explicit permission to use someone’s image, DON’T.

Photographers have to balance the need to display their images, with the fact that some people think its OK to steal them. My images may be a load of ole shite, but they’re MY ole shite, so don’t run away with the idea that because they are displayed, it’s OK to help yourself. You can nick lead of a factory roof, but if they cops catch you you’re going to be in trouble.

The internet is a photographer’s shop window. Audio-visual stores display their products in their shop windows, but it’s not OK to walk in and help yourself, just because the items “are there”.

Litigation may end up being very expensive. Alternatively, there’s always the baseball bat.

TTFN

…on a wet street.

Here’s a commercial image I think is quite nice:

Just love the rays emanating from that street light. No it wasn’t a star-filter – can you still get those? Jeez I haven’t seen one for about 10 years, or graduated filters either. I guess it’s all done in post-production nowadays, unless anyone is still using film. Remember that stuff? The rays appear solely due to the long exposure, not Photoshop (which I don’t use).

I wouldn’t normally show so much foreground, but as it had just rained I thought the wet street looked really good.

TTFN