The Weekly Wrap-up compiles interesting articles published this week on Photofocus. This week we looked at how to find a photographic voice, gave a first look at the new Datacolor SpyderX Elite, went back in time to talk about capturing Hank Aaron’s historic home run, processed tones in our landscapes using Perfectly Clear and dove into Adobe’s most recent photographic trend.
Finding my photographic voice - (Editor’s note: Dave DeBaeremaeker photographs toys. His work is amazing and, believable. In this guest post, Dave shares the experiences of how he found his photographic voice and how you can too.) To me, photography is a creative endeavor. A way to express myself thru an image, and I want my images to speak to the world on my behalf, in my own voice. When I first started exploring photography I learned to speak in the voices of others, I found I was unable to speak in my own voice. I wanted to change that. That started a journey that I have been on for the past few years. I eventually found my voice, and I wanted to share my hard earned insights in hopes it will help others find their own voice in photography. The beginning When I was first starting out learning photography I was happy to be a follower. I would find images from photographers I admired and tried to make images that looked like theirs. I learned and copied many new styles and techniques. After a while, I started getting frustrated. I spent a lot of time imitating other people’s styles and techniques, and arguably I even got decently good at it. However, when I looked at those images I didn’t see myself in any of them. In retrospect, it’s not a huge surprise I was in this position. I was a really good follower! As an example, this is my very first HDR attempt. Not only was I standing in the exact same position as my mentor, I included him in my shot! I began to crave the ability to be able to speak thru the images I created. I wanted to create images that spoke for me as a person. I wanted my work to be mine, not just my interpretation of someone else. Looking for “likes” in all the wrong places When I think of pleasing the masses, I mean chasing likes on social media. More specifically judging your self worth by how others like your work. If you think about it, when I was in “follow the leader” mode, any likes I got was for imitating the style of others. There was no way I was going to be as good as them. It was a second language for me, and I spoke it with a funny accent. They were native speakers. Chasing their audiences for likes was a fool’s errand, and it left me frustrated. I started my journey doing landscape photography. I was in mentorship in The Arcanum for almost two years, chasing the perfect landscapes. I had some decent success at it. But that lingering doubt remained. Finally, after several conversations with my mentor, I finally realized what it was. My voice wasn’t really in capturing interesting scenery. It was telling stories. A few days later I presented this image to the group. This was the start of a new journey for me. A journey that led me to tell stories with my images. Stories told in my own voice. It was, for me, a brave new world. By not chasing the style of others, I was freed to explore my own likes and dislikes in my work without limitations. By consciously not chasing likes, I was free of the pressure to please others, which gave me the freedom to explore areas I never would have otherwise. At first, my work was a bit hit and miss, and, frankly, some of it sucked. If you follow this path, some of your early work will suck too. Do it anyway. I kept going. I kept sharpening my voice. I eventually grew and won over new audiences, though it wasn’t the audience I started with. It was, however, full of people who appreciated my work for its originality, and not because it looked like someone else’s. My advice: Tying yourself to the cycle of likes on social media is a trap. Concentrate on your own thoughts and feelings about your work and you will free yourself up to explore new and exciting things. What else do you like? Once I figured out that I wanted to tell stories with my photography, the next question was obviously what type of stories did I want to tell? One way I figured this out was by looking at all of the media I consumed. Ya know, the books I couldn’t put down, the movies I watched over and over again, the music that moved me. I started noticing some patterns I hadn’t internalized before, and I made a list of the things that characterized my favorite things. My list included words like dramatic, gritty, dark, sarcastic, witty, angst, struggle. Your list will likely be different, and that is perfectly acceptable, as long as its authentic to you. I started using these insights to help guide my work. As an example, LEGO was my subject of choice, and a lot of the images I had in mind revolved around LEGO in some way or another. When I thought about an image, I would consider my list of characteristics that affected me and incorporated it into my work. Here’s an example of what I am saying. I got my hands on a Star Wars AT-AT Walker LEGO model, and I wanted to shoot it. The obvious choice for shooting a giant walking machine is to shoot it walking. I had a lot of ideas, but the one I settled on fit those characteristics the best: a lonely walk thru a lonely snow ridden landscape. Where will your voice lead you?
Datacolor SpyderX Elite review and installation guide - Datacolor contacted me a few months ago about a new color calibration product they were releasing. After meeting with their PR team over a conference call, they sent me a pre-release SpyderX Elite calibration system to test. They did not compensate me for this review, nor do they expect anything specific in return. I’ve written this review as a service to our audience and as a guide to those who might use this equipment in their own workflow. Quick answer I highly recommend the SpyderX Elite and can confidently say that it does an excellent job of calibrating my monitors. It competes at the same level as the other calibration systems in the industry and is a high-end tool for professional photographers and videographers. Video review Background Datacolor released two calibration systems in February 2019. One is the SpyderX Pro that retails for $169.99 and the other is the SpyderX Elite that retails for $269.99. My tests were with the SpyderX Elite which allows advanced calibration on multiple types of computer displays and video projectors. For more about using SpyderXElite, head over to http://goto.datacolor.com/learnaboutspyder5elite The SpyderX Pro and Elite colorimeters both use a new lens-based color engine for calibration. Datacolor claims that this technology significantly increases precision, color accuracy, and low light capabilities. Datacolor also claims that the SpyderX is the easiest-to-use monitor calibration tool ever created by Datacolor. Calibrating your computer monitor is one of the most important steps you can take for producing great images, beautiful prints and/or stunning video. Knowing that your monitor is showing you accurate colors gives you the confidence to publish your content across the spectrum of visual media. I have been using screen calibration tools since I started digital photography back in 2003. I think I have used calibration tools from every company in the marketplace, including systems from X-rite, Pantone, Datacolor as well as their subsidiaries over the last 15 years. Additionally, I’ve been printing on large format printers and inkjet printers for quite sometime and have also been teaching printing workshops for almost 20 years. Most recently, I’ve been using the X-Rite i1Display Pro and ColorMunki systems for my laptop screens and desktop monitors. X-Rite makes great equipment, so I’m basing my review of the Datacolor SpyderX against another titan in the industry. SpyderX Pro vs. SpyderX Elite The Elite model does everything the Pro model does (calibration, multiple monitors, ambient light measurement, etc.) but also allows for expert-level calibration options. These include: Video and cinema calibration targets Soft proof of print output Display matching across all of your studio monitors Visual fine-tuning for side-by-side display matching The Pro model is designed for serious photographers who want a fast and easy-to-use calibration solution. The Elite model is for professional photographers and videographers who want maximum control over their color workflow. Software installation and SpyderX setup Start by opening the product box and note the website for the installation software. Type the link into your browser and download the installer package (Mac or Windows). At the end of the install, you’ll receive a notice that the software was successfully installed. This process takes just a couple of minutes. Once the software is installed, it stays open and active in your system tray. Then, plug in the SpyderX to a USB port on the computer. Launch the SpyderX software from the system tray, note that it is called SpyderXElite or SpyderX depending on the version you purchased. Follow the prompts that ask you to enter the serial number in order to receive your personal license code. After all the data is entered and your product is registered, the software will launch, taking you to the main screen. Calibration Process If the software is closed, then launch the SpyderXElite (or SpyderX) software from the system tray. Choose what you want to calibrate: Display(s) or printer/tablets. Follow the checklist to make sure your monitor is warmed up, your ambient lighting conditions are adjusted properly, the display controls are zeroed out, and the SpyderX is connected via USB. If you are using multiple monitors, choose the monitor you want to calibrate. In my case, I am going to calibrate my Dell P2715Q 4K monitor. Tell the software what type of display you are calibrating, whether it is a desktop, laptop or project. As a side note, the SpyderX system will calibrate retina monitors, 4K monitors, other high-resolution monitors and standard HD monitors. Indicate what brightness and color temperature controls your monitor offers. In my case, the Dell P2715Q has a brightness control option, so I selected that. Choose the display technology from the drop-down menu. There’s a guide that helps you figure out what type of monitor you might be using. Tell the calibration software what workflow you’ll be using. You have three choices here: Step-by-step: This walks you through each phase of the calibration process. Studio match: This helps match all of your monitors as close as possible. Expert Console: Puts all the controls on a single screen. Setup the Calibration Settings: Pick what type of calibration you’ll be doing. If this is your first calibration, then choose FullCAL. If you’ve already calibrated at least once, then choose ReCAL. If you want to quickly check the accuracy of your current calibration, then choose CheckCAL. Choose your Gamma. I recommend Gamma 2.2. Choose your White Point. I recommend 6500K. Set your brightness. 120 cd/m^2 is recommended. Place the Spyder unit face down on the desk so no light enters the screen sensor, then click the Next button. This step uses the ambient light sensor on the back of the SpyderX to measure the ambient light brightness. In my case, the system determined that the ambient light was very high, so it recommended making a change to the monitor brightness from 120 cd/m^2 (candelas per square meter) to 200 cd/m^2. I chose to accept the settings, but I also know that if I use the monitor at night when the ambient light levels are lower, I
Photographing Hank Aaron’s 715th homer - (Editor’s note: In this guest post, Atlanta photographer, Ron Sherman, recounts his Baseball Hall of Fame photo of Hank Aaron rounding the bases after hitting home run number 715 breaking Babe Ruth’s long-standing record.) The record breaker and friends On April 8, 1974, on a freelance assignment for United Press International, I was one of more than a hundred photographers at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium. That night Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s record. My position in the field level photo box was along the third base line. I made a series of images as he rounded second base. Unexpectedly, Aaron was joined in his run toward third by a pair of jubilant teenagers (Britt Gaston and Cliff Courtenay). It was one of 544 images I made that night. I didn’t know it was special until I saw it in the darkroom after the game. Other photographers had a better angle of Aaron’s home run swing, but it was my photograph (sent around the world by UPI) that captures the special celebration of his historic accomplishment. The traveling negative A couple of days after the Hank Aaron assignment, the photo director at UPI (United Press International) asked me to let the New York office borrow the negative so they could make a large print for their office. I sent it along. My life basically carried on for me after that week and I forgot about the photo. After all, there were prospects to turn into clients and assignments to cover. The negative stayed in the UPI archives until they sold them some years later to Bettmann Archives and then to Corbis Stock Photos. In 2006, I was able to retrieve my negatives from Corbis, after some negotiation. It was then that I did some research to find any other similar images from that night. My research sent me to the AP (Associated Press), Sports Illustrated, Life, Time, the Atlanta Journal/Constitution archives and a similar photo was not to be found. With at least a hundred photographers or more covering that game, I was surprised. That I was the only one to make this photo. Threats Another surprise surfaced after the game ended. There had been death threats aimed at Hank Aaron before that game. Security at the stadium included local, state, and federal police, and stadium security. I was surprised when I found about the intensity of the security that the teens had ever made it onto the field. They were arrested and then released with no charges after the game because they meant no harm to Aaron. Some years later, the boys were reunited with Aaron for a photo opportunity. Missing credit My name was never attached to that image because when UPI transmitted the photo only my initials were used in the caption. I was not aware that my image was also a large print in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum until a friend spotted it on a visit. My photo has remained unattributed for these many years because the only name on the photo was either UPI, Bettmann Archives, or Corbis. Recently, I contacted the Museum’s Photo Archivist. We came to an agreement that allows the Baseball Hall of Fame to acquire the photo for specific uses with the attribution that reads: ©Ron Sherman. About Ron Ron Sherman, assignment photographer working in Cleveland, Rochester, Florida, Milwaukee and Syracuse relocated to Atlanta, GA in 1971. Over the next four decades, his assignments for magazines included Life, Time, Newsweek, Forbes; US News and Business Week and covering personalities like Coretta Scott King, Mayor-Congressman-Ambassador Andrew Young and Governor-President Jimmy Carter. Corporate clients ranged from IBM, Coca-Cola, Georgia Power, AT&T, and the Southern Companies. See more of Ron’s work at RonSherman.com.
Back to nature trends - There’s a great piece by Adobe on their blog about visual trends, “Natural Instincts: Finding Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Wellness on Planet Earth.” Unless you’re living under a rock (which may actually be a good thing) you’re aware of the back to nature, connecting with earth trend that is making an appearance in just about every aspect of our lives lately. Consumerism and commercialism have taken us away from some of the most basic joys of life, nature and the world around us. What does this have to do with photography? As stated in Adobe’s article, the trends in decorating, in colors and in advertising are all moving toward nature, natural landscapes and more natural color palettes. Images that make us feel, help us relax and breathe, images that take us away from the everyday concrete, man-made worlds we live in. If you are a photographer selling fine art images, working with commercial accounts or selling stock then these are the types of images you should be producing and putting out there to sell. Trends in travel are also getting back to nature, exploring more destinations that involve more star-gazing, camping and fewer umbrella drinks poolside. I think photographers, in general, have mostly done this already. We tend to be a back to nature type of crowd. If you are a photographer who leads workshops and/or photography tours you may want to ditch the big city tours and start looking into some more remote/wilderness and nature orientated destinations. More and more people/photographers are looking for these types of experiences. I just like to take photos, what does all this mean for me? This is taking the trend in a different direction but you can learn from getting back to earth and use that to help improve your photography. How? By connecting with nature (and actually connecting with wherever you are). Take a half-hour, put your camera down and sit or wander in an area. Observe, watch and see what is around you. Listen to the sounds. Smell the smells, hopefully, there are no skunks around. Just be for a while. Be aware of the light, how it hits the trees, where the shadows lie. Relax and breathe. Pick up the leaves in the fall, crinkle them up in your hands, listen to that sound, feel the crispiness of them. Touch the trees, feel the bark, see the patterns it makes. Does this seem all airy-fairy, hippy-dippy? Sometimes, but being in nature feeds our souls. If you think about it, it’s where we came from. We didn’t have all this concrete, all this technology — we played outside, we rolled down hills and we connected with the earth. Maybe it wasn’t intentional or deliberate but it’s what we did. Once you’ve taken the time to take in all that is around you beyond just seeing it, pick up your camera. I guarantee you’ll take entirely different shots than you would have had you just walked into that place and started shooting. You’ll be putting what you experienced just that moment into those images. You’ll feel what you are shooting in your heart, in your being. You’ll not only see the difference in your photography if you make this a regular practice, but you’ll also feel better.
Perfecting the tones in your landscapes, or step #1 in finishing landscapes - You’ve got your foreground element, you’ve got your rule of thirds, and you’ve got striking light on your subject. Everything is looking good for you to have a terrific landscape photograph that you’ll be proud of. But, as has always been the case in photography, your work has just begun: You still need to finish your picture. The first place I take my landscape photo is Perfectly Clear Complete. PCC lets you get the tones looking just right and it does it without adding noise. Here’s my original photo. Exposure There is a Landscape preset, and if you’re a new user then it’s a good place to start. Personally, I use this app daily, so I’m very familiar with how the controls affect the picture. I like to start with all the sliders set to zero and build the effects from scratch. Pro tip: Set all the sliders to zero and save that as a custom preset for future use. In the Tone palette, activate the Exposure slider and choose Low. This is an intelligent slider which means PCC analyzes your photo and sets a good value for the amount of adjustment you choose — Low, Medium or High. That also means that Low may set the slider to 50 for one photo, and it might set it to 2 for another photo. If Low isn’t enough, try Medium. You can always move the slider yourself after you let it get started with the intelligent auto. Depth Hold on! I know that when you turn on the Exposure slider your photo probably looks a little bit washed out or flat. That’s because you need to activate the Depth slider, too. Depth brings the contrast back into your picture. There’s a button for High Contrast or High Definition. Click on both and choose the one you like, there’s no formula for which to use when. Then go back and adjust the Exposure again. Be sure to use the before/after slider to see the effect. One of my favorite things about using Perfectly Clear Complete is that the Tone section protects your photo from getting blown out and from becoming too noisy as you brighten it. Things that are already bright won’t be ruined as you slide the exposure slider up. When you brighten the picture a lot, the dark areas don’t develop too much color noise as they do when you use other apps to finish your photo. This safe control over the tones is one reason PCC is my first stop when finishing landscapes. Here’s how I ended up after using the Tone settings in PCC, compared with trying to get something similar in Lightroom, alone; it’s just not as good in Lightroom. Black Point The Black Point slider makes the blacks blacker. If you move it to the right, the darkest areas of your picture will get darker, even to the point of clipping. Since PCC is only my first stop in finishing, I usually don’t use the Black Point slider very much so that I’ve got a wider range of tones when I get to other apps. Light Diffusion Light Diffusion can be really useful. It eases the transition between light and dark areas. It reduces the overall contrast, but it does it realistically. It’s not for every picture, but I think you’ll find it useful for things like close-ups of leaves or pictures of waterfalls. Give it a click and see if you like the results. There’s also the Skin and Depth Bias slider, which is normally reserved for portraits. It adds more of the Depth contrast and also desaturates skin tones. Mess around When you use PCC, you’ll end up messing around with the Black Point and Light Diffusion, but you’ll always use the Exposure and Depth sliders. They bring better-looking contrast than any other app I’ve used, and they do it without ruining the highlights or adding noise to the shadows. Now that you’ve got the tones looking great, you may be ready to head to another app, like LuminarAI, which is where I finished off this black and white version.
