Photographing People:

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

I was reviewing a “photo site” this morning, one of those that is geared towards photographers trying to learn their craft. The article I was reading was another, in a long series of similar articles, dealing with location lighting/portraiture.

For as long as I have browsed these types of articles, I have noticed that they all seem to have one thing in common – the lighting techniques range from good to mediocre, but the photographer’s ability to capture the essence of the subject is horrific.

I write this post, not to speak poorly of other photographers, but rather to bring this issue to light. As photographers shooting portraits, our primary goal is to capture the core essence of our subjects. Yes the lighting quality is important, but lighting is only the beginning. Once the lighting is set, the real work – as a portraitist, begins – and that will be for future posts.

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Documentary Photography 101: Part 3

Posted on October 1, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

When it came time to photograph the harvesting, my luck for early morning light had expired. The mornings were reserved for hanging tobacco in the barns, and the afternoons – beginning around 2:00p.m., were reserved for harvesting. This meant the hottest temperatures of the day, and the worst light. Even at 6:00p.m., the light at this time of year was still rather high in the sky. To complicate matters, even more, my choice of angles was greatly diminished as well. The rows of tobacco go in one, of two directions, in any given field – depending on which end of the field you are standing on, and the sun, high in the sky, is almost never compatible especially when they are cutting.

For me the primary question was: how do I show this process completely? How do I emphasize the grueling conditions? Unfortunately the answers, much like the angle of the sun, were anything but compatible. I knew that I needed a low angle to dramatize that act of cutting. This meant that their faces, and even much of the plant, would be in shadow. Again, there was no option to use a flash for fill. One small blinding flash in their eyes, while swinging a knife, could have proven disastrous. This meant blocking the sun, as best I could, and keeping my exposures critical. I meter the scene with a hand held meter, only for the area I would be exposing for in my frame, and worked from there. I was also unable to “chimp”, as the sun was too bright to see much of anything on my preview screen.

I also backed away a bit, showing the relationship of two workers cutting, with a reference to the abundance waiting to be cut.

To emphasize the stacking of the tobacco, as well as the sticking of the tobacco, I continued to shoot with the 11-16mm focal lengths. Once again I tried to position myself to utilize, or minimize, the effects of the sun, while emphasizing the process unfolding before me.

As an important side note,  when I was making these images of the harvest, it was between 101 and 103 degrees Fahrenheit, and rarely a cloud in the sky. I always waited until as late in the day, as possible, because of the angle of the sun. As a result, the workers were moving slowly, at times, and visually it translated as stagnant in the photograph. This is where angle, and choice of focal length, are imperative.

At one point, while photographing them stacking the harvested plants, a storm appeared almost out of nowhere – which can prove disastrous for plants on the ground. Watching intently, as I photographed, for emotions and tell take signs of something different, I noticed one of the workers look to the sky just as he lifted to cut plants from the ground, and I released the shutter.

I was able to be in a position, for the best light, and anticipate, at the last minute, for something to happen, then catch it.

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Documentary Photography 101: Part 2

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

Moving into the fields, for planting, the light was not nearly as friendly. Fortunately the workers started early and I was able to utilize the lower angle of the early morning light.

For the majority of my documentary work I prefer to use wider lenses, so that I am forced to get close to my subjects, physically, while showing some of the surrounding environment. So many times photographers want to distance themselves, from their subjects, by using longer focal length lenses. If time allows, this can be a good way to begin the shooting process, giving your subjects an opportunity to acclimate to having a photographer around, but in the end… get close.

As with shooting in the greenhouse, my lens choice was an 18 – 55mm focal length, primarily at the 18mm position. With my DX sensor, this gave me the equivalent of a 24mm on a full frame sensor. The results were visually dramatic, as well as intimate.

Using a wider angle lens also affords me more choices of camera angles, as opposed to using telephoto lenses. In this images of the planter, I was able to get a low angle, which emphasized the trays of seedlings, but also captured the the expanse of the barren field beyond them. In showing the workers, the 18mm focal length was again essential, as it allowed me to show all of the workers, in their positions, in relationship to the machine.


Then switching to the 55mm setting, I was able to get a tight shot, with some comfortable negative space, showing the plant as it emerges from the metal wheels.

Then finally, switching back to the 18mm setting and getting low, I was able to get two, very different, dramatic angles showing the expanse of the planted field.

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Documentary Photography 101: Part 1

Posted on September 28, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

When people hear that I am a documentary photographer, and filmmaker, they become fascinated, and many times, envious. They look at my breed as adventurous, and glamorous, like the Indiana Jones of photographers, and I just have to smile for I know the truth.

Beyond the lack of glamour, it is a genre of photography that I live for. For me, it encompasses most aspects of photography: lighting, working knowledge of the tools, mastering instantaneous pre-visualization, resourcefulness, and determination.

I have always said that anyone who can master documentary photography, can, at the very least, be a master of photojournalism, travel, nature, landscape, wedding, and even portrait photography. The basic skills of a documentary photographer are essential even for making photos of the family picnic, or the family vacation, far more interesting. In my opinion, they are the skills that every photographer should learn as their foundation – regardless of the level to which they aspire.

For this post I have chosen my most recent documentary as an example of this craft. The documentary, called An American Tradition, is the story of family dark-fired tobacco farming in a small portion of middle Tennessee, which is renowned the world over for its exceptional quality.

In approaching this documentary, after doing all the research, the first thing I needed to do was decide how I wanted to tell the story – from what perspective. Once that was established I went to work, photographing.

When shooting a documentary such as this one, there is no opportunity to pose the subjects, or have them “do it again”. This is shooting on the fly. Nor did I have the luxury of saying “let’s shoot this earlier, or later, so I have better light”. I shot when they worked, and that was that.

This type of shooting teaches you, quickly, to see the light, and how to best work around it. This project also took me to extremes of lighting conditions; from the harsh mid-day light of the sun in a cloudless sky, to being inside a firing barn, with the doors wide open on one end, and closed on the other, or photographing high in the rafters where light barely penetrates and using a flash is completely out of the question.

My first task was to photograph in the greenhouse, where the tobacco plants are germinated. The lighting was somewhat controllable, in that it was evenly diffused but, for the wide shots, the plastic sheeting was always brighter than the subjects.

For one of the very first images that I made, I wanted to show the process of setting the trays. I knew that a tight shot would have worked well, but lacked the reference of the surrounding environment. My decision was to make the wide shot first then, as my subject was more comfortable with being photographed, I would move in tight. The resulting images were dramatic and captivating.

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Guerilla on the Loose:

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

As I mentioned, briefly, in a previous post, I am participating as a team leader in an upcoming “photographic shootout” at the end of October. Prior to being coerced into this, I had only vaguely heard of such an event. The more specifics I learned, the more I a bit uncomfortable with being a team leader – as this is not my [style] of shooting.

The premise of the [shootout] is that five themes will be given at 7:30 a.m., then each camera club will break into five separate groups, (one for each category), and have until 11:30 a.m. to shoot images that represent their themes.

At that point all images will be turned in, and downloaded, to each team leader’s computer. Those images will be edited down to a total of 15 images, then forwarded to one, or two, designates from that group’s camera club, at which point the images will be edited down to representative images for each theme and submitted to the shootout’s panel of judges by 2:30 p.m. for final judging.

Last night however, I had a lengthy conversation with a dear friend who will be participating in the shootout. This conversation gave me an opportunity to verbally explore this opportunity and I came to some understanding of the benefits of such an event. It also gave me the opportunity to realize the methods I would like to use as a team leader.

Much of the talk I have heard, [around the topic of this shootout], has been that of shooting hundreds of images – what I call guerilla shooting, which seems to be so prevalent among newer shooters, as well as among some seasoned pros.

The problem I perceive with this type of shooting is that there is no pure intent in creating the individual image. It becomes a matter of composing and then pressing the shutter release button and allowing the shutter to open and close in rapid succession – hoping to capture that decisive moment.

As one who has, at times, has attempted to shoot in such a fashion, I can tell you that [rarely] is the decisive moment captured. The moments just a millisecond before, or a millisecond after, are preserved in those frames but the decisive moment, in these attempts, generally becomes the illusive moment.

We are photographers, or at least that is what we profess to be, but with shooting like this, we are no more than glorified, higher-end, snapshot shooters. With this in mind, I want to encourage my team to explore their subjects, as intimately as possible, through the process of composition and capture true photographs.

By the shear translation of the term ‘photographer”, we are writers of light. The question, for me, is do we want to write a shopping list or a great novel?

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Seeing Without Color:

Posted on September 9, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

I just finished writing a post for An American Tradition – the blog site that is dedicated to my most recent documentary project. The post seemed to be one that would be of benefit on this site as well, so I have decided to post it. Following is that post:

The photographing is nearly finished, although I have no doubt that one will still find me in the fields, or in the barns, with a camera to my eye. Over the coming weeks, however, I will continue to shoot video and film the interviews as well, for the video documentary that will accompany the exhibition.

When I began this project I saw the images as being black & white. As time as progressed I found myself being drawn into the color of everything that surrounded me. A few months ago, before I returned to the fields, I found myself faced with a dilemma; “how do I combine the two?

As time went on I found myself gravitating more toward the color imagery, and had all but resigned myself to print the majority of the images as such. However, earlier this evening, all that changed. I was having coffee with a good friend of mine, Robert McCurley, solely for the purpose of catching up. It seemed that immediately the conversation turned toward An American Tradition. After several lengthy dissertations of my experiences that surrounded this documentary, Robert asked the fatal question: “Are these going to be in black & white?”

My immediate response was; “well Robert, that’s how it started out but, now I feel that color is far more powerful.” With that answer in his ears, he turned his head slightly to his left, raised an eyebrow, and respectfully questioned my answer.

With that I opened the laptop and presented him with an images that, I felt, strongly represented my case. It was an image of Jamie Head holding two freshly cut tobacco plants and looking up at a storm that was fast approaching.

As Robert held his ground, he explained to me what he saw. According to Robert, the black & white image took tobacco out of the visual equation, and allowed the image to be about the person, which is what I had declared was my intent with this project, and he was absolutely right.

We went through several other images, and in each instance – barring one, Robert’s theory was right on the money.

I had become so close to this project and I began to relate, what I saw in the fields, with the images that I was presenting. For me, as I realize now, I had allowed the tobacco plants to become as much of the subject as the people who were harvesting. I had allowed the lines to blur – in how I presented the visual story to my viewers, as they had for me as I became so close to it all.

For the past couple of hours I have been busy re-editing, and rethinking which images I will use to present this story. The scenes I have experienced in the fields have been, at times, overwhelming in their power. My desire is to give the viewers that same opportunity – and that can only be accomplished if they are permitted to know the [people] through the photographs.     **End Post**

This is crucial to being a photographer – being able to decipher the best medium to present your work in. In past posts I have talked about editing, and printing – including the importance of choosing the right papers to represent your vision. The choice I discussed in today’s post are as important, if not more important, than anything I have discussed to date.

Below are the two images that were referenced in the post. Due to their size, it may not be possible to see the nuances, but it should give some idea.  

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Introduction to Fine Art Printing – Part 4:

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

If you decide that you don’t want to use the archival pigmented inks – that you want to remain within the more traditional methods of photographic print making, there are a few options. To keep confusion from entering into this post, I am only going to discuss the basic options available. In other words I am not going to delve into the more alternative process such as albumen, cyanotype, platinum, and so on. Those I will leave for later – more specific, posts.

Ok. If you are working within the black & white genre, your basic choices are: gelatin-silver, resin-coated, or C-print. Here are the basic differences:

Gelatin-silver is a fiber-based paper that is coated with silver – that’s it. This is the most archival of the choices I’ve listed in the overall post. The processing times are longer, however, this paper can be toned, as well as processed to archival standards.

Resin-coated is a paper that is coated with a resin, then the silver emulsion is placed over the resin coating. This paper processes, and fixes, much more rapidly, however, this paper is not archival.

C-print is a paper designed for printing color photographs, but can also be used for printing black & white photographs. In act, in the majority of today’s photographic labs, all photographs, regardless of whether they are color or black & white, are printed as a C-print. The downside is that, since this paper is designed for color printing, many times a black & white image will show a color shift (usually magenta), in the final print. Also it is difficult – if not impossible, to reproduce a strong black & white contrast range using this process.

However, working with black & white emulsions, (those emulsions not already applied to a paper),  you are able to choose from almost any surface you choose. One of the most popular is applying the emulsion to aluminum, as one example.

With C-prints, a paper surface that has gained popularity over the past few years, is the metallic surface – which gives your image a metallic sheen.

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Introduction to Fine Art Printing – Part 3

Posted on September 1, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

I suppose I need to mention Giclees. Oh please… don’t get me started!

According to Worldprintmakers. com, the first official use of the term Giclee was used in the Fall of 1991, in a press release from Bartz Studio, for ArtExpo California. However the definition given in the press release was a tad inaccurate. They stated that: “Giclee is a French term describing the spraying of ink onto paper”, which has become the standard definition within the art (not just photographic) community.

The exact definition, again according to Worldprintmakers.com, is “that which is sprayed or squirted”. As much as this term is accurate, the term Giclee is more commonly used, among the French as meaning “to pee”.

The other downside of the “giclee” term, as if the previous wasn’t downside enough), is that it has come to be known, [within the art community] as something that is without value. This is predominantly because of painter who would have one of their paintings photographed, then printed via an inkjet printer onto a canvas – many times textured even further with faux brush strokes, then sell these [giclee] reproductions at prices less than the original painting. Unfortunately this method of selling [works of art] created a negative stigma that has permeated the entire art world. More unfortunate is that it created this negative stigma around ink jet – including archival pigmented ink printing, as a whole, with regard to photographs.

*Note: As of this posting, the art world still regards Archival Pigmented Ink prints as un-collectable. This is not to say that there are not collectors buying them, but rather to say that the consensus of the majority, within the collecting world, still regard this printing process as inferior, which brings me to the topic of archival quality.

According to Wilhelm Imaging Research – the world’s leading authority on archival stability of imaging, archival pigmented inks are far more archival than the C-prints that are desired by many collectors. Photographically speaking, the only thing more archival than archival pigmented inks, is a properly processed black and white gelatin-silver print.

Now, that being stated, the archival stability of archival pigmented inks is also very dependent on the paper the inks are being applied to. Different papers, even among the archival fine art papers, have different rates of aging. Which I will delve into in Part 4, posting tomorrow.

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An Introduction to Fine Art Printing – Part 1 of 4:

Posted on August 29, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

I spent three decades attempting to master the photographic darkroom. I experimented with a wide variety of developers – for both film and paper, as well as toners and alternative processes. Then the industry changed.

Granted the [wet] darkroom is still a viable process, and one that, I personally, miss very much, however, the digital darkroom has taken center stage for most photographers and photographic labs.

Much to my disappointment, when I moved to Nashville nearly five years ago, I was astounded to find that it was no longer possible to find a photographic lab that made prints directly from a negative. Everything had to be from a “digital” file.  Now, as of several weeks ago, our photographic labs are no longer processing C-41 or B&W films.

Beginning several years ago, I began to experiment with the digital darkroom – while it was still in its infancy. Since then it has grown by leaps and bounds. The real impetus was created by people like Graham Nash (from the famed Crosby, Stills, and Nash), with his Iris Ink Jet process. This was, in many ways, the driving force behind what could be possible with digital printing.

Technology has now made it possible for every photographer to print his, or her, own work – but there is a learning curve. It’s not quite as simple as making a few adjustments in Photoshop, plugging your printer’s USB into your computer, and clicking “print”.

In the same ways as the [wet] darkroom took learning, and much experimentation, the digital darkroom is no different. The one big difference is that, in the digital darkroom, once you have an ICC profile established for your paper, and your monitor calibrated, each print should be exactly the same – whether it be color or black and white. In the [wet] darkroom, there were always subtle differences in the black and white prints – which, for me, [as well as many collectors] a bonus. Each had their own nuances. And if a photographer printed one series, then returned several weeks later, or even years later, and reprinted the series, there could be substantial nuances. Digital printing has all but removed that.

Part 2 will post tomorrow…

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Introduction to Editing – Part 2 of 2: The Final Edit

Posted on August 24, 2010 by Farmerie David Robert

I wanted to leave the final editing for Part 2, because it deserves the full attention of its own post. The final edit, of course, is the “most” important.

For me, I have found that [under ideal circumstances] I like time to pass – between the moment I created an image, and the time I do my final edit, because I want to have fresh eyes. I know that I said, previously, that one needs to assume the role of editor, and leave the role of photographer behind. This is possible, in every way, except one – and, at least for me, that one remaining way can only, “best”, be diluted with the passage of time. (Remember, we are talking ideal circumstances here).

For me, when I am creating images, I am very close to the process, and to my subjects, as well as the overall story. If I did the final edit, just on the heels of shooting, there may be many that I wouldn’t choose. And the reason would be, because I would be too close to them. I would only be seeing them as I saw the images at the time of creation – narrowly focused.

Now some of you may say that, “if my pre-visualization was on, and accurate, my closeness would not be a factor. To a certain degree that is true, but many of the images I capture have only a limited amount of pre-visualization.

My pre-visualization engages to allow me to see an overview of the scene. Much like a great billiard player, he or she looks over the entire table, while focusing on the shot at hand. However, at the same time, they also need to factor in where they need the cue ball of stop – after the shot that awaits them – thereby deciding, in that moment, ow they will run the table.

This is how I see, when I enter the larger story, or picture. Much of what I capture is very much on the fly – with little or no time to rethink or calculate.

So based on this information, if I were to do my final edit too close to the time of creation, I could be very sorry later. In fact, when I am editing on the fly, I will always keep a backup of my pre-edited files, just in case.

When sufficient time has passed, I begin editing through the remaining selection – that of the the 5 star and the final-edited 4 star groupings. As I go through the images, I begin looking at which ones will be good for various needs, such as, an exhibition print, a magazine, a book, and multi-media uses. For each of these I assign a subsequent classification – and since I am using Aperture, I assign a color code based on that designation. When I have finished, I have a complete – fully edited catalog.

*As a side note, one of the things I love about Aperture is this; when I am color coding for a specific designation, and I have an image that I feel will work equally well in two, or more, of the categories, I simply create another version and code it accordingly. But here is what makes “doing this in Aperture” so cool. Each version I create is only another version by display. With Aperture’s architecture design, the overall file size of my catalog [library] has not increased – making it very storage friendly. In other words, if my catalog takes up 10gb of storage, then I decide to create, let’s say, 10 versions each, of 100 separate images, the file size of my catalog will still be 10gb.

** A second side note to this post; since I finished writing this post,  I have been invited to be a Team Leader for the Brentwood [tennessee] Camera Club’s “shootout” in Rome, Georgia in late October. I mention this because part of my charge will be to edit the images of my team – quickly. The task will be to download all of the images shot by my team – which should be hundreds apiece, and , within 15 – 20 minutes, have them edited down to 15 final images, and ready for a second review by another panel. [for further editing].

This will be a great test of my nerves and a great experiment in being catapulted completely out of my comfort zone – which is why I agreed to do it.

Donations of beer are now being accepted…

Until next time…

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