Jan 03 2011

Jill Waterman: Night, Low Light, New Year’s!

Category: Books, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 5:44 pm

About three in the morning on Saturday, 1/1/11, I found myself thinking of Jill Waterman. How could I not? As New Year’s Eve was winding down I was setting up my tripod to capture an image of the Southern Cross. For her New Year’s Eve Project, Waterman has been been recording the last (and first) day of each year since 1983 — in locations far and wide.

AfterCapture Blog_110103_Jill Waterman

New Year's Eve 2003 - Philadelphia. © Jill Waterman

Waterman also wrote the fantastic book Night and Low Light Photography, which is not only a remarkably broad and in-depth guide on the the how-tos of the topic, but also serves as as a wonderful introduction to many image makers who thrive capturing images in the night.

For a number of years, Waterman served as my editor for the magazine of the ASMP, and she always challenged with me fantastic assignments, pushing me to write timely, balanced and valuable articles for the professional community. For Waterman’s editorial guidance I will always be grateful.

AfterCapture Blog_110103_Jill Waterman_2-1As much as I have deeply respected Waterman as an editor of on topics of photography, I gained a much deeper respect for her when I reviewed Night and Low Light Photography. I was simply blown away by the feverish energy and scope of vision that was required to see such an ambitious task completed.

So, given the connection I hold among night photography, New Year’s and Jill Waterman, it didn’t surprise me that on this New Year’s Eve I found myself thinking of Waterman as I made a few nighttime exposures — just for the heck of it. After all, I had thought of Waterman when shooting the Big Dog in Mendoza, Argentina, earlier in the year.

It did come as a surprise — a very pleasant one — when I checked my email this morning and learned from Waterman that she had received some nice (and much deserved) press for her New Year’s Eve Project.

NPR’s The Picture Show blog ran “The New Year’s Eve Project: A Documentary Photo Essay” by Claire O’Neill, which features a gallery of some of Waterman’s great images. (The twelve samples prove that Waterman’s vision is focused on the soft and intimate rather than the garish and obvious.)

Waterman received more kudos for her work this year on December 31 when PDN’s Photo of the Day ran her Global Countdown — an image she captured at Scotland’s Edinburgh Castle in 1999, as one century shifted to the next and while Waterman was doing what she been driven to do for nearly three decades: photographically recording the international, nighttime festivities of New Year’s.

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Dec 17 2010

New Media Blogging Inspiration from Chase Jarvis

Category: Business & Marketing, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 8:14 am

AfterCapture Blog_101217_Chase Jarvis Blog_1Chase Jarvis is an über popular commercial photographer, and his New Media-savvy blogging is a key ingredient to his marketing and self-promotion efforts — although “effort” is not the right word. Javis blogs for the pure love of it, and his love of blogging is critical to his success with blogging. Blogging is not a chore for Jarvis, nor something he does in a calculated manner to increase his hits. Jarvis’ number of hits keep increasing because he’s eager to speak to a popular audience, and because he has something that audience wants to hear.

If you are not familiar with Jarvis’ blog, definitely take a thoughtful tour — even if Jarvis’ photography (or personality) don’t float your boat.

New Media Blogging?

I know. “New Media blogging” seems repetitive. After all, blogging is about as New Media as you can get, right? Actually, blogging is just a tool — a simple way to post content to the Web — and most of us Dead Tree Bloggers do not fully embrace the New Media spirit. Two critical ways Jarvis does is to:

• Constantly link out to peer content. Jarvis does much more than add SEO-friendly links to his posts; he features content from other creative professionals. This is good for him. In the blogosphere, the more you link out, the more people link back in.

• Makes the blogging experience interactive. This is no easy task: to make people feel involved in your blogging. One way Jarvis does so is by enticing people to comment on his posts, and then rewarding them with follow-up responses.

Popular in Flesh, Popular in the Blogosphere

Don’t try to imitate the way Jarvis blogs. Jarvis is Jarvis. You are You. The key to Jarvis’ blogging is that it is honest.

In person, Jarvis is more charismatic than most photographers will ever be (or would want to be). Jarvis once told me Continue reading “New Media Blogging Inspiration from Chase Jarvis”

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Dec 02 2010

Unpretentious Jane Goodall by Stewart Cohen

Category: AfterCapture & Rangefinder Articles, Photographers, Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 5:35 pm

“How naïve I was,” Jane Goodall recalls in Through the Window, going on to share:

As I had not had an undergraduate science education I didn’t realise that animals were not supposed to have personalities, or to think, or to feel emotions or pain . . . Not knowing, I freely made use of all those forbidden terms and concepts in my initial attempts to describe, to the best of my ability, the amazing things I had observed at Gombe.

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When I read this last night it made me think of the portrait of Goodall that Stewart Cohen made for his book Identity.

I was reading Matt Ridley’s The Agile Gene, in which Ridley notes that, “Goodall’s anthropomorphism had driven a stake through the heart of human exceptionalism.” This is important to Ridly’s notion, when comparing human beings to “lesser animals,” that:

There is no exact parallel to the human scheme. But in the animal kingdom, there is nothing exceptional in being unique. Every species is unique.

AfterCapture Blog_101007_Stewart Cohen Identity_1This made me think of another one of Cohen’s Identity subjects, Erik “Lizardman” Sprague, who in the book shares: “I generally find the claim of being unique to be rather trite since we are all by nature individuals and thus unique.” That’s nice sentiment coming from a guy who has filed his teeth to points and tattooed green scales on his face. It also seems to speak to perfectly to Cohen’s approach to Identity, and so I used it in the opening of my article reporting on his project.

Identity Beyond Symbolism

In his simple, black-and-white portrait of Goodall Cohen has included a blatant visual reference to the concept of evolution. There Goodall is, sitting in Continue reading “Unpretentious Jane Goodall by Stewart Cohen”

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Nov 01 2010

Niépce Gains Greater, Much Deserved Respect

Category: Photographers, The Industry — Ethan G. Salwen @ 12:56 pm

“But what about Niépce?”

I asked this in a post two years back while pondering who really invited photography and why there seems to be so much confusion about the issue. (Even the typically-stated date of invention — 1839 — seems to blatantly contradict the facts.) In a recent British Journal of Photography article, “New early photographic process to force history re-write,” Olivier Laurent reports that “Joseph Nicéphore Niépce’s contribution to the history of photography has been elevated after the National Media Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute revealed new findings stemming from three of Niépce’s photographic plates.”

Un Claire de Lune, c. 1827 © The Royal Photographic Society Collection at National Media Museum/SSPL.

Un Claire de Lune, c. 1827 © The Royal Photographic Society Collection at National Media Museum/SSPL.

Created by Niépce circa 1827, Un Claire de Lune is the name of the work that’s really got photographic history re-writers excited. Laurent explains that the image — truly beautiful and evocative, hardly a mere photographic experiment — was long thought to be “enhanced with etching” but that “it is actually a photograph without any hand tooling at all.”

To better understand the confusion regarding the early years of photographic history, check out my earlier post and see how Louis Daguerre usually gets pitted against William Henry Fox Talbot, while Niépce seems to get such short thrift because:

1. Apparently he was not able to demonstrate his work to the Royal Society in London. (Something about the organization being in turmoil, says that National Media Museum.)

2. He died in 1833. (Never good for standing up for one’s place in history.)

According to the National Media Museum, these facts left Niépce’s “sometimes collaborator Louis Daguerre to publicly reveal photography to the world in 1839.”

Beauty Beyond Theft

This might make it sounds like Daguerre was an opportunist and a thief, and maybe he was. But as I Continue reading “Niépce Gains Greater, Much Deserved Respect”

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Oct 29 2010

Make a Pledge to “Opening Our Eyes” — To Support, Learn, Feel Real Good

Category: Business & Marketing, Photographers, Viewpoint — Ethan G. Salwen @ 1:46 pm

AfterCapture Blog_101029_Kickstarter_1I just pledged $25 to Gail Mooney and Erin Kelly’s “Opening Our Eyes” documentary film project, and here’s three reasons you might want to:

#1. “Opening Our Eyes” is a great, worthy personal project.

#2. You’ll get a copy of the movie on DVD when completed. Sweet!

#3. This will give you a chance to see in action Kickstarter, a really cool site for funding creative projects that you very well might want to put into action one day. (And if you pledge to Mooney and Kelly, don’t you think they’ll pledge to you?)

To pledge $25, go here.

And hey, if you can’t afford the (potential) $25 donation, no worries. Just pledge a dollar! It can really help! As Mooney explains in her latest “Hybrid” blog post:

This past weekend I launched the project on Kickstarter.  Kickstarter is a website that posts creative projects for the purposes of finding funds. It’s a perfect example of crowd funding where one can donate anywhere from $1 to $10,000 to the project of their choice, and in the process make someone’s idea come to life.

I launched Opening Our Eyes on Thursday and within 3 days we reached 30 % of our goal. We still have a long way to go and have another 71 days to get fully funded.  The way Kickstarter works is that if you don’t get funded 100%, then all bets are off and you don’t receive anything.

I love this! This means I’m not just handing over $25 bucks to Mooney and Kelly. It means I’m donating $25 to a super project only if the team can raise $7,500. I’m not sure exactly why this is so attractive, but it is. Perhaps it means that I’m part of something big. Itt also means that Mooney and Kelly might be able to use my little pledge to leverage much bigger donnations, which is really cool.

AfterCapture Blog_101029_Kickstarter_2

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Oct 18 2010

Multiple Set Ups Keeps Subjects Comfortable and Candid

Category: Creative Process, In-Camera Techniques, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 12:30 pm

AfterCapture Blog_101018_Cohen Tip_1During portrait sessions we should always be sure to photograph subjects in multiple locations with different lighting set ups. Yes, this gives us more images to select from, but the biggest benefit is that it helps keep our subjects relaxed — a real maker or breaker in people photography.

This great advice comes from Stewart Cohen, whose life and “Identity” book project are the focus of a recent article by yours truly, in Rangefinder. I write:

For his still portrait work, Cohen uses multiple locations whenever possible and sets up a variety of lighting situations, even when time is tight. “This makes such a difference when working with people,” Cohen explains. “People react differently in different situations. It keeps the interaction flowing, keeps the subjects involved. Shooting frame after frame of a person in the same situation can be awkward for the subject.”

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Oct 13 2010

Best of ASMP 2010 Online

Category: Creative Process, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 7:47 am

AferCapture Blog_101013_Best_of_ASMP_2010_1Twenty passionate photographers, twenty interesting projects, twenty great interviews, all illustrated with inspiring images. The Best of ASMP 2010 is a fantastic online showcase, well conceived, smartly laid out, definitely worth quick five-minute browse, although you will likely get sucked in for a longer ride, and might want to bookmark this as a great resource for learning and motivation.

“You begin with on-camera flash and after one shoot realize how utterly terrible that approach is underground,” Bob Hower shares of the techniques he has developed over 35 years while recording mining operations. After beginning with Howser, Best of ASMP 2010 invites us into the worlds of Herbert Ascherman, Anne Hamersky and Jamey Stillings, then introduces us to twelve more photographers before ending with Matt Dayka, Tom Rossiter, Shawn G. Henry and Manjarmi Sharma.

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The American Society of Media Photographers has given us a real treat with Best of ASMP 2010. Check it out!

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Oct 08 2010

Stewart Cohen: In Search of Identity

Category: Books, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 10:43 am

AfterCapture Blog_101007_Stewart Cohen Identity_1“Stewart Cohen is a photographer here in Dallas but of world renown and he’s come out with a new book that’s got portraits of folks,” says the hyper-happy Good Morning Texas reporter as he cheerfully plugs Cohen’s book as a great, last-second Father’s Day present. (Clip below.) “Portraits of folks.” I like that. I bet Cohen did, too.

I’ve interviewed Cohen a number of times and I am always refreshed by his utterly mellow, down-to-earth manner. A commercial photographer specializing in people, Cohen earns top dollar on big jobs for big clients. Before I first talked to Cohen I assumed he might be the rushed and frantic type. However, he invariably picks up the phone with a relaxed, friendly “What’s up, man?”, and he makes it clear that he’s genuinely interested in the answer.

AfterCapture Blog_101007_Stewart Cohen Identity_2Cohen’s book with “portraits of folks” is called Identity: A Photographic Meditation from the Inside Out (Dream Editions Press). It’s a labor-of-love, personal project that Cohen worked on for ten years, only seeing it come off the press earlier this year. I tell the complete story of Cohen’s project in “In Search of Identity,“ written for the latest issue of Rangefinder. I first discussed the topic with Cohen in 2007, and I think the long-term reporting paid off. Not only am I able to share with you Cohen’s perspectives after he has gone to press, but I refer back to Cohen’s earlier perspective — when he thought he ready to go to press, but when, it turns out, he was not even ready to stop photographing for the project.

"T. Boone Pickens" by Steward Cohen.

"T. Boone Pickens" by Steward Cohen.

Throughout “In Search of Identity” I weave in a profile of Cohen, highlighting his career and trying to illuminate a bit of his identity. If you are serious about commercial portrait photography, I’m sure you will appreciate Cohen’s story, and how he remains dedicated to improving his craft after nearly three decades on the job.

I open the piece with a description of Cohen’s image of Erik “Lizardman” Sprague, and then share a quote from Sprague featured in Identity: “I generally find the claim of being unique to be rather trite since we are all by nature individuals and thus unique.”

I continue by saying:

“Sprague’s words lucidly challenge the Continue reading “Stewart Cohen: In Search of Identity”

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Oct 01 2010

Photojournalist Paula Lerner Wins Emmy Helping Reveal Veiled Suffering in Afghanistan

Category: Multimedia & Video, Photographers — Ethan G. Salwen @ 2:48 pm

A major kudos to multimedia-embracing photojournalist Paula Lerner for winning an Emmy this week for her critical contribution to to “Behind The Veil,” a powerful, sobering, in-depth multimedia feature highlighting the struggles facing women in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

“Behind The Veil” highlights the amazing potential of a multimedia reporting. Grounded in the thoughtful reporting Jessica Leeder, of “The Globe and Mail”, and built around ten videos of Afghan women sharing their plights, “Behind The Veil” depends heavily on Lerner’s images. Featured during Leeder’s voice-over, her photographs paint a broad visual picture of the topic in a way that brilliantly compliments the videos and Leeder’s reporting.

I have not yet investigated the story behind the creation of “Behind the Veil” but I’m fairly sure that Lerner made her images independently of this project, and before the project was even conceived. I say this because I heard Lerner speak about her work in Afghanistan last October at PhotoPlus, and I’ve seen a number of the images in her online portfolio. Just as important, many of Lerner’s images document moments before Afghan woman’s rights began to be abused more severely — to levels that Leeder helps illustrate are arguably worse than when the Taliban ruled the country.

Take at least a quick look at “Behind The Veil” to better understand an important story, to see multimedia harnessed to its full potential, and to respect the important photojournalism created by Lerner.

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Sep 23 2010

Adventures in Motion — The Article

Category: Creative Process, In-Camera Techniques, Multimedia & Video, Photographers, Technology Insights, The Industry — Ethan G. Salwen @ 2:32 pm

ACBlog_100900_adventures_in_motion_salwen_currents_fall2010“The ability to easily distribute video to a worldwide audience via the web is the third factor that has dramatically opened up possibilities in motion for still photographers,” I write in “Adventures in Motion: Nature photographers get serious about capturing video and producing multimedia.” Factor One, I explain, is that hi-def digital video capture has recently become so affordable. Even more critical, Factor Two occurred “in the late 1990s when professional video editing software began to run on the same computers photographers used for their digital still photography.” With this brief historical background, in “Adventures in Motion,” which I wrote for NANPA’s Currents magazine, I dive into a deeply-researched piece in which I attempt to inspire photographers to embrace multimedia and video, and to provide some fundamental advice for doing so smartly.

To get a taste of the scope of “Adventures in Motion,” check out the article’s subheads: “New Frontiers in Video Capture, Editing and Distribution,” “Proceed with Excitement and Respect,” “Having Fun and Learning By Sharing,” “Understanding New Paradigms in Publishing,” “Taking On Video Editing One Step at a Time,” “Listen Up: Sound Is King,” “It’s All About the Story,” and “Beyond the Million-Dollar Question.”

Sounds like good stuff, no? Well, if I succeed with “Adventures in Motion,” it is because I was able to bring to life the experiences the visionary, multimedia-embracing nature photographers who informed this piece: Rob Sheppard, Eric Cheng, Ian Shive, Tony Wu, Ralph Clevenger and Mary Lynn Price.

I deeply thank all of these photographers. During hours of interviews, each one shared their unique perspectives with passion and patience. They also provided invaluable feedback on drafts of the article. While their experiences differ, I was pleased to discover that they are all very much on the same page in terms of what matters for still photographers moving into motion.

Currents’ editor Niki Barrie is the unsung hero behind “Adventures in Motion.” Not only did she assign the article, but she performed some major hand-holding as I worked to refine my mess of a first draft from more than 10,000 words down to less than 4,000. Thanks, Niki!

Check It Out! — A Resource Worth Sharing With Colleagues?

I encourage you to give “Adventures in Motion” a read. Even if you well beyond “newbie” status in your adventures in motion, my hope is that you will find a resource worth sharing with colleagues.

Sooooooo?

I know you’re the opinionated type, so please share your opinionated response to “Adventures in Motion” — in a comment below. More than “Good job!” or “That sucked!”, I encourage you to enter the dialog with your experiences. Expand on what I got right, correct what I got wrong, share any critical advice I left out, pose a question that was raised, or respond to any questions raised below.

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