Compositing

I've been wanting to get away from single products on plain backgrounds. I love doing it, and it's a great way to glorify some object, but it's not so good at a more complex message. I finished a series on shoes recently. This first one required a fair amount of compositing. There's compositing and then there's compositing. Personally, I think it's got pretty out of hand over the last two years, even when it's done well. It seems that compositing, much like all Photoshop activity, is best when kept to a minimum. In the case of this shot, I'm mostly using it to hide photo equipment that has to be in the shot. In the old days, you could airbrush such things out, or come up with clever ways to hide them.

I could have finessed a couple of grid spots to illuminate only the sole of the shoe.

And sometimes it's easier to handhold something, than it is to spend 10 minutes rigging it.

HDR is the distortion pedal of modern photography. A little goes a long way. But it's usually easier to do a separate capture for the sky, whatever else I'm doing.

Another benefit is flexibility. I thought I might need an underglow on the shoes, so I made this capture. I didn't end up using it.

I tried to get the dog involved, but he's very black. Also, very intent on treats, when they're around. I have a lot of respect for actual animal wranglers - I'm certainly not one.

I always try to be sensible about compositing. The old "We'll fix it in Photoshop" has too often resulted in many extra hours of retouching, so I am constantly evaluating whether it'll be more efficient to handle it on set, or later. And outside of hiding photo equipment and bringing in skies, it's usually better to do it on set.

Shooting Nothing

I worked with Art Director Adam Weisman, on a project for his portfolio. When he told me about his idea, I jumped at the chance to make some pictures about nothing. Well, space, really.

I like working with Adam a lot. He has a lot of energy, concise ideas, and he's really dedicated to faithful execution of them. We bounced some refinements off each other, and came up with a plan that included locations, props, and models. We shot these three images over two days, in the studio and on location.

It's interesting to start out talking about an idea, and to watch it to take shape as the project moves. Sometimes things that seem important early on wind up being trivial; for example, initially I thought we'd have to do the harvest shot in an orchard, because I was afraid the "harvest" idea wouldn't come through. As it turns out, it comes through fine with just a backyard lemon tree. On the other hand, we both thought from the beginning that the right props would be key, and I think that is true.

One thing learned is that it's often, counter intuitively, much faster to show someone something than it is to tell them. During shooting, when Adam would wonder what it might look like with pliers instead of solder, instead of talking about how it would look, it was much faster to rough it out and then talk about it. Similarly, we could have had a conversation about how much better the blue gloves would look than the tan gloves, or I could just switch them out. This is usually true for even large changes, like "What would this look like with completely different lighting?".

Beyond Single Objects on Plain Backgrounds

Much of what I did last year is single objects on plain backgrounds and I'm trying to push beyond that, not only because it feels too narrow (I mean, there's specializing, and then there's specializing), but because I want to work with complex ideas.

How complex? Not too...I mean this is just the idea that the shoes want to go running.

But working on this image reminded me of how I got on that single-object-on-plain-backgrounds track: it's cheap. Very cheap.

It's, uh, irritating that the year when I ought to start doing tests with larger budgets is the same year the economy falls all to pieces.

Dyson Vacuums Ad

In May, I volunteered at the San Francisco Portfolio Night. Portfolio Night is an around-the-world event that matches graduating art directors with established art directors. I volunteered to help because I thought I might be able to hook up with some budding art directors who need some of their ideas photographed.

I did in fact hook up with some. Cliff Seto is the first one that I've worked with. Cliff had an idea about shooting messes as crime scenes to advertise vacuum cleaners. We pulled this production off in a couple days - Cliff was in a hurry to get his portfolio finished so he could graduate, and I was in NYC when we started talking about it. I got a friend to loan me his house, stopped by my local pet groomer to pull dog hair from their vacuum cleaner, and Cliff got a plant. Darcy Rogers via NAOPA volunteered to assist and was super helpful.

I think the three of us got these pictures to about 90%. We really needed a stylist to go all the way, but unfortunately, I wasn't able to secure one, due to the compressed timeline (and styling budget of zero).

It was easier and harder than working without an art director. On the one hand, I had to interpret what Cliff was going for; on the other, in those moments when things stopped flowing, I could look to him for some guidance. Happily, Cliff is a good communicator, and I've learned some things to help that along (eg, asking for photographic examples, offering quick sketches).

The whole thing was a good experience - I like working on other peoples ideas. Next week I'll start shooting something with another art director from Portfolio Night.

When Is A Photo Done, Anyway?

Lately I've been coming up against a new problem: when is a photo done? Last year, there was a problem with the same name, but the answer was "About ten minutes after I think it's done." This year the answer seems to be "About an hour before I think it's done." Two years ago, I'd get to the point where I'd want to stop, which is not to be confused with having finished, and it would take a lot of effort to keep going, mainly because I didn't have a good set of options from which to choose. For example, were I to do this photo again today, I would include a rim light on his head and shoulders, to mimic the movie projector light better.

But that option didn't occur to me back then.

Working on this whiskey bottle, I got it to the point depicted on the left, then I spent an hour or so more fooling around with the smoke.

I know I could have messed around with different backgrounds, made the whiskey amber instead of black, accented the cap instead of the label, etc, so I have more options now, and that's great, but it's still not easy to tell when a photo is done.

Ideally, I'll be working with an art director, or at least a stylist and an assistant, instead of on my own. It's much easier to decide with some additional input.

It looks to me now that the smoke picture is overdone.

Come to think of it, however, the smoke one might be underdone. There's a kind of rhythm to it, a kind of "not done...not done...not done...DONE...not done...not done...not done...DONE...".

And a rhythm like that is exactly the sort of thing my intuition can easily pick up, so I get once again to the bottom line: listen to my intuition.