The Candle in the Window

Irish tradition held that a candle in your window signaled that your household as willing and able to provide a night's shelter for a traveler. Such hospitality included supper, a place to sleep out of the weather and breakfast. No payment was expected. Such kindnesses were very important to itinerant workers returning to their families for the holidays.
The tradition grew so that many modern families display candles in their windows for the holidays. I wonder if they really understand what that means? I put candles and lanterns on my windows knowing full well what may be asked of my household. We could easily afford the bed space and the meals if someone asked for that assistance. I would be skeptical, but if that's all they asked for, I'll let them in.
How many of my neighbors with candles in their windows are willing to do the same? We've become fearful of strangers. There's a lot of crazy or dangerous people out there. Horror flicks are full of them. Even the nightly news tells of such horrors.
Let's face it: Most people are honest and even a little kind. This applies to the homeless as well. For the vast majority of us, we can unbend from our suspicions long enough to be kind. That's if we're willing to take the risk.

One of My Favorite Places in the World

Red Palisades in Badlands National Park after a week of
rainy weather. I've never seen it so green!
This image was photographed with a hand-held
Kodak D812 during a light midday rain.

I love to travel.

I especially love our vagabond way my wife and I travel the United States: via towed camper. This gives us the flexibility to leave the unit so that we can explore with just the truck, pull into a rest area or a friendly merchant (Most Wal-Marts and Flying J's will let us do this.) for a quick overnight or only a nap.

Among the many places we've visited, my favorite (so far) is Badlands National Park in South Dakota, United States. This desolate and inhospitable bowl on the high prairies has a surreal beauty that changes view every few feet!

The last time we were there, rains poured on the area for the previous week. I had never seen it so green! The rain deepened the colors as it saturated the hills. No filters were necessary to enhance the otherwise subtle colors. The enhanced colors made the inconvenience of photographing in the rain worth the effort.

I hope to camp at the park a full week so I can take time to photograph more of the many moods of the Badlands. That may be a few years off.

Have studio, will travel.

How I work with a portable studio.

The studio before I got the photo backdrop.
Grey blankets served as a neutral background,
although I often would hang a decorative
Celtic knotwork panel for a portrait.

When I started doing portraiture, I saw a niche in the many events that my history club puts on, and few formal ways to document the effort and comportment of the participants.

We have a regular summer event, Warriors and Warlords or WW, which regularly draws over 600 participants from all over the Midwest, upper Plains and parts of southern Canada. My idea is to have a studio that I can literally set up in the middle of a field, control the light with various methods (which incidentally kept the studio a little cooler than outside--a plus when the Heat Index approaches or passes 100 degrees F!), and photograph my friends in their finery to display on their walls and for their friends via social media. The big plus for many was that each had an 8x10 print of their portrait within an hour at most to take home and put on his or her wall. All this for the low, low price of $40. More goodies were available if they wanted them.

Yes, I'm working cheap here. I expected an average of two sessions per hour when I was open, to amount to a score a day. I never achieved that volume. The most I ever did was eight in one day for a winter event that had a charity component, and nine for the whole four-day run of WW. There were two years at WW that I didn't have any clients! The summer heat and humidity aren't conducive to people wanting to wear layers of finery. I actually had one family rush in and settle down for their portraits, then rush out so they can change to cooler clothes! I actually have better sales during winter events, when people are already showing off their finery and are willing to be posed in a warm, comfortable space.

Such is the adjustment of my business/service model. More winter events.

To offer this service at such a ridiculous price means I have to be creative with my equipment. The most expensive pieces of my set-up were of course my camera and lenses, followed by a robust notebook computer and quality photo printer. I'm a Pentax fan from way back, and have an assortment of compatible manual lenses. I started with a K-01 body, 18-55 mm f4.5 and 50-200 mm f4.5 lenses, Tambon 65" tripod, Toshiba 15" Satellite and HP Photosmart 5220 printer. I later upgraded to a 17" Toshiba Satellite and a Pentax K-3 II body. I found a Manfrotto 100" studio tripod and three-way head in the local Pawn America for $100 and snapped that up.

For lights, I use a 68" dual 500 watt halogen work light tower bounced into a 42" reflecting umbrella for my fill light, two 1000 candlepower LED work lights and two more 1250 CP LED spot lights in hot light fixtures for my main light, all daylight balanced. I use either three colored CFL bulbs in clip lights or another 1000 CP LED daylight flood in a clip light for the backdrop light. My decorative lights and general work lights are all LED. When shooting, I use all of 7 amps, an advantage when you are limited to 15 amps.

The studio itself is a Coleman 10'x 10' canopy with a swing wall, effectively giving me a footprint of 10' x 17' with the wall raised up. I purchased a 40' wind wall set for the canopy, under which I use an assortment of power cords and junctions to redistribute power where I need it.

Lyn admiring her ring. At this point, she'd dropped over 100
pounds from the previous year, and wanted photos to show
  off her new figure.

Sunlight was first controlled with the use of fleece blankets, an outer layer of white to reflect and an inner layer of black to absorb. I've largely traded the white blankets for black-out curtains, to cut down on bulk. You can't argue with the texture of the black polyester fleece when you want a dead-black background, so I kept them. I use a photo backdrop frame that can expand to 10' wide and 10' tall with a 10' x 12' linen mottled grey backdrop. I paid full price for the backdrop and never regretted the cost.

Most of this packs into three tubs (It used to be six!), with four long bundles for the light stand, tripod and backdrop stand. The canopy has its own bag, as well as the walls and backdrop. There is a folding table, a rigger's bag with electrical cable and connections, a bushel bag of spring clips (and that still isn't enough!), folding stools and chairs.

The whole thing takes about an hour and a half to set up outside, a little less inside as I don't have to shield the walls as much.

It does make a satisfying space to work in, and was well worth the time I put into making it.

So, where was I?

Wow.
It's been nearly two years since I posted last. I'm sorry for the silence.
There is a lot to say about different things, But for now I'll say this:
I'm back!

The Photographer's Hat

ASMP Portrait taken at the
Strictly Business 3 Conference in
Chicago, April 2011.
Copyright 2011 Shawn Henry

The other day, I’d posted a new FaceBook profile picture of myself taken by a fellow photographer, Shawn Henry. It was a ¾ portrait taken in front of a white background and rendered into a black and white. The series was taken a few years back, but I asked and got permission to use the images for inclusion on things like my bio page on this blog and my website. FaceBook came later.

When my various friends saw the image for the first time (and it was the first time I used that particular image), I got the usual likes and positive comments. One stuck out: My friend and advanced amateur photographer from South Dakota, Jon “Fiskr” Larsen, mentioned that all I needed to be a photographer was a cool hat. (It is a nice looking hat, even if I say so myself.) There was the usual banter back and forth about how adding a hat instantly made a photographer and such. However, the comment got me to thinking about how much my broad brim hats are part of my photography kit.

When I started, film cameras were what we had. I had a basic SLR in my trusty Pentax K100. It was fully manual, and a work horse if there ever was such a camera. One of the foibles of pentaprism viewfinders, common in optical viewfinders like my K100, is that light can intrude from eyepiece and skew the exposure meter, making the meter read more light than there actually was coming in the lens. One simple trick to counter this is to wear a wide brim hat to eclipse the light coming in from behind you. So hats become part of my kit.

As the years rolled on, I also worked for the US National Park Service, with their famous “Smokey Bear” campaign hats. That cemented my liking for broad brim hats. I never liked the ever-present ball cap, common in the US, as they never fit my oblong head shape. Also, I didn’t like how ball caps allow my ears and the back of my neck to get sunburned. So, I was in constant search for broad brim hats that were durable, good looking and still functional to keep the sun, rain and light in control around my head.

A self-portrait while photographing in the "field,"
Olbrich Gardens in Madison, WI.
Copyright 2012 W. Clinton Hotaling

The hat pictured is one I got from Duluth Trading Company. It’s their “Albert’s Hat.” The hat is made from oiled cotton and has a fleece liner, so it’s a good winter hat for all but the most severe conditions. I have a variety of hats for summer months, but none of them are waterproof. However, they still fill the need for shade and blocking light.

My current digital cameras don’t have an optical viewfinder. They both use a two and a half or three inch LCD view screen, depending on the camera, for that purpose. The hat helps me see what on the screen in full sun. Without shade it’s almost impossible to read, something many smartphone users are finding out.

So, between the practical functions and stylish elegance, I wear hats and enjoy it. They are a permanent feature of my identity as a photographer.

Criticizing your own work

Most of the time when I shoot, I'm bracketing for exposure. So naturally I'm already tossing 1/3 to 2/3 (or more!) of my shoot on the first edit. Also, on my first edit I'm checking for sharpness. Sometimes, a really intriguing shot leaps out that breaks all the rules, so I'm open to them. 
One of my best shots was a wild motion blur of a fair midway. It was completely unintentional at the time (I thought I finished the exposure and moved my camera early.), but it worked so well that it graces my portfolio back cover. 

Lights on the Midway

Back to the first sort: I look hard at the technical aspects of the image so I don't try to invest emotionally in what would otherwise be just bad technique. 
The second sort (often a day or so later) looks at the artistic merit of the photos. I'm looking for images that "speak" to me. Often, these are the images and impressions I was trying to capture at the time. The selected pictures are deemed worthy enough of my time to perform basic adjustments and cropping. These are then the images I'd present to a client. 
The third sort selects those that I'd recommend to a client. 
The fourth sort selects those that I'd keep copies of in my presentation galleries. 
The fifth sort selects contest entries and portfolio images. 
So the questions I'm asking at each stage are these: 
First: Is the picture technically competent? If not, is it compelling enough to keep in spite of the flawed technique? (For instance, my motion blurred shot was dead on in exposure.) 
Second: Do the images tell a story? 
Third: Do the images tell the story you want to tell? 
Fourth: Is this an image that keeps drawing you back to it? Do you keep seeing more and more in it? 
Fifth: Is this an image that consistently make you say, "Oh. Wow."? 
That's how I look at my images after I've taken them. 
Granted the 10,000 hour rule still applies for looking through the camera, but you'll find after even 1000 hours that your images are improving, and you'll be willing to take informed risks that will push your work further. 
Really, if all the pictures on your card are keepers, you aren't pushing yourself enough.

So you want to make a portfolio from your pictures?

Smiles from Infinity

Recent work on my self-marketing package included producing a printed portfolio. Simple enough; I have some four thousand archived images to choose from. Some of them have to be good, if not spectacular. As it turned out, I took a lot of really good, even exceptional, pictures over the years.
So, how do I choose what will represent my style? Well, I had to sort, sort those that I sorted, and sort those again ruthlessly. 
Here's how I start my sorting:
First sort: Pull together images that speak to me in some way. Since I'm in my Archive, I've already weeded out poor, such as out of focus or badly exposed, images and those that were too marginal to fix.

Cloud Crown on a Hill

Second sort: Group images by type, such as landscapes, portraits, architecture, street scenes, and so on. Don't forget to include personal projects, as they can really reflect your style. Reject any orphans. Some images can work in multiple categories, and that's good. They make ideal transitions between portfolio sections. Some, like the cuties above, make the front cover.
Third sort: Look at each image as if it wasn't your work. Blow it up on the screen. Do a test print if you have any doubts. Reject any that become blotchy, have cluttered backgrounds or noise you just can't get rid of.
Fourth sort: Arrange your images into logical groupings. Look for repeats of the same thing, be it model, scene or general type. Do two images look similar enough to be confused for each other when viewed at a distance? If yes, remove one of them as you essentially repeated a picture.

Doorway Silhouette 

After all that, I ran the ones I picked past a trusted friend who would tell me the truth for a final sorting. 
Sometimes, it's worth the time and money to go to a personal portfolio review for a sorting by a professional art director or buyer. They really have seen the gauntlet from "Oh. My. Goodness. Where have you been?" to "Oh my goodness, please take this away." And everything in between. They can give you valuable advice as to what a good picture is, and how you can improve the way you present yourself through your images.
Now, you have something worth publishing. I set up my portfolio using MagCloud because they weren't expensive, their color matching is very good, and they could turn around an order in a fairly short time (about a week). They have a template that I used in InDesign to lay out the covers and the pages that works very well with one minor exception: the inside (towards the binding) margins on the first and last sheets inside the cover are very tight. This is a legacy of the perfect (glue) binding process. While I didn't have text cut off, I still had to move text in a bit to re-balance the margins. 

Colors of a Midway

(HP recently sold MagCloud to Blurb, so I'm inclined to get my redoes and alternate editions done sooner rather than later while the quality control at MagCloud is still in place. We'll have to see how well the color control holds up as the two become fully merged.) 
One thing I did have to do is lighten most of my pictures a touch. As good as my monitors are calibrated, images displayed on my monitors are still lighter than they'll appear in print. Lighten accordingly. Use test prints to double check.
Before sending off your baby, print spreads of facing pages. Look for unfortunate groupings or combinations, make sure your progression through each section, as well as the order of the sections, make logical sense. Adjust. Reprint. Look again. Keep doing it until you are happy with the way it flows.
Are you hoping to market your work to architectural firms? Don't lead with a section of portraiture. Travel? Get your beautiful city-scapes up front! If you are indeed marketing to different groups, then it's worth your while to have separate editions of your portfolio for each one emphasizing that subject. They really aren't that expensive to produce (less than $20 each for mine, and that included postage).
That's it in a nut shell. I hope to be wowed by your book of images in the near future.
All images above are under the copyright of W. Clinton Hotaling. Do not republish the images without written permission.