dispatches

Advice from the wife of a photographer

I have become a big fan of Alec Soth's blog. He's been writing recently about family life and photography. I mentioned it at dinner and Robin came back an hour later with this essay.

Doug has asked me to write about being the wife of a photographer.

In our early courtship, while talking about dreams for the future, Doug stated that he wanted to be a travel photographer, away from home a good part of the time. He also wanted to have children. I told him that I was interested but not set on having children and that I didn't want to be a single parent, especially if I was married. He did travel. We didn't have children. It was the right choice for us.

Advice to photographers' significant others:

• Always bring food, water, and a book. If the light becomes "perfect" (usually early or late in the day, or if it's overcast in just the right way), your photog will be captivated by it. Do insist on your right to go to the bathroom, be dropped at the hotel before the light comes in, or have your basic needs taken care of.
• Don't take it personally when he says, "The light is beautiful on you." You could be a rock, or a stump, or a wall. But he probably loves you anyway.
• Don't take it personally when you become the "foreground element". It's not about you. You're just the one that's there.
• Do take it personally, in the best way, if you become the object of many studies. Photographers connect with the world through their cameras. It is another way of being known.
• You don't have to like all of the work, if you like the photographer. Doug has one body of work that is too visually complex for my brain to process. None of this work is in the living room. If your person needs you to love every picture, send him to therapy. If you think you need to love every picture, go yourself.
• Get used to schedule changes. Your photog might find out on Tuesday that he's going to Ireland for two weeks on Thursday. Have friends to fill in the gap. Accommodations I figured out included putting in a watering system for the garden; hiring people to do some of his tasks; and letting myself be pissed about the changes, until I'm not.
• Keep in contact. In most places in the developed world, there are local cell phones for sale. Speak often. Email. Whine. Say endearments. Listen to whining. Support. Ask for support. It's good glue. We talk almost every day. I especially like to bask in Doug's excitement when he's on a shoot and it's going well. He does bliss well.
• It's okay to demand that the geek speak stops, when you've run out of patience for it. Especially if they're talking about digital workflows. It's rude for people to speak in a language not shared by others.
• It's OK to play the wife role, on occasion. I do this at openings and print sales and during the big post-shoot image processing. Other times, be who you are, more than wife. Doug is the wife at my conferences and book signings and when I'm writing. It's OK to be flexible. Don't get caught up in the role. It's not a full enough identity for anyone.
• If you're traveling together, don't think you have to be joined at the hip. Pursue your own interests, then meet later. Do ask your person to leave the camera in the room or in the bag for a meal or an evening. Suggesting that making contact with you might allow your photog to "get lucky" can help this occur. It works for me.
• If he's been gone for a long time, and you've had the house to yourself, expect conflict on re-entry. It's normal. It's predictable. Just have it. He's invading your space, after all.
• Don’t worry about the "Bridges of Madison County" scenario. You know how he really is.

A story: Several years ago, outside of Banff, after a full day of shooting, the light changed and Doug became enchanted. I was really hungry. After 45 minutes, I demanded to be driven into town for food. Reluctantly, Doug packed up his gear, and we drove to a 2nd-floor sushi bar. I was facing the window. The light was magical. We ordered anyway. Before the fish came, I saw a rainbow over Mount Rundle. I said, "Doug, get your gear and get out there." He did. 20 minutes later he returned. Three minutes later, the second rainbow appeared, arcing over the other. "Get back out there, now!" The waiter didn't know what was going on. He kept asking if everything was alright. He didn't understand my explanation: "My husband is a photographer."

Converting images for web display

A reader asked me about jpg conversions for web viewing. Specifically, how not to have them look washed out and a mess. There are lots of people who know more about this than I do, but I’ll share what I know. There are two issues to address—color and sharpness.

A mistake people frequently make is to choose the wrong color space for web display. Lots of people don’t know from color space. The simple explanation is that the color space of a photographic file describes the numerical values of the colors. If you have a file in a color space that’s really big (meaning, the space it occupies if you map out those numerical values in a 3D graph), but the color space of your output is smaller (like a computer monitor, or an offset press), you need a translator. It's called a profile.

No monitor under $6000 can display any color space other than sRGB. In a color management environment, in applications that use color management, your monitor profile converts all color spaces to look pretty much alike. You use output profiles to accurately translate what you see on a monitor to what you’ll see on a device. Step outside of a color managed environment, like the web, and it’s a different world.

Here is an example. Photo on the left was a RAW file (of my dad, by the way) that I saved in sRGB, a tiny space. On the right I saved it in ProPhoto, a huge space. That’s the first element. If you’re shooting in RAW, convert to sRGB when you open the file. If you have a tiff file from elsewhere, check to see what color space it’s in, then convert to sRGB.

The second element to good looking web photos is how you shrink them down and how you sharpen them on the way. I’m still working my way through Bruce Fraser’s sharpening book, so I don’t know the right way to do it. But I have my way. My conservative approach is the 10% method. I open the file (in RAW convertor I use the smallest file size, 1536x1024, as ACR has a good sharpening algorythm for shrinking files). Then in the Image Size dialog you pick a percentage figure instead of a pixel figure. I type in 90%. And do that again and again until I have the size I want.

Along the way, if I see the image start to fuzz up, I’ll run an Unsharp Mask filter. I use a very low radius (.9 pixel), and set the sharpening to where I can barely see an effect. Often I’m as low as 15 or 20%. I usually run Unsharp after three or four downsizings.

The top image is resized in one fell swoop. The bottom is in 10% increments.

This is, of course, tedious. If you save to the same size all the time, you can write a Photoshop action and assign a keyboard shortcut for it. And, truth be told, I don’t strictly follow this regime all the time. I often make bigger jumps in size. Or use Bicubic Sharper if I'm really in a hurry. There’s an issue too with horizontal and vertical images when you’re batching it, for which I use the File—Automate—Fit Image command. I shrink at 10% intervals to the longest dimension then run the Fit Image command for the rest and sharpen at the end.

Camera bags for sale

I collect camera bags the way some people collect shoes. Someday I will find the perfect one. An unavoidable consequence of this obsession is that I have a bunch of bags I never use.

Before I go the Ebay route, I want to offer loyal readers the opportunity to take a look first and see if anything strikes your fancy. Just because it didn’t work for me doesn’t mean it’s not your perfect bag. These are all lightly used bags. Make me an offer via email (there’s an encrypted "email me" link to your right). We'll settle via Paypal. If I get competing offers the next time I check my email, I’ll take the highest.

Lowepro Slingshot 200AW. Hardly used. Could never figure out how this one-strap backpack thing worked (I think you have to be under 30), but it seems to be one of the most popular bags out there. Link to product specs here.

Tamrac Turbo CyberPro 5618 (what a studly-sounding name for a bag!). Big, deep, holds a laptop. Holds a lot of gear. A whole lot of gear. Try lifting it when it holds a lot of gear. Specs here (but you'll have to search through the site to get to the right page). 

Lowepro CompuTrekker Plus AW. This is a big backpack style bag that also holds a computer. I’m almost reluctant to part with this one, but it duplicates about three other bags that I have. Cool feature is the tripod pouch on the back. Specs here.

Old Tamrac fanny pack. This one’s ancient, yet hardly used. Ultra simple—one big compartment (lined with Velcro), one outside zippered pouch. Nothing else to it.

Ivory-billed Woodpeckers in Florida?

Looks pretty convincing to me.

http://www.ace-eco.org/vol1/iss3/art2/

Scam alert

Has anyone else gotten one of these 419 scam letters from South Africa? I got this last night.

Hello,

While questing for better artworks for our new house, I came across your work, and I must say you are doing a great job over there.  I will like to  proceed with the purchase of these lovely and fascinating works for our new apartment in Cape Town.

New England Contras ,  Australia  and  Sticks

Please let me know if the artworks are still in your stock for sale and the your asking price for each works.

On the shipment, I have already forwarded your contact information to the shipping agency that will be handling the shipment of our other house items to get in touch with you. Please let me know if they have contacted you.

On payment, I will like to pay you with a Certified US Cashier  Check.

Hope to hear from you soon on how to proceed on the purchase.

Regards,
Rosa

They appear to be targeting artists, with the promise of buying several items from your website. A run through SpamCop showed a forged IP. Benny Shaboy of Arts Opportunity Newsletter reports getting four of them in the last week, and is warning his subscribers. What will happen is that the cashier’s check will be counterfeit but before the victim finds that out the buyer will report a catastrophe (the apartment burns down) and ask for a refund.

Here’s a thread on a artists’ forum detailing various permutations of this scam.

Santa Fe Competitions

Another competition for the list: Santa Fe Center for Photography’s "Project Competition" and Singular Image." Deadline is December 15. This is one of the more important and prestigious awards out there.

Also, in early October applications will be available for Review Santa Fe, which is becoming the third major player in US photo review events, after Houston’s Fotofest/Meeting Place and Portland’s Photo Lucida. These two are first-come first-served to get in (two weeks ago, at 6am PDT on the dot, I was hitting the refresh button for my browser again and again to nab a spot for next April’s Photo Lucida. I’m sure I would have been locked out if I’d waited two more minutes). Photo Santa Fe is vetted by a jury—the best 100 make it in. If you have any aspirations as a fine art photographer, these review events are mandatory.

Five hundred Daily Photos

A year and a half ago I started the Daily Photo. Every day I pick up my camera, and every day I post one of the photographs I took that day. I have reached a milestone, one of those neat odometer-turning moments. Today I posted the 500th photo.

The work in aggregate forms a synchronistic sequence of my daily life. The point I make often is that  extraordinary photographs are rarely the result of extraordinary circumstances or exotic locale. They are the result of attentiveness to the ordinary moments of your life. The Daily Photo has become my discipline to pay attention to my mundane circumstances and extract the most interesting photo I can from it.

It is part of the daily rhythm now. If I haven’t made a photograph by mid-afternoon, I make myself take a break from the computer and look at what is interesting around the house. I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the sunflowers lately. I’m loving their trajectory into senescence.

I have a habitual routine to my photo processing now. I download the card, often to the laptop so I can sit upstairs or in the garden. I use Photo Mechanic to ingest the files, and I immediately trash the bad ones before I have second thoughts. Then I open up Bridge. The first thing I do is batch rename the keepers with a date and sequence code. Today’s photograph is 20060924_005. Then I add my copyright info to the batch in the metadata pane, using a template that automatically enters all the information. If I were a better person I would caption everything at this point too, but I’m not. Then I open up the whole batch in Adobe Raw Convertor and process all the files. Again, I do everything in batches. Everything gets a custom calibration depending on the camera body, then a batch color temperture, then the exposure corrections. When I’m done with that I look at the now-processed images in Bridge using the Preview pane, and I star the semi-finalists, usually about 5 or 6 photos. If Robin’s around I’ll ask her which is her favorite, and sometimes I listen to her. I have an action written in Photoshop, with a keyboard shortcut, that converts the file to the right sized jpg, then I upload it to the site. Typically the entire routine takes about 20 minutes.

It was a low-key day today. I was a little under the weather, and barely left the house. The garden became today’s subject. Here is what I picked from.

Search string free verse

So, the new website has been live for about a month. How are people finding me? Are they people curious about fine art photography? Do they appreciate my black and white work, or my panoramic imagery? Here are my top five search strings.

• broken clavicle
  ayer's rock
  broken scapula
  doug plummer
  broken collar bone x-ray

Apparently I’m a hit with broken bike riders. It’s all because I wrote a piece about my bike accident, 8 years ago. It’s been in my archives ever since. Have a bike accident, Google your broken shoulder, and apparently I come up with great frequency (however, I just tried it with these terms and I couldn’t find me). Nonetheless, I get about an email a week from some bicyclist with a broken shoulder who wants to know what he (it’s always a he) should do. An osteopathic college is even using my account as a teaching aid for their students.

Ayer’s Rock? I took a trip to Australia in 1996, and the travelogue has been buried deep in the sedimentary layers of the website ever since. I still get emails asking for trip advice.

The search terms for Dispatches has more variety. Typepad does something amazing regarding the search engines: I’m always in the top ten in any of these search strings. Here are the ten most recent.

• museo silver rag epson 2400
  common language for keywording photography, peter krogh
  ooh that feels good
  snowy owl sightings skagit
  tune sets contra dance
  naked parade fremont
  fremont solstice painting party
  bare breast in art
  "no connectivity" bubble wireless hotel
  black and white with epson 4800

A poetic mix, don’t you think? Maybe I should try reading it at a slam.

Look at "Surviving Refinement"

There is a great discussion going on at Alex Soth’s blog on refinement and growth as an artist. He gives the best analysis of the trajectory of Annie Liebovitz’s work I’ve seen. Be sure to follow the link to William Wegman’s early videos.

Competition deadlines I've not yet missed

Here is a non-comprehensive list of competitions I’m keeping an eye on. I have a bad habit of noticing the deadline the day before it's due, then FedExing off the work in a hurry. When I see that a deadline has passed, I’m usually relieved: Don’t have to worry about that one anymore! Let me know of any important competitions that I've missed.

The Center for Fine Art Photography’s 2006 International Exhibition of Fine Art Photography is accepting entries until September 26. No specific theme. Jurer is Philip Brookman, Senior Curator of Photography and Media Arts for The Corcoran Gallery of Art. Go to http://www.c4fap.org/

Black and White Magazine’s Portfolio Contest is open now through November 15. This appears to be the only way now to get a spread in the magazine. Details at http://www.bandwmag.com/contest/index.html

Silver Eye Center for Photography in Pittsburgh, PA has a multitude of exhibit and fellowship possibilities in their Call for Entries section, due October 7. Part of the application process is that you join the Center—very clever. Details here: http://www.silvereye.org/HomePage.html

Photoworkshops.com has a page linking to various photo contests. Open right now, to September 30, is the Canon National Parks Photo Contest.

Photo District News always seems to have a contest going. Weddings appears to be the one happening now.

Fotophiles’s Orville Robertson sends out an occasional email about the most obscure photo competitions that I never see publicized anywhere else. Send him a note and ask him to add you to the list. His email is listed on their About page.

Shot’s Magazine’s Annual Portfolio Issue is now open for entries until November 3. Details here: http://www.shotsmag.com/

In Europe there's a whole other universe of photo contests that hand you money if you win. One that's open now is the Al-Thani Award for Photography with the special theme of "Movement". $40,000 cash prizes and an invitation to Qatar for the winners. Deadline November 13, details here: http://www.supercircuit.at/

There are two newsletters worth the nominal subscription price if you want to keep up on these things. One is Benny Shaboy’s Arts Opportunities Monthly, an email newsletter with art exhibit, competition, fellowships and public art calls. The other is Artdeadline.com, an internet only database with a confusing interface, saved only by a keyword search function. The two newsletters often have listings that appear in only one of them.