dispatches

Steadicam first try

Google DIY Steadicam and you'll find an intense little cult that nontheless has captivated me for some time. Yesterday I MacGyvered together a Strobeframe bracket, a tripod ball head, a couple of Really Right Stuff brackets, and a 2½ lb weight and took the rig to the dance.

I was able to plug my wireless into the soundboard, so I had steady audio while I travelled the room. The mike on the camera picked up ambient room sound onto the other channel. 

I'm showing a longish clip of a single tracking shot so you can see what it can do as well as some of the pitfalls. My initial take is this—it's too tempting, and it could really degrade the quality of my videos. One, because my unit (and my skill level) is not very good, but more importantly, it complicates editing.

I'm starting to gain a sense of how to shoot with the edit in mind. For example, with the dance videos, I know I need a long clean stretch of audio, which means I focus on the music for a spell. I get the long-medium-wide views of the musicians that I can cut away to. Then I capture elements of the dance. These don't have to be in sync with the music necessarily. I capture pieces that I can recombine later—the tight face shot, the swirling skirt, the clasped hand, the sea of feet, the wide view of the hall.

What I haven't a clue to is how to incorporate a steadicam take into my thinking. Which means that, tempting as the technique is, I'm probably going to leave this one in the drawer until I have a good reason to pursue it. Like after I know a lot more about the basics of video.

Steadicam trial at the Lake City contra dance from Doug Plummer on Vimeo.

Blogroll--the photo blogs

Round two, the photo blogs in my Reader. Tell me your favorites.

Amanda Koster: Amanda is a Seattle photographer of profound empathy who writes wonderfully, and doesn't update her blog often enough. Great stories, rarely about photography, but a reminder that what we bring through the lens has to come from our life.

A Photo Editor: A sometimes jaundiced perspective from the former Men's Journal photo editor. Several updates a day sometimes, which would test my limit for keeping it in the blogroll, but sometimes there's a gem in there.

Chase Jarvis Blog: Chase has more energy than you or me or anyone you know. He pretty much invented the web 2.0 mode for the photography profession, sharing how he produces  ad shoots for his outdoor apparel and equipment clients.

Doug Menuez 2.0--Go Fast, Don't Crash: Doug Menuez's blog is by far the single best read, thoughtful and full of heart. He has been at the top of his game for decades, and the depth shows. Long posts, worth every word.

Frank Petronio: Frank's work is way outside my comfort zone (portraits of young models, wearing not much) but his commitment to make work true to his acerbic heart keeps me interested. Really, I read it for the articles.

Idiotic Hat: A literate, erudite blog from a British photographer about the intersection of perception, literature, life at a university, and photography.

Musings on Photography Paul Butzi's always interesting blog on the quotidian nature of artmaking. Thoughtful, sometimes provocative, and, when he's on a rant, a great entertaining read. I always read him first.

Photo Business News & Forum: John Harrington writes one of the best blogs on being in the business of photography.

PhotoAttorney: On legal issues in photography--a must-read if you're in the profession.

Photographer's Handbook: Articles on internet marketing for photographers.

Photolucida: One of the few remaining blogs in my list that I use to maintain a connection to the fine art photo world. Most of them that follow the trend of the nano-second. Photo Lucida attempts to be a little more diverse.

Photostream: Colin Jago's contribution to that category of photo blogs about the process of seeing.

Resolve--The liveBooks Photo Blog: Largely an interview format blog with a great diversity of photographers.

Strictly Business: ASMP's blog on the range of business issues. Doesn't go very deep into any of them, but covers a lot of ground.

The Big Picture: One of the new breed of newspaper photo blogs that highlight full screen images of world events.

The Online Photographer: Mike Johnston's The Online Photographer is the most widely read photography blog out there. He does too many equipment reviews for my taste, but occasionally there's a philosophical gem of a post that keeps me reading it daily, hoping for another.

Thoughts of a Bohemian: In the past this blog has been mostly about the stock photo industry, but there's only so many ways to bemoan the self-destruction of that gang. Now it often covers legal and marketing, and occasionally an individual profile.

Vincent LaForet's Blog: It appears to have gone dormant, but for a time he offered a great window onto the life of a photographer-turning-videographer.

Blogroll, part one

Blogs come and go from my Google Reader. The ones I keep are updated regularly (but not too often), help me see the world in a way that I hadn't considered before, and don't repeat the same message endlessly. They grow and change, the way I hope I do.  Here is the first part of a list of blogs I pay attention to on a daily basis.  Next time I'll cover the photo and video blogs I follow, but here are the ones that have nothing to do with that.

http://www.davidalison.com/ I found David's blog when I made the switch to Macs a couple years ago. He is my main source of what to pay attention to regarding Mac upkeep.

http://jeffcarlson.typepad.com/thought/ A stew of computer-geek, digital photography, family life, and writing. Always different, which makes for a great blog.

http://doteduguru.com/ One of the education blogs I follow, which are largely about admissions marketing, my main photographic gig. A recent post covered digital asset management, something I'm always reminding my clients they need to get on top of. Most don't know how. This post detailed how Extensis Portfolio was a disaster for their college, but they found the right solution (for free) with Google's Picasa.

http://collegewebguy.com/ By a web designer at a public college. He has great insight on the best story telling formats for the web.

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/ James Fallows is the smartest guy I know about everything. He's the Beijing-based Atlantic correspondent, and writes about China and world events.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/ This cranky financial site keeps my panic level about the economy at a constant high alert.

http://www.danbaum.com/Nine_Lives/Blog/Blog.html A recent discovery, Dan Baum writes about the life of a writer, from both the process and professional point of view. His insights apply to any creative professional endeavor.

http://writerway.com/ A friend who writes beautifully and succinctly about the issues of being a professional scribe.

http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/ My guilty pleasure. She issues career advice and way TMI about her sex life, in sometimes equal measure. Her personal life is a train wreck, but the advice is usually spot on, except when it's way, way off base. An entertaining voyeuristic read.

http://themysterioustraveler.blogspot.com/ The Writer's Way personal site. Even the cat posts are readable.

http://traumatherapy.typepad.com/trauma_attachment_therapy/ My wife's blog about issues in psychotherapy. Really smart, cogent writing, even if you don't always understand the jargon. Lately she's been getting twice the traffic I get, not that we're competitive or anything.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ Seattle's favorite weather geek.

Part 2 in a couple days