Here’s a couple of short quotes to wet your appetite…

“It’s a romantic story,” she says. “Can you imagine? Being young, being on the road with the Rolling Stones, doing everything, and holding on tight to my camera.”

“I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul — I don’t think this is possible all of the time,” she says. “Could you imagine trying to get the soul every day?”

I highly suggest you give a listen, or at least check out the NPR article for some highlights.

Tweet

The prince Naseem Case

Some of you who are reading this may recall the Prince Naseem Car Crash pictures and the ensuing court case that followed; below I have written my involvement of the case as a freelance photographer. May bank holiday 2005, World snooker final is on at the Crucible (didn’t manage to get a press pass….again) so the Mrs had me working in the garden re building the dry stone wall, oh joy!!! Half way through this enviable task I heard a lot of sirens, and I mean loads. Having chased many a blue flashing light I could tell that there were fire engines, police cars and Ambulances, I looked towards the Mrs and said “that sounds nasty and continued my joyous task of re building the wall, about 5 minutes later I heard more sirens! Then I saw the air ambulance fly overhead. I looked pleadingly towards my better half…

Technorati Tags: professional, photography, paparazzi, tips, story

Tweet

Anyone not interested in gadgets can stop reading now, but for those of you who asked, this is the kit I use to cover a World Cup match. Like the vast majority of photographers at the tournament I’m using Canon digital cameras. You only have to look at the number of big white lenses at the pitch side to realise how dominant the brand is in professional sports photography. I use up to five Canon Eos digital camera bodies at the average match, my main cameras are two Eos1D mk2 cameras on my 500mm f4L and 200mm f1.8L long lenses. I also have my Eos1Ds mk2 attached to a fixed 35mm f1.4L wide angle and a 580ex flashgun which I keep by me in case the players celebrate right in front of me. I then place an Eos20D with a 14mm f2.8 and a borrowed Eos1D mk2n with a 16-35mm on remote controls placed at either side behind the goal on Manfrotto mini tripods. I also have a 135mm f2L and 70-200 f2.8L lenses with me in case I can’t get to sit where I want to use my preferred lenses.

professional, photographer, canon, sports, photography

Tweet

David Honl’s Weblog: Why do you need a pro DSLR?

On Monday my new 30D backup was crushed beneath me, and became destined for the scrap heap. I was covering a heated political demonstration here in Turkey and things took a painful turn for the worse. After being attacked by a group of volatile PKK supporters, thrown to the ground, kicked, beaten, and introduced to the experience of having a 1D body slammed over my head, I was face-down on the pavement with my 30D. My pro-grade 1Ds survived, even after being used to hit me over the head (ouch). On a CF card note, I was able to rescue my nearly-filled 2gb card from the ground before running for the hills (it popped out of the camera on impact).

On top of it all, I became news in all the Turkish media this week as “American journalist attacked” and spent the rest of the week fielding phone calls and doing interviews. Ughhhh.

Technorati Tags: canon, 30d, 1d, digital, camera

Tweet

I’ve been shooting everything from an evening with George Lucas at his beautiful Digital Arts Center in San Francisco’s Presidio, to the Fetish Ball in downtown San Francisco. Michael Chertoff has passed through, and so has John Travolta. I can never complain that there is no variation… But last weekend I was hired by The Learning Annex to photograph their “Real Estate Wealth Expo”, an event that drew approximately 61,500 people

Read the full thing, it makes for interesting reading. I think that sort of creative pressure wouldn’t sit well with my nervous nature but it’s fun to read about!

Technorati Tags: professional, photographer, michael, fox, celebrity, photograph, donald, trump

Tweet

Why am I talking about it now?, well the legal strength of the idea has just been put to test in court. Adam Curry the ‘POD father’ has recently taken to court a Dutch magazine for publishing pictures from his Flickr account. The magazine apparently thought that since the photos were on the internet they could do whatever they liked.

So did Adam win his case? Well let’s just say he didn’t lose. The creative commons was upheld but the magazine got away with a fine. There was no real deterrant to stop this happening again. And you and me won’t have the resources to fight back like Adam did.

Thanks for standing up for us dude

Tweet

Apple – Pro/Photo – Vincent Laforet, pg.1

There are no medals awarded for photojournalism at the Winter Olympics. But anyone watching photojournalist Vincent Laforet run with 50 pounds of equipment from the Oval Lingotto — where he’d just photographed 5000-meter speedskater Chad Hedrick winning America’s first gold medal of the 2006 Games — toward Palavela, the pairs figure skating venue, a chilly mile away, might easily believe that he was witnessing an unannounced leg of a new Olympic test sport.

Even though it is obviously there to promote Apple products I still enjoy an insight into a professional photographers working experiences.

“What gives you an advantage as a photojournalist are your wits, your eye, the amount of research you do, and the speed with which you can deliver images.”

Technorati Tags: winter, Olympics, professional, photographer, photography

Tweet

Source: Shootout

State-of-the-Art 35mm if like me you’re excited about the dramatic changes that are taking place in photography right now and want to know what’s happening at the bleeding edge, then you will likely find this of interest.

…

I chose Fuji Velvia as the film to use on the Pentax because it is the highest resolution colour film available. Not the finest grained — that honour goes to Fuji Provia 100F. But there is no colour film that can touch Velvia for resolution. The Canon was set to ISO 100, even though Velvia is rated at ISO 40. I could have set the Canon to ISO 50, but this is a reduced dynamic range setting, and in any event I was looking to primarily compare resolution, not grain. Digital has finer grain by far than film.

…

I am only left with the conclusion that I no longer retain any advantage in shooting medium format film. It’s more expensive, less convenient and produces lower quality images. The range of lenses available to me is much greater with 35mm digital, including the availability of longer lenses, wider lenses, more zooms, Image Stabilization, wider aperture primes, and tilt / shift lenses. You can see where I’m going, can’t you? At least this is the case using the tools and techniques that I have learned over the past 7 years of working digitally and the past 35 years of traditional darkroom work. Would this conclusion be any different if I used a different scanner, different film, and different medium format set-up? I can’t say for sure. I don’t think so though. Do you believe otherwise? Then please go out and do a similar test for yourself

So one photographers opinion? While he had other photographers help him in his tests this comment stands out for me (my emphasis)

For the past year I have been shooting for various magazines, – Vogue… Harper’s Bazaar…Vibe – with the Canon 1D and recently with the 1Ds. I was told by the math-bound technocrats that I could not print a double page spread with the 1D. – a Vogue spread is 11×17 – only to prove them wrong by printing a Kodak Approval print for the 1D file against the 6×7 film 200mg file drum scanned on a Crossfield. When I asked the printer to pick the Kodak Approval he thought was best; he picked the 1D Kodak Approval. No contest!

…. It is my experience that the 1Ds images appear to be almost grainless and sharper than 6×7 film. Compare prints — any size — from each format and the 1Ds print is chosen every time. — Melvin Sokolsky

I guess these are only opinions but I think if people, professionals, are making these calls now (2003 actually), how much life in general use has film got? Not much by my reckoning. Let the luddites and sentimentalists stick to the old school, my money is on digital!

Tweet