Memos From The Digital Darkroom

A couple of months ago I was photographing hot air balloons at the Festival of Balloons in Tigard, Oregon. I was walking across the wide, grassy field when I ran into fellow photographer, Daniel Payne. Daniel introduced me to his young son, who was atop a short ladder taking photos of the balloons as they gently lifted into the sky.

This photo was shot from a vantage point that requires a short ladder.

When I mentioned that the step ladder offered a great way for his son to get above the adults around him, Daniel said that he himself often carries a ladder along on photo shoots. Later on, this conversation got me to thinking about how I could use a ladder for an upcoming shoot of my own.

I really enjoy photographing bicycle racing at Alpenrose Velodrome, in southwest Portland, Oregon. With the bright colors, the speed, and the hardbodies — opportunities for interesting photography are countless. Every summer the velodrome hosts one of the best paying track racing events in the country, the Alpenrose Challenge. Top level competitors come from across the country.

There are lots of great vantage points to shoot from at the velodrome, but because of a safety fence many of them aren’t easily accessible. In the past I had contemplated bringing a ladder along, but it just seemed to be a bit over the top to haul a 6′ stepladder around. Now, after seeing Daniel’s step ladder, I realized a ladder was doable.

Two steps is all it takes to make this a great vantage point.

I visited a local Fred Meyer (variety) store to see what the options were for short ladders. They offered two  choices, both from the same manufacturer (Cosco). One cost $19 and the other was $32. The primary difference between them was their weights. The more expensive ladder weighed in at only six pounds: just twice the weight of my Canon 100 - 400mm lens. I purchased one and attached an old padded, tripod strap to it so I can easily carry it over my shoulder.

This step ladder has only two steps, with the second step being a larger platform. In many cases these two steps are all it takes to change your point of view enough to get that great shot. In the photo to the left you can see how it enabled me to shoot over the safety fence near the corner of one of the velodrome’s banked curves.

This small lightweight ladder has become a permanent part of my photography kit. I bring it along no matter where I’m shooting because it opens the door for countless vantage points, many of which completely change the feel of an image. I suggest you consider adding one of these lightweight ladders to your photo gear. After you do, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

(Guest Blog by Gary Wilson)

All photos © Gary Wilson

One of the wonderful things about photography is its rich heritage spanning evolutions of time and technology. I often rely on that heritage to try old things out in new ways for the fun of experimentation, just to keep interest alive.

Less than a month ago I was doing some on-line reading on premium medium format film cameras, which inspired me to reflect back on the legendary Hasselblad SWC line of cameras. I recalled how enthralled I was by the combination of their square format with the wide viewing perspective offered through their well-reputed 38MM Biogon lens.

Back in the heyday of film, wishful window-shopping was as close as I could come to actually owning one of these cameras. In great part, my fascination was for the implicit functionality of that particular square format camera. The camera’s auxiliary optical viewfinder was the only way to view and compose the image, adding to its simplicity. Any inconvenience in that regard however, was made up for by the system’s square format making it unnecessary to rotate the camera in order to compose for either horizontal or vertical image taking.

I still regard the square format as an appealing attribute and one that I’ve wanted to emulate with my horizontally held Canon 5D2. With some informal math, I came to realize that the 38mm Biogon’s angle of view can be well replicated by a 20MM lens on the 5D2 camera body. I need to admit at this point that an exotic Carl Zeiss 18 or 21mm lens could more aptly be viewed as the perfect lens to use to emulate the reputation and resolution equivalent of the 38mm f4.5 Hasselblad lens. However, my Canon 20mm f2.8 does a great job at about 1/4 the price.

I principally compose to fill the frame from top to bottom and allow for the left-right crop to occur post capture. This provides me with lots of room for composition. An added benefit to this digital approach is that there is now the option of post capture perspective control which wasn’t possible when shooting film with the Hasselblad SWC and the 38mm Biogon lens. The Canon lens also has the advantage of auto focus, which works quite well with this handheld approach.

All of the examples that accompany this article were taken within this last month using the method described. It should be noted that all these examples are handheld, three exposure, High Dynamic Range images, which suits my personal aesthetic. You may not be into shooting HDR, but if you are interested in exploring the look of the legendary Hasselblad SWC, think about pairing your full-frame dSLR with a 20mm lens.

Gary Wilson is a long time Portland, OR based architectural photographer, who over the many years of enthusiastically pursuing his professional career has found that it is helpful in staying flexible by dedicating time to travel and to his fine art photographic work. Over the past three years he has enjoyed exploring the various expressions of HDR work and routinely employs facets of it in his commercial architectural photography. You can learn more about Gary at http://www.garywilsonphoto.com.

A common question from clients and students is, “What’s the best device to use for calibrating my monitor?” In some ways this is an easy question to answer. I simply direct them to the devices I’ve used, such as the Spyder 3 Pro, i1 Display 2, and the Color Munki. Because I’ve used these devices, I know they can be relied on to produce consistent results. However, there are some differences in the technology used in monitor profiling devices that influences which ones are most appropriate in specific situations.

I was aware of some of the differences in profiling devices, but I never really had a complete understanding of how all of the pieces fit together. I’m happy to say that it all came together when I read an excellent post to the ColorWiki by Pat Herold, color expert from CHROMiX, Inc. in Seattle, WA.

The post, titled Profiling Devices for Monitors, can be found here: http://www.colorwiki.com/wiki/Profiling_Devices_for_Monitors.

If you’ve ever wondered what the difference is between a spectrophotometer and a colorimeter and which specific devices use these technologies: or your simply wondering which device might be best for calibrating that new iMac, you’ll want to read this article.

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When you import existing images from your hard drive into Lightroom, the folder with the files in it is listed in the Folders panel in Lightroom. However, if that folder is inside of another folder, the parent folder is most likely not listed.
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(This is a article I wrote for the Portland Metro Photographic News website. )
The first time I saw Adobe’s Lightroom, while it was in its earliest beta version, I wondered what the point of it was. I could already do everything it did in Photoshop. Why did I need to learn a new way of [...]

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