We’re very excited that our KelbyOne The Art of Air to Air has been released. Filmed at Minot Aero Center with my good friends, we had fun producing what we think is a killer class. All that you need to know to get to and successfully have your first air to air mission is included. Happy Skies!
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Expanding our photography demands we expand our world. We all have those things we love to photograph, that’s what gets us out in the predawn when common sense tells you to pull the covers over your head. How to you expand your photography? There are actually many, many ways to do this and one of my personal favorites is going to some place that is not on my radar. You are probably saying that an aviation museum might not be on my radar, but they actually aren’t. On our way up to Cripple Creek, we had a spare couple of hours so we dropped in on the Wings Over the Rockies air & space museum. I only knew about them because of the video you see below. Now, how does all of this expand your photography
If you don’t visit such museums, then you’re pushing your ability to see subjects. You can’t use a tripod so you have to push your handholding abilities. Uncomfortable with White Balance selection and mixed lighting, this will push you. How about having to eliminate elements in a busy frame with the only option is physically moving? These and so many self taught lessons are waiting when you expand your photographic world. In this case, the shots of the plane on exhibition or the overall shot of the hangar are pretty run of the mill. You would have to push yourself to get it sharp handholding. You would have to push yourself to get the exposure to hold the detail you want to tell the story, but you must even go past that. There is the shot of the B-52 that greets your before you even enter. Shooting to get the symmetry, exposure and design might push you too. But it’s not until you start digging past these shots that you expand your world. I entered with just the Df & 14-24AFS, forcing myself to go wide and work at visually eliminating elements and look for the image. The two that I really love come from looking OVER my head. The shot of the hangar door in the afternoon and the US Flag I really like. They came from walking slowly and constantly doing a 360 to LOOK at the light and then follow it to the subject. Besides being a great museum with lots of knowledge to be gained visiting it, it’s a photographic treasure trove when you’re willing to just push yourself a little bit further.
Ya, ya, I know you’re saying you’ve read this before and you’re getting ready to click off the page. I know, I’ve talked with folks lately who did the same and they missed the opportunity of a lifetime because gosh dang it, they didn’t practice their panning! And to be honest with you, I’m tired of coming across this. I simply don’t understand how photographers can call themselves photographers when they can’t pan. While you can fix most things in post (such a horrible crutch) the one thing YOU STILL CAN’T Fix is soft images! It ain’t sharp when you go click, you’re screwed!
It all begins with another essential technique, basic handholding. I’m always amazed when I see so many shooters doing everything but the right technique. Then you must, must pan correctly as well. And all if this must be practiced. I see the disbelief in folks faces when I make presentations when I say I practice these two things EVERYDAY whether I’m really shooting or not. It MUST become second nature because you never know when you’re going to need it. In this case, a P-40e Warhawk screaming down the strip is not something you see let alone can photograph. Shot with D4s / 80-400VR3, the totally blurred out background saying it’s screaming down comes from panning as it goes by. It’s really up to you cause I know I practice and I don’t miss the photos. I don’t want you to miss them either!
There are many ways to juice up your photography. The best of course is behind the camera. The next is reading and filling your mind and soul with inspiration and ideas. I have two option for you for your weekend.
The first is Photography FUNdamentals and it’s TOTALLY FREE!!! (thanks to our friends at B&H) Why is the title Photography FUNdamentals? Because photography has fundamentals the have to be learned and be FUN! Here’s a little more about this iBook that has had over 5000 installs …
It’s interactive, filled with videos and photos, BTS, everything! And it’s free so you have nothing to loose and everything to gain. Grab it!
Taking Flight is more than a iBook on just taking plane pictures. The eight chapters covers everything from gear to light, working with pilots to air to air strategies. There is also a chapter on finishing in Photoshop. While I’m biased, I think there’s so much here to fuel your photography, they’re a must have set of books. Give them a download, your camera will thank you!
It’s a continual question, “What’s your workflow?” As my boys will say, I’m just a machine because I get through my images so bloody fast. How fast? A 4000 image air to air shoot shot in the afternoon will be by bedtime, edited, filed, renamed and backed up. How do I do it so fast? There are two main factors, the first and main one is, I only take those images I like. This is really, really important. When I watch folks go through their images, they spend a helluva a lot of time looking at this or that images, cropping, moving sliders, wondering if they like the image. I’m not doing that, I’m just flying through them. When I go through my images I only have to ask myself one question and do one action. Is it sharp or not? If sharp I just click forward and if not, it gets deleted. It’s that simple for me.
I’m really never sure just what is really being sought after in the question “What’s your workflow” because what I do isn’t going to work for everyone. It really is a lot like the image creation process itself which varies as we all know from photographer to photographer. It all depends on what you want in the end that determines all that comes before. So before I explain my workflow, understand what my end goal is all about.
Sharon & I are fresh back from Africa. When I hit the office after being on the road for a month, I had 23k images from our ten days in Africa edited, renamed, filed and backed up. This is because I had uses for those images as soon as I hit a reliable internet. From clients, the blog and presentations I was making. The only way I could make that all happen was to have the images edited, renamed, filed and backed up. The end goal of my images is to share them, get them out and this can only be done if all the backend work is completed.
What’s the nuts and bolts of making this happen? Well I told you the first, I only take those images I like. The other is having the hardware and software that permit me to click as fast as my finger will go. Understand the vast majority of my editing (edit means going through images deciding which to keep or delete. Finish means going into the digital darkroom) work is done on the road using the Mac Retina. It simply screams, is small, light and highly efficient and that’s critical. At the end of a shoot I plug in the CF card from the D4s (my primary body) and there I keep the speed going. Shooting the Lexar 256GB card, I only need to plug in the one card to a reader because 256GB pretty much holds an entire day shoot. I might have SD cards from the Df or D750. These too are Lexar 128GB cards and go into the extra SD slot in the Reader or in the SD slot on the Retina. All of this adds up to one thing for me, speed! Cause with all of this, all I need to do when I launch Photo Mechanic, the only DAM that flies as fast as I can click, is once launched hit Cmd (Ctrl) G which brings up the Ingest dialogue, select all the cards I have loaded and hit Ingest. Photo Mechanic is radically fast that before I can blink, all the images are ingested. I use settings in Photo Mechanic to speed everything up, little things like Erasing and Undocking the CF card when upload is completed to inserting IPTC info. I make the tools work for me so I can get to the images, fast.
Then it’s time to edit the images or as I think of it, delete those that are not sharp. I hit the F key twice in Photo Mechanic which puts the images in full screen mode. Then I just click forward as fast as I can. In doing this, you see the out of focus real fast. I normally go past the out of focus image I’m clicking so fast which is part of the process. I click back to the out of focus image which permits me to double check, then I delete it and keep moving forward (you can use Cmd (Ctrl) Z to zoom in). As I go through images, I Cmd+1 tag those that I like and want to finish and most likely print at some point (You can see those tagged images above, they are in red). You can customize the tool bar in Photo Mechanic so I have the backward / forward / trash can right next to each other so I can click as fast as I can to get through the images. I can get through about 2000 images in 30min. With that all done, the images are moved/filed to their appropriate folders when they are renamed. And now with the IoSafe 1515+, I can access that from anywhere to speed up this process which includes uploading really important files I want protected. That’s new to my workflow.
On all my computers, I have created a Temp folder on the C Drive. This is very important to my workflow. Once all the images have been filed and renamed, I click to select just those images tagged in that folder. With a Cmd A and a Cmd Y, all those tagged images (the Nefs) are copied to the Temp Folder. I then close Photo Mechanic and launch Photoshop CC15. At this point I’m working on the Wacom 13HD which speeds up the process so much it is essential! With PS launched, I use Bridge which is pointed to the Temp folder. Here, all the Nef copies I just created from Photo Mechanic reside. I click on 1 to 30 images and hit Return. The selected file(s) are opened in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw) where I do the majority of the finishing work. For example the air to air images from North Dakota, there was a lot of dust. Using the dust detection in ACR, I dust just one image and then when I sync them all, all the images are dusted along with any other finishing applied. It’s bloody fast!
The images are then opened in PS where with a simple click of an Express Key on the 13HD, a Save As is preformed, saving the files back to the Temp Folder. When I’m all done, the PSD files are moved to a Gallery Folder (I use the 2Tb Buffalo Thunderbolt drives which rock!) and the Nefs (remember they are a copy) and XMP files left in the Temp folder are deleted. For me, this is all very quick and when being done late at night after a day of shooting, easy which is important. And that in a nutshell is my workflow. Probably more than you wanted but hope it helps.
Jake in his post today raises and answers a good question. Better is the business and photographer’s responsibility to his craft points that are more relevant. And if you click on the links in Jake’s post, you can help make a difference for him and his subject. That’s entering with a purpose!