Thoughts that occurred to me as I was loading up the car. Which stuff to take?

The Blanton Museum.

My friend, Chris, came over yesterday to borrow a microphone for a video he's making with a fashion designer. But you never just need one part and by the time Chris was out the door he was struggling with armfuls of gear. You need this to do that.

It all started innocently enough. He wanted to borrow a shotgun mic. But then we discussed who was going to run sound and it turns out he's going to go solo on the project. All of a sudden the subject of "where to put the microphone???" comes up. We both know better than to just stick it on a camera but if there's no one there to hold onto a pole what do you do? Well it just so happens that I have a microphone boom holder. It's a small device that lets you balance the pole on a light stand. But to use the holder you need a grip head. So I reached into a bag and grabbed a grip head. But the stands Chris has are kinda flimsy (am I a stand snob?) and we quickly decided he might need a medium sized C-stand to hold the grip head, the adapter, the fully extended microphone boom and the microphone. So we added that to the pile. Good to go, right?

Well, we might as well add a sandbag to the stack for safety. And as we were getting ready to haul this stuff to his car we started talking about the idea of using a lavaliere microphone in addition to the shotgun so Chris asked if I had a wireless lav set up. Well, I did and I didn't need it myself this week so we added that to the stack. At that point I remembered to ask Chris if he had XLR cables for the shotgun. No? We scrounged up a twenty footer and a back up. 

By this time a soft rain had started to fall. Little drops clung to the panes of glass on the studio door and that brought up the next line of inquiry. Chris had hoped to shoot outside in some sort of bucolic oasis but the rain might make him change plans. Nobody really wants to drag their Sony F55 video camera out in the rain and I'm not that thrilled about my mics getting soaked either. So we started talking about lighting. In short order we decided that Chris might want to use a small set of hot lights because the rooms he would be shooting in now weren't that big and, for the most part, the light in them is pretty controllable. We scrounged around and found three Lowell Tota-Lights with  500 watt bulbs in them and we added them to the stack. Almost done....

But this necessitated some sort of light modifiers because no one really wants to use a Lowell Tungsten light bare and head on. We decided on Westscott Fast Flags so I loaded my friend up with three frames and a bag full of diffusers. But the frames need to go on some sort of support so that meant at least a few more C-Stands and every C-Stand needed a grip head. And a sandbag.

We could have gone in a different direction but the fluorescent fixtures are heavier and bulkier and I had the LEDs marked for my use today. 

We loaded everything in Chris's Honda and off he went to create. "If you give a mouse a cookie..."

"He's going to want a glass of milk."

I guess my point is that there's always a way to do stuff on the cheap or without the right gear but when you really start thinking through a project you come to understand just how many interdependent pieces there can be. And in my opinion it's always better to cover yourself for probable changes with rational contingencies rather than to court disappointment. Especially if that disappointment is on the face of your client....

Past Due Reviews. The first in a series. The Nikon D610. Executive Summary. At $1295 it's a cheap and wonderful entry to full frame photography.

#Austin  #SXSW Downtown.

 I'm writing a review here on the Nikon D610 camera. I'm writing it not because I think you should run out and buy one or because it happens to be the best in any one category (it's not) but because it's an affable camera, I enjoy shooting it and, so far, it's been generating images that look really good to me. It's already been superseded by the D750 camera which is largely the same but in some ways "better." But it remains in the Nikon product line up and the price of the camera seems to have stabilized around $1495 which I think is a good value for the quality of the sensor and the particular feel of the camera. 

I shoot with several different cameras and I have reasons for every choice. I have a Nikon D810 when I am after perfect images with unassailable resolution and dynamic range. Lately I've been shooting the Olympus EM-5 camera more often since I discovered both how much I like the black and white setting (with the green filtration) and how nice video can look in black and white when you use the image stabilization offered by that camera in the video mode. But these days I grab the D610 as my personal shooting camera for portraits and street shooting. More and more I've come to value a camera that's a nice balance rather than a tool with which to pursue "perfection." 

Let's jump into the D610 and see why I enjoy using one. 

Old School Communications. All the work and none of the fun.

The radio telephone the secret service carried on the Johnson Ranch.

Where's the screen for reading e-mail?

I am now officially booked through the end of March. It's nice thing because it represents a bit of financial security but it does play havoc with the swim schedule. I will adjust. The thing that makes being booked up different for me this year is that so much of the current (and near future) work is video or a mix of photography and video. It seems obvious that corporations are profoundly changing the way they communicate with customers. 

You can see it in the new wave of websites. The ones from the tech community don't open with a banner photograph across the top of the front page anymore, they open with a video banner instead. The video banner is nearly always a lifestyle/brand presentation of the client. One company has a video of good looking professional people walking toward the camera in a light, airy and modern airport setting. They sell software that improves customer experiences and one of their big clients is the airline industry. The video is a quick, active encapsulation of what they promise: A quick and convenient airline experience; one made better by the company's phone centric software product. At least that's the premise and the promise.

Even my theater client which we've supplied photographs to for 24 years has lately discovered the power of video content to move shows into profitability and engage their base in more active conversations around certain plays. While I'm making conventional images for the marketing of the new LBJ drama, All the Way, I recently spent three days making a combination of reportorial style still images, video interviews, video programming on locations and audio interviews. They're building a strong YouTube channel and also inserting video, wherever possible, in social media. As channels of content distribution get more splintered it seems that having more tools is always better. It's rare now, for me, to get jobs that don't have some sort of online video component (whether the client chooses to have me produce it or not...). Video is a self-contained way to present a complete story across any number of devices. From old school televisions to phones.

I met this morning with a technology client who has commissioned me to do a new video for them for an upcoming trade show. Their booth will have a number of 50 inch monitors and the video needs to do three things: 1. Tell a shorthand version of the company's story. 2. Present an overview of their products and the benefits to customers. 3. Represent the company's partners. The video needs to come in under three minutes (harder to do than a longer program) and it needs to work well with, and without audio. To do the video we need some good still images of the products in prototype. We might also need a few more images that we can pan over of their existing products. We have good, existing video of the processes and the look of the headquarters.  We'll need copywriting and some motion graphics and a big dose of editing.

The videos will run over and over again across all the 50 inch monitors on a trade show booth. The monitors are the logical replacement for large, static trade show graphics in that the video is constantly moving, can handle multiple messages in one space and captures the audience's attention for a longer period of time that a still image would. The days of handing out a brochure and a business card under a gatorfoam mounted company logo sign are quickly coming to a close....