Street Sight

Two people view photographs during the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

Standard Stoppage

A dog and owner attend the opening reception for the "Street Sight" exhibition at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena, Saturday, June 25, 2011.

Freewaves Friday

20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) from Ted Fisher on Vimeo.

In 2001 Doug McCulloh and I photographed 20,558 people at the Los Angeles County Fair. The project served as raw material for several exhibitions previously, and tonight one of the short films created from the photographs screens at:

2011 OXY FREEWAVES: THE ART AND POLITICS OF SPACE
A night of global and local media works exploring space, in public space

Friday, April 15, 7 - 9 p.m. Occidental College Main Quad

As part of the 2011 Spring Arts Festival, the Occidental College Film & Media Studies Program invites students, alumni, and the Los Angeles community to participate in an evening of food, drink, conversation, and cutting-edge videos addressing contemporary questions around the cultural, ideological, environmental, and creative uses of space.

Artists and Videos:

Nancy Atakan: Thinking Garbage (2005, Istanbul, Turkey)

Natasha Dyu: On the Ground (2008, Mumbai, India)

Göran Boardy: Target Seeker (2006, Goteborg, Sweden)

Marco Montiel-Soto: La Sinfonia De La Calle/The Street Symphony (2007, Barcelona, Spain)

Tenzin Phuntsog:  om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum (2004, New York, United States)

Martha Gorzycki: Unfurling (2003, San Francisco/Los Angeles, United States)

Ted Fisher and Doug McCulloh: Video Billboard  (2001, Los Angeles, United States)

Bonita Makuch:  Strangers in Paradise  (2004, Los Angeles, United States)

This marks the second OXY FREEWAVES venture, an exhibition of experimental and documentary films, that places documentary works by Occidental students into conversation with works by international artists from Freewaves, an organization supporting innovative, relevant, independent new media from around the world. Directions and parking information can be found on the campus map. The Oxy Quad is # 126 on the Map. This event is made possible by the Remsen Bird Fund and the Office of the President. Contact Prof. Broderick Fox with any questions. 6522 Hollywood Boulevard | Los Angeles, CA 90028 US

Above: the short film "20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits)" which shows how the images were made.

Screening at OXY Freewaves on Friday

20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) from Ted Fisher on Vimeo.

A long while back I made a project with Doug McCulloh where we photographed 20,558 Los Angeles residents. The images were shown in a variety of ways, and tomorrow one of the short films created from the photographs is screening at:

2011 OXY FREEWAVES: THE ART AND POLITICS OF SPACE
A night of global and local media works exploring space, in public space

Friday, April 15, 7 - 9 p.m. Occidental College Main Quad

As part of the 2011 Spring Arts Festival, the Occidental College Film & Media Studies Program invites students, alumni, and the Los Angeles community to participate in an evening of food, drink, conversation, and cutting-edge videos addressing contemporary questions around the cultural, ideological, environmental, and creative uses of space.

Artists and Videos:

Nancy Atakan: Thinking Garbage (2005, Istanbul, Turkey)

Natasha Dyu: On the Ground (2008, Mumbai, India)

Göran Boardy: Target Seeker (2006, Goteborg, Sweden)

Marco Montiel-Soto: La Sinfonia De La Calle/The Street Symphony (2007, Barcelona, Spain)


Tenzin Phuntsog:  om-ma-ni-pad-me-hum (2004, New York, United States)

Martha Gorzycki: Unfurling (2003, San Francisco/Los Angeles, United States)

Ted Fisher and Doug McCulloh: Video Billboard  (2001, Los Angeles, United States)

Bonita Makuch:  Strangers in Paradise  (2004, Los Angeles, United States)

This marks the second OXY FREEWAVES venture, an exhibition of experimental and documentary films, that places documentary works by Occidental students into conversation with works by international artists from Freewaves, an organization supporting innovative, relevant, independent new media from around the world.

Mentored by media artist and LA Freewaves founder Anne Bray, the students of Occidental's Film & Media Studies Program will transform the campus' main quad into a series of public screening venues, permitting visitors to move between eight different themed media programs.

Directions and parking information can be found on the campus map. The Oxy Quad is # 126 on the Map. This event is made possible by the Remsen Bird Fund and the Office of the President. Contact Prof. Broderick Fox with any questions. 6522 Hollywood Boulevard | Los Angeles, CA 90028 US

Above: the short film "20,558 (Twenty Thousand Portraits) which shows a bit about how the images were made.

Hint, Hint

Well, first there was New York Portraits. Then there was Los Angeles Portraits.

Above: a clue to the next site.

Four Years Ago

Four years ago I made my first post on this blog with Beginnings and Endings.

I then marked the 1839 anniversary of the announcement of the invention of photography with Happy 167th Birthday.

Now, I've moved from Manhattan, so -- while I'll keep this blog, after a bit of repurposing -- you can follow my California posts on Los Angeles Portraits.

One more city will be in the news, very soon, as well. Above: one of my last recent snaps in Manhattan.

Back in Town

Left the city for a documentary shoot over the weekend, but I'm back now. Details soon. Above: a view from 34th Street.

CL A.S.S. Y

Despite the bad weather we've had the last few days, I managed to make it over to Park Avenue and teach -- and now the first "Seriously Fun Photography" for 2010 class is ... ahem ... behind me.

That's good, as I continue to use a dumb acronym to force students to remember the three elements we need to master to understand and control exposure.

A. S. S.

That's right: we need to work with three related elements: Aperture, Shutter Speed, and Sensitivity.

Aperture:
The f/stops to memorize are f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22. If you forget these, make two columns, and at the top of the left one write 1.4 and at the top of the right one write 2.0. Now double each number as you go down the column (rounding off when needed). Changing one stop lets in twice as much light (or half as much, depending on which direction you go. f/2 lets in a lot of light, f/22 lets in very little light. So if you took a picture using f/8 and it seemed a little too dark, you would switch to f/5.6. If you took a picture using f/8 and it seemed a little too bright, you'd switch to f/11.

Shutter Speed:
The common shutter speeds are:

1/1000th of a second
1/500th
1/250th
1/125th
1/60th
1/30th
1/15th
1/8th
1/4th
1/2
1 second.

-- As a rule of thumb, if you are moving and you're subject is moving, you'll want to be shooting at 1/1000th of a second to get a sharp picture.

-- If you are still but the subject is moving along, it would be good to be at 1/250th or faster.

-- If you and the subject are both relatively still, you can probably handhold the camera as slow as 1/60th, but slower than that and you'll get a soft picture because of camera shake caused by pressing the shutter.

-- At speeds that are slower, you'll need a tripod to steady the camera, and probably want to trigger it using the self-timer or a release.

-- Many decent cameras have higher shutter speeds, and these are very useful for action or sports.

Notice that the relationship of these shutter speed settings is also doubling (or halving) the amount of light that hits your sensor.

Sensitivity:
This is the ISO "speed" of a digital sensor or of film. ISO 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 are available on many cameras (but not all), and you should take some test shots with yours to find out if the higher ISO settings are usable or not. Figure out the fastest ISO speed you find produces acceptable shots on your camera -- you'll need to switch to it sooner or later. Notice that each ISO speed is twice as sensitive (or half as sensitive) as the next.

At this point, we experimented with finding a good exposure for the lighting in our classroom. It turned out to be: f/2.8 and 1/125th of a second at ISO 1600.

Then we decided to start applying our general knowledge about the relationship between apertures and depth of field. While we start to get the idea when we say "f/2 -- shallow depth of field and f/22 - deep depth of field" actually trying this out in with some real world shots is always a good experiment.

So we set up an experiment: we set our aperture at f/1.4 and and focused on the eyes of a person sitting close to us. Upon reviewing the photo, we found that the that the person sitting further behind was out of focus. So, to see how depth of field changes, we ran through the whole series of aperture settings available finding the person in the background more in focus as we changed our aperture -- f/2 to f/2.8 to f/4 to f/5.6 to f/8 to f/11 to f/16 to f/22.

Since we were in manual mode, we had to change the shutter speed to keep our exposure the same while we ran through these apertures.

But then we realized changing manual settings can be slow -- so we explored using "Shutter Priority" and "Aperture Priority" as a quicker way to choose the factor that is most important to us, and let the computer choose the other setting.

We learned that a faster way to try this experiment was to switch to Aperture Priority mode -- then, we would pick the aperture and the camera would select the shutter speed -- so when we changed aperture, the camera would change the shutter speed and we were able to keep the same exposure.

We finished our class with an experiment in learning to see the environment around us -- finding assigned alphabet letters in our seemingly boring classroom -- and then with a game of photographic "telephone" -- about learning to communicate complex ideas through visual images.

Our homework: shoot a manual exposure, getting the best exposure you can and then checking this by looking at the image's histogram.

Then: try a series of shutter speeds with a moving object -- such as a spinning umbrella, a bouncing basket ball, or a hula hoop.

Next week we'll begin to look at composition, framing, and related issues.

Above: an iPhone snapshot from Tuesday. In Manhattan, it's important to be able to coordinate animal prints in any weather.

Revealing Form, Texture And Shape

At the end of my photo class last week we finished a session on lighting people, then tried a quick experiment to see how light can be used to create texture.

My students worked with a medium softbox and a reflector and explored ways to reveal an interesting space around three small rings, and to reveal the detail in the rings. One of the keys was to realise how important directionality is as a property of light. We wanted soft light, but we still wanted to create shape and reveal form.

The Title Says It All

These Photographs Were Taken By Dogs

I like the last one.

Sign Up, Seriously

My six-week Seriously Fun Photography class starts at Hunter Continuing Education September 17th. That's this upcoming week, so sign up today. Tell your friends.

Go to this interface and type "photography" into the search box. (That will also reveal the advanced class I'll be teaching later in the season.)

"SERIOUSLY FUN PHOTOGRAPHY
Build on the basics and master the skills and ideas advanced photographers use in a fun, low-pressure class. Open to anyone able to shoot a photo and import it into a computer (and welcoming advanced students as well), in this class we'll use the digital camera as a fast way to learn the essentials of photography. We'll learn-by-doing, exploring professional techniques while creating a portfolio project (on any topic of your choice) to show your advanced skills. If you've always been interested in photography, but have put off becoming great at it, this is your chance.

6 Session(s) 12 Hour(s) Tuition: $250.00 Meet: Thursday
Date: 09/17/09-10/22/09 Time: 06:00PM-08:00PM
Location: CS, 71 E 94 ST./ Instructor(s): FISHER, TED"

Above: an iPhone snap.

Seriously Fun Photography September 17th

My Seriously Fun Photography class starts at Hunter Continuing Education starts September 17th. So, register now.

They've changed the Web site, so the way to see the listing and register is to go to this interface and type "photography" into the search box. (That will also reveal the advanced class I'll be teaching later in the season.)

"SERIOUSLY FUN PHOTOGRAPHY
Build on the basics and master the skills and ideas advanced photographers use in a fun, low-pressure class. Open to anyone able to shoot a photo and import it into a computer (and welcoming advanced students as well), in this class we'll use the digital camera as a fast way to learn the essentials of photography. We'll learn-by-doing, exploring professional techniques while creating a portfolio project (on any topic of your choice) to show your advanced skills. If you've always been interested in photography, but have put off becoming great at it, this is your chance.

6 Session(s) 12 Hour(s) Tuition: $250.00 Meet: Thursday
Date: 09/17/09-10/22/09 Time: 06:00PM-08:00PM
Location: CS, 71 E 94 ST./ Instructor(s): FISHER, TED"

Not OK Computer

Yesterday, just after I finished working with some photos in Adobe Lightroom and uploaded them for a client, I let my computer download an Apple security update and the updater for Safari. I'm not sure if the update killed it, or if the main drive went out coincidently, or something else happened -- but it would not restart. Couldn't get a restart from an Install disk, and when I tried to restart in safe mode it would shut down -- a bad sign.

I thought of this photo but had to shoot some photos for another client and had to leave the problem sit. Worked on my laptop to get those photos ready, but it was a much slower process.

I'm not sure if this is going to be an easy fix....

Above: an iPhone snap during the session.

Seeing With Photography Collective in New Exhibition

Our short documentary Blind Faith: A Film About Seeing featured Victorine Floyd Fludd and the Seeing with Photography Collective back in 2007. Now work by these photographers is getting a lot of coverage.

Both are included in my friend Doug McCulloh's exhibition Sight Unseen, and now that's being covered in Time Magazine.

Glad this is going well, and I wish I could make it to the exhibition.

As David Carson Said, Sexism Sucks

I've always thought that there's a built-in sexist side to most of the sources one seeks out to study photography. While some lens tests are done with color charts and little arrangements of objects, just as many include studying the depth of field of a bikini. That's sort of a leftover from when photo magazines were bought mainly by youngish guys.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not opposed to any type of photography. I just think the fake "to test the camera out, we followed Photographer X as he shot the Swimsuit Issue" feature we often see is hypocritical compared to the honesty of not-safe-for-work-viewing blog Pretty Girl Shooter. When Jimmy D talks about lenses and lighting in relation to his typical gig -- shooting the covers for porn video packaging -- there's nothing fake about it. (Oddly enough, he often goes into more specific detail than the photo magazines.)

So here's what I wanted to mention: we're getting near the technical moment when still cameras are capable of shooting moving images, and where moving image cameras have enough quality to shoot stills. Both developments may change the way we make images and will be on the minds of both photographers and documentarians in the near future.

So Filmmaker magazine has, understandably, shown some interest in Esquire using the RedONE camera to photograph Megan Fox.

"For the first time in Esquire's history (and, we imagine, magazine history in general), a cover image was shot as a video. Using the RedONE, a video camera that captures images at four times the resolution of high-definition, photographer-director Greg Williams (see below) recorded ten minutes of loosely scripted footage with Fox — getting out of bed, rolling around on a pool chair, inexplicably lighting a barbecue."

If we skip past the built-in "it's still the 1950s, right?" feel of the whole thing (the title is "Megan Fox-ing") this is a fairly amazing development. In recent years we've seen a few newspapers take to shooting HD video in place of stills and then selecting a still frame for use, and this is the natural next step -- higher resolution and able to match the requirements for a magazine cover.

In the end, though, if we're to judge from the video -- Good Morning, Megan, a purely cheesecake, lingerie / swimsuit session -- there's nothing to be discovered. Except:

1. The RedOne does in fact produce a very film-like look and seems to use fantastic lenses.

2. You really can't shoot for both stills and video at the same time effectively.

Well, lesson learned. I look forward to when they get the new holographic cameras in. I hear they've got a special issue planned for that.

Eye Placement in Portraiture

I often talk to my students about the placement of the eyes when framing a photograph or video image. For example, I tend to lead them toward a starting composition that places the eyes about 1/3 from the top of the frame. Usually, if one attempts that first, you can naturally slide into a composition that works well.

But what about the horizontal placement?

Two papers by Christopher W. Tyler address the "hypothesis of a consistent positioning of one eye relative to the center of the portrait" in a way I haven't seen done before.

AN EYE-PLACEMENT PRINCIPLE IN 500 YEARS OF PORTRAITS

Eye Placement Principles In Portraits And Figure Studies Over The Past Two Millennia

"Is there a consistent placement of the eyes relative to the canvas frame, based on the horizontal position of the eyes in portraits? Data from portraits over the past 2000 years quantify that one eye is centered with a standard deviation of less than + 5%. Classical texts on composition do not seem to mention the idea that the eyes as such should be positioned relative to the frame of the picture; the typical emphasis is on the placement of centers of mass in the frame or relative to the vanishing point in cases of central perspective. If such a compositional principle is not discussed in art analysis, it seems that its manifestation throughout the centuries and varieties of artistic styles (including the extreme styles of the 20th century) must be guided by unconscious perceptual processes."

Seriously, 2009

Once again, it's time for my Hunter Continuing Education class Seriously Fun Photography. First class is on Thursday night. It's six weeks long, and aimed at folks who have the basic basics working but are trying to get to the next level in their photography.

It's usually a lot of fun. Hence the title.

Camera Talkish

Every time my photography class is listed at Hunter Extension, I get a few emails asking about cameras. Some terms, everyone has point-and-shoot or advanced compact cameras. (As the above image shows. Taken during an exercise in photographing chairs, from the last term of the class.)

Other terms, people want to know what DSLR they might begin with....

Three great basic DSLR cameras at the low end of the price scale:

Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 Digital SLR Camera Body with Sony 18-70mm Zoom Lens, 10.2 Megapixels Kit, with 2GB CF Memory Card, Lowepro Holster-Style Case

Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens

Canon Rebel XS 10.1MP Digital SLR Camera with EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS Lens (Black)

Okay, Some Idling

Well, there's actually a lot to blog about. I'll see if I can't catch up now that things are almost to a new normal. First, this week sees the return of my class for Continuing Education at Hunter College: Seriously Fun Photography.

Here's the course description:

Seriously Fun Photography

Build on the basics and master the skills and ideas advanced photographers use in a fun, low-pressure class. Open to anyone able to shoot a photo and import it into a computer (and welcoming advanced students as well), in this class we'll use the digital camera as a fast way to learn the essentials of photography. We'll learn-by-doing, exploring professional techniques while creating a portfolio project (on any topic of your choice) to show your advanced skills. If you've always been interested in photography, but have put off becoming great at it, this is your chance.

Instructor: Ted Fisher
THU 6:00:PM - 8:00:PM
Location: 71 E 94th St. CS
10/30 - 12/11 Sessions: 6
Tuition: $250.00

Two Years

First, happy birthday to Photography. Today marks the 169th anniversary of the announcement of the invention of Photography. (Of course, I prefer to think of the creation of the first photograph in 1826 as the beginning, but the 1839 announcement really marks the date when the world noticed.)

Second, two years ago I started this blog with a post on Beginnings and Endings. I'm now thinking of ways to improve it, ending the old model and moving toward a new one.

Third, I'm increasingly aware that the term "blog" is actually 'blog -- as in short for Web Log -- and has in fact not really matured from that role. Initially the idea was to post a record of your "interesting" journey to Web sites -- what you read and what you thought of it -- and now the unfortunate state is that there's little unique content being posted. It's mostly links to large news sources -- the same ones people call "dinosaurs" in favor of blogs -- and at best a comment. That's kind of pointless. Blournals -- 'bjournals or Web Journals -- are increasingly pointless as well. I follow a few, mostly of authors or photographers I like. 9 out of 10 posts are trivia, so I wait for that 10th and hope the content is worth it.

So what model is worth following? Magazine? Channel? Daily Photo?