Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Today or tomorrow I’ll be officially breaking up with Nikon. We’ve been together for over 7 years now. It’s not easy to do, but my new love is pretty amazing. Not totally perfect but pretty damn close.

Overall, I think that Canon is innovating a bit more rapidly than Nikon and probably will continue to do so, especially when it comes to integrating video into the camera, which makes sense since they’ve been making great stand-alone video cameras for years unlike Nikon- and this matters to me because I’ve started providing some video services for … See Moreclients, and I don’t want to have to carry 2 cameras (1 stills, 1 video) to do the job if I can help it. Specifically from a still photo standpoint, the 5d2 has 21MP compared to Nikon D700′s 12MP. That’s a huge difference and it would be useful for me, especially in commercial images where we sometimes need to crop a bit and the final product is going on a bus poster for instance. Also the lenses, while apparently not quite as good as Nikon’s apparently, are also more affordable, usually by about $500 or so; and I doubt that the difference in quality is equivalent to the difference in price. Downsides are that my hands merge like a Navi tail (Avatar) with the Nikon controls, and I’ll have to retrain myself with Canon’s layout. And apparently it’s not as savvy focusing in low-light as Nikon, but again it’s probably not a big enough problem to outweigh all the advantages. If the Nikon D3S had more MP and was a bit more affordable, it could be my answer, EXCEPT that since I travel abroad a lot, it’s giant size is just way too conspicuous. I think I’ll really miss the ergonomics and the build-quality of Nikon, and they’ll probably release the camera I would want right now in early Fall (on shelves at the end of the year) but I can’t wait that long, and by then Canon will probably be announcing their replacement for the 5DM2 which will blow everyone’s mind and again be a generation ahead of what Nikon’s got out.

Team Photos

The beginning of this week I shot the new team photos for Kathleen Russell Consulting- an awesome group I’ve been working with to help bring about awareness of the corruption and negligence in the Family Court system here in Marin County and in many other counties across the country. We’re getting lots of press on the issue and are working on putting together an audio-slides presentation of the photo essay Kathleen and I worked on with victims of the system.

Blended Lighting Tips from Chase Jarvis

Ceilings are invaluable

Here’s a link to a great entry by Chase Jarvis on filling an environmental shot with strobe and keeping a naturally-lit feel to it. Chase Jarvis’ blog is a great resource for how-to photography info- I love how eager and willing he is to share what he learns. And that attitude is partly why (along with his amazing images) he has such a huge following and has become somewhat of an institution.

Collaboration and Innovation!

Multi-platform approach

A few weeks ago, I went to an event that featured Ed Kashi , and was primarily about the book in which some of his work is featured, WHAT MATTERS. It is a collection of a broad range of photo essays from some of the top photojournalists in the world, each complimented by an essay written by a top author on the subject. The publisher talked about how much print sales had been declining and said that he really wanted to make this book as something of a “grand finale”, to go out with a bang. He said he felt that the days of the coffee table photo book were numbered. When Ed Kashi spoke, he presented a video he put together for his project on Nigerian Oil, which was a slideshow of still images punctuated with black screens with bold white text, and behind it all, the voices of the people in the photographs speaking about the issue, and the ambient sounds of the places where they were. It was a really powerful presentation. When it was time for audience questions, one of the first asked was about the “future” of journalism and photojournalism. Ed Kashi eagerly fielded the question and said that while nearly every one feels that it is the end of journalism as we know it, that’s not necessarily such a bad thing. There are certainly economic models that need to be figured out, but overall the future looks really exciting. In the “old days” when you worked on a photo essay, you’d try to get it published and then have an exhibition with prints, and that was about it. He pointed out that now a photographer has so many different platforms and venues to present his/her work on it’s mind-boggling. If your ambition is to have your work seen, talked about and interacted with, your opportunities for that have never been more abundant. For instance, he pointed out that now he frequently puts together multi-media slideshows of his work, builds a website for the project, has the work linked to through a million different social networking sites, etc. And that’s on top of the traditional gallery exhibition and paper publishing combo. Another participant in the forum was Andy Patrick, founder of FiftyCrows, based out of San Francisco. They are a nonprofit dedicated to the promotion and exhibition of social change photography. Recently, they teamed up with LiveBooks to offer really affordable hosted and designed sites customized for photojournalists in particular. I’m really tempted to switch over myself. Check it out at pj.livebooks.com. You can see Ed Kashi right there on the entry page. Anyhow, this is all just to say I was totally inspired by the forum and by the time we live in, filled with all these new media platforms and outlets for communities to interact with the work we do.

The new Nikon D300s is a great choice, but…

I’m still holding out for the next generation D700 which should be on shelves by the end of the year, of course there’s no guarantee on that.
(Here’s some info on the new D300s- http://www.dpreview.com/news/0907/09073007nikond300s.asp)

For the most part, it seems like the main improvement on the 300s is that it adds HD video capability to the 300. There are a few other additions, but that’s the main selling point, and with the direction journalism is going, it’s a pretty big selling point these days. And it looks like that will be the main addition to the D700x as well. My good friend and colleague, Jason Motlagh (http://88zero.com/Motlagh) has been working overseas continually for awhile now and has had great success selling full media packages of stories- article, photos, video. In this tough market in a threatened industry, the more you can offer a client, the more eager they’ll be to work with you. In that respect, this new upgrade adding video could be a big asset to many photojournalists. Why do I recommend holding out for the D700x upgrade if you’re looking for a new pro-level DSLR? From my time using both cameras (300 and 700), the D700′s biggest advantage is how its full frame sensor results in getting wider angle shots, which are so important in photojournalism, especially in environmental portraits (people active in their environment). The other big advantage of the 700 over the 300 platform is that again due to a larger sensor, the pixels aren’t as crowded on the sensor, meaning the images show more detail and have less noise at higher ISO’s. I’ve shot very usable images at 2500 ISO in low light that resemble images shot at 400 ISO with my D200. God bless technology- it has made our job so much easier.

A roadmap of cameras to come…

New Nikon with built-in projector

Have Nikon’s DSLR plans thru 2010 been leaked? It seems pretty legit to me- I saw it on NikonRumors.com yesterday, and now it’s on WIRED today. Here it is. If so, then sign me up for a D700x. Seems a little too good to be true, being released so soon, but certainly not impossible. I feel bad for Nikon if this is the real deal, and I wonder, if true, how damaging (or beneficial??) will this leak will be to Nikon? It’s a bit like peeking at your Xmas presents in November- it’s good for a bit, but ultimately you always wish you hadn’t done it. Maybe that’s just me. After you’ve got 20+ MP, can practically shoot in the dark, can film movies, what’s left? According to this, you put AF in the movie mode, and you have a built-in HDR mode, merging 2 images in camera for HDR photos. That’s kind of interesting- something that’s usually a Photoshop plug-in now, but not something that seems critical. If I were big into movies maybe the AF would be a big deal, although every movie person I talked to said that it’s not so important or good. I saw that they may start putting in little projectors into their smaller cameras so that you can have a mobile slideshow which sounds pretty cool. But the big deal for me would be if you could have the camera send images wirelessly directly to the internet. How cool would that be for photojournalism/news shooting? Or a better method of captioning images in camera. Again, like the HDR mode, these still aren’t game changers, but it might be cool. Any other ideas of what they could do to a top-end DSLR that would make it better than what it already is?

Family Court Audit Passes!!!

The project I’ve been working on with the Center for Judicial Excellence regarding exposing the corruption, collusion, negligence and overall lack of accountability and oversight prevalent in the Family Court system has culminated in some real-world political action! Senator Mark Leno sponsored an audit of the Family Courts in Marin and Sacramento counties and it passed today unanimously! This project has made me very cynical about the legal system and politics in the United States, so I am surprised and delighted that this is actually going to happen. Go here to find out more info on the photo project, and on the family court crisis.

Nest Gallery Opening

I have a couple of pieces that have been included in Nest Design’s collection for their new gallery.  The gallery is geared toward pieces for interior designers, so it’s a good opportunity to show some of my work that was shot outside of a series.  Here is the invitation to the opening, and also some of my pieces that will be featured in this month’s exhibition titled Birds and Branches, and then in their permanent collection.

The number 88

This symbol signifies endless or continuous prosperity. This symbol is closely associated with Chinese beliefs where the sound of 8 is “fatt” which means Prosperity and Abundance. Also, the figure 8 is also known as the symbol of Infinity. Therefore, putting these two together, we have the symbolic meaning of “Endless/forever Prosperity”.
The Chinese also believe that eight is sacred and powerful as it is associated with:
· The legendary eight immortals ;
· Eight triangles of the I-Ching or book of changes,
· Ancient Chinese System of Divination.
· Eighty- Eight also resembles the Chinese pictograph for “Double Happiness.”
Chinese feng-shui beliefs:
It activate abundance when place at your Sheng-Qi success direction and at the Wealth Area (South East) of the office or shop.
The figure 8 is also a Remedial Symbol to help balance occupants when negative symbols or a bad Feng Shui house affects them. The use of Two Eights just doubles the effectiveness of the cure.
When a house has Feng Shui design problems- a corner is missing or a wall creates an obstacle, it is suggested to use an 88-to create space and harmony, instead of using mirrors which only create the illusion of space.
The 88 symbol is also used universally to help create a flow of energy and unblock stagnant chi.

Olympic Torch Protests

Olympic Torch Protests, originally uploaded by 88ZERO.

Last week I went and photographed the Olympic Torch protests in the city. It was a very surreal scene- a huge pro-Chinese presence that tried to confront and contain pro-Tibetan protesters. Many of the pro-Chinese protesters had been bussed in from outlying areas by the Chinese embassy; and the basic idea was to try and dilute or mask the Tibetan protesters. One tactic I noticed was the flanking of flags- a Tibetan flag would go up and soon two Chinese flags would be brought near it and would sandwich it so that it would be far less visible. As a result, most of the Tibetan protesters remained on the move, trying to maximize their impact. The pro-Chinese supporters also tried to neutralize the Tibet supporters in the auditory sense as well, carrying bullhorns and using them next to pro-Tibet protesters using bullhorns. The result was simply noise- this epitomized most of what I saw- just a lot of screaming at one another; often it would begin in a relatively civilized debate-like manner but in less than a minute would devolve into name-calling, pointing, and fury. Surprisingly with all the intentionally antagonizing (chanting “One dolla, one dolla” behind a group of Chinese supporters, or “Dalai Liar” next to Tibetan supporters) I never observed any violence; it always seemed to push as close to the edge as possible, but strangely never seemed in threat of going too far. Like most people there, I didn’t see the torch since they whisked it off to a random street to run along for a couple of bus before it hit the bus and went to the airport, but also I think like most people there, I didn’t really care- this was more about the protests than the torch.