David duChemin's Blog, page 37

Dave Delnea’s LR Develop Presets

One of the best ways for me personally to learn Lightroom is with Develop Presets. As a starting point for adopting a new aesthetic and learning the mechanics under the hood, presets suit my learning style better than almost anything. Apply the preset, dig through the changes, make some tweaks. I learn something every time. They’re also a killer way of short-cutting what can be an otherwise long and painful process. Most of us didn’t get into photography because we love computers and software but because we love photographs. Develop Presets can shorten both the learning curve and the time spent in the digital darkroom. What they can not do is rescue a bad photograph. They can hone and polish but the hard work is still up to us while we’re behind the camera. No preset can change the lines, light, or moments that make photographs what they are.

So with that in mind I released my own Preset Package about 6 months ago and the feedback’s been amazing. So I asked my friend, Dave Delnea, if he’d consider allowing us to release his own Lightroom Develop Presets, and he agreed, so today we’re releasing that package.

 

Dave Delnea is a full-time working photographer in Vancouver and he’s worked for some great clients. I can’t walk around Vancouver without seeing his work on walls, billboards, and the side of trains. He has what some people refer to as “a really commercial look” which is just photographer-speak for an excellent, unique, and consistent aesthetic. One of the ways he accomplishes this look is in his post-production, specifically his toning. He’s also one of the photographers I most respect for his commitment to his craft; I learn a lot from him.

So Dave’s given us 46 of his best Develop Presets for Lightroom, which we’ve packaged together with a PDF guide to show you the before + afters and give you instructions on how to install them. That package is available for only $10.

But if you want both Dave Delnea’s presets, and my own set of 36 presets, then we’ve bundled them for $18. Craft & Vision has always done a one week discount of some kind, so if you order before May 5, 2013 you can get both packages for $16 when you use the discount code PRESET2. That’s 82 Lightroom presets used daily by working photographers, for only $0.20/each.

 

Postcard from Liguria, Italy

We’re wrapping up the first week of the Italy Within The Frame. We’ve been on the Mediterranean for a week and now heading for Venice to begin one more week of great food, wine, and photography, all of which there is in abundance.  I’m not going to lie to you, it’s been rough.

I’ve given myself new constraints on this trip. These intentional constraints fire me creatively, but they also push me in new directions and keep me learning. This trip I’m using my Fuji XE-1, mostly with the 14mm lens, and I’m shooting square, and mostly black and white. The image at the top , made in Vernazza, will be presented in black and white as a series below, but the colours, straight out of the camera like this, still wow me. These limitations push me to make different decisions than I might normally, to see differently that I usually do, and I’m having a blast with them.

The Fuji continues to surprise me with how good it is, and it’s performed extremely well for both landscape work and street candids. The only weird surprise was finding the word SUPER on my images, though reversed. It took me a while to figure out that my longer exposures were getting reflections from the writing on the lens (from the ring around the front element), after bouncing off my filters. Why manufacturers insist on writing all this stuff where it can be reflected is beyond me. I’ve gaffer-taped it for now, but I’ll probably track down some matte black model paint when I get home and do it right. At least I don’t have to worry about light leaks through the viewfinder as I do with my D800.

Carrying such a small kit makes all the difference for me, and many of the little features of the Fuji are winning me over – the virtual horizon as I compose, the in-viewfinder histogram, even the depth of field markers on the lens of the 14mm which makes street shooting without focusing easier – all of these make a nice change from shooting the larger DSLRs.

On to Venice now for one more week, and then home to finish SEVEN while I pack for my trip to the Khutzeymateen to photograph the grizzlies up north. We launched The Created Image a couple days ago, and if you’re interested in a two-day photographic intensive with me, in Vancouver, this July, you can get more details on the related post.

The Created Image Seminar

This summer we’re hosting a new 2-day photographic intensive called The Created Image. On July 11 and July 12 we’ll convene on Vancouver’s Roundhouse Community Arts Theatre (Yaletown) for two days of teaching and conversation about the craft and art of photography, designed to take you deeper.

Get all the details on our Eventbrite registration page.

We’ve put together a curriculum to talk about the stuff that’s at the heart of photography, and strangely, the stuff others don’t often talk about or teach; stuff like visual language and composition, the art of editing, an introduction to printing, and photographic creativity. I want to help you learn to think and speak photographically on your own, not just memorize the so called-rules.  No gimmicks, no rules, no fast-tracks, no hot-tips. Just the stuff that forms the foundation for becoming a stronger creative photographer.

The event begins on the evening of July 10 with a wine reception in Yaletown, a chance to meet each other and gear-up for an amazing time together. And then it’s full-tilt the next morning into a series of nine lectures, over two days, about creativity, composition, editing, workflow, printing, and other concerns of the craft.

There’s also an optional evening event called The Path to Pro, with my manager, and the author of Living the Dream, Corwin Hiebert, and myself, for those wanting a truly candid and highly actionable discussion about making money with your photography. You can add this special event to your seminar registration for just CAD $20. FYI – The Path to Pro registration will be opened up to the public (CAD $40) once the seminar registrants have had a chance to sign-up – if you’re interested in attending this event stay tuned.

Last year we hosted two Vancouver Gatherings and the response was incredible, and the feedback’s what made us want to do this again – and do it bigger! If you’re looking for a chance to dig deep into your craft, and share time with like-minded people, this will be an event you’ll never forget.

If you want learn about the seminar program, schedule, or registration details you can find it all on our Eventbrite page.

Attendance is very limited by the way; we’re anticipating a sold-out event, so act quickly.

Since You Asked

Once in a while the subject of taking beautiful photographs of beautiful people gets complicated by the inevitable discussion of money. Specifically, “Should you pay people for a photograph?” Or more personally, “Do I pay people for a photograph?”

I’ve given various answers to this over the years. It’s not a simple question with a simple answer. And I won’t answer it for you now either. But, bearing in mind that I am not a photojournalist, and I don’t pretend to be, and therefore am not restrained by the same ethic or methods, let me give you my current thinking.

I walk into a small village, inevitably it’s some corner of the world that’s condescendingly called “the third world.” I have over $10,000 of camera gear in my bag. I’ve spent between $2000 and $10,000 just to get there. The person I approach lives on $1-$5/day. I introduce myself. I spend some time. They offer me chai. Sometimes a meal. They stop what they’re doing and they talk to me. I finally ask them if I can make their photograph,  something I will take home and show others, something meaningful and valuable to me. I take their time in order to do so. And sometimes they ask me for a dollar – and for the life of me I can’t even think of something I can buy at home for a dollar. An apple? A banana? I can’t even buy a bottle of water for a dollar. I wouldn’t tip my waitress so little as a dollar.

But I say No. Why would they even ask me that? What audacity! If I did this for one person, I’d have to do it for all! And think of the other photographers! Soon we’d all have to pay a whole dollar – maybe two! – for something from which we get great pleasure, and on which we place great value. Did the time I spent with them mean nothing to them? I gave their child a candy to show what a kind person I am, is that not enough? All I asked from them was ten minutes of their time while they were cooking dinner, tending their crops, feeding their flocks, carrying firewood, fetching water, before I put a model release in front of them and asked them to sign away their right to compensation, in a language they don’t understand – and they signed it, bless their illiterate hearts.

A dollar? I don’t think so. I knew this would happen. Such greedy people. If only they could get over their need to survive, to feed their children, to pay for malaria medicine,  school fees. If only they could be grateful that I’ve wandered, uninvited, into their lives, and asked them for something for nothing, without reaching out in hopes of getting something to lighten their load.

Sigh.

Are our portfolios getting bigger while our hearts get smaller? Are we more concerned about losing a few dollars than we are about losing our humanity? Would we rather be artistic than kind? Is it unfair to exchange something of value for something of value? What would you do in their shoes? More bluntly, just who do we think we are?

The way I answer these questions differs when I feel I’m being suckered or manipulated. There are plenty of scams out there, but get away from the touristed areas and you’ll find they thin out. This kind of bait-and-switch, where they insist you make their photograph and then insist again that you pay them, isn’t what I’m talking about. That’s a game, and I’ll play it with as much zeal as they do. I’m talking about honest exchanges.

I know, it’s complicated (is it, really?) But, “It’s complicated” is a poor excuse for a lack of compassion, kindness, and generosity. Whatever you do, don’t close your heart. It’s hard to be human, much less an artist, with a closed heart.

*I’m in Italy for a couple more weeks, so please don’t take a lack of response to comments as disinterest, I’m just not planning to log on. That said, as with the last post, Let Them Steal, I’m not writing to seek consensus, but to raise questions. If I felt agreement on these issue were important, or that my opinion were the only one,  I’d just keep my mouth shut. Feel free to add to the conversation in the comments.

Let Them Steal

Some days my time online makes it seem like photographers spend more time making watermarks than they do making photographs. So as it’s been a while since I’ve allowed myself a rant, let me weigh in with my opinions about the theft of images. But first a caveat. Yes, copyright laws matter. Yes, you should register your work. Yes, you should pick your battles and pursue thieves when it counts. And yes, people that steal are the same kinds of people that kick kittens. Of course I’ve also known a lot of photographers that go on and on about people stealing their work – work tweaked on stolen software and put into slideshows using music they’ve no rights to…

I also know not everyone’s going to agree with me; I’m bringing this up to ask important questions. Your answers will be your own.

Still…

People are going to steal your work. They always have. They always will. And each time it happens your eyes will cloud over with the red mist. I get it. But when that anger forces you to engage in a battle that consumes your creative energy, it can destroy the creative flow you’ve worked so hard to achieve. Win the battle, lose the war. Same thing with watermarks. By all means, subtly watermark your images – in Canada there are new court rewards if someone removes a watermark – but I’ve seen watermarks so large and ugly they ruin the photograph. What’s the point in posting it at all? You might as well just make ugly photographs. No one will steal those either.  And once again, the same thing with posting images online that are the size of a postage stamp. No one will steal them because no one can see them.

To be an artist means you create something and put it into the world. The rest is out of your hands. It will be experienced by people you never anticipated. It will be adored and reviled, which is better than simply being ignored. It will be criticized. It will be interpreted in ways you never intended. And it will be stolen.

We all do this work for different reasons. But most of us do not do it so we can spend our days in paranoia and anger, preventing theft and chasing down violators. For most of us, our problem is not that people are stealing our work but that too few people are seeing it. So let them steal. Hell, make it easy for them to steal. Put a tasteful watermark on your work so people can find you and then throw it into the wind and hope to God that someone with a larger audience than you puts it on Pinterest. Let people use it when they ask, and when it feels right let them do it for free.

I know, free is a bad word too.

When did we all get so consumed with greed and paranoia and self-righteousness? When did we ever do our best work when possessed by those forces? Of course it’s your right not to be stolen from. But how you respond to that is your decision, and affects your work.

There’s an old saying: “You can’t steal something from me that I willingly give you.” It has its limits, of course, but how much happier would we be, how much stronger would our own work be, and how much more would people enjoy seeing our work, if we remained committed to the idea of art as a gift. Some will pay for my work, some will not, and others will steal it. Either way, the gift keeps moving.

Time and again I’ve seen people thrive when they believe in abundance, generosity, and picking their battles very, very carefully. And I’ve seen people consumed, bound, and floundering when they’ve embraced the opposite. It’s counter-intuitive, I know. And there’s a time and a place for free. But experience suggests to me that the ones that are most consumed by this stuff are the ones that can’t afford to be. I’ll worry about theft if, God help me, I become complacent and resting on my laurels and my past work is my best, and most valuable, asset. In the meantime I’ll spend my energy doing what I love: creating my work and sharing it.

**

I’m off to Venice this morning, and will be in Italy photographing and teaching until May 04. As always I’ll send postcards as I can. When I’m back the book, SEVEN, goes to the bindery and I start packing for the Grizzly trip in the Khutzeymateen in Northern British Columbia.

Speaking of free, did you get your free copy of Craft & Vision’s latest eBook? Craft & Vision 2, More Great Ways to Make Stronger Photographs is available completely free here, and if you missed the first one, there’s also a bundle with both. All together it’s 20 great ways to improve your photography, all without spending a penny.

FREE: Craft & Vision 2

My team at Craft & Vision has done it again. Together we’ve created a gorgeous PDF eBook with 9 great articles, and we’re giving it away. Totally free. Craft & Vision 2, More Great Ways to Make Stronger Photographs, contains articles by Martin Bailey, Piet Van den Eynde, Nicole S. Young, Dave Delnea, Sean McCormack, and me, all written just for this book. Martin discusses making sharper images and learning to shoot in manual mode, Piet writes about developing smarter, Sean McCormack tackles balancing flash with ambient light, and Nicole S Young talks about learning to see light. Dave Delnea’s got a great article on developing style and consistency. I’ve contributed 3 articles: Learning to Isolate, Try it in Black & White, and Redeem the Light, an article about coping strategies for challenging light.

Did I mention it’s free? But WAIT! There’s more! President’s Sale! Need to make room for the 2014 models! Liquidation Sale! BIG INFLATABLE GORILLA! If you act now, you can get TWO free eBooks for the price of NONE! That’s right, two for none! We’ve bundled Craft & Vision 1 and Craft & Vision 2, which together give you 20 great ways to improve your craft without spending a penny.

Download Craft & Vision 2

Download the Craft & Vision Free Bundle

Of course there’s a catch. First, these eBooks aren’t going to download themselves. You need to press the button. So drink a Red Bull and when you’ve gathered your strength, hit the links at the bottom of this post to download C&V 2, or the bundle. If we could do it for you we would, but alas…. And the second catch, well it’s not really a catch at all. But I’m hoping you’d consider telling the world about the book. If you’d share this post, or the links to the books, with your own networks on Twitter, Facebook, etc., we’d be grateful. It’s a win-win. You get free eBooks, so do they. And in turn our fan-base grows and we can afford to keep making free eBooks. It’s like downloadable Karma.

Seriously, thank you for being so supportive. I speak for everyone at Craft & Vision when I tell you how grateful we are, and that we hope you find something in these two books that helps you on your photographic journey.

Download Note: Due to the high volume of downloads it’s possible that the Add to Cart links may stop working. It’s not you, it’s us, but this book has already been insanely popular and there’s only so much bandwidth to go around, apparently.  If you receive a shopping cart error when trying to check-out one of our free eBooks don’t worry – our eCommerce system will reset at 12:01 AM and everything will be okay. Or you can add yourself to our C&V community subscriber list and you’ll get the free eBook delivered to your inbox within the hour. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Building SEVEN: It’s Printed!

SEVEN, my fine-art book, is almost ready for the binders. I spent Friday and Saturday at Hemlock Printers watching sheet after sheet come off the press, a massive 10-unit Heidelberg Speedmaster. Each form is a sheet of paper with 6 pages per side, 12 sides in all. The pressman would put the plates on the machines, and run test after test. We’d look at the colours, make changes and tweaks and run more tests. Each form seemed to take about 1000 sheets of tests and make-readies before they’d print the forms that will eventually be cut, folded, and sent to the bindery. We’re not done yet, though we’re so close. I’ve still got three forms to go approve because there were some issues with colour that’ll require the skills of the pre-press guy to tweak, but what an astonishing thing to see something you’ve created come out looking so beautiful. The duo-tones especially have a texture, depth, and richness to them that make me want to print everything I ever make just like this. If you’ve seen Lenswork Magazine then you’ve seen what master printers can do. These guys re-defined attention to detail and an unwillingness to compromise quality. I left in awe. And I left more excited than ever to get copies of SEVEN into your hands.

I’m hoping to be there for the binding as well and will involve you with that process too. It was fun to send Facebook and Twitter updates this weekend. For those of you that missed it, here’s some photographs.

Checking the register to ensure alignment.

Comparing match-prints with final colours.

Changing plates on one of the press units.

Printed forms read to be cut, folded, and bound.

Signing off on one of the final forms

Lastly, it looks like plans are coming together for a book launch in Vancouver on the evening of June 05. If you want to pick up a copy of SEVEN in person, that’ll be a great place to do it, and I’d be happy to personalize the book as well. I’ll post about the event once I’ve confirmed details with my team. It’d be great to see you if you can come, have a glass of wine or cup of coffee and share this event with me.

Hokkaido Steller’s Eagles

These mornings with the Steller Eagles were painfully early. We pried ourselves off our futons in order to be out the door around 4:30am, dressed for temperatures that felt much colder than the actual -15C, and lugging our largest lenses. We drove down to the port, not sure if we’d even be heading out, knowing too much ice would keep us from leaving the harbour, and too little would mean the eagles would be too far out at sea. We spent three mornings out on the sea with these birds, forgetting the cold almost entirely as they began to fly in. It’s hard to express the awe I felt looking down through my 600mm lens at these majestic predators as they flew in for the fish thrown onto the ice. What light and motion can do to feathers is amazing, and I’m already planning my return to Hokkaido to spend time with Martin Bailey and these birds.

 

Hokkaido Steller Eagles

These mornings with the Steller Eagles were painfully early. We pried ourselves off our futons in order to be out the door around 4:30am, dressed for temperatures that felt much colder than the actual -15C, and lugging our largest lenses. We drove down to the port, not sure if we’d even be heading out, knowing too much ice would keep us from leaving the harbour, and too little would mean the eagles would be too far out at sea. We spent three mornings out on the sea with these birds, forgetting the cold almost entirely as they began to fly in. It’s hard to express the awe I felt looking down through my 600mm lens at these majestic predators as they flew in for the fish thrown onto the ice. What light and motion can do to feathers is amazing, and I’m already planning my return to Hokkaido to spend time with Martin Bailey and these birds.

 

Hokkaido Whooper Swans

Since returning from Hokkaido it’s been a flurry of activity doing all those other things that fill our days so we can keep doing that thing we love – making photographs. That usually means I post a bunch of photographs immediately, and then nearly abandon you to posts about other things. I love those other things, and truthfully they’re what allows me to do all this. But I get very conscious when I’ve posted about an eBook, a couple new Within The Frame Adventures, and a new fine art book, all in such a short time. I love the idea of balance and pacing myself, I’m just not very good at it.

But now I’m home and my desk is cleared off a little. I’ve just put the rooftop tent back on the Jeep for the summer and another trip to the Canadian arctic and my mind’s gone back to Hokkaido and the time I spent with these Whopper Swans. Elegant and the picture of grace one moment, slapstick and clumsy the next, I made most of these lying on a sandy beach at the water’s edge, a tourist gift shop behind me up the shore a ways and piping Miles Davis out the speakers.  I’ve never done anything quite like this, and determined to show some of the grace of these birds, it took hundreds of frames to find settings that gave me a look that felt right. We should be so lucky to call this kind of thing “work.”

Tomorrow I’ll post a few more of my photographs from my time with the Steller Sea Eagles.