chang*

the title of this post is also the title of a book by dane sanders, wedding photographer and educator extraordinaire out of newport beach in the states, that i finished reading while lazing around in camp during my recent reservist stint.

this book is certainly different from other photography books i have come across. you won’t get f-stops or shutter speeds here. the focus is not even on the business of photography, though at face value that is what it appears to be.

rather, sanders is concerned about the business and marketing of the photographer, which in essence sets the premise for the rest of the book. he explains that with the homogenization (big word, i know) of photography, it is no longer possible to be known for simply shooting fantastic images, especially when people are already drowning in the sea of photos all around (just look at facebook).

thus, sanders believes that the spotlight should be on the photographer, and examining what changes can be made to either transform an indivisual into a dependable freelance, contractual photographer or a maverick signature, brand-name photographer (like him), depending on the personality and preferences of that individual.

with those 2 types forming the foundation, sanders then go into the details. he identified 14 key factors that makes up a photographer’s ‘DNA’ (or pDNA), determining which of the 2 types a photographer falls under and what needs to be done to further improve his/her current practices.

the 14 pDNA quotients are: experience, self-starter, program-starter, confidence, risk tolerance, need for control, need for collaboration, artistic identity, entrepreneurial identity, attractiveness, grumpy factor, creativity from people, creativity from self and self-promotion.

while this book is targeted primarily at wedding photographers, i believe that the principles espoused are relevant to photographers in every genre, especially if their concerns are marketing and growing the business in this day and age. i think that the photography world has been thirsting for literature like this for a long while.

not going to say more. go pick up the book, you won’t regret it.

on to other news, i am bracing myself for non-stop shooting and editing this coming weekend and the start of next week. looks to be fun though. good thing the bugs let me off in time.

for more of my thoughts, click here.

been slightly more than a week since i last blogged and i will blame that on the fact that i am currently on reservist training, and how army camps are well known for being deserts in terms of connectivity to the outside world.

i know this is going to sound bad but it has become a real struggle when i don’t get to check my e-mails (i use apple mail with auto-update so it’s worse), fiddle with facebook or simply surf the net in search of the millions of possibly interesting articles to read and photos to look at. as a result, my down-time (quite a lot) consists of reading ‘the undercover scientist’ (actually, not a bad book), having really juvenile conversations with my bunk-mates and making the next trip to the canteen.

also, i have to now check my e-mails vicariously through sarah (thanks babe!).

at the same time, i do realise that perhaps it is not altogether a bad thing that i have been yanked out of the messy matrix that is our world and thrown into a simpler lifestyle, at least for a couple of weeks. not having a computer in front of me has actually made me realise the massive amount of time spent online in my daily life. because of all the surplus time that i now have, i get to actually catch up on sleep, as well as just think about life in general.

most of all, it is refreshing to be chatting with people face-to-face, rather than via msn or twitter. i fear that in the near future, kids will no longer have the social skills to carry out a conversation with someone in person. after all, how many of us are already msn-ing our siblings, even when they are only in the next room?

be booking in to camp tonight for another week of training. anything that is urgent kindly call or sms. till next week, adios.

for more of my thoughts, click here.

i had a really good break last week at camp, just hanging out and catching up with friends. really enjoyed the late night suppers and irreverent chatter, which was peppered with references to ‘the struggle’, well-conceptualised by thiam peng and finely elucidated by wei li here.

photography-wise, i shot mostly with my 50mm. i was not looking to cover the camp, rather capture expressions and moments, generally for myself and my friends. below i have posted my favourites.

wei li posing with weed bombs. patent pending.

marcus not acting his age, haha. you are awesome man.

kudos to the various foc 2009 committees for doing a magnificent job and no doubt giving the freshies a camp that they will never forget. clearly, a lot of heart and soul went into this effort and i am sure that a bar has been set, and it will one for future committees to aspire to and to even surpass.

to view the rest of the photos, visit my facebook album by clicking here.

for more posts on photography, click here.

l-r: shi hui, tze, lide, walter, liz. check out the details and the props!

did a really fun photoshoot for some friends a couple of days ago to make some pictures to promote their group in the upcoming wkwsci orientation camp next week. it was a nice get-together at sarah’s place (with the super cool old-world-looking basmement!) for dinner followed by the shoot.

since the theme of this year’s camp has a mafia-ish feel to it, we wanted to do something in the same grain – thus the choices of costumes and location that that you see. before i move into the technical stuff, just want to thank yudi for being an awesome assistant (always brings great insights and ideas to the shoots), sarah for being a wonderful host and supplying the food and location, and of course, the cast – tze, lide, shi hui and walter for being so fun and sporting and a pleasure to work with.

for the first photo on top, we had a speedlight close to camera right set to bounce light off the white ceiling for general fill. since there were a couple of available light sources (the lamp lighting shi hui and a spotlight on the ceiling lighting liz), we wanted to incorporate those into the setup and achieved that by setting a slower shutter speed to allow them to “burn in”. the main light was a CTO-gelled (for warmth) speedlight with omnibounce attached and pointed straight down from the ceiling to simulate a bare bulb. we flagged the side pointed at the wall to minimise ugly specular highlights from forming.

since the lamp was rather strong, there was a noticeable light falloff from left to right before we corrected that with a speedlight (low and right of camera) fired into a relector to match the brightness of the left. i then had to do quite a bit of selective colour-correction in photoshop to match the different colour temperatures of the various light sources.

for the set of images that you see above, we set up a speedlight bounced off a reflective umbrella right of the lamp, high and aimed at the subject to make it seem as though the lamp was actually the light source (it would have been too harsh a light if we were to use it). we had a reflector out of frame on the left to lift the shadows a little. that was it, simple setup.

i then wanted to try a low-key portrait with a warm light as the main and a cool light as the kicker. turned the camera’s white balance setting to tungsten to get a bluish tone (for the kicker light) and gelling the main light orange for the warmth.  the shutter speed was set near maximum sync-speed to remove all the ambient light (turning the background pure black). 2 light sources for this – a speedlight, gelled orange, bounced off a reflective umbrella right and just out of frame and another speedlight grid-spotted to control the spill, left of frame. got the following:

for the fun of it, i also made a “movie poster” version by combining the 5 pictures above in photoshop and bumping up the contrast and stripping a bit of the colour for the edgy look.

and of course, i had to get my portrait of sarah. another one for the collection!

thanks for reading! hope this was informative.

for more posts on my photography, click here.