Los Angeles Digital Imaging Group Blog

Hi again,

Ok… so people usually ask what were the new cameras at PMA. As I already mentioned the big two, Canon and Nikon had already announced new cameras before the show and most had already started to ship but it was certainly good to see the cameras all in one place. Part of the attraction here is to pick up a new camera and see how it “feels”. It was gratifying to find that the new Canon 1ds mkIII is actually a little lighter that its predecessor but maybe not so surprising the Nikon D3 is even lighter and more comfortable in the hand. As already mentioned the Sony flagship camera, a 24 megapixel beauty with a bevy of new lenses was not available to hold - it looks as though this camera will continue with the memory stick rather than Compact Flash or SD cards of every other professional camera.In general, DSLRs were sporting various anti-shake technologies as well as automatic face recognition that allowed for auto focusing on off center subjects recognized as a face. Panasonic and Samsung were displaying semi-professional DSLRs that had a full range of features that looked very appealing and Pentax also displayed their line of 2/3 sensor cameras that were compatible with lenses from other manufacturers supporting that format, notably Olympus. This is a ploy to appeal to consumers with a wider range of lenses than either camera by itself can support.Then, of course, there are the other cameras – the unusual smaller companies that offer something outside the mainstream. Leica qualifies with their M series rangefinder cameras, though they are the high end of the lot. There is also Minox with a replica of the Leica M3 scaled down to the old 35mm spy camera as a 5 megapixel digital point and shoot. One of my favorites was someone (didn’t quite catch the name of the company) with a smaller scale replica of a Rollie Twin Lens reflex as digital camera – you look down into the pop up hood at the LCD!Gotts Run — there’s more to come!

Hi all, I just got back from a tiring 5 days of teaching, meetings, dinners and miles of walking through tradeshow displays. I haven’t quite digested everything yet but I’ll dash off a few more impressions of the developments in the photo community. My impressions, of course, only represent my personal perspective as an imaging artist working in a primarily commercial context. A lot of the focus of PMA is on the general consumer – the average user who purchases photo related products and the businesses that that are targeting the widest possible market.

This years PMA show seems to continue a shrinking trend that started 10 years ago. In the old days the photo business was going gangbusters and the show was huge! Whole sections were devoted to lab processing equipment, printing equipment of all types, mini-lab specific equipment as well as literally hundreds of camera manufacturers each with their own booth – every conceivable type of photo accessory imaginable. Gone are the massive lab equipment booths and almost all of the smaller camera manufacturers as well as the large variety of mini-lab vendors. The big booths this years were Canon, Nikon, Kodak, Fuji, HP, Epson, Sony, Panasonic and Samsung. Somewhat smaller booths represented Olympus, Pentax, Casio and Leica. Just about every other booth was in the 12×12 and under size!

This may represent a general downturn in convention attendance as the costs of renting and producing trade show exhibits have skyrocketed but one has to wonder if it also has something to do with the disruptive nature of digital technology in general and internet technology more specifically. These days most people can find out everything they need to know about any product at all on the internet. The trade show simply provides a kind of temporal focus for product announcements and an excuse for well-healed attendees to travel to a desirable location to party after hours with a tax credit. Of course a lot of business is conducted at these shows with retailers ordering product for the coming year and various deals struck between marketers, manufacturers, suppliers, importers and product endorsers. The trade show is definitely not dead its just not the behemoth it once was with the displays scaled back to coincide with the general economy of the times.

All that being said, its still fun to go to PMA to be immersed in all things photographic. This year, as it has been for the last few years, it was very clear that “all things photographic” did not include much in the way of film. Film was relegated to a very small display board showing the line of film products in the Kodak and Fuji booths. The bulk of the booth space was devoted to digital products! There were only two other booths that had anything to do with film - one table for a company that did silver reclamation and a small booth for a company that sold wet chemistry processing equipment.

The two most popular themes at the show were photo books and online services. It seemed like every other booth had something to do with one or the other or both! There was a new PMA photo book showcase exhibit with numerous examples of book types, bindings, materials and printing processes represented with different physical book on display with a tabular “score sheet” that rated the quality along several parameters based on a 5 “consumer” panel of judges. The entries ran the gamut from low cost online assembled books to high-end wedding album custom layout coffee table volumes. There were quite a few samples that utilized photo paper pages that laid perfectly flat when open and had no “seam”, just a slight crease such that double page horizontal images were displayed in an uninterrupted manner. Very cool and, it seemed, mostly intended for wedding albums – I thought these binding types would work exceptionally well for fine art portfolios.

Online photo applications were everywhere! Most were variations on web hosting with print fulfillment. upload images and have print requests sent to photo labs. Everyone had some kind of web front end with varying degrees of customization. Some were flat fee types with a sign up fee plus some kind of consistent monthly fee but they were more often than not a revenue sharing model – the web hosting service would provide most of the setup and server space free in exchange for a percentage of the profit from the services sold. Everything could be branded to whoever was fronting the business. Some services targeted individual photographer, some aimed at labs. Quite a few services were offered for camera stores, that had no lab capabilities, to connect to lab services that provided prints, etc… for a percentage of the transaction. All of this, of course was just an additional “middle man” to separate the customer from the final service provider and its hard to image how the profit diffusion could benefit anyone – still, this general idea was very popular with a number of vendors supplying similar web services.

Well… there is more to share, including what I thought was the coolest photo product at the show but I’m going to have to stop here and continue tomorrow when I get a chance to sit down again for a couple of minutes. Right now I have to prepare for a Monday back at work after a week away. Stay tuned for the next PMA installment.

The age of solid state storage memory is arriving. A 64 GB NAND drive in a MacBook AIR costs $900. Mass production of high capacity NAND drives is only now beginning, though, so their price is at a premium.

I paid $2000 for a 2GB Barracuda drive in 1994. Nowadays, cutting edge drives cost 50¢ per GB (Terabyte and up) and older generation drives cost 35¢ a GB.

Watch for rapid price drops and capacity bumps in NAND drives over the coming months (and more over the years).

But, one of the most exciting things in these drives is speed bumps. A partnership between Intel and Micron Technologies is claiming achieving read speeds of 200 MB/Sec and write speeds of 100 MB/Sec for upcoming NAND Drives. We’re looking at a real speed bump in the near future in transfer rates.

Check out the news here

Hi all,

Well… I’m here in Las Vegas for the annual PMA show, thats the Photo Marketing Association trade show – the largest Photography show in the US. I’ve spent the last few days here involved with the DIMA subgroup (Digital Image Marketing Association) as I’m on the board of directors as 2nd Vice President. Of course, that and $5 gets you a Starbucks coffee here in Vegas – however, I’ve been busy with meetings, dinners and various networking activities as well as teaching an all day workshop on RAW file workflow this past Wednesday.

The show itself opened yesterday, occupying all of the south hall of the massive Las Vegas convention center. This is the event where all the photography manufacturers bring out their latest offerings for display. Even though the show is large by any standard, this year felt sort of underwhelming. Things seemed a little quiet and there were no real spectacularly new announcements or new products that hadn’t already been out for several months.

Nikon, Canon, Epson and HP had introduced new things months ago and there was nothing especially new in their booths. Sony had announced a new 24 megapixel DSLR that was rumored to be at the show but the only thing available was a glass display box with the prototype camera and a new collection of lenses, sealed away from eager attendees. There wasn’t even any literature available for the camera.

Of course if you were looking for new photo gear there was plenty of stuff available - just not from the mainstream "big boys". Overall, one could safely say that this was the year of the photobook – it seemed like every other booth had something to do with Photobook software, book binding, book vendors, printers and such. Nikon, Canon, Epson, HP and Kodak had the biggest booths though there was a very strange humongous booth from GE! Yes, that’s General Electric with the familiar logo emblazoned on all the panels –

this huge white space was absolutely empty except for GE employees. They were calling the booth "General Imaging" and it seemed to be about a line of point and shoot cameras but nobody was venturing into this booth. I guess everyone thought it had something to do with light bulbs and nobody was interested.I’ll try and post some more but right now I’m running off to a dinner with DIMA staffers.

Gates, Simonyi Give $30 Million To Build Giant Telescope

The viewing equipment will include a 3,200-megapixel digital camera that will capture and download up to 30 Tbytes of image data per night.

Full Story…

Someday my prints will come…

I remember this statement as a poster that sat behind the counter of a known NYC lab back in the days of my assisting years. After 4 years of School of Visual Arts, I began my career by being the studio mgr. to Eric Meola. Working for this renowned professional pretty much opened the doors for my career, both as an assistant and a shooter.

But what I would like to share with you is how we are working today as photographers and digital artists.

When film was our medium of choice, there was a glass ceiling to reach and those who broke through in their craft, became heroes and superstars. I worked for all those characters and found myself on a path of curiosity and achievement. This drive to manipulate the image and alter what we think we see and to express my ideas unconsciously was my mantra, my found passion as a photographer. I found myself drawn to directors like Federico Fellini and artists like Rene Magritte, Dali.. the impressionists and many other classical works of art. It was art in the museums that became my muse while working for these great pros. I had the opportunity to work on the Marlboro campaigns, Coke, tons of beer ads, travel the world with corporate work and advertising alike. Yes it was a great high to be considered one of NY’s top assistants for a bit, but that all goes away when one makes the jump to shoot on their own.

It take guts to count pennies for days and hope to find a job that will not only pay the rent but allow you to keep shooting. I can truly say I would not have it any other way. I have never felt like I had worked a day in my life as a photographer.

Now…what do we have today? Verses what I had thought existed…

What I see is an aspect of photography that never existed before. Now anyone can show the world and express…”look at me”… and get a response by joining sites like Model Mayhem or OMP or whatever. How wonderful to share in this and have a small audience to express their feelings also.

When I was starting out, my work was only shown to professionals and you received professional responses. You pounded the pavement with heavy books and saw as many people as you can. Some hired and yet many did not. Waking up with NO was common and only made you stronger. You reached for that glass ceiling and with each image found a way to make it work. You shared with you buddies techniques and helped each other along the way… a rather “healthy” competition existed among ourselves then.

Today we work from the quite corners of our studios or homes, spilling out all we can muster through our machines, and from these inhuman distances we tire ourselves with dry eyes and little sleep. We distract ourselves with other worlds that exist outside of our lives and surf the net like our lives depended on it.

Our glass ceiling of film has gone away…and I think of Paul Simon singing about Kodachrome.
Yes it seems to me that our business has drastically divided itself into … who knows how many directions, but I will talk about two that affect me as a professional.

What and who are the digital artist and the photographer?

In 1996 I started a company with a friend, who became my digital artist…we where called 2wist Photo LLC. We were the first, and I say first because no one else in advertising was doing this at the time, to become a digital artist/photographer team at a time when the Internet just started out. Was I lucky…yes to be atop that crest of the wave that began this era of photography…

But there was another edge to that sword.

Because of the novelty of digital and the use of the computer as a tool, the photographer… being me… was becoming a simple “Polaroid” to the end product. I say this because of our team work; we were showcased in many articles about our work with professional magazines about photography and some TV shows interviewing us. It was great…but I soon began to feel a bit left out. The emphasis was on the computer use and not the beginnings of the image. And since I did not, at the time, have the skills to work on the computer myself, I had allowed those feelings to affect my well-being and my thoughts about my career. By the time 9-11 hit, my partner decided to quit the business and raise a family with her husband.

We did very well as a business and made a ton of money…getting 5 figures for an image! That was a tremendous high for us… but every wave ends.

After the tragedy of 9-11, I found myself in a digital world without any digital life for myself and my ideas… I sought to collaborate with other digital artists, but again saw the writing on the wall; that in the end, I was not in control of my images. Yes I could’ve shot straight images and did and made money, but my passion was in the fantasy, the altered image, the very thing I was seeking to create when I entered the world of photography…to reach that glass ceiling and break through.

But in my path to follow those passions, I have discovered that over the years of teaching myself, taking numerous seminars and always questioning the pros… to how I can now create anything I can think up… I have realized that the industry no longer has a need for that craftsman/photographer.

Yes I do get paid for my art… but that comes few and far between these days. The industry, as far as ad agencies go, always find a way to narrow the margin to the simple image. I recently found myself in a situation where I was passed up on a major hair campaign, because the art director found that they needed someone who can shoot against a white background… Funny I start on a clean background, but what I show is always different.

Today I am now asking myself…do I adjust to the market or go with my gut? Do I treat my business more like a business and give them what they want? And just keep the other work as my “personal” work. It seems that what is shown may not be as important as to how you present it these days. As a photographer in the advertising market, if you don’t show what they want, art buyers won’t go the extra mile to see what you can really create. Books are rarely needed these days and a site with your own URL is most important. I have listened to these concepts as a board member of APA and now being associated with the LADIG, I here it just the same. Many of us are frustrated with the many paths one can take these days, knowing that it seems to take more time and money then ever before.

There are no answers anymore to becoming a successful photographer and I feel those days of craftsmanship may be part of the past. It’s “American Idol” time and who can scream the loudest seems to get the most attention. We all look for the greener grass and as a species we are less attentive to what may be important, as to what seems important. We follow the crowd and want only to become a piece of the pie.

I have always followed the path of becoming the pie and letting others ask for a piece. Perhaps it’s my training when I assisted, and then when I meet a young artist shooting for a magazine and saying to me…”wow I can get paid for this”…that just threw me!
We have diluted ourselves our business and our craft to a point that so many now believe it to be so easy to call oneself a photographer. Yeah…you can, but the craft and the knowledge of leading others into the art of photography is slowly diminishing to the symbols and idols we help raise to the heights we wish to be a part of and not thinking of better ways to address the issues we all have as “photographers” and “digital artists”.

With this I have found myself creating in other ways…Whether I am teaching about Photoshop (a concept I never thought I would be doing) to writing a book, to my ventures in front of the camera with a new production I yet cannot discuss. I have begun to understand how I can make a difference in this new world, but it’s not always in how I thought my life would pan out as a photographer, but to allow this new world to show me that there are other paths that can lead to the same dream.

I think allowing one self to see these differences and allowing them to become a part of the workflow is an answer that works for me at this moment and perhaps one that we as a group can interpolate and become pervasive in our seminars and meetings.

Once I asked a fellow photographer if he created a business plan incorporating all this new medium and I received a piece of loose leaf paper, torn edges and all; a drawing of a spiral with arrows coming and going in all directions. He looked at me and frankly stated…”this is all I can come up with these days”!

As always…
If you want to make it count then make sure you can deliver the goods. Sure that’s easy when your client doesn’t drive you crazy with alterations and changes on the spot. And then blames you for the wrong color in the end. When did we all become printing experts!
In the end, the money/client wants the final product to work successfully and for as cheaply as possible. Only after years of proof can one become stable enough to negotiate terms and conditions. But why should we always accept what we are told, or out of fear of loosing a job. Perhaps we can alter the playing field a bit and allow our clients an understanding that digital does not mean cheaper or faster… actually we all know and understand it is quite the opposite. I once read an article about how one wants to go back and shoot film without a crowd surrounding them… at times, I can truly relate.

We need to start addressing these issues and perhaps open a discussion on how others feel about the “future of the photographer” and the “digital artist”. I see now that these two paths have become two different professions, both stemming from the film days.
Organizations like APA and ASMP are currently fighting for our rights as artists, while we as LADIG are discovering and sharing the never-ending ways to hone ours craft as artists and perhaps address the issues of being a photographer and digital artist whether separate or simultaneously.

I believe this group can make a difference…we may look like the Bad News Bears at times, but we sure can hit home runs like the rest of them. It would be wonderful to read what other members have to say, so please don’t shy away from expressing yourself and sharing.

Happy New Year to all…

with kindness,
Ken P

I’m a bit of a history buff, especially the history of technology. While doing some research today on a completely unrelated subject, I came across a link that I thought was interesting and thought I’d share: A History of Digital Cameras

Enjoy, and have a safe and happy New Year.

MJ

I recently discovered ( with the help of John Nack) the coolest set of brush and tool presets I’ve come across in a very long time. Justin Gerard from Portland Studios has them on their site  where you can see them in action.  For those of you who bristle at paying someone else to do stuff you can for yourself like writing actions or creating color palettes I can understand thinking “why would I pay for this?”  Thing is, these are amazing, a lot of work went into them and as presets you can fool around with ‘em all day long and get wildly different combinations of natural brush effects. For any  one who uses lots of textures in their Photoshop images I can’t recommend this enough. It’s that cool.  So there.   -je 

For the past couple of years I’ve been having a lot of fun with what I consider to be one of the best creative capture tools available. No, its not a new camera or software plug-in. Its not a new RAW file processor or special light control/diffuser/bounce/softbox… etc… It is the “Lensbabie” a unique, low cost, selective focus lens available for most of the DSLRs as well as old school film SLRs (they even have a model for motion picture cameras with a PL mount). I’ve found that this little wobbly lens is a welcome relief from the hyper-technical, precise photography that I tend to do for advertising and commercial clients. Working with the selective tilt focus lens commits you to a certain look at the time of capture - no turning back! This is photography without the safety net of digital in the extreme and it informs your creative vision  in a way that few other approaches do. It also liberates you from the technical concerns of focus and chromatic aberration – hell everything is soft with blue fringe! Its definitely one way to turn an $8k digital camera into a $8 toy camera though it will set you back $100 - $200 depending on which model you go for. I do have a lot of fun with this … Here are a few samples of shot taken with the Lensbabie!

I’ve introduced a new category for posts concerning the group’s activities. We’ll use this LADIG News category to talk about what has been happening and what we’d like for the future. Anything related to USDIG/LADIG events or other activities as well as the news surrounding individual members activities – like shows, exhibits, or talks and seminars.  To kick this off, I’d like to offer a review of our holiday party. This past December 11th we had our annual Holiday Party & Print Swap at Anthony Nex’s studio in the Helms Building Annex. Board member extraordinaire, Richard Kephart supplied his special home made chili for dinner and various members brought additional holiday spirits to supplement the usual sodas and water refreshments. The focus of the party was the member print swap. We had several tables where members spread out their prints. Anyone that brought a print could negotiate a swap with anyone with another print to swap. We did this last year and as last time it was a big success. There was also a continuos slideshow of members work and this all contributed to a great environment for sharing. It was really great to see all the good work that members are producing. Guests were welcome and I saw quite a few new faces –I hope most will continue to support the LADIG at regular events.  We also tried out a little game we called “Whose Picture is it Anyway” where the audience had to guess who among 3 or 4 different people was really responsible for the picture. I’m not sure this was that successful – the audience had some initial difficulty in deciding between two of the contestants but by the end everyone had guessed correctly – but it was fun hearing the rather outlandish stories told by the contestants.I’m hoping to receive some photos from the event and once I do I’ll post them here (hint for other bloggers who attended the party). All in all, the print swap was a big success –I came prepared and I walked away with a lot of really cool images for my collection. I would love to hold more community building events like this that focus on members images. Maybe we can do a “Show and Tell” kind of event where people get up and talk about a cool image they created. Lets talk!