Nathan G “Now Is The Time” Shoot

A few weeks back, I did another photo shoot with my brother-in-law Nathan. Nathan is better known to many as Nathan G, an internationally successful DJ and recording artist. Nathan’s home page is at Myspace. For this shoot, Nathan was responsible for the concept, the selection of the images, and the processing in Lightroom. It was his first time using the software, and he enjoyed it very much!

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All of these photos were done with a single snooted flash on a light stand.

I’ve done a few shoots with Nathan before. You can see them here:
Photoshoot with Nathan G – P365 Mar21
http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2007/07/23/p365-jul23-light-painting-nathan/
http://www.neilcreek.com/blog/2007/06/10/p365-jun10-food-nathan/

Photo5 Results, Recognition and Reflections

The Canon Photo5 competition has come to an end and the winners posted, but not without controversy!

I should preface this post with the disclaimer that I was an entrant in the competition, and I was very proud of my entries, confident that I had a good chance of making it to the finalists with at least one image.

Questionable Judging?

In my admittedly biased opinion, I think the judges did a poor job selecting finalists, but this was also partly due to the separation of all entries into two divisions: Amateur and Professional. The judges were asked to choose five images from each object category and for each division, for a total of 50 images, from the approximately 8000 entries.

I presume the decision to split the entrants into two divisions was perhaps to address concerns that by allowing professionals and amateurs to compete on level ground was unfair to those without access to expensive equipment and years of experience. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the number of amateur entrants far outnumbered the professionals, by as much as 20 to 1 or more, and yet they were still competing for the same number and value of prizes. The end result was that professionals were guaranteed a greater chance at winning a prize, due to the far smaller pool of images. The final quality of the professional finalists selected also reflected this much smaller pool of images, with the amateur finalists displaying on average far superior images.

As for the choices made by the judges, many have found them difficult to understand, myself included. Some of the images selected were (once again, in my opinion) unimaginative, not the best example of a particular concept, or quite simply bizarre. Among the fifty, there were indeed some exceptional photos, but the overall quality of entrants seemed to me to be only slightly above the average of all of the entrants, and not the cream of the crop.

Technical Issues

On top of this, there were some problems, that seemed like teething troubles one would not expect to find in a competition run by such a big name as Canon. Some rules were changed or “clarified” mid-competition, others were unclear even up to the due date. Images submitted were displayed as they were entered (after a 48 hour delay, presumably for screening), leading to complaints that later entries could copy the concepts of earlier ones. I personally have no problem with this, as I think the best entry of a particular concept should be selected, and users had the opportunity to change their entries up to the closing date.

Finally, some have described technical and user interface problems with the voting mechanism. While I didn’t have any problems myself, I agree that the interface used for displaying and voting on entries suffered from poor usability.

A Worthwhile Competition

Despite the problems and issues that I have described above, I think that Photo5 is an excellent competition, and I would like to see it continue in the future, perhaps with some tweaks. Canon are to be commended for running such a complex competition, and especially for the concept which encourages photographers to get creative with a mystery object and whatever equipment they have on hand.

I thoroughly enjoyed looking through all of the entries and being impressed, amazed and inspired by the many different interpretations of the objects provided by Canon. I have experimented with this concept myself with the Iron Chef Photography projects that I have run in the past and intend to revive soon.

Photos Deserving Recognition

It’s a little hollow of me to criticise the judges for their choices if I don’t “suck it up” and have a go at judging myself. Also, I would like to see some more of the possibly unrecognised photos submitted to the competition get some acknowledgement. As such, I looked through all of the entries (yes, all approximately 8000 of them) and I have chosen my favourite of each of the objects overall. I wish I could link to the photographer’s web pages, but Canon didn’t ask that information of entrants. If you would like to know more of the details of the photos I have selected below, please click on the thumbnails to see the entry on Canon’s site.

Ribbon by Sanchia	Crayon by Nicole Pragasm	Bubbles by Indigo	Umbrella by Dark Orange
Candle by Russell Arnett

And just in case you missed them, these were my entries:

Ribbon

Crayon

Bubbles

Candle

Umbrella

Update: Canon have linked to this post from their Photo5 blog! By acknowledging and promoting awareness of constructive criticism of their competition, I think Canon have demonstrated a significant degree of professionalism and sincerity in their engagement of online communities. Congratulations and thank you Canon for your honesty.

Photo5 Umbrella: Cocktail of Drugs

This is my entry for the Canon Photo5 competition, with the cocktail umbrella:

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To treat her arthritis, cope with the pain and related issues, my wife Naomi takes a daily cocktail of drugs. Seen here is a typical day’s dose.

A fairly straightforward photo. The idea came to me as I was driving to visit Naomi in hospital. I took the umbrella with me in case I thought of anything I could shoot the umbrella with in the hospital. I thought, at first, of putting it in the plastic drinking cup Naomi has there, but then the idea of the cocktail of drugs Nomi takes came to mind.

Naomi isn’t taking all of her normal drugs right now while in hospital, due to the antibiotics, and I didn’t have our cool measuring up with me either so I took the shot at home. I first took a simple photo of the concept structure, then spiced it up with a bit of flash magic. The result is a photo I’m pretty happy with, and a concept that I don’t think any other Photo5 entrants have used! I can also use this photos in my photo essay Naomi’s life with arthritis.

Here’s the setup:

On a white sheet of card curled up as an infinity sweep, I placed a black speckled tile to look like a bar counter top, and give a reflection of the “cocktail”.

On the left pointed at the background, is a Vivitar 285HV at 1/16th with a blue gel and 50% neutral density gel (to cut down the brightness an extra stop).

On the right, another Vivitar 285HV at 1/16th, bare and with cardboard barn doors to control the light spill and lens flare, points back at the cocktail.

On the left, a folded sheet of A4 white paper acts as a reflector to fill in the shadows on the left of the cocktail.

Settings for the submitted photo:
Canon 350D
Tamron 24-135mm @ 135mm
1/125/sec at f/10, ISO100

Photo5 Bubbles: Universal Patterns

This is my Photo5 entry for “bubbles”, and description. It’s my least favourite of the five.

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The patterns of nature repeat everywhere, and on vastly different scales. On the left are blown bubbles, on the right is a simulation of the structure of clusters of millions of galaxies. Simulation credit: August Evrard, Department of Physics, University of Michigan.

In my mind, this looked awesome. I love the concept, and the idea of repeating patterns of nature on these vastly different scales blows my mind every time I think about it. But unfortunately, putting the two images side-by-side, they just have no visual impact at all. I’ve submitted the photo as I couldn’t think of anything better in the little time I had left, but I feel disappointed that I couldn’t express the awe I feel about the idea in my photo.

Here’s the set-up photo:

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On the stool is an air pump, with an airline going tinto a short vase that holds the bubble mixture. The airline is held with small clamps to keep it below the level of the bubble mix. My 580EX flash is on the left, set to 1/32nd power, illuminating the shot, against black card.

One truly great thing about this photo, however, was the ease with shich I was able to get permission to include someone else’s work in my image. Once I had the idea, i searched the net, and found the image I wanted to use. I emailed the site asking if I might be able to use the image for the Photo5 competition, and within a day I got a wonderful and encouraging response. Thank you kindly to August Evrard, Department of Physics, University of Michigan, for the use of his simulated image!

Then I emailed Canon, asking if I could use someone elses work as a part of my own entry for the competition – with written consent from the image owner. Again, within a day I had an answer from Canon, and they graciously allowed me to use the image so I could execute my concept.

I was expecting to hear no response, a delayed response or a negative response from both parties, but I was pleasantly surprised by both! Thank you so much to both August and Canon. I only wish I could have done better!

ChloroFluor – Product Photography Case Study: Part 1

I’m working to develop myself as a professional photographer, and I’m always looking for photographic jobs. I thought it might make an interesting blog post to hear a little about how I work, so here is a case study of one of my recent jobs. This job took place over a few weeks, and has just been completed, so I’m free to talk about it. I’d like to go into a fair bit of detail, so the case study may span a couple of blog posts, otherwise it may become too long.

The Client

The client, PDS (Professional Dentist Supplies), is a dental products supplier for professional dentists, providing equipment and materials. Contact was originally made through a workmate of my wife’s. The client is a family business, and Naomi’s workmate – a friend of the family – knew of me as a photographer, so when PDS needed some photography done, I was asked to quote.

The Brief

PDS make Chloroflour, an anti-bacterial mouth gel, that is mostly sold through dentist surgeries, and they wanted to try selling the product through magazine advertisements. The brief was to come up with a concept for the ad, photograph the product and relevant components, and compile them into a digital file, ready to be sent to the various magazine publishers for including in their magazines.

If possible the ad should emphasise that the product kills the bacteria that causes plaque and decay, and protects the whole mouth, including teeth and gums.

The Quote

The first thing we did was to break down the job into the various parts that make up the whole, so that we could estimate the time taken, and from there, work out the costs. We came up with the following list:

Develop 3 concepts and produce mock ups for the client to choose from
Source necessary props (purchase of props would differ depending on the concept chosen, prop cost would be quoted additionally after this)
Photograph all the elements of the advertisement
Process photos and composite into final layout
Come up with slogans to be used in the ads
Assemble the advertisement using additional wording provided
Adapt the assembled ad for each magazine according to their specs

Naomi, a graphic designer would take care of the final two points, and would be creative assistant throughout the job.

Once we had this breakdown, we estimated the time and came up with a final cost. The quote was prepared and sent to the client. Within a week it was approved, so we started brainstorming ideas.

The Concepts

Over the next several days, Naomi and I brainstormed ideas for the ad, sketching with a notepad and pencil whenever inspiration struck. We chose three concepts that we liked, and developed them a bit further by making mock ups on the computer with images found on Google. These mock ups were simply to illustrate the idea to the client.

Concept 3 needed a prop from PDS, a set of teeth. They dropped it around for us at our request, and I took a couple of quick photos to make the concept mock up seen below. I’ll discuss this particular one in more detail in a separate post, as it’s interesting in itself.

Concept 1

Concept 2

Concept 3

End of Part 1

In part 2, I’ll talk about the process of figuring out how to get all the stuff we need to bring the concept together, including finding props, shooting all the elements, processing and compositing into the final image.