A Stocking Full of Bitsas

Time for another “bitsa” post, with some links, a photo from the past and a kick in the teeth.

A Big Thank You

I’d like to say a big thank you to my blogging buddy Brian Auer of Epic Edits and PhotoNetCast. The most recent episode of the excellent photography podcast PhotoNetCast discusses the sexy new Canon 5D MkII (you know, the one that will be my new camera sooner or later ;) ). I listened to this episode for that reason alone, but lo and behold, Brian actually selected my recent post on going photographer full-time as his link of the week! He graciously offered it to his listeners as something they may want to watch as I learn the ins and outs of a career in pro photography. Well I plan to live up to that and you can look forward to some interesting posts – I hope – as I build up my new career.

Have a listen to PhotoNetCast episode 19!

A Plug for Brian

Brian has a fascinating project going on over at his blog, and as usual this one takes a very unique and interesting angle. Rather than taking photos, Brian wants you to make an action or preset to help with the processing of your photos. If you have any Photoshop, Lightroom, or other application shortcuts that you use (Actions in Photoshop, presets in Lightroom), Brian wants you to write about it and submit the link to his project. And the best thing is, there’s over $1000USD worth of prizes to be handed out to ten talented winners. But you’d better hurry, the due date is January 2nd! Read about the project here.

Don’t Forget to Shoot Your Paperclip!

On the topic of projects, don’t forget about our Iron Chef Photographer – Paperclip project! The due date is just TWO DAYS away! So get out the camera, scrounge up a paperclip and get creative. Read the full details here.

Photo from the Archives

This is a photography blog, so this post should still have a photo. So here’s one from the archives.

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This was taken in 2006 on the first evening of our driving trip through Southwestern Western Australia. Our friend Antanas holds the setting sun in his hands, as it disappears behind the clouds in the Pinnacles Desert, near Cervantes.

Yes, I Said Kicked in the Teeth

Night sky over the Church of the Good Shepherd

Finally a short story about a road bump on my way to being a pro photographer. I was very excited to receive an email yesterday from a large Philippine advertising agency, who wanted to use my image of The Night Sky over the Church of the Good Shepherd. The image was to be used in three of the country’s newspapers, with a combined circulation of 300,000, as a double page spread! I was very excited by this prospect, and knew that such a huge scale, prominent use of my photo would command a good price.

I used the very handy Stock Photo Price Calculator to work out what I thought was a reasonable price – I even discounted the image use in the third newspaper, a kind of volume discount. In the end I quoted around $2000USD. I was very excited about this potential sale and I must admit I got a little giddy with the good news.

The reply brought me back to Earth however. A choice quote from the rejection email was: “Getty & Photolibrary … have quoted a much much much lower rate with a similar image.”

It seems that the ad agency were given an extremely restricted budget by their client. Alright, I’ll say it, they were tight. What makes me think this? 1) They found my photo on Flickr, where I suspect they hoped to find a photo from an amateur who would be more thrilled by the idea of being published than being paid. 2) They asked if I could do it cheap because it’s only going to be published “for one day“. All newspapers are only published for one day, and I priced my quote accordingly. 3) They asked if I could do the price cheap because “it’s only going to be used for a christmas greeting“. Excuse me, but what?!

I guess the lesson here is stick to your guns, and don’t get your hopes up until your quote is approved.

Wedding Shoot AKA I Fell in Love With a Full-Frame

I shot a wedding on the weekend, and boy was it the most challenging wedding shoot yet, but I’m not going to talk about that. I’m gonna share a few of my favourite photos and wax lyrical about how awesome it was to shoot with a full-frame sensor camera.

I take this wedding photography business seriously, and I’m really enjoying it these days, despite the elevated stress levels. Something I did this time to lower the stress was to borrow a friend’s 5D so that I had two cameras to shoot with, in case one died. I can tell you now, it was love at first click.

By the way, if you like these photos, live near Melbourne, Australia, and have a wedding coming up, I’m available for wedding bookings! You can read more on my site here: http://neil.creek.name/weddings (Excuse the plug ;) )

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I love shooting with my 50mm f1.8 lens. If you don’t have one of these, you’ve got to get one. It’s tack-sharp, great in low light, and perfect for portraits with silky smooth bokeh. On my 350D, which has a 1.6x crop factor, however, it can be a problem with field of view. To fit a subject in nicely, I have to take a few steps back, which isn’t always an option. On the full frame sensor of the 5D however, the 50mm feels just right. The image above was taken in the bride’s back yard before heading off to the ceremony. I stood on a garden chair for the flattering high angle, and the composition just worked, without having to move the chair back too far.

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I love the photo above, and I feel I’ve succeeded in taking a type of photo I’ve not mastered yet: photo journalistic. Still shooting with the 50mm in the very dull, naturally lit living room, I was able to capture some natural candid moments before we left. A full-frame sensor enhances the effect and appearance of a shallow depth of field. I was shooting here at f1.8, resulting in a narrow depth of field, which allowed me to minimise the background clutter, and include the element of the girl in the background without drawing attention away from the bride.

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I don’t know if it’s a feature of full frame cameras in general, or the 5D in particular, but the light sensitivity seemed to me to be one to two stops greater than my 350D. Seen above, the bride is standing well back from a tree-shaded window on an overcast day. It was positively dim in the room, yet I was still able to capture a perfectly acceptable image at 1/100sec, f5.6 ISO400! The image was somewhat noisy in processing, but not offensively so, and which was handily dealt with by Lightroom.

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Due to the poor weather, the ceremony was held indoors, and our post-ceremony images were drastically limited, but despite these problems, I was able to salvage some decent images.

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The extra-wide field of view afforded by a full-frame sensor was an absolute joy. I’m a lover of wide angle photography, and never have I been able to get as wide as this with my Tamron 24-135 on my 350D. After the rains had eased, we were treated to some spectacular skies. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to get out the flash and add some strobist juice. The groom’s sister was my cheerful and helpful assistant, holding the flash.

Lighting info:
Canon 5D
1/100sec @ f/20, ISO100
Tamron 24-135mm @ 24mm
Canon 580EX @ 1/4 power

This photo ended up being my favourite for the day, and I knew it was so as soon as I saw it on the back of the camera.

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I mentioned it earlier, but the low-light performance of the 5D, coupled with the 50mm f1.8 allowed me to capture images that just wouldn’t have been possible with the 350D. Not only was the chip giving me greater sensitivity, the expanded ISO to 3200 increased my shooting range, and the trade-off was sensor noise, which in my opinion was less offensive in quality than that on the 350D.

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Even my favourite lens, the Sigma 8mm f4 fisheye was supercharged by the 5D. No longer was I shooting a cropped circle, but a full 360 by 180 degree hemisphere of the world. The spherical image may not be to everyone’s taste, but with the higher resolution sensor on the 5D, you still have plenty of room to crop. If you do crop down, you’ll probably end up with a similar resolution to what I get on the 350D. However, if you want to get the full 360 degree circle with an 8mm lens, only a full-frame sensor will do.

With my appetite whet to the luxury of full frame DSLRs, I cannot wait to get my hands on a 5D MkII. I suspect everything I loved about the 5D will be there, but better :) I’m giggling like a schoolgirl at the thought of it!

Photo5 Candle: Darker Side

This is my entry for the Canon Photo5 competition, with the tea light candle:

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A man lost in praise before a candle unwittingly reveals a darker side of himself.

I really like this photo. The mischievous side of me enjoys the slightly sacrilegious message. I also like how the image can be looked at on different levels, and interpreted in different ways. Do the horns represent the man’s dark side? Or is the photographer trying to comment on a dark side to religion as a whole? Is this an attack on religion or a warning to the pious. Those who know me probably know what I think, but that’s less important than what you all think!

The idea for this photo was hard to come by, but kind of popped into my head as soon as I started thinking about shadows. The execution, however, was a lot harder. I originally thought I’d fake the light and the shadow with a flash just out of shot, so that I could get a nice sharp, clean image. However, after many failed attempts to get the shadows just right, I decided to just have a look through the viewfinder with the candle only. I was beginning to think the idea wouldn’t work

A few experiments (with long exposures and high ISO – challenging in itself) showed promise, and we eventually got a shot I was reasonably happy with. The main problem was that the shadows of the hands looked like hands, not the horns I wanted. In the end I relented and used photoshop to sliiiightly change the shape of the shadows, and instantly, Danny – my patient model – had horns!

Here’s the un-edited photo, so you can see how little was actually changed:

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Details:
Canon 350D
Tamron 24-135mm @24mm
2.0sec at f3.5 ISO1600

Naomi’s Life With Arthritis – 4 Weeks in Hospital

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Having her laptop with her has helped keep Naomi sane, especially with the generous loan of my brother-in-law’s mobile broadband dongle. This has helped both of us to shrink the distance by being able to stay in touch all day via chat and email.

Also note here the bruises and red marks on the back of Naomi’s hand. Due to the damage done to her elbows by the arthritis, she is unable to straighten her arms enough for blood to be taken from the usual places. On top of that, due to swelling, inflammation and her drugs, finding a vein suitable for blood tests can be an extremely painful and stressful ordeal – depending on the skill of the nurse. Usually, the best veins can be found in the back of Naomi’s hand.

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The problem of Naomi’s difficult veins has been helped somewhat by the insertion of the PICC line. This can be used to deliver the antibiotics only, but its placement on her inner upper arm is far more comfortable than the back of her hand. The blue line that enters Naomi’s arm here ends within her heart.

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As the dose of antibiotics has increased in the last week, Naomi has been suffering from one of the common side-effects: intense itchiness. The itchiness is non-localised, and is enough to distract her from whatever she is doing. For the first time since entering hospital, I have seen Naomi’s spirits suffer. One of the few things she can do for relief is wipe herself with a damp facecloth.

Fortunately the itching comes and goes with the doses, and the nurses have been giving Naomi increasingly powerful antihistamines which are beginning to help, and have reduced the itching to a moderate annoyance.

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Hospital food is well known for leaving a lot to be desired…

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…so one of my frequent duties to assist Naomi is an emergency run to the hospital cafe for supplies.

Update

The good news in the last two days has been than Nomi’s CRP – and indicator of infection – has dropped from 150 to 120. This was the reason she wasn’t allowed to return home last Monday as scheduled. Even though the number is high, Naomi has shown no other sign of illness. Now that the CRP has begun to fall she has been given the all-clear to return home.

Now, however, she is waiting for the Hospital in the Home staff to come and fit her with the IV pump that she will carry with her for the next 4-6 weeks while she recovers at home. They are unfortunately severely understaffed, so there’s no telling when they can see Naomi. We are hoping she will come home tomorrow, but it could be longer.

Naomi’s Life With Arthritis – A Long Term Project

Home alone last night, I was watching the exceptional BBC series “The Genius of Photography“, when I was struck by inspiration. I have felt that I have been lacking a direction in my photography. Suddenly it occurred to me, that I have been ignoring a very important subject, my wife.

Naomi is an exceptional and inspirational person, who has suffered most of her life with the debilitating disease, Juvenile Onset Rheumatoid Arthritis, never more than now. She is currently in hospital, fighting an infection of her prosthetic knee, a complication of the treatment of her disease. With this recent issue, the interest and concern from family and friends has been great, and it has reminded me to varying degrees how little most people understand the disease, and more importantly, what it is like to live with it.

Our family and friends, in particular, generally have a good understanding of what Naomi is going through, but that only goes so far. The general public understands even less. I feel that many people have a poor appreciation of what it is like to experience life with a debilitating chronic disease.

A New Project

I intend to photograph Naomi, and expose what her life is like, living with arthritis. I want to take a journalistic and documentary style, something which I have never really done before. I want to show Naomi’s life as it is, conveying the reality and emotion as clearly as possible. It won’t be art, and it probably won’t be pretty, and I apologise to Naomi in advance if the photos show her in a less than flattering light. However I firmly believe that an unfettered, unfiltered view of this disease is essential. She has given me her consent to undertake this project.

This will be a learning experience for me, and to an extent, I will be exposing myself and my life’s experiences through these photos as well. I will never be able to be truly objective and removed from the subject in the true journalistic sense, as I am very much a part of Naomi’s life, and her disease affects me as well in many ways. I expect this to be a difficult and emotional experience for us both.

I hope that you will find this project interesting and informative, and hopefully I will be able to convey what I think is the most important thing about Naomi’s life with arthritis: the hope and determination this inspirational girl shows every single day of her life.

24th Day in Hospital

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Naomi has surrounded herself with various bits and pieces to make life in hospital more comfortable, and to pass the time creatively and productively.

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A PICC line enters Naomi through her arm and via a vein leads directly inside her heart, allowing for the delivery of antibiotics to fight the infection in her knee.

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Naomi passes the time creatively, by working on a beaded bracelet of her own design.

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Despite the damage to her finger joints, and the swelling and pain that results, Naomi has been able to stay relatively nimble and doesn’t find her beading hobby very restricted by the damage to her hands.

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A nurse administers a dose of intravenous antibiotics, which take from three to five hours to be fed via the PICC line into Naomi’s body. During this time she is tethered to the pump, and must take it with her if she needs to leave bed for any reason.

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Bandages cover an approximately 20cm long wound where Naomi’s knee was opened in surgery to “flush” the joint of infection. The bacteria are able to attach themselves to the prosthetic joint and potentially avoid the antibiotics, leaving a lingering question of how effective the treatment will eventually prove.

For those who are following the saga, the latest news is somewhat mixed. Naomi was expected to be discharged on Monday, to be treated for the next six weeks via “Hospital in the Home” with daily home visits by nursing staff. Unfortunately a test of a key marker for infection (CRP for the medically inclined) just hours before she was planning to leave showed the marker level to have jumped from 15 to 158! This concerned but did not alarm the doctors, but then could not let her go home.

This morning, a follow up test of the same marker showed a minimal decrease to 157, not any better, but no worse either. Naomi suggested that the marker – which indicates inflammation, a typical by-product of infection – may have gone up due to the worsening of her arthritis as a result of needing to come off the drug trial, which she has been on for three years. Her specialist, however, does not believe this is the cause, unfortunately pointing the finger of suspicion back to the infection.

Again the doctors are concerned but not alarmed. This is mostly because Naomi appears otherwise to be in good health, not showing other symptoms one might expect from a bad infection, such as fevers or nausea. For the time being they want to keep her in hospital for observation to see what happens to the CRP levels. They have also given her a moderate increase in her dose of antibiotics.

So for now it’s a waiting game.