Nuts and Bolts pt. One

 

I get a lot of questions about gear and technique, so I wanted to talk a little about what I use and why.
First I want to say that I am a firm believer that all gear, whether it is a camera, lens, strobe, etc. is nothing more than a collection of tools that you the photographer, as a craftsman, have at your disposal to make your art.
There are very few photographs that cannot be made in a multitude of ways, using a variety of gear, so one should really not get too hung up on what was used to make a particular image.
I currently use Canon cameras and lenses. I have used Nikon in the past and have no desire to get into a Nikon vs Canon debate, because frankly it doesn't matter one bit. Either are the cream of the crop for consumer to professional DSLR's. The choice between the two comes down to some minor feature differences, ergonomics, and economics. I do tend to steer people away from buying a Sony DSLR, because that funky proprietary flash shoe pisses me off to no end. Since a PC flash sync terminal isn't standard on most consumer/prosumer DSLR's these days, putting some proprietary mount that limits your use of external lighting to speedlights or continuos sources only just aggravates me.

I use Canon 50d's which are of course an APS-C format camera. I prefer the equivalent of a 70-80mm focal length, and fairly wide apertures for just about any photographs of people in which I want to isolate them a bit from the environment. I used to use a 28-70 f2.8 lens on a Canon EOS1N when I shot film, but found myself pretty much living at the 70mm end of that lens. So on a crop-frame sensor, I find that a 50mm prime is pretty much ideal for me. I use the Canon 50mm F1.4 USM version, btu I know a lot of people love the 50mm 1.8 II non-usm lens. I often shoot at 1.8, so I like the ability to stop down just a bit from wide open on the 1.4 to get there. I also like the much quieter and faster focusing.

For headshots, beauty photography, or if I need a different flavor of bokeh in the background, I love the 85mm 1.8 - it's actually probably my favorite lens, even though it's not the one I use most often. If I tried the 1.2L version, I'd probably cry as I signed the credit card receipt for it, but the 1.8 is perfectly acceptable for me.
The only other lens I use with regularity is the 17-40mm F4.0L. You won't see it much in my galleries here, occasionally when I want to include much more of a scene and am not concerned with depth of field. I use it a lot for my commercial photography, or for situations in which I want to exaggerate perspective a bit by getting up close and shooting wide.
I tend to use smaller CF cards - mostly 4gigs each. I like the security of not having an entire project on one card. I haven't lost anything to accidental deletion, but I would hate to lose a whole shoot that way. Easier to reshoot a portion of something than the whole thing.

I shoot mostly straight to the card. Sometimes I'll tether if I'm doing a studio shoot and I have a particular look I'm going for in post. Then I'll shoot tethered into lightroom 3, with the appropriate preset being applied on capture, so that I can determine whether my lighting, composition, etc. is appropriate for the way I want the final image to look after post production.

I think that's about enough for part one on camera gear and capturing images. Next time I'll talk a bit about my lighting gear and techniques, and how I decide what lighting is appropriate for a given situation. Cheers.

‘39

 

Don't you hear my call
Though you're many years away?
Don't you hear me calling you?
Write your letters in the sand
For the day I take your hand
In the land that our grandchildren knew.

 

Belle – Bohemia City, Oregon 2010

 

Technorati Tags: nude photography,ghost town,bohemia city,oregon,mining,oregonartnudes,nick johnson,eugene oregon

The Trees

 

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunlight
And the oaks ignore their pleas
The trouble with the maples
(And they're quite convinced they're right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can't help their feelings
If they like the way they're made
And they wonder why the maples
Can't be happy in their shade
There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream 'Oppression!'
And the oaks just shake their heads
So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
'The oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light'
Now there's no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet, axe and saw

Technorati Tags: trees,rush lyrics,nude photography,velocity,modeling,oregonartnudes,nick johnson,fine art photography

Suite Madame Blue

 

Time after time I sit and I wait for your call
I know I'm a fool but what can I say
Whatever the price I'll pay for you, madame blue

Technorati Tags: styx,suite madame blue,nude photography,wolfpup,hotel room,nick johnson,oregonartnudes,erotic art,portland oregon

When all is said and done

 

I love shooting in abandoned places.  The idea of bringing something new into a place that seems otherwise lifeless, the contrast of a beautiful, vibrant young model against the decay of something left behind… certainly a them I hope to continue in future projects.

Technorati Tags: jess robinson,abandoned,nude photography,urban decay,nick johnson,eugene oregon,oregonartnudes

My unapologetic love of dead woodland forest creatures.

 

I love meat.  Beef.  Pork.  Chicken.  Fish. Don’t get me wrong I love veggies too, and I’ve even been known to consume some tofu every now and then.  But my true love is game meat.  Venison.  Elk.  Pheasant.  Duck. 

I’m a hunter.  I fish too, but I enjoy hunting more.  I love the personal connection to the food I put on the table, and I love that hunting is one more big middle finger raised to the establishment of factory farming and the industrial food complex.

Some look at hunting as barbaric, and ask how I can look at a beautiful creature, center it’s body in the crosshairs of my riflescope, and send a bullet into it’s body, killing it.  Well, as a consumer, everything I consume had to die in order to become food whether it be plant or animal.  That deer, elk, boar, duck or pheasant had a truly free and fulfilling life until the moment it became food, for which I am truly thankful.  That ribeye steak or pack of hamburger wrapped in plastic in the store was once a living breathing cow.  It spent it’s last days cramped together with thousands of other cows in a feedlot being forcefed corn, not part of it’s natural diet, before it was forced through a chute, bludgeoned to death, and tossed in a pile to be processed without a second thought.

I feel a bit more respect for the food I eat whether it come from an animal or from my garden because I had a hand in procuring it.

As I sit here tonight eating grilled chili-rubbed venison backstrap, I feel very much alive and inspired.

It’s not porn as long as the naughty bits are covered….

 

ya know, it just baffles me when I read the profiles of so-called “models” on sites like model mayhem, and see something along the lines of “I don’t shoot nudes or anything vulgar” or “no nudes – I’m a classy girl” and yet their portfolios are full of images of them with their ass in a thong bent over hovering above the lens, or wearing the bikini top equivalent of two postage stamps and some dental floss.

Just because you can’t see a nipple or your crotch is barely covered doesn’t make an image “classy.”  In the same context, just because a model is nude in an image doesn’t make it dirty.

Mollie – Eugene Oregon

Back in the groove

 

The day job has been taking it’s toll lately.  We’re supposed to be heading into the slow season, but haven’t seen it yet.  We’re  really short handed too, so it’s been a really long few weeks.

Things are starting to get back to normal, and I’m working on putting some posts together to have a few in the can, for those days when my brain and my body are both mush and I don’t have the energy to post. 

Shot a commercial assignment yesterday for an aviation company.  No nudity, not even any models.  Just a jet.  It was a fun gig and was cool to step outside the box and do something beyond my comfort zone.  Oddly enough, Jets don’t respond as well to verbal direction as models do.  We had good light though, and brought a considerable amount of our own.  No equipment problems.  No problems timing the exterior shots with the sunset, kept everything on schedule…  I’m learning to be able to take yes for an answer…

 

Jessica Robinson – Eugene Oregon 2009

Organization

 

I’m getting a bit antsy… 

The last days of predictably good weather are upon us here in Oregon, and there (as it happens every year) are still so many things that I wanted to accomplish this summer with my personal work.  So many short trips I wanted to take.  So many locations to explore.  So many woulda coulda shoulda’s… 

I decided recently to start keeping a better system of tracking shoots I want to do.  Just as I track shoots I’ve done with keywording and such in lightroom, I decided to throw together an excel spreadsheet of shoot ideas that cross my mind, that I can sort and re-sort to my hearts content by location, theme, etc.  I used to keep things jotted down in a little moleskine sketch book, but that’s obviously not really indexed and searchable.  Hopefully this is yet another way to keep increasing my productivity, and a step towards my goal of world domination.

 

Wolfpup – Portland Oregon

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: organization,spreadsheet,shoot planning,nude photography,oregonartnudes,nick johnson,wolfpup,nude,photography,digital photography,oregon