Sunday, 28 February 2016

Ep. 51: The United States vs. B&H Photo Video

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Here’s episode 51 of the PetaPixel Photography Podcast. You can also download the MP3 directly and subscribe via iTunes or RSS!

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In This Episode

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Wildlife photographer Shannon Wild opens the show. Thanks Shannon!

Photography retailer B&H Photo Video gets sued by the US government. (#)

Self-described “famous” photographer Jake Olson catches massive heat over public comments. (#)

A decision from the University of Missouri regarding professor Melissa Click. (#)

A federal judge in Pennsylvania makes a controversial ruling regarding photography. (#)

A man pulls a shark out of the ocean and onto a beach in Florida for photos. (#)

Combat photographer David Guttenfelder is featured in a national ad. (#)

Connect With Us

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Saturday, 27 February 2016

Lighting Through a Window: People in Still Life in the Style of 1600s Dutch Painters

The Amaizing Crazy

A few months ago I was working on putting together a still life shoot with a fantastic stylist and a friend of mine, Kiki Tse. She had come up with this beautiful idea for a shoot: to represent a person in a still life context by the use of some of their personal effects.

To know someone’s possessions; to see a navigational chart from their grandad; an amulet with a photo of their late sister without ever seeing a face to attach this narrative to invites the viewer to form their own account devoid of judgement of background, race, age or physical appearance.

Aesthetically we decided to take influence from the old Dutch Master still life painters circa 1600. It just so happened that my partner had an exhibition in Amsterdam a few weeks before the shoot and the gallery we were staying with were kind enough to lend us their museum passes for a day. It was a perfect storm, so naturally we spent our time in the Rijksmuseum, we saw Vermeers and Rembrandts but my main interest was directed towards the still life painters.

I spent time studying Heda’s incredible rendering of metallic objects, and Claesz van Dijek’s immaculate reproduction of fine detail and depth.

Still_Life_with_Gilt_Goblet_1635_Willem_Claesz_Heda

SONY DSC

Along with Bollongier, Claesz and even Pieter De Hooch’s sober rendition of Dutch interiors I sort to understand the one thing that tied all these painters together.

Still_Life_with_Turkey_Pie_1627_Pieter_Claesz

For me what tied all these masters together was their rendition of lighting, the perfect representation of a cold crisp northern light sprawling across the canvas and the objects within. Always from a window at the far left, high up from the table on which objects were placed.

Still_Life_with_Turkey_Pie_1627_Pieter_Claesz_crop

The reflections in the glassware and metallic objects tell all there is to know about the imagined source of the light.

Amsterdam - Rijksmuseum 1885 - The Gallery of Honour (1st Floor) - Still Life with Fruit, Nuts and Cheese 1613 by Floris van Dijck_crop

A week or so later I’m working on location across town, there was a tube strike that day and the whole city ground to an awkward halt. Getting back home to the studio was a nightmare and it meant taking a different route to a different train station. I ended up cutting across some disused rough land behind some old warehouses near the studio, it is raining and muddy but there lying on the ground, almost glowing, with some broken wood was half a door with a window in it.

So I took the half door, used it to shield off the rain and walked the rest of the way home. Before I found the half door I had plans to make a silhouette of a window out of polyboards and cardboard for the shoot but this was like hitting gold.

On the morning of the shoot I built a frame out of some scrap timber, to hold the window at a good working height of about 5 feet.

_MG_9284

I purposely didnt clean the glass and draped a pleated piece of muslin behind it to add texture to the light.

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Polyboards and foam board were added on the sides, top and bottom of the window structure to flag any light that would otherwise spill over into the shot reducing contrast and spoiling the effect.

I used two 1200w studio heads to really punch through the muslin and light the table from a distance whilst still allowing a good solid f/14 at ISO 100. One head was diffused through a large softbox, the other a straight open dish. This combination feels like the sun breaking through on a hazy day. The shutter speed was 1/160s, working with flash indoors means the shutter speed needs to be quick enough to not let any stray light exposure into the image, whilst staying below the camera’s maximum flash sync speed. In reality anything between 1/60 and 1/200 would be fine, depending on the ambient light in the studio.

IMG_1004

The choice of F-stop here was a balance of three main factors; exposure, depth of field and sharpness. Looking back to the old masters they had no issue with rendering everything on their table in focus, so I did the same. This gave me two options, f/14 or f/16, any lower and the depth of field would start to lose critical sharpness on the objects furthest from the focal point. Any higher and the whole image would noticeably soften due to diffraction errors. The exposure was bang on the money at f/14 with the window lights at full power, which was the deciding factor.

IMG_0993

Also a snoot and a several grids were added on 400w and 600w heads to subtly highlight and pick out certain objects on the table and to fill any shadows that dropped too low. In the shot with the orange background foam board was also used to flag and shape the light falling on the background.

The Alabama

The Alabama

The Amazing Crazy

The Amazing Crazy

Entry10210_David Wilman_The Amaizing Crazy_crop

The Traveler

The Traveler

_The Traveller_crop

The Delicate

The Delicate

The Delicate_crop

The Carer

The Carer

Now don’t get me wrong, I love working with available light and daylight but with this setup we could shoot long after sundown, with the same results every shot. It gave us a daylight look with the reliability and flexibility of studio lighting.

A couple of months later I was doing an experimental shoot with Margot Pasquier at Squad Management and makeup artist Zoe Arena. Near the end of the day I brought the window in to give a cinematic feel to a gritty, moody black and white shoot.

2015_11_08_Margot_test2088

This time the window frame was placed a long way back in the studio, lit from several feet behind by a 2.4k pack and head with a small dish reflector. The increased distance between the head and the window combined with the smaller point of origin of the light source has the effect of projecting the silhouette of the frame into the set.


About the author: David Wilman is a fashion and still life photographer based in London, England. You can find more of his work on his Instagram, website, and Facebook.

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B&H Sued by US Government for Discrimination

b&hheader

Things haven’t been going well for B&H Photo Video, one of the biggest names in the photography retail industry. Just months after being slammed with accusations of mistreatment and discrimination and seeing its workers protest and unionized, B&H is now being sued by the US government for discrimination.

The US Labor Department announced its lawsuit on Thursday, accusing B&H of violating federal requirements at its Brooklyn camera gear warehouse.

B&H “has systematically discriminated against Hispanic employees and female, black and Asian jobseekers at its Brooklyn Navy Yard warehouse,” the government says. B&H is a federal contractor, so it’s forbidden from discriminating in employment and is required to take affirmative action for employment equality.

“B&H fell far short of this responsibility and created deplorable working conditions for employees at its Brooklyn warehouse,” says Patricia A. Shiu, director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs.

B&H warehouse workers unionized in November 2015 after days of public protests.

The government has some specific and serious accusations against B&H as a result of a review conducted between January 2011 and January 2013.

One is that B&H required Hispanic warehouse workers to use separate restrooms from other employees — bathrooms that are unsanitary “and often inoperable,” the government says.

The lawsuit also accuses B&H of only hiring Hispanic men into its entry-level laborer positions (excluding both women and black and Asian workers), compensating Hispanic workers less than white ones, subjecting Hispanic workers to harassment, failing to keep proper records, failing to provide designated bathrooms and changing facilities for women, and more.

You can read the full text of the lawsuit here:

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“OFCCP filed its complaint after determining that it was unable to secure a voluntary agreement from B&H to take corrective action,” the government says. It’s demanding that B&H provide relief for the affected workers, lest it cancel B&H’s government contracts (worth $46 million) and permanently ban it from future contracts.


Image credits: Header illustration based on photo by Langeluksh

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Searching for a Trophy Buck in Street Photography

Trophy Buck3

Let me begin by saying that I’m not a hunter. But I am surrounded by hunters because I live in Minnesota. I’ve heard countless stories about deer hunting from co-workers and friends, but the most interesting story was from a seasoned hunter who told me that now he only hunts for a “trophy buck” because he’s hunted everything else and he’s only interested in getting “the big one”.

He goes on to describe what the big one may look like – broad shoulders, big neck, and apparently the size of the rack doesn’t matter. When he goes hunting he may let herds of less attractive deer walk by during the course of a weekend without lifting his gun. This may sound like an elitist attitude, but it made me think about using this strategy in street photography.

It’s pretty easy to draw the metaphor of street photography to hunting. Both require the use of your various senses to track down your prey and pull a trigger. You have virtually no control over your environment and are at the mercy of the weather. And both activities involve specialized equipment to be successful.

I just returned from a four week trip to China where I shot street photos in seven different cities. In each of these cities I noticed I was seeing the same shots over and over again with only slight variations. I started thinking about the “trophy buck” strategy of hunting – where I would only raise my camera for the “great” shots and walk away from the ordinary shots.

Like a lot of street photographers, I come from the school of “digital spray-and-pray”. I would shoot a LOT of photos and then separate the good from the bad during processing. Some days I would see a 10% hit ratio, while other days would yield only one keeper.

I learned that searching for the trophy buck on the streets requires both patience and risk. Getting in close for an intimate image that captures facial emotion is a risky maneuver, but if done well it usually pays off.

Macau 2016

Macau 2016

Toward the end of my recent trip I decided to implement the trophy buck strategy by using an internal filter for scenes I considered “too small” or “ordinary”. These shots I would walk away from. And there were a lot of them.

(I guarantee if you got this far in the article that I’m about to insult someone out there, so let me be clear: these are my filters and people should shoot whatever makes them happy. I’m not a member of the street police attempting to define the boundaries of the genre.)

Shenzhen 2016 (early in my trip)

Shenzhen 2016 (early in my trip)

This is my list of “walk-away shots”:

Anyone holding or using a cell phone. That includes about 90% of China. It’s like hunting squirrels with a shotgun. Too easy.

Street performers. Too common and easy.

Homeless people or beggars. Let them keep their dignity.

The all-too-common juxtaposition of a person against a billboard or sign. Yawn.

People sleeping. Double yawn.

Street markets. I’ve gotten some great shots at markets, but it’s time to move on.

Shenzhen 2016

Shenzhen 2016

– The back of people’s heads isn’t very interesting unless they’re staring at something incredibly profound.

– I use to shoot a lot of photos of children in China because, well, they’re just so gosh darn cute, but now I’m slowing down on that.

So what’s left? This is my list of potential “Trophy Bucks”:

Cultural anomalies and visual paradoxes. These are relatively easy to find in China, but you still need to dig them out of the urban landscape.

Macau 2016

Macau 2016

Factory photos. I take a lot of factory tours for my “day job”, which gives me access to some interesting sights inside Chinese factories. Technically not exactly street photography. Yes, I always ask for permission to take photographs.

Shenzhen 2016

Shenzhen 2016

Clever (but not trite) reflections. I haven’t done many of these types of photos, but I’m always looking for the opportunity. I just don’t want to rip-off HCB’s puddle leap photo.

– Some of my favorite photos are actually street “portraits”, which I still love doing.

– Because there are 1.3 billion people in China, there are a lot of people searching for their own identity in the crowd. They just want to stand out. These people make for interesting subjects.

Smoke and steam fascinate me. They add an interesting element to most images.

– I’m playing with motion shots to communicate energy.

Shenzhen 2016

Shenzhen 2016

– Like all street photographers, I’m always hunting for over-the-top WTF shots.

– I love shooting in kitchens in Chinese restaurants. It’s always full of surprises and the cooks love being photographed.

– There’s a public park I go to in Yangjiang, China where the city’s really old people hang out all day. They play cards and tell stories. It’s ground zero for some amazing street portraits.

– About a year ago I started using a flash at night to grab some faces-in-the-crowd photos. It takes some big stones to fire a strobe in a stranger’s face, but so far I haven’t had my ass kicked.

– I tried shooting in the rain (with a flash) on my last trip. That was new for me.

Ningbo 2016

Ningbo 2016

Shallow DOF photos, which are a challenge to focus on the move, but do a great job of separating the subject from a busy background. These are probably still a spray-and-pray project just to grab focus.

When I first started implemented the trophy buck strategy in China I felt paralyzed because I wasn’t taking very many photos. I walked for kilometers and kept saying nope, nope, nope. But when I did see a worthy scene or subject I found myself taking a lot of shots of good material. I worked the scene more.

This reminded me of my favorite photo book, Magnum Contact Sheets, which illustrates how the masters spent a lot of time working a single scene. In the past I might grab one or two shots of MANY different scenes, but now because I was filtering my potential subjects I was focused more on the good stuff. This may seem pretty obvious to some people, but it was a “ah ha moment” for me. Less is more. I felt I had a filtering process before, but now it’s more formal and refined.

Shenzhen 2016

Shenzhen 2016

After reviewing the shots from my trip in Lightroom I discovered I had a few good “series” of images that gave me some good choices. I had fewer (crappy) photos to review so it was easier to find the keepers. Sadly there were no award winning photos this time, but if I keep looking for the elusive “trophy buck” and ignore the ordinary-looking herd maybe I’ll get one soon.

Shenzhen 2016

Shenzhen 2016


About the author: Jim Hofman is an industrial designer and photographer (street and studio) who has been traveling to China for the last 30 years, with an average of 5 to 6 trips per year. You can find a collection of his work on his website.


Image credits: All photographs copyright 2015 Jim Hofman

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