Here we go. Packing up for another shoot. It's the day-to-day stuff that keeps most photographers in the black...

Amy sporting a DCS760C from years ago. On yet another "portraits on location" escapade. 

I was packing up today for a shoot tomorrow morning when I started thinking about how often I do what seem to me now to be simple jobs; and how many times I've packed up like this and headed out from the studio on a morning to make the same kinds of photographs.

Tomorrow I will take headshots of six to ten insurance executives at their offices in north Austin. Even though my clients who are in technology sectors have moved on from seamless paper backgrounds to environmental portraits with out of focus backgrounds the clients in some of the more traditional fields are still using the "studio grey" seamless paper as backgrounds. In a few cases they are just attempting to match what I shot for them five years, or even ten years ago. It's simpler sometimes to keep a style that's still working for the client, if there are a number of executives whose portraits are already posted on their company website. I guess their choice boils down to: "Do we re-shoot the thirty guys we've already got photographs for or do we just keep the style we've had for these next ten?" Finance companies in particular always opt for a continuation because, after all, they are good at calculating the anticipated ROI from any particular investment...

I'll conservatively estimate that I've done a location project like this one at least five hundred times in the last twenty years. And probably a good number more that I've pushed out of my memory to make room for something else.

I tend to always pack the night before. It's a good time to check the equipment, make sure we've got memory cards loaded in the cameras and that the batteries are charged. I still have a check list on hand because no matter how often you've loaded your car the photographer, unaided by visual cues, will hew to Murphy's Law and forget that one vital piece. Usually a sync cord or the crossbar for the background stand set.

Tomorrow I'll be shooting with the Sony A7R2. I'm not excited about shooting 42 megapixel raw files and even less excited about the prospect of processing them so I'm setting the camera up to shoot in APS-C format which, I think, yields an 18 megapixel file instead. Since my mind is already wrapped around the aesthetics of shooting in the "crop" mode I feel comfortable backing up my primary camera with an a6300. I'll use the long end of the Zeiss 24-70mm f4.0 as my "A" lens (the effective FF focal range with the crop becomes about a 105mm, which is my favorite angle of view for portraits) but I'm bringing along the 18-105mm f4.0G lens as a back-up. It will work on either camera if I keep the A7R2 in the crop mode...

I've packed a couple of monolights; one is for the big soft box that is the main light and the other is for the small soft box that will light up the background. I'm also packing a battery powered, hotshoe flash in case I want to add a bit of back lighting for people with darker hair. A radio slave set for the moonlights, and extra batteries for the small flash, have also been tossed into the lighting case. My last two additions were: more hard sync cords (just in case) and a flash meter (in case I want to be fussy).

The rest of the gear is pretty straightforward; light stands, a tripod, a flexible collapsible reflector and an extension cord. There is one new addition to the mix. Don't get excited about it; it's not a new Leica SL. I always grapple with one aspect of posing and that's whether I'll have the subjects sit or stand. I've come to prefer standing poses because peoples' clothes hang better and look neater that way. Tomorrow I'll have my subjects sitting because it matches what we did for the same client a few years ago.  But the sitting pose, on location, is always fraught with other necessary choices.

Do I get to the location and hope I'll find an appropriate chair or stool at the client's place? Do I bring the big posing stool from the studio? The one with the huge, stable base and pneumatic center post? It's ungainly and hard to pack. Even with bungee cords it keeps falling off the cart as I steer it through the parking lot on my way into the location.

I remembered using a collapsible bench, about 18 inches wide, on a location a few years ago. It was made for musicians who play keyboard instruments. Every music store and guitar shop in Austin carries them so I went out and picked one up today. The reason they work well for doing seated portraits on location is that the can be folded flat and don't fall off the cart. They pack down pretty darn well. But the common benefit shared by both posing stools and keyboard benches is that there are no arms or backs which always seem to show up in photographs; and, since the bench is rather small, the subject has to exercise good posture; they can't lean back or they'll fall right over. I know it seems like a weird thing to think about but during the 500+ times I've done this bad chairs have been one of the big stumbling blocks I kept running into over and over again. I guess this latest purchase officially makes me a control freak...

It's nice to reduce the number of variables I have to think about when I'm trying to get work done in a space I've never previously seen.

So, assignments like this are efficient. I charge set fees for the time and an additional fee for each retouched portrait we deliver. The actual photography is straightforward and something I've practiced over and over again. The making of web galleries is almost automatic, and the process of retouching is a fun exercise in problem solving. The clients are stable and payment is prompt.

Stringing together a fair number of these assignments keeps the business humming and gives us the resources to play, experiment and take risks in other areas of my photographic practice. It's not the most creative kind of work in the photographic cosmology but it's certainly not unpleasant.

On another note I've spent some time this afternoon getting really comfortable with the Eye-AF controls the big Sony camera. I practiced so I wouldn't fumble around with the camera tomorrow.

That's all I've got this evening.

The Industry is changing day by day and minute by minute. A thought about staying relevant in 2016 and beyond.

The studio is always in flux.

What will come through the door tomorrow?

I get a lot of grief from fellow photographers when I buy and sell gear. They seem to feel that we should be wedded to camera systems and individual gear choices no matter what changes there are in our markets, and with our clients. The recent switch I made, from Nikon to Sony, is par for the course. I've heard it already. "Sony obviously paid Tuck to switch systems!" No, Nikon helped push the big button for change. And I'll tell you why. I was waiting patiently with my gaggle of Nikon bodies and lenses; waiting to see what Nikon would bring out this year to help photographers shoot 4K video.

If you are not working in the corporate commercial photography space the topic may seem like a tempest in a teacup. After all, who needs 4K? Where are you going to show it? Most people don't even have 4K TVs? Right?

No. Wrong. We're working on a project right now that will be projected at a trade show with state of the art, 4K projectors. Many of our major technology clients here in Austin have had 4K televisions in board rooms and meeting rooms for a good long while. I think what the naysayers meant to say is that there are very few middle class brides and grooms who are demanding 4K wedding videos along with their photographs. It's two profoundly different markets. Insanely different.

So, I was waiting to see what Nikon would introduce this year for photographers whose businesses have changed

Strange combinations at the end of the camera strap today...

It was one of those strange days when everything seemed a little...out of phase. I worked on a consulting project for a while, after swim practice and lunch, and eventually I ran out of productive steam and decided to go for a walk in the lovely Spring weather.

I looked around the office, vacillating about which camera to take when I spied the old Rokinon 14mm f2.8 cine lens which survived the Great Nikon Purge of 2016. I gently placed it on an adapter and then onto the front of the Sony a6300. Why not the A7R2? Because 14mm is way too wide for a narrow minded photographer like me. I generally like my lenses long and my naps longer. The 14mm on the APS-C frame of the a6300 would give me an effective focal length of 21mm; which is fine; I was looking to work outside my generous comfort zone.

Man! Even at 21mm, with the corners and edges cropped off, that lens has some serious distortion. Nothing Lightroom can't handle (with a little too much work) but more than you'd like to think about. Love it for the sharpness and contrast; less fond of it for the need for correction.

With my new found lens snobbishness it seems I'd better look to expand my envelope and buy some better wide angle glass. I have my eye on that Zeiss 18mm f2.8 Batis lens. Does anyone here have experience with it yet? Is it even out on the market now? Inquiring minds want to know (but are too lazy today to look it up). 

Ancient work on film. Former Austin mayor, current Texas state senator, all around smart, nice guy: Kirk Watson.

I photographed Kirk Watson a number of years ago at his law offices on Congress Ave. in downtown Austin, Texas. Those were the days of Profoto Strobes in big soft boxes and lots of Polaroid tests. Once we flash fried the assistant by making her "stand in" for the "hero" and shooting lots and lots of Polaroids, we substituted Mr. Watson and got just what we wanted in the first twelve frames. We used a Hasselblad camera and a 180mm f4.0 Zeiss lens. Shot on transparency film. All very nice and straightforward....

I still prefer to do portraits over any other kind of work I do. 

Magic Hour at the Waste Treatment Plant in Biloxi.

It's interesting to me that we are constantly investigating and researching new cameras and lenses when, at the same time, we can look back over twenty or thirty years and see that we did good, timeless work with whatever tools were at hand. I understand the (marketing) compulsion to make sure that the cameras we use in the service of client projects are perceived to be state-of-the-art but whether or not the underlying reality of the upgrade cycle is true is a whole other subject....

A quick test of the Sony RX10iii video capabilities. Shooting available light, indoors, in 4K (UHD).

Untitled Project from Kirk Tuck on Vimeo.
This video is about Untitled Project

 A short minute of video so you can see the video imaging and hear the sound. The content is part of a program aimed for a new, video oriented blog. Coming soon. ...

I started writing about the Sony RX10iii yesterday and most of what I wrote had to do with the camera's abilities as a photographer's tool. Today I set up the camera and started to put it through its paces for video. Why? Well, because I have video project coming up that would really benefit from this camera's capabilities. So, how did my tests work out?

I'll start with the one downside and work my way up from there.

The camera's files have visible noise in the shadows at ISO 800. There, I've said it. If it was a still camera I'd have whipped those files into PhotoShop or Lightroom and dealt with them in a few slider pulls. But it's video and I can't seem to find the noise reduction menu in Final Cut Pro.

The second caveat isn't really a "downside" it more of a "geez, all these cameras are great at video why aren't they equally great at audio" kind of a thing. I plugged my Sennheiser receiver directly into the camera input and listened through a nice set of headphones to the wireless lavaliere microphone I'd incorporated into the test. The camera's pre-amps are a bit noisy. It's not a deal killer but the noise floor is definitely there and it's higher than I'd like. I'll be running the audio through a mixer with better microphone pre-amps from now on before I send it to the camera. But, of course, I was shooting in the studio where there was very little ambient sound to cover for the camera. For really critical work I'll send the signal to a digital audio recorder and sync up sound in post production.

The video upsides are much more numerous. The range of video profiles is very good and the various gamma presets are highly usable if you are willing to take some time in post to grade your completed footage, and do some contrast corrections.

It's simple to map your audio levels menu item to one of the function button slots so you can access audio level control quickly while shooting.

The continuous focus, when also set to face detection AF and wide area AF is pretty darn good. Not a lot of hunting, even though the model was swaying back and forth. And what re-focusing was done was done gracefully and without drama.

All in all it was a good video performance by the camera. Having now tested it I can refine the way I use it a bit more.

First, I'll always want to do a custom white balance. Every shift I make in color or exposure introduces noise or in some way degrades the overall image quality. I think this is the way of all cameras but we've had the luxury of shooting 14 bit, uncompressed RAW for quite a while and we're used to a more forgiving and information rich file set.

Second, for important (read: "paying") work I'll want to get the exposure right on the money instead of depending on my third party, external monitor, which is exuberantly bright, for validation. This is where a hand held meter comes in handy. Nailing the exposure more exactly will also help to ameliorate some of the shadow area noise too.

Next time on the tripod I'll try shooting more stuff with manual focusing, which means I need to map "image magnification" to one of the function display slots, right next to the audio levels.

Overall, I thought the imaging performance was exactly where it should be. If you have acres of light and can use ISO 100 or 200 I think you'll be rewarded with saturated and relatively noise free image files. The detail out of the files is very good and the tonality is fairly accurate and more layered and nuanced than ACVHD files I've gotten out of previous generations of Sony cameras.

The real test will be outside in bright sunlight. How will the AF stand up to a variable neutral density filter?  We'll find out in a few days.

For now I am praising both the sharpness, detail and color of the files. The first outing is a success in my book. Thanks. 

I like photographs about which I can tell stories. Some people like photographs that tell stories.

Many years ago, on a hot Summer day here in Austin, Ben, Belinda and I went out for lunch. We went to a burger joint called, Hillbert's, that had been on Lamar Blvd. for decades. It was toasty warm outside, the kind of weather where sandals and shorts are the order of the day. Inside Hillbert's two big window AC units blew icy air across the main counter and the row of swivel stools that line the front window.

Ben has always been an adventurous eater and loves the process of going out anywhere for food. I took along my camera, as I have for nearly thirty years now. At the time it was a Leica R8 fitted with a 50mm Summilux lens.

I took two or three snapshots during lunch and this is one of them.

I've always liked this image for a number of reasons. There is Ben's expression, of course; and the wonderful way the image falls out of focus in the middle distance and the background. I enjoy the flow of soft light coming in from the floor-to-ceiling window at the left of the frame, and I like the warm, not totally corrected, color that mixes yellow and red on skin with magneta and blue on the floor behind Ben and Belinda.  But the one attribute I love best about this image is the twinkle and energy in Ben's eyes.

The image stayed with me and, when I wrote my novel (The Lisbon Portfolio) the image prodded me to write a few pages of reminiscence for my character, Henry White, who was in a foreign country, having a trying interpersonal experience, and missing his own child...

The image informed three or four pages of writing and provided a richer texture to Henry White's feeling of being unanchored and apart. I could extrapolate entire stories from visual reminders like the one above. And, in fact, many of the descriptions in the novel are verbalizations of images that tend to stay hooked in my mind, signifying something unfinished, yet not transient.

For some people photographs tell stories. For me I like to tell stories about the feelings and ideas that photographs can spark. I think there is a difference. It's not always one way or the other but sometimes it really is. Interesting to think about the links between our different creative processes...