With the new house came a new office with a new desk and a blank canvas for a new computer workstation. In putting together my requirements for the new system, I had a few hard requirements. First, I knew I wanted a Mac. I use both at work, and find that the Mac lends itself better for my creative workflow. I also knew that I wanted a desktop. I have an older MacBook plus my iPad for portability, and I wanted the feel of a real desktop and a place I had to go to work.

Most of the work I do on the computer involves a few different categories: general home-office activities (e-mail, document management), photo and light video editing, and some software development. The biggest use of the system resources would likely be required by the photo and video editing, and I wanted to make sure that whichever system I went with would not be an immediate bottleneck to my workflow.

I gave up building computers from scratch 10 years ago, so I was not interested in a Hackintosh or any other form of assembling a computer from components; I was looking for an off the shelf-solution. That meant the iMac, a Mac Pro, or a Mac Mini.

I ruled out the Mac Pro both because of price and because it’s too much computer for what I do. That left the iMac and the Mac Mini, an option I actually didn’t consider until a coworker brought it up.  As I researched that option more, it became the preferred option. You can get practically the same machine in a Mini that you could as an iMac for much less. The configuration I looked at had an iMac priced more than $600 more than the configuration I chose, simply for the “cool” factor.

In the end, I’m a week in but very happy with my system choice. Here are the details [affiliate links]:

Mac Mini (2.6 i7, 4 GB RAM, 1TB HDD) – The fastest i7 processor available in the Mini today with a respectable 1TB of disk space. With the iMac, there isn’t a clean way to upgrade the memory. With the Mini, however, upgrading the memory couldn’t be simpler, so I ordered the bare minimum RAM and saved $200 by doing the upgrade myself.

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) RAM – This RAM was $99 compared to the $300 price tag of upgrading to 16GB via Apple, and it took 3 minutes to swap out.

2 x Dell S2340M LED-Lit Monitor – I was looking at both the 21″ and 27″ iMac. The 27″ was too big, but I like the real estate that 2 monitors offers. These Dell monitors were well rated and reasonably priced.

Logitech HD Webcam C310 – Relatively inexpensive, but very high quality webcam for FaceTime and some recording.

Logitech K810 Keyboard -  The beauty of this keyboard is that it allows me to sync with up to 3 devices, so I can pair with my computer, iPad, or iPhone, all from one keyboard. The layout is more Windows-centric, but it is fully functional in the Mac world.

Super Drive – This would have been necessary even with the iMac. Apparently, no one uses DVD drives anymore.

Magic Mouse – A mouse! And it’s magic!

Wacom tablet – This is an old, old Wacom tablet, but I still use it occasionally for precise touch-ups.

iPad 3 – I still plan on using my iPad as a portable extension of my desktop, and I’m continuing to explore new ways to do so.

Note: Amazon affiliate links used above.

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Equipment and Software

• Nikon D7000, 50mm f/1.8, 70-300mm f/4-5.6, 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
• iPad (3rd Generation)
• Apple Camera Kit (SD Card Reader)
• Software: iPhoto; Snapseed; Photogene for iPad; Adobe Photoshop Touch

Importing The Images

The D7000 has two SD camera slots, and I typically shoot RAW to one card, and a JPEG to the second card. I expected that the iPad would only be able to use the JPEG files, but the iPad recognized the Nikon NEF format, and I was able to import the RAW images. With the card reader in the iPad, I simply inserted my SD card with the RAW images, the iPad image import dialog came up and prompted me to select which images I wanted to import.

iPad Camera Import

I did not test it, but you can also use the other USB adapter that comes with the Camera Kit to plug your camera in via a USB cable to import the images, which would be handy if you are using a camera with an CompactFlash or other type of media.

Depending on how much space is left on your iPad, you may not want to import all the images, especially when your SD card might be larger than the capacity of your iPad. I suggest importing only the ones you want to edit or to work in batches. Process just what you need on the iPad, and save the rest for when you get back to home base.

Editing The Images

Once on the iPad, all the different photo editors that I tried were also able to pull up and edit the RAW file, as well. None of them, however, seemed to be able to access the images while still on the SD card, which would have been a great way to conserve space…maybe in a future release.

Ideally, a mobile version of Lightroom would exist, but unfortunately the only Lightroom application in the App Store are tutorials, not editing software. So instead, I looked around for the best candidates that would allow me to do more than just the basic editing that the native camera app provides. To do this, I started with the image below.

Original

My test image was underexposed, which forced me to adjust the exposure, as well as test the noise reduction necessary to handle an image at a higher ISO, in addition to some of the normal edits I would have done in Lightroom, include white balance, contrast, and sharpening.

There are a lot photo editing applications available in the app store, so I limited myself to some of the more popular applications, namely: iPhoto, Snapseed, Photogene, and Photoshop Touch.

iPhoto

I don’t use iPhoto on my Mac, and I don’t see iPhoto fitting in to my mobile workflow, either. The features were limited, and the interface was clunky, so it didn’t take me much time fumbling around to decide to move on to another application.

Editing with iPhoto

Snapseed

Snapseed is a free application, but it has a lot of the features of its non-free peers. Accessing those features, though, takes a little getting used to, with a combination of vertical and horizontal swipes to select and apply adjustments. It wasn’t my overall favorite, but the image I was able to produced compared well to the other candidates, and the price was right.

Editing with Snapseed

Photogene

Photogene for the iPad was the low-priced ($2.99) but full-featured step up from Snapseed. It had a lot of nice features, was easy to navigate, and produced an excellent image. The noise reduction algorithm worked very well; so well, in fact, that I had to dial in back in some images. The iPad version is better than the original Photogene for the iPhone, and easier to navigate than the new Photogene2.

Editing with Photogene

Photoshop Touch

My favorite application turned out to be Photoshop Touch. The most expensive of the bunch at $9.99, Photoshop Touch had all the feature that I was looking for and the feel of the full version of Photoshop, which made it a very comfortable choice with a minimal learning curve. The noise reduction worked well, and the ability to maintain edits in layers, just like the full Photoshop, made managing changes a breeze.

Photoshop Touch

Photoshop Touch – Editing Image – Layers

Photoshop Touch – Filters

Photoshop Touch – Tools

Photoshop Touch – More Filters

Summary

Editing images on the iPad presents its own challenges, include the capacity of the device as well as processing power for larger images. But with the ability to import RAW files, and the features of the available applications, both free and paid, it is within the realm of possibility to process images with great results without needing a computer. Now, I’m not giving up my laptop or Lightroom any time soon, but the next time I find myself wanting to travel a little lighter, I feel confident that I can survive with just my camera and my iPad, and still create print-ready images.

The post Going Mobile – Editing Images On The Road With An iPad appeared first on David Monnerat.

The way Jiro approaches sushi is nothing short of the way that Picasso approaches a painting, or Richard Avedon approaches a portrait. He strives for perfection, and to elevate his craft. He is always looking ahead, and always above himself.

In the movie, Japanese food critic Yamamoto lists “the five attributes of a great chef,” all of which, he asserts, Jiro possesses in abundance. I would add that the same attributes can be applied to a great photographer, as well, and any great artist.

Five Attributes Of A Great Photographer

They take their work very seriously and consistently perform at the highest level.

Whether you are shooting for yourself or for a client, you should approach them the same way. You won’t learn if you aren’t consistently pushing yourself to your upper limits. You can’t grow if you’re not challenging yourself. And you can never be great if you don’t constantly look above yourself and where you are with your abilities.

They aspire to improve their skill.

The equipment is changing, the technology is advancing, and photography continues to be more accessible. In the past, the barrier to entering photography was being able to afford a camera. Now cameras are affordable, and they are everywhere. The bar separating a good photographer from a great photographer continues to rise, and great photographers know that they will always have something to learn. They continue to improve their skills to separate themselves from the rest, and to reach that bar. In the movie, Jiro says “repetition build intuition”.  The more you practice, the more you’ll be able to rely on that intuition to see and capture your vision.

They maintain cleanliness.

Cleanliness in a restaurant shows a number of things. It shows that the staff cares about the experience and the quality of what they create. If a chef is willing to work in dirty kitchen, what does that say about the quality of food he is putting out? In the photography world, your camera is your knife. Keep your equipment clean and in good working order. Not only will your gear be ready when you need it, but it projects a positive image to your clients, as well.

They are impatient; better leaders than collaborators; stubborn and insist on having it their way.

Many of the great photographers are trailblazers, doing something no one else does. They don’t wait for things to come to them or for someone else to solve their problems. They move forward, figure it out, and lead the way. Instead of shooting someone else’s vision, there is a push to express their own point of view in their images.

They are passionate about their work.

If you’re not passionate about photography, you might still be able to make great images, but you’ll never be a great photographer.  Passion presents itself in a number of different ways, but its easy to tell in an image when it’s not there. Being passionate about your craft is one of those attributes that separates a good photographer from a great one.

More from Jiro…

Every ingredient has an ideal moment of deliciousness. =  Decisive Moment

Umami in food is the ‘ahhhhh’ when you eat or drink, the satisfaction that your body has reacted. It’s a physical response. = Photographic Umami is when someone physically reacts to an image.

Why buy rice you can’t cook properly? = Why buy gear you can’t use properly?

To make delicious food, you have to eat delicious food. = To make impactful images, you need to be open to the world around you. You need to notice light, and emotion, and all the ingredients that go in to making an image. You have to know what makes you react, and then use that in making your own images.

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Parker Arts, Culture & Events (PACE) Center – Intermission

Myth #1 – You Will Be Shooting In Impossibly Low Light

While it’s true that the theater is dark, the performance and what you’ll be shooting is generally not. It has to be reasonably lit so that the audience can see it! Theater lighting will, however, be variable because the lighting is used to highlight the action or to set a mood, so through the course of a show, you’ll likely have great lighting for action-stopping photographs and low light that stretches your gear, and everything in between.

Myth #2 – Always Shoot At Your Widest Aperture

There are a number of reasons why you shouldn’t always shoot wide open. The first is that you may not have to. There will likely be times when the lighting is bright enough to allow you to shoot at a smaller aperture. You might also need to shoot at a smaller aperture to have a wider depth of field. If you’re close to the stage, shooting with a 50mm lens at f/1.8, that might make your depth of field 1 foot. If you’re trying to keep a few different things in reasonable focus, maybe two actors slightly separated with one standing in front of the other, you may need to shoot at a smaller aperture and compensate by increasing your ISO or decreasing your shutter speed.

Myth #3 – Shoot At The Highest ISO Available On Your Camera

Don’t just assume you need to crank up your ISO as high as you can. While modern cameras can do amazing things at high ISO, there is still a price; namely, grain and loss of sharpness and detail. At some point you reach the point of no return where you can’t remove noise and sharpen enough. Know your camera, know what the best ISO is to work around, and don’t go above that. If you want to use “Auto ISO”, see if you can cap it on your camera so that it won’t go above what you can clean up in post. That way, your camera can adjust to a lower ISO, which is generally preferred, but can automatically adjust for a darker scene or to accommodate for changing your shutter speed or aperture.

Myth #4 – Use Slow Shutter Speeds To Capture The Most Light

Slow shutter speeds can cause two problems. The first is using such a slow shutter speed that your normal breathing and body movements cause enough camera movement to cause blurring of the image. The typical guidance of 1/focal length for shutter speed is generally a good one, and vibration reduction can help you shoot at a lower shutter speed. The second problem is motion blur caused by the action on the stage which, in itself, isn’t bad; it can convey movement and add drama in the image. But if you want to freeze the action in your images, you need to shoot with a high enough shutter speed for the activities being performed. If the actors are standing around, that might be 1/50s. If they’re waving their hands around, running, or dancing, 1/50s isn’t going to work, so you’ll need a higher shutter speed.  Vibration reduction won’t help here.

Myth #5 – Use Auto White Balance For The Best Looking Images

Throw what you learned about white balance out the window when you shoot theater. When the main spot is white, and they use a green, red, and blue filler with 10 actors on stage, and everyone is moving so the color shifts in every frame, what do you do? Your camera struggles with the same choice, and the result is inconsistent white balance.  I leave my camera in auto white balance (in the unlikely event that it might actually make a correct guess), but then correct in post for every image. That’s right, every image. The nature of theater is that people are moving around, so in one frame the subject might be under a different colored light than the previous frame. In the end, I want to correct the exposure and white balance around my main subject. In the image below, the color has been adjusted to make the center character reasonably corrected with the characters on the left in a red light and the characters on the right in blue.

Little Shop of Horrors – Parker Arts, Culture & Events (PACE) Center – Starkey Productions

The best way to get the best photographs is to know your gear, prepare as much as possible, be flexible and adaptable, and to remember that there are very few hard-and-fast rules to photographing the theater. And while it is extremely challenging, it can also be infinitely rewarding!

The post 5 Myths About Photographing Theater Performances appeared first on David Monnerat.

It’s a different animal to shoot a small school compared to a larger, professional show, but there are 5 fundamental rules that apply to any level of theater photography.

Rule #1 – Be Ready

As with any shoot, be ready. Make sure your memory cards are formatted and in the camera. Clean your lenses. If you only have one camera, have the lens you will use the most on your camera. If possible, shoot with multiple cameras, each with a different lens that will give you better coverage, since changing lenses in and out during a performance is going to be difficult and distracting. Go through your checklist and set your shoot mode, ISO, shutter speed, and aperture. Even if they change during the show, at least you’ll know what your starting point was, which will make changing on-the-fly easier. Being prepared is especially important in the theater because it’s most likely going to be dark and difficult to navigate the dials and menus of your camera without drawing attention to yourself.

Another aspect of being ready is knowing the show. If you have the ability to see the show or a rehearsal before you photograph it, do. I saw Little Shop a few times before the night of the shoot, so I knew when the big scenes were; every kiss, every solo, every group number. I had a shot list in my head. If you can’t see the show, visit YouTube. There are a lot of clips online, and a lot of shows, whether on Broadway or in your local town, usually start from the same base script, so you should be able to at least get an idea of how things will flow. You want to anticipate, not react.

Rule #2 – Be Invisible

I’ve seen photographers who like to be right in the middle of the theater. That’s a dream location for a photographer, but it’s also an expensive seat to give up, and guarantees that you’re going to be surrounded by other patrons; patrons that paid for their tickets. I’ve also seen photographers that move around a lot during the performance. Movement in the audience during a performance is rare, so even if it’s out of the corner of their eye, any movement you make is going to get noticed. In the end, you need to work with the venue to make the right decision for their theater and the show to strike the right balance.

My philosophy is to do everything I can to avoid the audience looking at me instead of the actors. They didn’t come to see me; they paid to see the performance on the stage. If you have the reach with your lens availability, shoot from the back of the theater,  unless doing so puts you too high or forces unflattering angles. In addition to ensuring that you won’t be in the way, shooting from the back of the theater will allow you to get wider shots that include the entire stage and audience, take advantage of a greater depth of field, and it might let you move around a little if you can do so quietly, giving you a variety of angles instead of shooting everything from one vantage point.  If you don’t have the reach, rent a lens that will give you that reach. If you can’t rent a lens and need to sit closer to the action, be discrete. Raise your camera to take the picture, then put it back on your lap. Don’t stand up or lean in to another patron to get a better shot.

Dress rehearsals often provide the best of both worlds. You’ll get to see the show without an audience, so you can move around to find your best locations. If you can, take pictures during the rehearsal, too. Since the cast will be in their costumes with similar (or better) lighting, you can seamlessly include those images in to what you deliver, just as if you had shot them during the live performance.

Rule #3 – Be Silent

The audience didn’t come to hear you, either. If you’re shooting with a DSLR, the click-clack of the mirror and mechanics of the camera are extremely loud in a quiet theater and, therefore, extremely annoying. For musical theater, shoot more when there is music, and most when the music is loudest. If you absolutely must take a shot of an important scene without music, take one shot, not fifty. If you need to change lenses, do that when the performance is loud, as well.

Rule #4 – Go Dark

If you’re shooting with a camera that has an LCD, turn it off, or at least turn off the automatic shot review. This is especially true if you will have people behind you. In a dark theater where any light draws the audience’s attention, that LCD screen might as well be a spotlight. If the audience can see the light of the LCD, their eyes are going to leave the action and go to you. Remember to turn off your autofocus assist light, too. And, obviously, using Live Preview or any type of flash is cause to have you dragged out of the theater and beaten.

Rule # 5 – Have Fun

If you’re shooting a wedding, you can pose the bride and groom, take a few shots, chimp, take a few more shots, and be relatively certain that you got the shot you wanted. There’s no posing for the camera in theater; you work around the actors and the show, and if you miss a shot, it’s gone forever. Add to that all the other thoughts going on in the back of your mind about being invisible, and silent, and dark; that’s a lot of pressure, and it’s easy to let it get the better of you, which will be reflected in your final images.

But if you’re as ready as you can be, and if you set yourself up ahead of time to be as successful as possible, then come showtime you can simply focus on taking pictures. Without all of that extra pressure, you’re much more likely to get in to the performance, and to feed off the crowd and get in to the rhythm of the show. You’ll know you’re there when you can take pictures and still laugh when the crowd laughs because you’re in tune with what is happening on stage.

That zone is where the best images will come from, so do what you can to take away as many of the stressors as possible, and just have fun!

The post 5 Rules For Photographing Musical Theater appeared first on David Monnerat.

My cameras have sat silent, lens caps on; the only pictures that I have taken have been with my iPhone. I struggled to find the motivation to pick up the gear and to justify owning thousands of dollars worth of equipment only to have it living inside a bag. That’s a lot of self-imposed pressure, and any attempts to force creativity, inspiration, and motivation usually backfires, as it did in this case.

Fortunately, I’ve had two opportunities recently to exercise my atrophied photographic muscles. The first was being asked to take the senior pictures for a family friend. If there was a candidate to ease back in to taking pictures, that wasn’t it.

The second was our yearly drive to the mountains to look at the fall colors. I’ve never considered myself a landscape photographer, but there is something about the beauty of Colorado that seems to draw the camera out of hibernation, however long it has been asleep.

Both opportunities forced me to hold the camera, to think about light and to think about photography, something I haven’t done in a while. Now that the camera is out of the bag, I’m motivated to keep it out. Sometimes, all it takes is getting started in order to keep going. I’m hopeful that Newton’s observations about inertia apply to photography; photographers at rest tend to stay at rest, and photographers in motion tend to stay in motion.

As of last week, I’m in motion, and I intend to stay that way.

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At this point, I’d have to pay $1,000 to upgrade my Production Premium suite to CS 6. That amount seems a bit excessive, so I decided to take a play out of the NFL playbook and lock Adobe entirely out of my workflow. Sure, it’s a risky move, especially since Lightroom accounts for 99% of that workflow, but if it’s good enough for Roger Goodell, it’s good enough for me!

I began my search for possible replacements. Again, referring to the NFL model, I needed to find programs that would fit seamlessly in to my workflow, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of money. Otherwise, I might as well just pay Adobe, but I can’t do that because I don’t want them to think that I can’t run my business without them. Fortunately, I found two great candidates that were already on my computer, so I wouldn’t need to go through an install process, just like the NFL didn’t have to go through a training  process with their replacements.

Because the NFL has taught me so much about business, I wanted to help them out as I explored my options, so I found an image from Monday Night Football that I used to illustrate that the referees made the right call.

Paint

Microsoft Paint has been around for years, and it keeps getting better. Now, you can even save to a format other than a bitmap, meaning that I won’t have to ship around huge files and convert them in to a format that is useable in an application other than Paint.  With a redesigned menu bar, the ability to add shapes, and 4 different brush styles, editing the test image to show that the offending play was clearly not an interception because the ball can be seen on the ground was a breeze.

Powerpoint

Another great option for a workflow replacement is Microsoft Powerpoint. With its ability to layer objects and also add shapes, it was very easy to highlight another possible outcome that shows that the Seahawk’s player made the catch, highlighted by the arrow, and that the Packer’s player actually caught a piece of cake.

I feel confident that either one of these would be a suitable replacement for the professional products from Adobe. I mean, if fired Lingerie Football League referees are good enough for the NFL, then it’s obvious that any business’ success is less about specific and qualified tools and people, and more about the bottom line.

Thank you for the lesson, NFL.

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Comedians Louis CK, Chris Rock, Ricky Gervais, and Jerry Seinfeld participated in a discussion on HBO in 2011, and one of the topics they covered was how they got their start in the business. About 20 minutes in, Seinfeld talks about his motivation. He wanted to be a comedian. Success wasn’t important, money wasn’t important. As Louis CK adds, he wanted his identify to be a comedian. So each of them got up on stage, did the work, and they were comedians (even if they sucked at it).

You don’t need to be famous to call yourself a photographer. You don’t need to make money to call yourself a photographer. You don’t need a degree,  or clients, or the best gear to call yourself a photographer. You don’t even need to be particularly good at it. It’s also not a title that gets bestowed on you by those photographers sitting upon Olympus. “Photographer” is a calling. You just need to follow it. Get out there, take pictures, do the work, and be a photographer.

The post Be A Photographer Because You Have To Be A Photographer appeared first on David Monnerat.

Even though I hadn’t owned any LEGOs for years, I never grew out of them. When my wife and I started buying the blocks for our son, I quickly found myself on the floor beside him building fantastic creations from my imagination; planes, boats, houses, dinosaurs,  elephants, and some weird creature that sort of looks like a mutant cross between an alligator, a giraffe, and a bicycle.  And, as he gets older, we’ll continue to bring new sets home, build bigger, more creative creations, until that one day, many years from now, when we’ll give him his first Technic set and he, too, will become a man.

For as big a part as LEGO played during my childhood, I didn’t know much about the company or how it started. For their 80th Birthday, the LEGO Group put together a video documenting this history of their company’s humble beginnings. It provides some valuable lessons for all creators and anyone looking for inspiration to follow their dreams.

Put Ideas In To Action

Pablo Picasso said that “action is the foundational key to all success.” It’s one thing to be inspired, it’s another thing to actually do something about them. The one sure way to never achieving your dreams is to never get started. If you’re going to move forward, you need to start taking steps.

There Will Be Setbacks

It might not be a warehouse fire, but every endeavor is likely to encounter setbacks, both large and small. It’s what you do with those setbacks that will define the course of your life and whether you will achieve your dream. When your factory burns down, rebuild. When the landscape changes, evaluate and adjust. When you face critics, persevere.  Learn, grow, evolve, persist.

Don’t Sacrifice Quality

What you create and what you put out there is a reflection on you and your brand. One great blog post a week is better than seven mediocre blog posts during the same week. A few great photographs in your portfolio is better than fifty snapshots. Set your standards around the brand you want to establish.  Then exceed them.

Continue To Evolve

LEGO’s continued success was due, in part, to their continual evolution of their products and their brand. The same growth is equally important for individuals and artists. There is always something new, always another “next big thing.” Success is fleeting. Longevity comes from continuing to learn, grow, and evolve.

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