Nikonian Martin Joergensen

DIY mini-striplight

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:48:33 +0100

I have always liked the light that comes from striplights - narrow softboxes, which create a well defined strip of light. Opposite square or wide, rectangular softboxes, the striplight gives a more defined light, which is not quite as soft as the light from the softbox.

Striplights are often used to accent body shapes or to create distinct rimlights on bodies or faces. the narrow band of light will create character in one direction and soft light in the other. When used on shiny objects the reflections - the specular highlights - will also be narrow strips rather than squares or dots - or reflections of an umbrella or another familiar shape.

10 Golden Rules

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 23:57:37 +0100

These ten rules were originally made for Lomo's and Lomography. If you are not familiar with this concept, check it out. I'm not going to cover it in depth here. But I will happily steal the Ten Golden Rules of Lomography and rewrite them to Ten Golden Rules of Photography.

Like the Lomo, these rules are kind of anarchistic and definitely against the establishment. But they are still very much in line with my recent entry "Exercise your photography muscles". These rules are kinda "Exercise your photography muscles in a fun way".

Strobist Meetup Video

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0100

Unfortunately the system I use for my "On Location" slide shows don't allow me to incorporate video (yet), but I still shoot some footage now and then when I'm on location.

These 7-and-a-half minutes were shot at the Strobist Meetup here in Copenhagen, which I covered a couple of podcasts ago. The video shows the ambiance at these meetings as well as some setups and more results from the day.

And yes, I know there are white lenses in there, but trust me, those C-shooters can actually be quite nice.

You can see a larger version of the video at Vimeo.

Exercise your photography muscles

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:49:51 +0100

You should eat fresh fruit every day!
You should be out of breath once every day!
You should kiss your spouse every day!
You spend time with your kids every day!
You should take pictures every day!

Yep, I truly think you should exercise your photographic muscles every day. In this digital age, there are no problems in shooting at will, and just "wasting" images on things less important.

As I mention in my latest podcast - Storage Blues - the only problem with shooting a ton of pictures is that they take up space.

How to look good

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:02:57 +0100

The series "How to look good in pictures" created by Nikon is simply brilliant! This little online show focuses mainly on the models: expression, clothing, poses etc. and contains all kinds of neat and easy tricks to look good in good portraits. But it also gives the photographer a lot of hints to how he or she can get a good shot.

The host of the show is Carson Kressley, who is just perfect for the role as an instructor. Carson used to be one of the hosts in the surprise hit show "Queer eye for the straight guy", which started back in 2003. In this show five gay men helps a straight guy get some style in his appearance, home, cooking and other things in order to impress a girl.

Carson's manners are, eh... manners... A bit exaggerated, maybe, but close to perfect for the concept. He is very nice and engaged and does indeed "strike a pose" every time the camera points at him. But no matter what, he gets the message over, talking to celebs, pro photographers or just people in the streets of New York.

Shot by the famous

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:14:52 +0100

We see celebrity pictures all over the place, all the time, and mostly too many of them if you ask me. But it's not often we see pictures shot by the celebrities themselves.
Famous people, usually spending their time in front of the lens, can be great photographers too.

Dennis Hopper has been my all time favorite celeb-shooter. I saw some of his images at Photokina recently, where they were shown in large copies. His fame comes primarily from his acting - Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, Blue Velvet, Red Rock West and many more - but his stylish shots of artists like Bill Cosby, Andy Warhol, and David Hockney as well as his shots from the sixties' civil rights demonstrations in the US have proven him quite accomplished behind a camera. It almost makes me forgive him for Waterworld... almost.

Reuter's Olympics

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 22:49:45 +0100

If you think that any of those many great press bureau pictures that you saw from the Olympics in Beijing were just lucky punches, think again. This little video from Reuters shows with all possible clarity that it's hard work and tonnes of resources that gets the photographers 80% of the way towards the great pictures - the last 20% is skill and some luck.

Reuters brought 40 photographers and 25 people to edit, process, transfer etc. to the games, and the video illustrates some of the efforts and preparations made to grab the right shot of the right person in the right moment. Impressing!

Practical HDRI book

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:44:50 +0100

I have always liked photo books from the publisher Rocky Nook. The titles, the format, the layout. It just talks my language, and this book entitled Practical HDRI by Jack Howard further enhances that feeling. Like other Rocky Nook books on my shelves it's concentrated and right to the point, and manages to get a lot of practical information over in a fairly compact number of pages.

Jack Howard focuses on the practical side of shooting high dynamic range (HDR), and covers both gear selection, seeing an HDR-option, shooting and the critical post processing.

On Location image galleries

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 12:26:50 +0100

When I first started producing the On Location podcasts, I created Nikonians image galleries for each with the most important images from the shoot. But that was honestly quite a bit of work on top of shooting, post processing, recording, producing and all the other tasks, and since I already create a kind of gallery in the slide show, I thought it would be easier to draw the images from there.

Enter my day job skills as a web developer. A bit of programming and Voilà! We have a set of "On Location" galleries. Each episode is listed, and when you click on it, you see all the images from that week's slide show.

Sometimes it it pays off to be a nerd!

Ten movies that inspired my photography

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:03:12 +0100

I stumbled over these lists on the web site Film in Focus - different visual artists, photographers included, who listed their five most influential films. Gregory Crewdson, Larry Sultan, Amy Stein and many more reveal their favorite films with regards to imagery.

That made me think: being a movie buff, from which movies did I pick out photographic inspiration? Several of Film in Focus' guests mention Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter. Can't remember having seen that, so it's now on my to-see list.

But making my own top-five list was way too easy, and I had to expand it to ten. There are many more when I start thinking, but I have to limit myself.
Here they are in no particular order:

D90 video out

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:34:51 +0100

The Nikon folks in Swiss have been climbing mountains (literally) to get a D90 video online, and now it's there. Unfortunately it's on YouTube where the compression does little good to anything, but there will most likely be a higher quality version ready soon - if anybody dares host a large file like this.

Canon has had bad experience with Vincent Laforet's D5 MkII video "Reverie", which became so popular that Canon took it down.

The D90 video isn't quite as elaborate in its use of expensive glass, light and models, but still quite convincing. Laforet was scooting about in a helicopter over a big city with a full staff (and most of Canon's expensive lenses). The Nikon D90 was after all carried to the top of the Eiger by mere humans.

iheartphotograph

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:20:22 +0100

One of my absolute favorite photographic blogs is iheartphotograph - like in I love photograph with the heart symbol. Iheartphotograph is a daily dose of different photography gathered and published by New York based art curator Laurel Ptak.

And when I say different I really mean it. This huge collection of photographs and display of photographer's works is quite far from what I shoot myself (and then again, see later), and quite far from the type of photos I mostly look at in galleries, on the web, in books or in magazines.

Virtual Photokina

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:04:35 +0100

So you didn't go to Photokina? Well, no worries, because the International VR Photography Association (IVRPA) will gladly take you there - virtually.

They have a ton of VR-shots on their special Photokina panoblog, and whether you want to check out Nikon's booth, look at Kata bags or join a Phase One shoot, IVRPA offers the opportunity. And of course IVRPA's own booth. No, unfortunately no Nikonian's booth anywhere.

Just click a thumbprint and start maneuvering in this virtual world of Photokina 08.

Nachtwey's TED wish

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:17:17 +0100

I have always been fascinated by the work of war photographer James Nachtwey. I have been captured by Nachtwey's graphical and unpleasant yet stunningly beautiful photos ever since I saw a documentary about him shooting amongst others a father in Indonesia, who had not only lost an arm and a leg in a railway accident, but also lived on a piece of cardboard literally between two railway tracks with his family.

One of Nachtwey's pictures of this man is seen here.

iTTL Pocket Wizards?

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:45:24 +0100

During Photokina I had the pleasure of talking to Pocket Wizard's Sales and Marketing Manager Lorenzo Gasperini, who told me something very interesting.
I mentioned that the current Pocket Wizard line had no exposure control, and even though Lorenzo pointed out that the MultiMax has some control - the ability to turn flashes on and off - he admitted that exposure control per se was not available.

But...