Main : Timeline

This is the week I cracked the EPUB puzzle. Monday evening saw the first development version of The Metaning up and running on iOS devices. Tuesday saw another leap, as I converted the project to EPUB3 iBooks format, which means I was able to ditch the skeuomorphic paper stack and spine dip look, and just get the flat page spreads.

I feel really hyped about this, as it’s a major road block surmounted in getting not only The Metaning, but also Surfing The Deathline out in a saleable digital form. These were significant parts of my ArtStart plan.

Saturday & Sunday nights saw photography runthroughs of The Metaning, at both f5.6 and f8. While 5.6 is allegedly the sharpest aperture for my lens, f8 looks sharper to my eye. Unfortunately, I’m running into a problem with the ink lines picking up a reflection from the lights, so I’ve got to do some more experimenting with positioning to see if I can get around it.

In other news, I found out I’ve been accepted to the University of Western Sydney Sculpture Award and Exhibition for 2014, crossing off another ArtStart goal to apply for and be accepted into exhibitions. It’s a nice morale pick-me-up after missing out on Hidden at Rookwood, Willoughby, Woollarha and the John Fries exhibitions. I’m going to be reworking some themes and materials I’ve used before, and hopefully will be able to create something that’s small enough to be practical (and able to be disassembled), yet large enough to sit in an enclosed yet outdoor context.

After almost a year of planning, 7 grand in equipment and training, and almost 3 months into my ArtStart grant, here is the culmination – the first completed typical photo from my studio setup.

The chain of tools for this is pretty epic – the Nikon D800 camera is tethered via USB to the computer, which is able to activate the shutter and capture images directly to Aperture. The camera has an Elinchrom Skyport plugged in which fires off the RX4 monobloc flashes. The other bit of kit that kindof closes the loop on setting and measuring the lighting is a Gossen Digisky lightmeter. This little marvel not only measures the light put out by the RX4s, but uniquely, it can speak the Elinchrom Skyport protocol. So, when making a meter reading you can dial up or down on the power from the lights using the meter, without having to round the back of the lights to adjust them, and importantly without having to go over to the skyport on the camera, where I could potentially bump it.

Other things that happened this week, I had an in-studio consult with my lighting teacher, to get all the lights configured, did some web consulting with an old high school buddy about his new business venture, and spent the rest of the time putting my  SketchUp skills to good use, continuing with Surfing The Deathine.

Well, a bit of a big week. I went and bought my new Gossen Digisky meter. It’s a nifty bit of kit, and seems to work ok. Unfortunately the build quality is that of a cheap 2005 era cellphone. It’s made of lightweight plastic, which feels cheap and weak. I’ll do a full review later, but to sum up – it’s exactly the sort of device a company who will eventually be driven out of business by apps and accessories on smartphones would build.

Something really cool that happened this week, the arrival of my coffee-table book. This is one I created in Apple’s Aperture software, and catalogues all the images from my 2010 Nervous Spaces exhibition.

This week also saw my last photography class. The focus was that each of us would suggest a shoot we wanted to create, and the group would set it up. Since we had a section of venetian blind window lattice in the studio, I decided to try a Film Noir lighting effect with the light through the blind, creating alternating light & dark stripes on the model. The shots worked out pretty well, the only processing here is conversion to black & white, and a blackpoint adjustment.

Next week should see the studio setup consult session, and with that, primary photography of The Metaning.

This week was spent largely on the search for a light meter. I know that sounds a bit silly, but the problem is that the particular combination of features (and price) I’m after, is almost perfectly embodied in the Sekonic L-358, however this has been discontinued, and replaced with a new model, which has more features, but bundles them with a mediocre laggy resistive touchscreen.

See, here’s the thing – a touchscreen which doesn’t have zero lag as its primary goal, is a failure. You can’t make an on-screen slider control useful to the user, if the slider doesn’t track where the user’s finger is touching. That Sekonic doesn’t appreciate this, bodes ill for the company, since all anyone is going to think while using the meter is “this is SO much worse than my smartphone”. This is especially true given that numerous startups are creating lightmeter accessories for smartphones.

In an effort to get the older meter, I’ve been scouring eBay, I’ve even phoned a shop in Hong Kong. The problem is that all these shops list them as for sale or in stock, but don’t actually have them on the shelves, instead they operate on the “get an order, make an order” method. The problems are compounded by the fact that there are two versions of this meter, one for the American and one for the European (and Australian) markets. There’s numerous American versions for sale on eBay, very few of the Euro model. There are a couple of unopened new ones from Japan selling for over twice what they should cost new. It’s getting to the stage where I’m looking at buying the next model up in the range, just to get the features I want from the 358.

UPDATE: I’ve looked around some more at meters, and it turns out Gossen, a German brand who’ve been around for ever, make a meter that is able to command my lights directly. It’s a fair bit more expensive than I’d planned on buying at just under $600, but being able to command the lights directly means I can stand up next to whatever I’m metering when I’m by myself in the studio, and get the lighting correct, without having to prop the meter up, and walk back to the camera or lights to fire it off, then head back to the meter to get the reading etc.

Anyway, better news – after a 15 minute phone call to the IRS, I have my EIN, and can begin the 2 week wait for it to filter through the system so I can sign up my paid books account for the iBooks store.

Second-last week of photography saw us dabble in product and food…

A week of small triumphs so far. The lighting class went outdoors, to learn about using flash in ambient light.

The first 4 are from an experiment in creating a dark, overcast look on a bright sunny day if there’s a bit of cloud. You take an ambient light meter reading, then meter for the flash & shoot the model. Then you crank up the shutter speed, underexposing the background. Since the model is effectively painted by the flash, the shutter speed really only effects the exposure of the background.

Another thing we tried was rear curtain synchronised flash. So you set an exposure for say 3 seconds, and when someone moves through the frame they leave a movement trail. The rear curtain sync causes the flash to go off at the end of the exposure, rather than the beginning, painting a frozen moment of the moving subject at the end of a movement trail. The final image is the use of flash at the start of a long exposure, combined with light painting using a torch for the rest of the time.

The other news of the week was that I discovered I didn’t need the ITIN IRS form I’d read was necessary in order to get onto the iBooks store. Instead, there’s a method for getting something called an EIS, which can be done over the phone. It takes about 2 weeks to be enabled, vs 6 weeks for an ITIN form. A shame to have blown $280 on a redundant passport, but I guess I can travel in the next decade.

Week 9 saw my second lighting class, during which we worked with studio flashes. This is the really interesting meat of why I’m studying lighting, as it directly relates to the Elinchrom monoblocs I bought.

These are a selection of the setups, experimenting with different attachments for modelling the light.

The downside of this is I’ve realised I need to buy an incident / flash meter. Something I wish I’d known about earlier. There’s a good one available for $180 or so, or $300+ if you buy what’s probably not grey market stock.

The other major development was that my passport finally arrived. So next week, I’ll send it to the American embassy to get a copy verified which can go to the IRS, and get the ball rolling for setting up my iBooks merchant accounts.

Not directly related to ArtStart, but Sculpture By The Sea has changed its crowdfunding rules, so that crowdfunding projects are able to mention SbtS on their pages. The other major bit of news is that it looks like I’m going to be able to buy all the plumbing parts for my SbtS entry direct from China, for substantially less than local retail – under $2k rather than over $9k. This is good, because frankly, the large hardware chains which sell this stuff retail haven’t been too forthcoming in replying to requests for sponsorship.

This week saw the start of my Lighting Intensive course. It’s a really interesting and practical programme. Here’s a selection of shots with hot lights and an example of light painting.

In other news, I had a meeting with an organisation about the possibility of offering a recycled materials sculpture course I developed. I also took a trip out to the University of Western Sydney Campbelltown campus to get some location photos for a possible entry for their 2014 show. The quickrelease plate for my Velbon tripod finally arrived, as well.

One of the major tasks this week was getting the hardcover coffee table book for my 2010 photography exhibition organised. As a minor administrative task, I set up a todo list from my 1 year accomplishments section the ArtStart application. It’s good to keep it in mind, and start checking stuff off.

Oh my, trauma does seem to be overly represented in this diary so far. Then again, it’s been said that trauma is the overarching theme for the current (post-post-Modern?) era, so perhaps it’s apt.

The week started nicely – Monday I put in my passport application so I can get my ITIN for the iBooks store, and Tuesday I went to do some photography around Mosman Bay, a place I frequented in my youth as a local go-to fishing spot. While I got some interesting photos, the trauma came when I came home and discovered the reality of detachable lens cameras and sensor dust. Long story short, I spent Wednesday at Nikon taking advantage of their first free sensor clean service. While they made the situation better, it’s still not perfect. What I’m resigned to is that anything shot over about f/16 is going to have a number of little black dots I’ll have to fix in post. For a 162 shot panorama, that’s a fair bit of work.

It’s an issue for shooting panoramas when I want something going off into the distance to be sharp all the way into the foreground, but I can work around it. Demoralising in a way to find a problem with a 3 grand bit of kit, but survivable. Aperture has compensated for the dust problem pretty well, in that you can retouch all the spots, and then make that adjustment a preset you can apply to any image. It takes a bit of processing time, but produces a pretty successful result.

Here’s some images from the photo shoot. I tried two sets of adjustments, one amps up the colour…

… and the other is my “Fish Noir” setting.

These images marked the end of my Camera Craft 2 course at ACP. Next week, Lighting Intensive begins.