History Around Us

No matter where one lives, there are historical artifacts to be found. As many may know, Pittsburgh was once a major center of steel production. While the majority of the steel mills are now closed, their artifacts remain.

Some of these closed historic manufacturing facilities are difficult to get into to photograph. However, there are some remnants of the industrial age that have easy access for photography. One of the older mills land was sold off to make a shopping center near my home, but the mills' chimneys were not taken down. Rather, they were kept as an artifact of that age and stand as an aesthetic focal point of the mall.

Let me be clear that I am not at all a fan of building malls, nor a fan of steel mills and the pollution they produce. As a matter of fact, I find myself lamenting the fact that every large city in the US is starting to look the same with essentially identical malls and chain stores. Nonetheless, I am glad that in this instance it was decided to at least preserve the remnant of what once stood in this place.

Chimney Builders
Copyright Howard Grill

The photograph above is the door of one of the remnant chimneys. The color image was converted to black and white and then sepia toned.

Photographing local historical sites could potentially make for an interesting photographic project.

More Outta' Bed

Back in the beginning of the month, I wrote a post about the benefits to be had by dragging one's self out of bed to photograph in the early morning and how those benefits outweigh the pain of getting out of bed at relatively ungodly hours. The early morning photography from that day motivated me to write that post, which can be read here.

I thought that over several scattered posts I would offer some more images from that inspiring morning.

I also forgot to mention one additional benefit of going out to photograph with friends in the early morning. In addition to having to show up to meet the others, there is also the benefit of a great breakfast with camaraderie following the sunrise....you just have to have friends that know which of the local restaurants are the right ones to go to (thanks Bob).

Fishing Heaven
Copyright Howard Grill

Promote Control: Doesn't Fit My Workflow

In my last post, I discussed my discovery of the Promote Control for taking bracketed HDR exposures . It was with great enthusiasm that I awaited the arrival of the device. However, despite its apparent utility and the glowing reviews it received in the links I provided in my original post, I have found that the device simply doesn't fit into my photographic process very well.

That is not to say that it doesn't work or do what it says it will.....just that it doesn't work the way I do. It might mesh quite well with the way you photograph and so I don't mean to dissuade anyone from giving it a try. But, let me describe why it doesn't fit my workflow and perhaps that will provide some incite as to whether it will fit yours.

I tend to shoot using Live View with the camera in Aperture priority mode. However, in order to use the Promote Control, the camera must be set to Manual mode. There is a setting on the device that allows it to set the camera to Manual mode if the operator forgets to, though the manual states that this won't work on all cameras and it didn't seem to work properly on mine. However, if I accidentally left the camera in Aperture Priority mode, the Promote Control would shoot off a ton of images before stopping. So, accidentally leaving the camera in Aperture mode can get the Promote Control to do some pretty unusual stuff.

In addition, the manufacturers website FAQ states that the device can be used in Live View mode. Nonetheless, using the device in Live View, even with the camera set to Manual mode, gave me very inconsistent results, with not all the bracketed exposures being taken. By doing nothing else to the camera but turning off Live View, all the exposures were taken properly. I am not the only person to find this as an issue, as one of the reviews linked to in my initial post also notes this as a problem.

Finally, even when the camera is properly set to Manual mode the metered shutter speed needs to be entered into the Promote Control manually, or at least it wouldn't pick it up from my 5D MKII

For me, though the device could potentially solve a significant problem, it just requires too much 'futzing around' with. If it was tough for me to get it to work properly in my home, I suspect it would generate a good deal of frustration out in the field and I might potentially miss photo opportunities simply trying to get things set up properly. I thought about just getting used to always using the device as a trigger, as it can also be used as a single shot cable release. However, the need to connect it to the camera with two cables (to get the fastest response time) and its bulk (small, but still much larger than a regular cable release) just makes it inconvenient to use routinely.

I suspect that using the device would take away some of the joy of photographing and thus it is simply not something that I want to use. I have returned it and will go with my usual routine of simply resetting the auto-bracketing in camera....a pain that requires touching the camera before the full set of exposures are taken, but one that still requires far less 'futzing' than the Promote Control.

So there you have it.....a very different opinion from the ones that I was able to find on the internet. Just to reiterate.....the issue for me was the way the device failed to fit into my workflow. Your workflow might well be different.

I would be interested to find out if any readers have had experience with this device and if their experience was similar to or different from mine.

Promote Control

When it comes to bracketed exposures utilized for HDR, us Canon users definitely take a back seat to those with Nikon cameras. Most Canon (? all....I don't keep up with every model) cameras are only able to auto-bracket three exposures, which is less than ideal for many situations. Nikon cameras are much more functional in this regard and, depending on the model, are able to auto bracket more exposures. In the past this difference might have been relatively unimportant, but in the HDR era it really is of significance and, frankly, it seems inexcusable to me that Canon has hampered their cameras in this way. It would at least appear on the surface that this could likely be fixed with a firmware update. (The other situation in which Canon lags is in the ability to make in-camera multiple exposures......but that is another discussion).

Whenever there is a void and a need, someone will fill it! Enter a device called "Promote Control". This device connects to the camera (including Canon models) via USB and a shutter release and takes over the control of exposure sequences, overriding the ability to take only 3 bracketed exposures. There are some caveats, the main one of which is that the camera must be set in manual mode and the midpoint exposure's shutter speed needs to be set manually on the Promote Control device.

Rather than write in detail about it before I receive the one I ordered, let me refer anyone interested in this to the following reviews:

Review #1 by Brian Matiash

Another review here

And a review on youtube located here.

Finally, the manufacturer's website.

And so I will report back on my experience with the device once it arrives.

Digital Indecision

Generally speaking, the advantages of digital capture are now obvious to most people. Once you have memory cards you can shoot all day, every day, for free (well, lets not count the camera upgrades, computer upgrades, storage drives, software etc.). You can check your exposure via histogram and your composition via LCD and gain immediate feedback. You can work on images, molding them into your vision, without the wet darkroom 'mess'. Once the image has been processed it is easy to output as many identical copies as you want.

But what about the downside? There is one downside that seems to always haunt me, and that is that there can be too many possibilities!

What do I mean by that? Because it is easy to make so many digital photographs, I think I actually make too many of them. When I am out shooting, I now tend to take many more frames of an image than I did when using film. I find myself altering the composition ever so slightly and reshooting, making images where the point of focus is a bit different, shooting with different apertures, and refocusing manually just to make sure I get the sharpest focus possible. At the end of the day I might have so many frames of essentially the same composition that it makes picking the 'best' one to process frustratingly difficult. And the 'fear' of not picking the 'best' frame may well lead to not picking a frame at all, leaving the endeavor to 'later'.

This isn't to say that I don't have a specific vision when making a photograph.....I do. It is just that with digital it can sometimes be too easy to doubt whether that vision might be 'optimal' and to try to examine every possibility. In speaking to some of my photography friends, it turns out that I am not alone with this issue. Maybe I need to trust myself to the original vision I had when first approaching the shot or, alternatively, being happy when I find a frame I took that expresses that vision, as opposed to feeling obligated to examine each and every frame and comparing them to each other in order to find the perfect one to use.

Get The Hell Outta' Bed

Lets face it....it is really tough to get out of bed at 6AM on a work day, let alone at 5AM on the precious weekend, even if it is to go out and photograph. Sometimes it is just plain impossible to get up. Nonetheless, every time I force myself up, even if it turns out that there were no interesting photographs to be had, it always ends up just feeling good to have been up before the rest of the world to watch the new day dawn.

However, some days the early awakening is associated with great photos, either because conditions are just right or because the muse speaks. Some days, well, not so much! But it is never predictable........so had I slept in two weekends ago I would have missed this beautiful sunrise over Lake Arthur.

Sunrise Over Lake Arthur
Copyright Howard Grill

One way that I make sure that I don't roll back over in bed is that I have a group of two or three other photographers that I go out with on Sundays. We have a pre-arranged meeting time and place that we have committed to, which makes it much harder to roll over and go back to sleep. I don't always use that strategy, but it sure helps.

So don't just roll over. Get your ass out of bed and see what you've been missing!

ELP - Way Off Topic

Int my last post entitled "Coincidence?", I compared the style of a portrait of keyboardist Keith Emerson (from Emerson, Lake, and Palmer) to that of the famous portrait of Igor Stravinsky taken by Newman. That post can be read here. I received a few comments, both on this blog as well as on my Facebook photography page.

I had mentioned that since ELP was at their prime in the seventies, some readers might not be familiar with them. Even though it is off topic (hey, it's my blog), I thought that I would post a few YouTube links to ELP performing so that anyone that is not familiar with them might have a look (the sound quality isn't perfect given that the recordings were made in the 1970's):

Here they are performing an acoustic version of Lake's "Lucky Man" in concert in Japan:




And here playing a small portion of their amazing piece entitled "Tarkus", also in concert in Japan:




And finally, playing a portion of their rendition of Russian composer Mussorgsky's classic "Pictures At An Exhibition":




Enjoy!

Coincidence?

I was born in the late 1950's and thus, not too surprisingly, my musical taste leans towards 60's-80's rock. I also tend to go through phases where I really enjoy listening to a particular artist or group.

Lately, I have been going through an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer phase. For those who might be reading this that are too young to have heard of them, they are generally considered one of the earliest 'progressive rock' supergroups. If you haven't heard of them you really owe it to yourself to have a listen. Try "Lucky Man" for a more conventional 'over the radio' song, but if you really want to try something different give "Tarkus" a try.

But what has any of this to do with photography? Well, I recently was rounding out my ELP collection and ordered the album entitled "Works Volume 1". Ok, it isn't their most renowned music but I was completing my collection by purchasing albums I was missing. At any rate, I bought the CD (for essentially the same price as an i-Tunes download why not have an uncompressed hard copy as well?) and looked at the album insert. I was very surprised to find in the pamphlet this photograph of Keith Emerson taken by David Montgomery in the 1970's (the reproduction is somewhat poor as I had to scan an image that was already reproduced for the insert).

Photo Of Keith Emerson From Works Volume 1 Album
Copyright David Montgomery

The first thing that ran through my mind was 'Whoa, I've seen that before!'. To me it looked like essentially the same image as the iconic photograph of Igor Stravinsky taken by Harold Newman in the mid 1940's. For those not familiar with that photo, I have copied it below.

Copyright Harold Newman

I thought the similarity was clear. I would be curious as to whether Montgomery thought that the Newman image was so well known that people would realize that it was a copy of the idea and that it was almost a 'spoof' on the image or if it was a situation where Newman's image was not well known at the time. Not that it makes much difference at this point, I suppose. It is just that I was taken aback by the similarity between the two photos. Coincidence? I doubt it. Spoof....I don't know!