Big Willie

Such a busy fun summer full of shoot after shoot and a little boating. (What recession?) We had such a great shoot yesterday with Eveaila and of course Big Willie Frankangela H&M (on his knees as usual)and designer Kelly Flynn (not pictured).

The interesting thing about this shoot was that we were not only rained out of our location but the concept was done in about five minutes on the spot. Yes, we came in blind. Now if you know me or anything about the way I work there is always a concept faze that usually happens over a period of two weeks, sometimes a month. Well that didn't happen. Everything had to be done on the fly that day which isn't entirely out of the ordinary. I just like structure when it comes to concepts and photography and even respecting the time and efforts of people I am working with.

Here is my question to all of you? What do you prefer? Wingin it? or storyboards and concepts. How do you work? or is it the combination of the two that brings out the best in you and others you are working with?

MySpace, Flickr, Face Book, Photo Bucket...

I have known for a while about this disturbing News on rights grabs but this ridiculous. It is imperative that we all copyright all of out images ASAP...

Below is an email that I received from fellow ASMP colleague Jeff Caven.


Hello Colleagues,

I think it is important that as our peers fight for our copyrights in
Congress and the Senate. We support them by making everyday people and
fellow professionals aware of the blatant rights grab by image services like
Flickr.

Flickr's legal verbiage:


However, with respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion
on publicly accessible areas of the Service, you grant Yahoo! the following
worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive license(s), as applicable:

1.

With respect to Content you submit or make available for inclusion on
publicly accessible areas of Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute,
reproduce, modify, adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content
on the Service solely for the purposes of providing and promoting the
specific Yahoo! Group to which such Content was submitted or made available.
This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to include
such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you remove or
Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.
2.

With respect to photos, graphics, audio or video you submit or make
available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of the Service other
than Yahoo! Groups, the license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify,
adapt, publicly perform and publicly display such Content on the Service
solely for the purpose for which such Content was submitted or made
available. This license exists only for as long as you elect to continue to
include such Content on the Service and will terminate at the time you
remove or Yahoo! removes such Content from the Service.
3.

With respect to Content other than photos, graphics, audio or video
you submit or make available for inclusion on publicly accessible areas of
the Service other than Yahoo! Groups, the perpetual, irrevocable and fully
sublicensable license to use, distribute, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish,
translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content (in whole or
in part) and to incorporate such Content into other works in any format or
medium now known or later developed.

SCARY HUH?

While I belong to Facebook for friends and networking, they have a similar
verbiage. Other than my ugly mug, I post no images on Facebook. The wild
attorney above coined a new phrase "sublicensable License" It's a "Goliath"
(Yahoo!), so they probably had a school of attorneys. They must have been in
a feeding frenzy when they wrote this. Both My Space and Smugmug have
excellent "terms of Service" regarding photographers rights.

It's a new world in realm of intellectual property. ASMP is more important
now that ever.

We must all hang together,
or assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
- Benjamin Franklin


Cheers,

Jeff

Phase One 60 MEGAPIXEL digital back!!!

I am not the biggest fan of 6x4.5 digital format for medium format cameras. Maybe that is why I have only rented them for shoots.

Phase One have recently came out with its new 60 Megapixel destroyer. With a wide ISO range (50-800) and 8984 x 6732 pixels with 1 frame per second Phase one has taken another stride to stay ahead of the competition. This just days after Hasselblad made the 50 megapixel announcement. With a price tag of just under $42,000 thats $1440.00 per megapixel, I don't think I will be reaching for my check book just yet but! I will try the Phase one out on my Hassy as soon as I can. Now if they can just make an actual 6x6 format (8984 x 8984). Let the Pixel wars continue...

MyLoss My decision

A difficult decision had to be made last September when I started to hear my 1 terabyte external hard drive start to click quite a bit.

I discovered that it was failing and the drive with which I had 110,000 photos on was destroying itself. Two weeks later my second Back up external failed too! At that point I was not the biggest back up proponent in the world but I am now!

Ironically just before the drives failed I was complaining about how much time I was spending on the computer and not behind the camera. During film days you drop it off and you pick it up the next day. No big deal. Well technology has now allowed us to be the individuals we have always wanted to be and that comes with a price. The price of hanging over a computer for more that a few hours at a time.

Again I never really liked doing post work. But after I was lucky enough to have all of the photos recovered I never looked back. Why you might ask. Because I had about $40,000 bucks worth of photos that had not been delivered to my clients yet. Let alone the rest of my photos saved on those dam drives.

Post production has never been more of a joy for me because of the care I put in to them. For those of you that do not enjoy it get some one else to do it or build a system so that it goes faster for you.

Be thankful for what you have, because it can disappear in a flash.

Chase Jarvis: "We Are Independant, Yet We Are Somehow The Same".

Grant Haller, photographer for the Seattle Post Intelligencer once told me, way back when I was starting in the photo biz, that every photo has already been created. I couldn't believe what he said. I had the mind to think I was the ultimate creator and was going to come up with new interesting photos that would capture and hold viewers' attentions for hours.

I recently read on Chase Jarvis's blog his thoughts of how other photos looked like his and how ideas have sat in his notes and have not come to fruition for him. I think this is the same for most intelligent creative people and somewhat normal. There are only so many hours in the day. I recently shot photos that were an idea 4 months ago. Some might say they look like others photos but the idea popped up in my head way before I ever saw similars. Interestingly enough I just saw my website copied by another prominent photographer down to the color on the blog and the logo gradation.

Notwithstanding, it is our (my) intent as a photographer(s) and creator(s) to find, shoot, create and dream up interesting shots whether someone has shot it already or not and to make better photos through our own intent. I don't ever remember looking at photos and thinking "I want to do that or copy it". But sure as rye bread, I have seem similar work to mine that is not as good, that is for sure.

As I was discussing this same situation with Ken Sheppard of Azzura Photography last night over Mexican, he too expressed that the Internet has allowed the inundation of speed that spreads like wild fire. Post something, and bingo another amateur copies it.

Interestingly enough, we are all connected to one another in one way or another so I am no longer surprise to see parts of my ideas in some one elses photos. How many times have I seen my photos miss aligned in my portfolio after picking it up from an agency. We all know that they make copies of the photos they like just in case they need a fresh idea or to keep me on the front of their minds for the next project.

As for holding attention...We have created our own short stick with the bombardment of rapid fire society needing more, faster. I am not including "better" in this statement because I always want better from myself.

Hair fly

Talk about having a lot of energy, Lacey was awesome in creating these fantastic photos with me in Portland. It was a great excuse to do a shoot in Portland while having sometime off at the Monaco hotel. I have been wanting to do something like this for three months and just let everything hang out with no preconceived out comes. Just create. Let me tell you it felt fantastic.

Modern Seduction

©2008 Loren Callahan

Can I say I love Dawn Tunnell!!! Yes. The wizard makeup artist, and no you can't blame her for other peoples genetics (inside joke), pictured in the background with model Claire Z., created master pieces yesterday for our "Modern Seduction" shoot in Hunts Point.

Much thanks to Garth the owner of the amazing water front home. Who had the smarts along with the state to put a video camera in one of the oldest trees in Bellevue to record the bald eagles living in it!!!. And the mother just had little ones three days ago! So on Garth's big flat screen we watched the mother feed her chicks during lunch. Amazing!!!

Another big thanks to big Glen for giving us the use of his new '08 Bentley GT. Sweet car. Ya should have stuck around Glen!

And last but not least the crew:

On hair we had Will (Big Willie) Francalangia, simply amazing "don't take the black out" style and so funny, funny man!!!

Lindsay Baucsh was our awesome sassy southern bell wardrobe woman.

Tuan lesoleil designer, thank you so much for your beautiful dresses and the help around set!!!

And our wonderful models Clair Z. and Maria B. We couldn't have done it without you!

A 12 hour day full of laughter and professionalism. I love the art we were able to create because of all of you. Look for the photos on my website within the next two weeks.