Time for Cuteness

It's been too long since I've posted a cute photo. So I give you a Superdose of Cute, just in time for Valentine's Day and Lunar New Year!

Cuteness is further amplified by the giraffe costume. At this point, later in the photoshoot, she is getting a little tired. The most winning smiles are always given at the start of the shoot, when the situation is novel and energy is at its peak. Lovely limited color palette, and visual theme of graphic prints.


Lighting conditions were perfect: a sunny day, with direct sun only just making it through the window (sun was quite high, at 2pm); baby in non-direct sun, but lit very nicely by the glow from that direct sun. Light colored walls and furniture to reflect diffuse white light all around. Yes, all natural light! (and a bit of photoshopping)

Swiss Chard and Good News.

Where would we be without a Green Superhero? Promoter of Leafy Greens in the Diet (Swiss Chard! My Favorite Vegetable! Look how beautifully it photographs!), Friend to the Very Essential Decomposers of the world (I will confirm your suspicions, yes those are Giant African Millipedes) and User of Recycled Materials for Apparel (Did you attend my wedding? Recall the green fabric adorning the ceremony archway?)



On a totally different note, Good news! I heard from TinyPrints.com, an online company that makes personalized birth announcements, cards, invites and what nots, with modern chic designs (think Anthropologie). They like my photos, and would like to include me as a one of their "Photographer Favorites" - a list of local photog recommendations. They ask to use some of my photos in their sample products, I get a discount at their site, my clients get a discount, and any clients whose photo is used gets a generous gift certificate. Yea!! I'll need to inquire about copyright and such, but I do want this to work out. An endorsement from TinyPrints (which many of my clients use already, and is a Bay Area based company) is huge.

Now that I'm out of art school, it's hard to find a means to get my work critiqued. I'd been relying on the feedback from clients - that they are happy and keep coming back for more, and refer me to friends is obviously a good sign. It is a whole different level of reward to have positive feedback from a business that specializes in the design of family photo printed materials.

Superheroes Need Headshots Too.

I've decided. What I want to be is a professional superhero head shot photographer. Superheroes need head shots too, when applying for vigilante positions, you know.

Here we have the alter egos of several of my (non-photography job) co-workers at http://www.savenature.org/
where we battle insect ignorance, inspire wee children to care about the environment, clean up bug poo and yes, Save Nature by preserving vital habitat. And that's just by day.


The afternoon of March 13th marks the alignment of the seven intergalactic bug moons, and thus these superheroes will come together for their once-a-light-year Bowl-a-thon, called BOWL-THE-PLANET. Dear ordinary mortals, lend your support to these legendary super humans and sponsor your idol now! All sponsorships will go to these mighty beings' conservation efforts.


How does one go about setting up a super hero photo studio? I'm glad you asked. The black back drop was bought from JoAnn Fabrics. I scrutinized many fabrics before deciding upon this. It is no ordinary cloth. In another life, it would've been used to make heavy wrinkle-free winter trousers. However, its matte surface, dense knit and synthetic composition makes it perfect for a backdrop as it absorbs light and creates a fabulously dark black hole black.


Lighting. I borrowed a very bright 4-bulb lamp to light from the left. No diffuser material over the light - I wanted a strong blast of light, to give drama to the superheroes. On the right, a single bulb, white-umbrellaed (ie, diffused) light, to use as a "fill light". This prevents the right side from being totally in shadow. If the fill light wasn't there, the shadows on the faces would be much darker; we'd lose a lot of right-side information. It was otherwise a day-light-lit room; enough ambient light that these 2 lamps were enough.


Superhero friends out there, if you need year head shot done, just let me know.

No More Stickers.

New Postcard design! It's about time. My old postcard has the wrong website address (pre-Ginkgo days), and it is NOT FUN to cut out little hand written stickers with the correct address to place over the wrong one. Additionally, my old postcard photos don't reflect my current style. All these were taken within the last year. I've come a long way.

Picking out photos took a long time. I want to show that I can do candid and semi-posed, full families and individuals, close to new-born (2 weeks!) to grown-up, head portrait to body length, that I have varied composition, that I can capture color, outdoors, texture, good lighting. I picked my favorite landscape oriented photos, and worked brightly colored portrait oriented photos around them, alternating close facial shots with body length, and balancing out colors. Large faces work best since the post card is only 5x7; a photo with small faces doesn't contribute much unless the background or body poses speak loudly. I spaced and lined up the photos precisely. From this postcard, one would gather that I have a tidy desk. Haha! Not true.

Instead or in addition to business cards, photographers get postcards printed. It's just easier to show off work. I won't actually be mailing postcards to anyone. I give these to clients who express interest in passing my name around, or I may leave a pile of postcards next to my silent auction donation sign up (I often wind up donating a session to silent auctions, for schools and non-profits).

A Quick Revamping.

I've been procrastinating for a year, but it just took 20 minutes to do. I cleaned up my website. Previously, the background was light tan, the font was handwritten script style, and I had stuck my craft logo on for good measure (a stylized elephant with ginkgo leaves sprinkled over its rump). I decided to streamline the font - modern yet friendly, rid of the distracting logo, and change the background to white.

Remember prehistoric websites, the backgrounds consisting of some awful repeat tiled pattern? We are So Far from those days! I personally appreciate a clean, straight to the point website.

On the People Inside Lion Costumes and How the Condition of Your Narcissus May Affect Your Bus Ride Home

My focus was the people InSide the Lion costume. They are incredibly athletic. Let me step back for a moment. There are Lion Dances, and there are Dragon Dances, both are celebratory Chinese performances. A lion usually consists 2 people - their 4 legs comprising the 4 lion legs. A Dragon may only consist of 2 people (a really short dragon) but the most dramatic ones consist of many people running one after another in unison, much like a centipede. Both lion heads and dragon heads have mouths that open and close, and eyelids that bat.

Eight lions came out to dance at the Chinese New Year Flower Market in San Francisco Chinatown. The hind legs belonged to beefy Chinese guys, and the fore legs were those of spry, light weight men and women. To the live percussive sound track of swift drums and cymbals, the hind person hoisted the fore person up. I was impressed by how long the hind person held the fore person. Meanwhile, the fore person lifted the head and turned it this way and that.



After the lion dance, I headed into the flower market, and decided to buy narcissus, one of the several popular Lunar New Year flowers. Others include chrysanthemum, peach blossom and gladiolus. But Chinese New Year isn't until next week! Some of you exclaim. Yes, this is true, but flowers are akin to Xmas trees, decorating the home to set the mood before the holidays.

I joined the throng of mostly older Chinese women, carefully inspecting the pots of narcissus.

There are some rules to narcissus selection. One should maximize on all these factors... (1) Find a pot where the bulbs have not yet flowered, so that they will open at (and not start withering and looking disheveled before) Chinese New Year. (2) The stalks and leaves should not be too tall, or you risk the whole plant looking floppy. (3) The ends of the leaves should be in good condition - not raggedy/ ripped/ bent. (4) Because Chinese people are always very concerned about getting the best deal possible, the more bulbs stuffed in a pot, the better. (Yes I can say these things because I'm Chinese)

Had I known I would be beleaguered by elderly Chinese ladies concerning the condition of my narcissus, I would have fought my crowd-weariness and gone on to another flower stall to find non-open-flowered bulbs. At the bus stop, one woman gave my flowers a disdainful look and commented loudly to her companion in Cantonese: "Those narcissus are All Open!" (NOT true, they were maybe 1/4 open). I sat down next to another older Chinese woman on the bus. Right away she scrutinized my flowers and announced in Cantonese: "Your flowers are all open! My flowers are still closed!" and proudly patted her plastic bag.

At this point, I was sure all the old Chinese ladies on the bus were eying my narcissus, secretly congratulating themselves on their superior, closed-narcissus purchase and feeling sorry for this amateur narcissus buyer. "There weren't any closed flower ones," I told my neighbor in English (I'd already apparently made a fool out of myself with open narcissus, I wasn't about to butcher Cantonese and embarrass myself further). Perhaps she took pity on me. She said "They're very fragrant."

To check out upcoming Lunar New Years events in SF for yourself, refer to:
http://www.chineseparade.com/
There's another Flower Market at the Botanical Gardens Feb 13, and the grand finale parade is on Sat Feb 27th!

Alleyways.

Alleyways of downtown San Francisco. You see bulging trash bags lugged out of the back doors of restaurants. The parking lot security guards getting their nicotine fix. Office worker who has emerged from the high rise for better cell phone reception. A smattering of pigeons. And photographers taking photos of local musicians.

What is with photographers, musicians and alleyways? You might ask. There are a few answers. (1) Alleyway walls have great character. No-one bothers to keep them in good shape. They lend a raw, urban feel to a portrait, without being distracting. One can find unusual colors, textures and if you're lucky, street art. (2) No signage. Recognizable corporate logos in the background of any portrait is quite undesirable. And it's nice that no other people are around to get in the way of the shot. (3) Shade. From the tall buildings around the alley. Good lighting for portraits. (4) Hassle-free. People are sensitive about storefronts , and permit (+ sometimes a fee) is required for shooting inside most buildings.




Why musicians specifically? I'm going to guess. There are few professions where one can wear everyday street clothes and yet be uproariously applauded. Not that rockers don't dress up. But there is something about the aura of the indie rock musician that suggests they are a part of an urban tapestry. They are not mainstream (ie, not main street), yet the city is definitely their habitat. Am I just blabbing? Probably.

Pert Pink Pig

The successful shading of Pig required a different technique from Artichoke. Spiky shading technique on Pig spells DISASTER. It looked like Zebra Pig. So I used little hatch marks. They may look like they were deftly placed, but each hatch mark is shaped by several strokes - first, a big fat photoshop round paintbrush stroke, then carved out using eraser tool, to achieve that wood-chipped-away feel, characteristic of wood cut.

Pig held snout downwards in my first pencil draft. I decided he looked too doom and gloom, as if he knew he was on his way to the dinner table. Can't have a sour-mood pig on a restaurant menu! Must have happy, pert pig. So, his head is tilted up, and he gazes into the horizon. I made a conscious attempt to not make the Pig too cute. I am cursed with cute drawing style when it comes to animals. It has everything to do with eye placement, smiling, and body proportions. The eye should actually be higher, closer to the ears (according to my google pig photo research). This pig has a mona lisa smile, the kind of no-teeth smile that I tell my clients to make when posing for a head shot. Relatively big heads make characters cute. I think this pig head is normal.

I colored him in. When coloring in photoshop, I experience the same glee as coloring in coloring books as a kid. Except I don't need to worry about going outside the lines, and I can change my mind about palette. There is something incomparably satisfying about coloring in.

Lead Singers Are Energetic

I finally have gotten out to experience some local music. This is My First Earthquake, at the Noise Pop Fest Warm Up, Cafe Du Nord. I just happen to have gone to undergrad with the white shirted guy in the background (Hi Chad!). Anyways, band photography is something I'd been wanting to try, but hadn't happened until now. I had to show up with a mindset of photographing - I can't just think: Oh maybe I'll bring my camera and take a few photos. That never works.

As with all photography, the big challenge is figuring out the lighting. Stages are usually poorly lit, and thus flash is necessary especially if you have an energetic band member, such as this lead singer.

In all my photos I used a wide angle non-portrait lens allowing for focus on both near and far at the same time (f/4.0), and set my camera at ISO 800 (thus increasing camera speed though foregoing some cleanliness/gaining graininess). I experimented constantly with shutter speed. This was taken at 1/40 sec.

For more about My First Earthquake: http://www.myfirstearthquake.com

How To Draw An Artichoke In A Style That Makes It Look Like It Is A Wood Cut Print

Illustrations for a soon-to-open SF restaurant, for use in menus, signage, etc.

In an ideal world, I would start with an actual artichoke, but I didn't have one on hand, so I found a photo on which to base things. I began with a pencil drawing - drew a loose oval, then started shaving off edges to a sort of hexagonal shape. Lightly drafted in the leaves and stem, and then went back in with a bit more weight on the pencil, outlining the thing (top left). At this point, I noted to myself, that I'd never carefully studied artichoke anatomy before.

Next, brush and ink. Varying line width - a thicker line for the outline of the whole shape, thinner for within. Brush and ink is my drawing medium of choice - the brush runs so smoothly over paper, and the ink is a lovely dense inky black (top right).

To achieve "Wood Block" style, I would need to add chunky black marks which would indicate form (ie, roundness, and fibrous texture). Wait. You know what wood block prints are, right? Well, just imagine a giant rubber stamp, except that it's wood. A rustic quality is associated with wood cut, though wood cut can also be very detailed and tedious and neat - such as Japanese wood cut prints. Anyways, as I was saying, the chunky black marks can't occur just randomly. In photoshop, I used gray to block out areas that I thought should be in shade if the artichoke were lit from the top left (standard scientific illustration lighting, BTW).

In photoshop, I used chunky black spikey markings to fill in those gray guideline areas. Things to think about: how far up the spikes should go on a leaf, how wide the spikes should be, where to put little highlight streaks, not too much nor too little detail (bottom right). I figure I will get better and faster at this as I get more practice and define my style.

Achieving Crispy and Shiny, I Have Not. Yet.

I can do non-corporate head shots. I've done head shots for a yoga instructor, beautician, acupuncturist, real estate agent, graduate, vet-school applicant, fiction author, autobiographical author, music instructor, special needs teacher, iphone app developer. All outdoors, natural light, with a gentle pop of flash.

I've somehow landed myself a corporate headshot gig through a referral. Corporate headshot is going to be a totally different species, and I've been fretting about it for the past half day. I have 2 weeks to figure it out. It'll be an indoor studio set up - but the lighting will be tricky. There will 3 artificial light sources. I will definitely need to do some equipment renting. You know how head shots of people in business suits look... rather crispy and shiny? As opposed to this rather soft, friendly photo. It's in the lighting.

I'm rather excited about learning something new. Actually, I sway between feelings of trepidation and intrepidness. It'll take some reading of advice from the internet (other people's blogs and websites), I'll ask my favorite camera equipment rental company for advice, and then I'll practice at home on family members who have no choice but to grudgingly oblige.

No Longer a White Wall

This was a white wall. Plain ol' county office building wall. Right next to street parking, some lunch tables, surrounded by other rather drab buildings. You'd never guess it from these photos! Sky was definitely thinking about raining, which made for diffuse light - needed a pop of fill flash (ie, fill in the shadows just so... not too much as to wash her out).

Perfect surface to apply some textures. I'm looking forward to trying these out on a plain black wall too. These were done in photoshop, after the normal round of photo optimizing (white balance correction, brightening, lightening specific areas, saturating other areas, adding some blur). The textured effect is a layer over the image, so that it can be strategically erased - so that the scratchy/muddy marks aren't over her skin.

Color Speaks.

And sometimes, color makes the photo. I wish that bush weren't there, to the right. So, ignore the bush. Note the perspective of trees, and the glowy effect that results from the yellowed leaves fading into a blur. Note that I took this photo from a crouch position, so that the yellowness haloed her head. The girl-ishness of hair twirling and the bows. Here, color speaks to the crayola colors of kidhood, the festivity of the season (this was December). This is a unideal candidate for a B&W conversion. Almost all the colors are mid-tones, and much of the pic would be gray, except for the dark patch at the very end of the trees and parts of the hair, which would be closer to black. Not things that we want to pay extra attention to.

In Black and White.

You know what makes this picture work? It's the black jacket. Imagine a lack of black jacket, and instead, just the white windowpane checked shirt. The silhouettes of the westie faces would be far less distinct, as would the side of the face of the shoulder leaner. The presence of the man looking into the sun would be less powerful. It really brings all 4 figures to the foreground, and it works especially well in B&W.

I made the jacket blacker than what it would be with a normal B&W conversion. The point, to create black shapes, and in contrast, to make white shapes out of the sky. None of this in-between gray business, in these areas (jacket and sky) where detail is not necessary. By blocking out these areas, I think viewers spend more time on the faces. And then, the subtle Golden Gate Bridge detail is almost an afterthought.

It seems that often people convert photos to B&W for fun. Or for a retro effect. OK, there's nothing wrong with doing that, but for me, turning a pic into B&W is a whole different interpretation of the photo. Color is a huge distraction and by removing it, the details - the shapes, the lines, the contrast - are suddenly gain importance. It can be used to give subjects so much more impact. So my message is this. The next time you're going through a set of photos, don't just convert to B&W willy-nilly, to attempt to add variety, or appear artsy. Convert to B&W because you want your photo to convey a different message.

Nine.

Nine sessions of 30 minutes each actually passed very quickly. I gave myself five minutes between sessions, and speed-walked across the park to different locations during that time. One of the hardest parts was remembering names of kids; very necessary to get the kids' attention for photos. There were 15 kids/babies in all.

I have over 1600 photos to process: I will weed through them and get rid of awkward blinking photos, and out of focus photos (mostly, my attempts to photograph kids on swings). Then parents will chose their 25 favorite out of a mean of 180 photos, for editing. There are LOTS of cute kid photos, which I plan to post.

A week ago, I emailed the Doctors Without Borders fundraisers person, and asked him about tax-deductible - ie, who gets it? Me or clients? As you know, I went with giving the deductible to clients. Today I finally heard back, and in fact, *I* am supposed to be credited with the deductible, since clients receive my services and goods in exchange for the $ (unless clients paid More than what I charged; then they get the deductible for anything over $75.) However, it's too late in the case of these 9 sessions, as I don't want to go back on my word. I will know better for next time (and now you know too!)

Bubble Wall

I did a set of portraits for a local vocalist. From his descriptions, it sounded like he was looking for a surreal, graphic, minimalist style, and he had a location in mind: the bubble wall interior of the downtown SF BART stations.

Given a large, blank, textured wall, and one person, how does one make the image look interesting? A bold color certainly helps. And a non-stiff, stylish model. This was an exercise in composition. I could take all full body shots and crop later, but it is much more fun to experiment with cropping using the camera, rather than computer. When cropping, please don't crop at joints, especially wrists or ankles or necks. I think I've told you this before. It looks very uncomfortable.

Composing in this case, is striking a balance between the white negative space and the subject positive space. I don't know how I figure it out. I push the boundary of balance, without tipping the (+) and (-) space, I believe. Off centered photos are not simply off center - they are specifically off to a degree that my eye likes.
If you're interested in learning more about this vocalist, visit his website:
www.natankuchar.com


When a wall has a repetitive pattern, perspective/ angled shots can have great artsy effect. Try it next time, at a brick wall, chain-link fence, etc. But straight on shots have their own in-your-face impact.


Genuinely You!

A simple question turned into a 2 hour distraction: Can you send me some examples of your head shots? I tend not to put head shots on my website, since they are... relatively boring, compared to my "candid portrait" style photos. I went through my photo sessions and realized I've actually done a decent number of head shots over the year. I figured I might as well make an ad out of the pics, since I was putting them together for a potential client anyways. My ad headline is: "Genuinely You: Head Shot Photography by GinkgoPhoto".

It may not be the season for family holiday photos, but perhaps it's the season for people to fulfill resolutions and finally get that head shot for the updated resume, website or what not.

The thing with head shots is that there are limits. I can't get too crazy with composition. There are expectations for head size in proportion to photo size, clear lighting, whole face visible, mostly face forward, a normal happy expression. There are just things that employers will expect about a head shot photo. So, I have to try and bring out personality and uniqueness within those constraints.

As for GINKGOPHOTOTHON, I have twelve moms signed up. I had to add an extra half day, and asked that a I'M FULL notification be put up on the mom's club bulletin. While it's wonderful to have so much support, I have to be realistic - for every client I will spend a decent chunk of time working with after the shoot, for edits and what not. It's a big time commitment on my end, and I don't want to get stressed out. I've already spent some 6-8 hours on this project. I spent this morning trying to stay organized - family info in excel sheets, keeping track of who had responded/not, if I had responded etc etc.

I've been very distracted from edits, which I am still ploughing through. I must say, being a photographer in itself requires much multitasking. My brain seems to be losing capacity for name recall or past clients. Given I've now shot hundreds (maybe even a thousand? If one considers family portraits of 3, 4 , 5 or many more...) of people, it's understandable... and not due to aging.

On Organizing a Fund-Raiser for the First Time In My Life.

It happens too often; when something awful happens elsewhere in the world, be is Tsunami in Asia, Hurricanes in the SE, Earthquake in China, and now Earthquake in Haiti - I feel at a loss as to what to do. All I can do is channel money to those who can actually Do Something.

I'd been bouncing the idea around in my head for a few days. I could do a fundraiser - photograph families for a day, and the money would go to a Haiti-relief org. It would be called: GINKGOPHOTOTHON. But I could go crazy, driving from one home to the next - wait, what if I tell everyone to come to me, at a central, picturesque location? And then... what should I charge? How long should a session be? Short enough to not feel like a weighty time sucker-upper, but long enough to make a not small (but not too big!) donation seem worthwhile. I settled on 30 minutes for $75.

Am I forgetting anything? My other half, a far more practical person, asked about tax deductability and paperwork. Um. Do *I* get the tax deductible or do my clients? Are my clients paying me, and I make the donation? Or are they making the monetary donation, thus getting tax deductableness, and my donation consists of time? I decided on the latter. It wouldn't be right to say: Thanks for the check, I get the tax-deductible on this. But think about things like Benefit Concerts - who gets the tax deductible? It can get nitty gritty.

The Doctors Without Borders website had some info. I decided to go with them because... though physically unscathed survivors have lost everything, at least they have their functioning body. Scathed survivors don't even have that. But really, one can't go wrong with Red Cross, Oxfam, etc. I must admit I'm partial to DWB because I like how Medicins Sans Frontiers rolls off the tongue. Anyways, I was saying, there is a whole section with info on how to fund-raise. They even have a kit. So I think I'm doing this right. It's as simple as collecting the checks made out to DWB, and then DWB will send letters of acknowledgement/tax deductibleness to the check writer. BTW, "acknowledgement" is one of those words that looks weirder and weirder the longer I look at it.

Next! Choosing a day. Has to be a weekend. And it has to Not Rain. It's been pouring all over California recently. I've been checking on weather reports frequently, and it wasn't until I saw that Saturday is supposed to be sunny, did I proceed. This was the major factor holding me back. Weather.

Location: I wanted to stick to one area: San Mateo Central Park, which has a lovely Japanese Tea Garden, large kids' playground and a charming rose garden - not to mention, easy parking, and is a block away from many lunch options for myself. Location choice was closely tied to targeted participant base - a certain mother's club with whom I've experienced some popularity. I contacted a few client-Moms with my freshly written ad:

********
Haiti needs our help!

I am hosting a Haiti Aid PHOTOTHON on Saturday Jan 23, in San Mateo Central Park.
100% of contributions will go to Doctors Without Borders efforts in Haiti.
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

For your tax-deductible contribution of $75, you will receive:
Half hour mini-photo session with me
CD of all original hi-resolution files (100+ photos)
Your choice of 25 edited photos.
10% discount coupon towards a future photo session with me
Acknowledgement letter from Doctors Without Borders

This is an opportunity to capture candid photos of you and your little ones puddle splashing in rubber boots, take those head shots you've been meaning to get, do pet portraits of your furry best friends, photograph baby in that outfit the grandparents sent a few months ago!

Limited time slots available. Please contact me ASAP for a spot.
*******
One of the moms posted this on the club bulletin.
Then, I waited to see what would happen.

I Choose You, Calculator!

The array of objects included: Ruler (architect?), microphone, football, keyboard, stethoscope, calculator, dictionary. I should mention, that a large proportion of the guests were Doctors. Chinese Doctors. Any of you who are Chinese, or Korean, or know anything of what Chinese parents stereotypically want their kid to grow up to become, you'll know there is only One answer.

He chose Calculator. I was surprised, as the calculator was dull colored; usually babies go for the brightest object. And it wasn't as if it were placed right in front of him; he whirled around 180 and the calculator caught his eye. OK, calculator, first choice - how about second choice? How about an MD after that MBA? Oriented and Nudged towards Stethoscope. He gazed at the stethoscope, contemplating the possibilities, while we all held our breath... then made an abrupt lunge for the plastic keyboard. Well... how about third choice? Do your MBA, a brief stint in music, now it's time for MD, right? He crawled over the the Dictionary, flipped open the cover.

This venue was a hard place to shoot. The ceilings and walls were red-ish, and then here we have the green floor mat - all this stuff affects the light falling on people's faces. You can see that some of the kids' faces are green-ish. A flash can help neutralize things - I imagine, inaccurately and anthropomorphically, that my flash power shoves reflected red/green light out of the way. Unfortunately my flash didn't power up in time to ka-pow! the green light out of this pic. I did a little skin tone painting to reduce the green on the birthday boy. This is not the first time I've seen this green mat... it has caused me problems before. Please consider photographers when you purchase a play mat for your baby.