Lens Markers

Lens markers are a beautifully simple, elegant solution to an issue photographers sometimes come across when looking to pull the right lens quickly from a camera bag.  These are white stickers that contrast with the black caps so they’re easy to read.  They are made from a vinyl material that are built to withstand seven years of direct sunlight before showing any signs of deterioration.  They can also be removed at any time if the users wishes.

The markers were designed, and produced by one of my young photography mentors, Allan Higa.  His blog post on the lens markers can be read here, and if you’re interested in picking up some lens markers for your own lenses, you can find more information here.

The two feature photos were taken and processed on my iPhone 4s using the above setup.  I chose the iPhone because it was the only other camera I have, and I was initially trying to get both lenses in the same photo leaving my SLR lens-less.  I was pleasantly surprised by the results and thought I should share.

Project Grief

The last several weeks have been both stress-filled and exciting, which is exactly what school should be.  The latest was a group breakup song paper and presentation about what happens when relationships terminate.  After individually selecting songs, we decided that grief is something they all shared in common.  Since the late 1920s, Grief has been commonly associated with one Elisabeth Kübler-Ross and her 5-staged theory.  The project brought me back to my fruit-stand days working with the lifestyle and productivity software suites.  The presentation needed some audio clips and some visuals.  I thought it’d be fun to turn it into a conceptual photo shoot, one photo per stage featuring the presenter of said stage, of course.

Denial: Leonardo
Songs: Somebody that I used to Know – Gotye ft. Kimbra, The Winner Takes it All – Abba

As an expression, denial proved difficult to achieve, so we decided to create a story around a diary entry.  I thought a high camera angle over the shoulder would be useful in framing the action of writing the message.  The words needed to be the focus so the key light had to highlight just the words and light the face.  I put the speedlite on a grid above the scene camera right, but the foreground was too dark to hold any detail in the shadows  so I attached a macro ring light on low power to pop a touch of fill light on Leo’s back.  I left the natural vignette to keep some drama and emphasize the spotlight on the text.

Anger: Caitlin
Song: Gunpowder & Lead – Miranda Lambert

The challenge with university group projects is finding compatible times when everyone’s available to meet, and this project was no exception.  Couple that with the a photo prop that would have some legal implications had it been found on location and you get no photo.

Bargaining: James
Song: I’ll Be – Edwin McCain

Initially I tried spitting out the photos quickly after class using a friend’s brand new Canon 5D Mk III since my camera was in the shop at the time.  In order to make it quick, I had the subject stand against a plain wall holding a related prop with a white shoot-through umbrella.  I set the camera to monochrome thinking the camera was recording to the RAW data format and that the color data would preserved, but the fancy new camera had different settings for the different memory cards in the camera, and it saved to the one that didn’t keep the color information.

Depression: Adriana
Songs: Duele el Amor – Aleks Syntek ft. Ana Torroja, Breakeven – The Script

This one was fun because the associated props and set just kept coming and coming.  It started with the adult drink bottles, then pills, then existential titles, then tissues, and a blanket, and finally the eye make-up.  The coffee table and couch were nice anchor pieces, and i wanted the light to look similar to light from the television, so i went with the shoot through umbrella that would diffuse the light everywhere.

Acceptance: Genevieve
Songs: N/A

The idea for this was a burn the boyfriend’s stuff look, which made the match fire the subject of the photo.  i took a black exposure with just the match to set an ambient that would keep the flame exposed and kicked a really low-powered speedlite into a 48″ reflector to fill the shadows.

School would be so much more awesome if it granted more photographic opportunities.

Easter Afternoon

Raindrops on pine trees and whiskers on puppys, photography with great friends who are lovely, add in some lights and some models that sing, these are a few of my favorite things!  Sunday was extra awesome this year because my photography besties put together a lighting meet Easter party!  The meet was complete with great food, great photographers who also happen to be great teachers, 4 wonderful models (Maddie, Sasha, Kalia, and Kaimana), a scenic location (Wa’ahila Ridge State Recreational Area), and even festivities for the kids like an egg hunt, egg dying, and some games to boot!

Having just watched a good portion of the Lighting Essentials with Don Giannatti creativeLIVE workshop and also having had the experience of photographing a shoot at this location before (though in another section of the park), I was inspired to create a specific photo at the meet today by employing a gel lighting technique that would allow me to darken the forest and add a green tint to mystify the forest a little while keeping the model the appropriate color.  Unfortunately, the odds were not ever in my favor.  I leant my camera to a coworker earlier in the week, and upon receiving it back, I discovered that the memory card pins in the camera had been severely damaged rendering my camera unable to record data and therefore useless for this day.  Also, there were no color gels large enough for me to pair with one of the high power lights today and my attempts with a speedlite (above and below) failed to get the look I had in my head.  Thankfully, though, some of the gear heads have more than one camera body, and I was given permission to use one of their cameras.  Thanks, Stacey!

I seemed to have brought a grey cloud with me to the meet as well, because not an hour in to our time with our fabulous models, the weather took a turn for the wet.

My goal for this next look was to do an evening fashion/editorial look kinda inspired by the Express mailers.  We found a great “little black dress” and since there happened to be two models available, I decided to throw one in the background to add a curious story element to the photo.  With Shon assisting me with his cool lights, modifiers, and stands, overpowered the ambient light to darken the background and blasted a hard light at the models to create sharp, dramatic shadows.  Unfortunately, I ran into some shiny skin problems because of the rain, so I did my best in post processing to matte-ify the shine as much as possible without completely removing the wet reality of the situation.  The models were real troopers!

The other two models had just returned from another location in the park and one of them wanted to do a set out on the ridge area that overlooks Manoa valley.  I walked out to the Ridge with Stacey who had an AlienBee strobe in tow, and the two models, but as we neared the ridge, the rain came down harder, and Stacey and the Alienbee went back under cover, and I was left with the two models the unprotected ridge, and the rain.  I didn’t really have a lot of time to think of a natural light look for this location, but the models just struck the poses and made my job easy.  I tried a few back-lit looks, but their eyes were especially dark without me having something for their eyes to reflect as they faced the forest, so I turned their faces toward the cloud-covered sun and sought a position a somewhat favorable composition position on a slippery slope.  (I was determined to keep the log as a leading line, slippery or no).

Her eyes were darker than I would like, so I was thankful when she laughed at I don’t know what, and I got a look where dark eyes aren’t an issue.  And once I got the shot I wanted, we ran for cover with everyone else.

As the minutes ticked by, the sky got darker and darker and the rain wasn’t letting up.  The models still had one more look they wanted to get, and I was hoping to work do something the last model I hadn’t up till this point had the opportunity to work with, so while the three girl models did their thing, I enlisted Kaimana to stand in for me so I could set up one last look.

This look was inspired by the Lighting Essentials with Don Giannatti creativeLIVE workshop.  He has an in-studio lighting setup he calls “beach light” where he uses one light source as a back light and uses white boards to key an exposure on the subject’s front side to give the model something to reflect.  Being outdoors and without giant 8′x4′ foam core boards, I have photographers Kyle and Norris hold silver reflectors and fellow photographer Juro hold and aim my 1/2 CTO gelled flash to feather rim light the model and allow the reflectors to kick some light to the front side of the model.  I used the gel to try the green-ify exposure effect again and simulate sunrise light.  I looked a little more SoCal to me than sunrise, but I liked the effect anyway.

So when the girls finished their last look, I asked Maddie if I could do one final last set, and she graciously agreed to let me take photos of her.

There are a few things I wish I had done at this meet that I didn’t.  I wish I had taken some candids, some establishing shots, some detail shots and other things to better tell the story of the meet, but thankfully, Norris has put together a beautiful photo-journalistic set that I couldn’t even begin to compare to.

Despite the lousy weather and a dysfunctional camera, Easter Sunday was a great day.  I got to spend it with great friends, eating great food, doing one of my most favorite things.  Thanks everyone for making this happen!  I hope the next one isn’t too far off.

My2¢: The Hunger Games Movie

It’s officially been a week since this blockbuster movie debuted and a little over a year since I finished reading The Hunger Games trilogy.  As with many book-based movies, I think there is a clear distinction between the opinions of the read and un-read, so I will confirm here that I am a read movie viewer.

I was excited to hear there would be a movie.  I was amped when I saw the posters and movie trailers and Tuesday (the day I finally made plans to see the movie) couldn’t come soon enough!  Jared Takazawa, also a read movie viewer, accompanied me to the matinee IMAX showing.  After watching the movie, we talked a lot.  There was a lot to talk about.  I can talk the ears off of anyone who read the books and watched the movies too.  I even sent a long e-mail an aunt (a term of endearment for a close family friend in Hawaii)!  I soon decided, my thoughts deserved a blog post.  A few things you should know before reading my thoughts: I haven’t read any movie reviews/criticisms, and I haven’t seen any interviews regarding the choices that were made in converting the story to the big screen.  The following thoughts are my own after having been colored by the few I’ve had conversations with.

In short, I say I 85% LOVED the movie, and 15% wished they did this and that and expanded on this and that and so forth.  I was entertained and not disappointed.

*Spoiler Alert*

I don’t remember all of the 15% criticisms I had for the movie, but here are five of them:

1) Not nearly enough development was spent in District 12.  This encompasses several problems that I think may present themselves later in the movie series.  One of these problems is the Gale character, or lack their of, and his unique relationship with Katniss. This diminishes the love triangle dynamic which is important later in the series and it also short-changed Katniss’s potential to survive in the games having picked up how to set snares to catch animals and other such skills from Gale.  The significance of the characters’ names are also not engaged.  The issues of hunger, the rationing of grain, and the lottery system of getting ones name pulled for the games wasn’t emphasized nearly enough for those who didn’t read the books.  It also undermines the danger of the woods outside of district 12 being illegal territory for its citizens, and the value of the food Gale and Katniss are able to obtain, and the leeway provided by the mayor who knew about their wanderings, and the way Katniss even learned to hunt (her father taught her how to use the bow).  Peeta’s gesture of purposefully burning the bread to give to Katniss when she was starving after her mother’s catatonic grief period when her father died in the mines wasn’t communicated effectively either.  Speaking of her father’s death, the “hallucination” flashback to her father dying was inserted almost like an afterthought, and the connection to the poverty in District 12 and their coal-mining industry are weak in the movie.  I understand the need to cut the mockingjay pin story from the book version, but the specialness of the pin which is a major symbol of the series is weakened too as a result.  It’s not seen as valuable in the movie, as she obtained it for free, instead of being obtained as a sign of respect from the wealthy mayor’s daughter and the symbol of the MockingJay as a failed mutation project from a previous Hunger Games is not explained at all.

2) I did not like that the entire Avox storyline was eliminated.

3) I would have liked to have seen the survival strategy of the games emphasized more.  In the book, the tributes have the option to choose which survival classes they wish to attend, like the poisonous vs edible plants class, or the knot-tying class, and the disguise class and how Katniss and Peeta differentiated themselves from the others who were intent on learning how to throw knives and such and how these choices paid off for Katniss and Peeta in the arena.  I also wish they showed how Haymitch guided Katniss by strategically giving and withholding sponsor gifts to encourage or discourage certain behaviors.  In the movie, the gifts just sort of arrived when Peeta and Katniss needed them.  This effectively lessened the tension between Katniss, who always received the gifts, and Peeta, who was only a beneficiary of them when Katniss was around, which he wasn’t very happy about.

4) I thought a major missing scene was how Peeta escaped the tribute group after the bee incident and how he ended up with the wound on his leg, because it would’ve showed that he joined the group to protect Katniss, not to kill her.

5) I didn’t like that the dogs at the end did not have the facial features of the deceased tributes like they did in the books.

Having said all of that, I did love a lot of the movie though.  While a little difficult on the eyes, I do like the decision to visually distinguish the hand-held camera work in district 12 with the steadied footage of the capital.  I thought the audio and cinematic effect details were nearly perfect.  The mute sections, the hallucination section (with the exception of the blue-haired guy showing up in the hallucination and the mine flashback), even the detail of using the font they did for the countdown numbers in the arena.  I loved that for the most part, the movie didn’t assume that movie viewers were ignorant and pushing too much dialog to tell the story.  I like that they let the visuals and audio tell much of the story without words so the audience could piece together situations on their own and how effective the effects were in giving me a first-person sensation of what Katniss was experiencing (especially with dolby digital surround sound)!  I thought the casting was well done.  Rue was a perfect Rue, Haymitch was a great Haymitch, Cinna was a great Cinna, Peeta was a great Peeta, and Katniss… I love her eyes, was AMAHZING!  I loved that the movie didn’t glorify the games with inspirational music.  I thought the scenes with Katniss and Peeta in the cave were acted PERFECTLY.  I believed that Katniss was trying to put on a show for the Capitol audience while not fully committing to Peeta internally, and she did it without being cheesy.  I thought they were smart by depicting much of the gruesome violence in an implied manner.  I thought the “hope” speech by the villain was well written, but I thought this was one segment where there was a touch too much dialog explaining rather than showing the reason for the games.

There certainly is a lot to think about, and I look forward to reading some of your thoughts in the comments!

Susie

There are two posts on the back burner as I write this.  The first is a reaction post to watching “The Hunger Games” movie, and the second is about the latest camera to join the Kawamura family, but spring break is upon me, and I was determined to get a portrait photo session in before having to return to time-sucking responsibilities of school.  In a previous post, I mentioned that I recently joined Model Mayhem.  At the start of the break, I sent some photo session requests to some local models on the site, and luckily, Susie Danielson answered my request, and I was able to set up a session with make-up artist Melanie Yamada, and fellow photographer Shon Uekawa.

Photo by Shon Uekawa

I did a photo shoot with Melanie a while back, and at the time she had mentioned that she was interested in practicing make-up artistry so I asked if she’d be interested in working with me, and luckily for me, she said yes.  She’s most comfortable doing glamour style make-up, and I had just watched Sue Bryce’s creativelive workshop so I decided to try a glamour/beauty themed photo shoot.  The biggest challenge organizing a glamour/beauty themed photo shoot was finding a suitable location.  Traditionally, glamour/beauty is done in a studio.  I don’t have a studio.  After crowd-sourcing I settled on the Hawaii International Imin Conference Center at the University of Hawaii because it has a large enough outdoor ceiling to create an indoor vibe.

Photo by Shon Uekawa

My favorite photo from the shoot is this headshot Shon took.  It looks to me like something from Saturday Night Live, and I’ve always loved the photography featured on that show.  This is exactly the studio-like vibe I was hoping to achieve at this location.

Susie was an amazing model!  She’s beautiful, friendly, communicates in a timely manner, and is very easy to work with.

Thanks Shon, Melanie, and Susie for a great day!

My New iPad

My iMac is a wonderful, WONDERFUL computer, it does everything I need as fast as I could ever want it done.  One thing it’s not, though, is portable.  I’ve lugged it around on more than one occasion, and would’ve lugged it on many more if it weren’t such a hassle.  If only there was something in my budget that was mobile…

… And then there were two!  Apple introduced the iPad in 2010, and while it was a great consumption device, it didn’t seem as reliably suited for content creation.  Apple also introduced a new 11.6″ Macbook Air which was more expensive, but a significantly more capable computer that, well, isn’t a great entertainment device.  I wanted something that was beautiful to read and watch video files off of and import and view my photos with, and also write some documents on, and perhaps enjoy a game or many on.

Then, on Wednesday, March 07, 2012, Apple announced the new iPad.  It had all the features I wished the iPad would adopt and then some.  Mainly, I was hoping for a high definition retina display for reading, viewing photos and videos.  A wealth of excellent software titles has also been developed for the iPad in the last 2 years to make it a mildly competent word processing and photo editing device as well.  So it was finally time I got one!

So now comes the hard part… shopping for cases.  I wanted something with a keyboard, but I also wanted the freedom to have the keyboard separately, so at the suggestion of a friend, I picked up the InCase Origami Workstation that’ll allow me to use my existing iMac keyboard on the go with the new iPad!  I’ve also ordered an iSkin Q.West Collection Memo sleeve to protect the device while in transit, and I’m considering (when the new iPad one is released) an iSkin Vu as an everyday wear-and-tear case with stand.

That’s what’s new with me!  Oh, and there is one more thing… but I’ll save that for another post!

Model Mayhem

It’s no secret by now that my favorite photo subject is people.  I’ve put off creating a Model Mayhem account for some time now for several reasons.  The first is that I was afraid.  I was afraid I wasn’t good enough.  I was afraid to appear skeevy.  I’m also kind of afraid to shoot on my own.  Even at this “advanced” stage of life, I still am afraid of trivial things like rejection.  I also don’t think I really have a portfolio that will appeal to the audience.

I started my account after a lot of prodding from a friend, and through the encouragement of several others that have privileged me with the opportunity to observe and participate at several of their sessions.  I hope joining the fray will grant me more opportunities to work on portraiture.  I don’t bite!