Category Archives: photography

friends, hipstomatic, Iphone, location, personal, photography, Travel

Is it Hip anyMore?

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I love my iPhone (did I say that before?). I just saw a post on another forum questioning whether the Hipstamatic look is relevant any more. Has its extreme popularity diluted it’s value as art? It was a pretty good argument. One side led by my good friend Pat Downs argued that it’s style, similar to the Diana (a cheap plastic camera), has become so prevasive and overused that there is so much trash being posted/published by the Histamatic app. that its now becoming boring (my words). Then Pat added a great analogy that the popularity is similar to certain forms of music (techno to name one) that had their day and then people gravitated back to “normal” sounds.

Will people with cell phones start shooting “normal” photos again? It is a good argument but I think it comes down to the argument about digital photography in general. There is a lot out there, but it’s not all boring. It a great way for a lazy person to make a photo or a creative person to just play and stimulate their senses when they hit on a good one. As someone famous once said, “I’m not an artist but I know art when I see it”. I think the “hip” look is here to stay till the next great app shows up. The crowd in general is trendy……… follow the leader.

btw, I use Hipstamatic…… Thanks to Kevin Lock and Patrick Downs for the inspiration for this post.

my other blog: http://poppaz.wordpress.com, website: www.zwink.com (no there’s no iPhones photos there)

career, family, location shoot, photography, San Diego, Sports

It just won’t go Away

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THE AZTEC WARRIOR

     Sometimes, if you’re lucky, during your career you’ll make images that will stay with you the rest of your life.  Images you enjoy, images that strangers will know.  You know, the image you may see on a poster or a wall print that someone comments “that’s nice…..”  Then you get to proudly say, yes I took it.

     I’ve been lucky to take a few of these during my shooting career.  The above image was taken for the Aztec Warrior Foundation after SDSU decided their mascot Monty Montezuma was not politically correct anymore in the eyes of the school administration.  After a fallout of public outrage and the efforts of the Aztec Warrior Foundation, Monty was reintroduced to the school and fans.

     But, I digress some.  What I also wanted to point out is that these situations can often profoundly affect your life.  I met Monty, aka Carlos Gutierrez, while we were both on the sidelines during the Aztec games.  We became (and still are) close friends, had a few excellent adventures and I became his unofficial photographer.  His passion to promote and support SDSU and it’s athletic program genuinely rubbed off on me.  I have friends that cover baseball and other sports that have also developed lasting friendships from their photography exploits so I’m not the exception.  It’s a reality, embrace your passion and your subjects.  It will affect your life.

More of my work can be seen at:  www.zwink.com  My archived work which includes Monty is at www.bigstudioz.com

family, Kansas, Lightroom 3, location shoot, photography, Travel

Can You Go Home?

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Images from 2012 Macksville Journey

  Someone once said you can’t go home and have it be the same.  So true.  I’ve been going back periodically to visit and documment my home town of Macksville, Kansas for several years.  I become melancholy after being here for a short while, knowing the town I grew up in will never be the same.  The town viewed and experienced through the eyes of and 18 year old are long gone.  As time has passed the town has decayed.  Gone are the stores and restaurant I worked in and sat end talking endlessly with friends.  Many have closed and buildings have be shuttered or torn down.  I still love to explore as my curiosity is greater than ever.  As a photographer, I try to capture what was, but I never will.  Life was simpler then.

More of my visit: http://zwinkftp.com/Macksville_2012/

More of my work, my vision:  http://zwink.com

The techy stuff: on this trip I only took a Nikon D700, 14-24, 24-70 and 70-200 nikkor lenses.  Processed in Adobe Lightroom 3.

Lightroom 3, location shoot, photography, Travel

Don’t throw it Away

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  I couldn’t sleep last night.  So, I worked on another blog, decided to look at some old photos and came across these images from a day trip to China many years ago.  I was not very good back then, and the slides showed it.  And to make it worse when we first started scanning slides there was not a lot of info about how to do good scans, let alone to anticipate the need for larger files later.  A couple years ago I would have just closed these files and put them away.  But now with the advent of Adobe Lightroom and the use of some great WOW Presets I was not only able to restore colors but to also use it (LR) to see different renditions of the same files.    While not advocating it as a replacement for creatively looking while shooting I do think it helps open your mind to new ideas.  Now it’s time to get some shut eye……

more of my travel photography can be seen at:  www.zwink.com and wwww.bigstudioz.com

Iphone, personal, photography

The Replacement Dog

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Meet Zoey.  I admit.  For the first time in my life I’m really entranced by a dog.  Zoey is our second french bulldog my wife, Patti wanted to replace Dixie.  Dixie, our fawn boxer, lost her battle to cancer last year.  Louie, our first frenchy, was supposed to be a replacement for Dixie but he had a birth defect and we had him less than three months.  Now Zoey…… she’s a character, we love her and she’s already a part of our family.  Enjoy her portraits as we go along.

friends, hipstomatic, Iphone, location, personal, photography, Travel, work

I C U……..

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What a stupid title……  This is my first post in this blog.  I have another cool blog (at least I think it is) that is a little more serious look at how photography interacts with my life.  I have used my Iphone regularly since they first came out.

I love to shoot, to capture life around me.  Everywhere I turn I see photos ready to be shot or created (a big difference).  I want to use this to showcase some of my more interesting images shot in different situations.  Some I’ll explain and some will have to speak for themselves.  Hope you enjoy.

My other work:  website, www.zwink.com  blog: poppaz.wordpress.com

career, Lightroom 3, location shoot, photography, San Diego

Do you Shoot Food?

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I market myself primarily as an architectural photographer.  It’s hard.  Experts say to have people take you serious and pay decent money you have to be a specialist.  So do you?  I was trained and worked my early career as a photojournalist.  A good photojournalist is good at shooting a lot of subjects and an expert generally at none.  So what do you do?  I don’t want to be tied into just one thing so I do niche marketing.  Most of my work is photographing properties, new construction and aerials of those projects.  To those clients I market myself for my architectural work.  To a few others I’m known for my environmental portraiture.  I market them differently.  You get the picture.  In this economy you need to diversify within your business and marketing.  But to each your a specialist they need.  btw, yes I do shoot food……

The image:  Taken with a Nikon D3 and a 80-200.  Processed in Adobe Lightroom.

The Food:  Bully’s East, Mission Valley, San Diego, Ca.  Great place.  Yes, we enjoyed some of it when we were done .  The benefit of being a food photographer.

My Marketing:  www.zwink.com , my other diversified work, www.bigstudioz.com

HDR, Lightroom 3, location shoot, photography, Photoshop, San Diego

Not so quick Fix

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  Being a smart shooter is knowing when to ask for help.  I was recently asked to photograph this interior at UCSD for the builder.  The primary use was to enter in a competition.  The big problem was that the location was not going to be finished until the following Thursday, with the deadline that Monday.  Thursday would be too late.  So after a fair amount of negotiating my assistant Abbey and I decided to remove the cardboard off the desktops in the whole auditorium.  After a quick call to my retoucher, Holly of Spitting Images we decided to remove temporarily the plastic off three rows of the chairs.  That would give Holly enough of a sample to clean up the image.  Additionally we shot a section of paneling which she also layered on top of the black wood to complete the retouch portion of the project.  I then lightened the top projection screen and wal la……. image done, ready to send to the client.

As a pro you need to be a problem solver.  When someone say no as the project manager answered when we asked to clear all the plastic we came up with another solution.  Develop and utilize your resources.

Techy stuff:  camera: Nikon D3, lens 14-24, image processing in Lightroom 3, Photomatrix and Photoshop 5.  Additional retouching by the wonderful Holly Nelson-Kramer.

More of my work…… www.zwink.com

Cruise, Lightroom 3, location shoot, photography, Photoshop, Travel

Cruising to recharge

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Patti and I have two different agendas when we go on a cruise.  She loves to chill, dress up on Formal Night, try new culinary dishes, go to the shows and nap, nap, nap.  I like to read books, go diving if we’re in the Caribbean and just spend time alone with Patti.  But, and here come the photog in me, I like to take long walks around the ship while she’s napping and work on my vision.

We’ve been on a lot of cruises and I never get tired.  I love the colors, design and the people.  Each ship is it’s own unique subject and has a story to tell.  It’s just my chance to share it.  When I’m traveling I go for the boldness of the color and the shadows displays at different times of the day.  It’s a time to play with new techniques or rarely used ones that are almost forgotten, that somehow are pretty interesting.

One key approach I’d suggest to someone that wants to make good images on a cruise ship is to slow down and look first.  Don’t get overwhelmed by all the color and people engaged in all the shipboard activities.  Stop, watch and see what really grabs your attention.  Then start shooting.  Be selective, you don’t need twenty shots of a the same subject.

And the most important thing…….. don’t neglect the person you came with.

The Techy Stuff:  I only take one camera with me on cruises lately.  This was a D7000 and the primary lenses I used were a 12-24 mm nikkor and a 80-200 2.8 nikkor lens.  All images processed initially in Adobe Lightroom 3.  This was our 10th trip on the Carnival Cruise Lines.  The cruise was from Long Beach to Catalina to Ensenada, Mexico.

More of my work can be viewed at:  www.zwink.com

Cycling, Lightroom 3, photography, San Diego, Sports

When building your Brand do it Right

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I was recently hired to help create new images for Holland Cycles of Alpine, Ca.   For Bill Holland, a master cycle builder, this was a big investment to make his mark on the cycling world with a new website presence.  These titanium and carbon fiber bikes are not cheap.  They are custom hand built to the specs of their future owner/rider at a cost of about $10 – 20K.  My job was to show the beauty of the process and help create the perception of the artistry in the detail.  The challenge became a great project to achieve our goals and enjoy the process of the studio shoot.  Robert Bingham who made his impact on the internet, a former creative director and avid cycle rider himself was chosen to head the project.    The decision was made to do most of the shooting in the studio showing the elegance of the craftsmanship, design and the quality of the materials artistically through the use of our lighting featuring multiple softboxes, grids on one “detail” light and reflectors to kick light back into the shadows.

Normally I do all my post production work but this time we brought in digital artist Holly Nelson-Kramer of Spitting Images to refine our main “beauty shots”.  When you want it right, go to the experts.  Bob and Bill were both pleased with the results and now Bill has a strong website presence to showcase the work they do.   An investment in the photography will now benefit his business image.

Techy stuff:  primarily shot with a Nikon D3 & D700 using a combination of 60 2.8 macro, 24 – 70 and 70 – 200 lenses.  We use a mix of Profoto and Q flashes in the various softboxes.  Images were initially processed through Adobe Lightroom 3 and then the beauty selects were enhanced by Holly.  Holland’s Cycle website:  http://www.hollandcycles.com/  For more or my work check out http://www.zwink.com