No Substitute For Hands On Practice

2007 Hummer H2, from yesterday's practice photo shoot

There's no getting around the fact that when you take the plunge into a new aspect of photography there is going to be a steep learning curve. Watching instructional videos, reading books, and taking advantage of other such sources are a good way to gain basic knowledge as to techniques. But, there's no substitute for hands on experience, especially when it comes to becoming intimately familiar with your gear.

When I first decided to try my hand at studio photography a few years ago, I amassed the equipment that I felt I would need after learning the basics from sources such as the ones mentioned above. I then bought a mannequin and tried a variety of lighting setups to see for myself what each light modifier would do, by itself and in conjunction with others, at various angles and positions. I experimented, tested, and played around until I had a good idea of how to use the equipment. The hands on knowledge I gained was invaluable as I moved on to shooting living, breathing subjects.

When I recently decided to venture into the world of hot shoe lighting, I saw no reason to do anything but follow the same road map I used for learning how to use studio lighting. I have been putting together an assortment of gear that will allow me to shoot just about anything on location, away from the studio. With that process almost complete, the time finally came to take the next step - actually using the equipment to become familiar with its nuances. With two practice shoots under my belt now, I've made some huge strides on the learning front. I also discovered an unexpected problem that I have been able to solve thanks to having taken the time to familiarize myself with the gear in a practice setting.

Nikon's SB-800 is a great strobe and for a long time it was my go-to strobe. Nikon gave users the option of using 4 AA batteries to power the unit, but by replacing the standard battery door cover with a "Quick Recycling Battery Pack" (shown installed, above, on the left side of the strobe), an additional AA battery gave the strobe quicker recycling time and some additional flashes before the batteries required replacement. From the moment I unboxed my first SB-800, I removed the standard door (shown above to the right of the strobe) and attached the extra battery pack. Until literally 5 minutes ago, I had no idea what I did with the standard door (it's been several years since I installed the battery pack, after all, and I never had a reason NOT to use the battery pack so the door was superfluous), but in a brief moment of lucidity, I remembered where I put the door and found it. The importance of this will be readily apparent in a minute.

Knowing that the SB-800 is a great strobe, I acquired two additional (used) units for use in my hot shoe lighting kit to go with an SB-600, an SB-900 and an older SB-28 that isn't compatible with certain aspects of Nikon's Creative Light System but will still be useful for certain things. Both SB-800 units arrived with the battery packs attached and no standard door. At the time I thought it was no biggie, and was actually happy that the used strobes cam with the extra battery capacity.

Here's the problem that I discovered. In order for Nikon's CLS-compatible strobes to fire wirelessly using the CLS system (as opposed to triggering the strobes in Manual Mode with, e.g. Pocket Wizards), an infrared light beam is emitted from a camera mounted transmitter (the Commander, in CLS jargon). A Commander can be an SU-800 Commander, an SB-800 strobe, an SB-900 strobe, or the newest Nikon strobe, the SB-910 (note: Nikon's SB-600 does not have Commander capability). Each CLS strobe is equipped with two light sensors - one that senses the Commander-transmitted infrared beam (the TTL Wireless sensor shown above), and another which triggers the flash when the strobe is used in non-TTL mode (basically, this is nothing more than an old school slave sensor which causes the flash to trigger when the sensor "sees" another flash's flash).

During my two "practice" car shoots earlier this week, when I used the SB-800's in the "remote" mode with the battery pack attached, the protruding battery pack blocked the TTL Wireless Sensor from "seeing" the infrared light beam transmitted by the Commander unit every time I positioned the strobe(s) behind my shooting position. No see-y, no-flash-y. No flash-y, huge aggravation. That forced me to always position the strobes ahead of my shooting position or risk that they would not fire. Whenever I unwittingly moved too far in front of the strobes (looking at the image above, anywhere forward of the right light stand's forward leg), no flash. Thus, I was unable to position the strobe(s) exactly where I wanted which yielded lighting that I had to settle for instead of lighting that I wanted to create. 

I have found replacement, standard battery doors on line (amazingly, none of my usual sources for new equipment - B&H and Adorama - stock them) for the two SB-800's that did not come with the standard battery door and they are on the way. Once they arrive, the problem will be solved but I am so very glad I had this issue come up while practicing with the equipment instead of discovering it when shooting something other than a practice/personal project.

So how did I do at my second attempt to learn the ins and outs of automobile photography despite the SB-800 issue? I'm still blown away by what you can accomplish with hot shoe strobes and fairly minimalistic lighting. Using one (but sometimes two) 9"X36" inexpensive strip softboxes, a couple of flash brackets, light stands and SB-800's triggered by am SU-800 Commander, you can see the results and judge for yourself.

After two trial runs, I know I still have much to learn in terms of light placement. After the shoot, as I was processing the images, I made mental notes as to where I had positioned the lights for any given shot. Going back to the instructional videos to see exactly how others positioned their lights for similar shots, I noticed that my lighting locations were off - for one thing, way too far away from the area I was trying to light. That's easily corrected, and hopefully next time out, my lighting will be much improved. Without having taken the time to practice, though, I would have made the mistake with a lot more than a personal practice project on the line.



I'm anxiously looking forward to the arrival of the two 12"X56" softboxes that I ordered for car photography opportunities as those are much better suited for the job. They should be here any day and as soon as they arrive I'll put them to the test and compare them to the 9"X36" baby brothers. I'm debating whether to wait for their arrival before taking things up a notch and shooting a couple of vehicles that I've been frothing at the mouth to shoot - a couple of original Batmobiles in impeccable condition - or throw caution to the wind and do what I can with the smaller softboxes. Only time will tell....

The Oli-Bounce, Putting The Bounce In Bounce Flash

Prior to shooting Saturday's Florida State baseball game against the Clemson Tigers, one of the things I had to do was photograph the Seniors with their families in the Tradition Room, your typical, dimly lit indoor setting. This kind of "grip & grin" shot has always been a nightmare for me because absent a couple of off camera lights, I hate the shadows that usually result from using a strobe.

As a sports photographer, carrying a bunch of lighting equipment around with me is just not in the cards.  When I'm packing up to shoot a game, I need to find room in a rolling case for 3 camera bodies, 4-5 lenses, and all the other peripheral stuff I may need. As if that wasn't enough stuff, there's also the monopod and either my 200-400mm f4 or my 400mm f2.8 lens which are carried separately. It's all I can do to stash one strobe somewhere in the case for the occasional pre-game or post-game shot. The luxury of taking anything else along for lighting is just not there.

No matter what I've tried in the past with the minimalistic lighting options at my disposal, nothing seemed to do the job to my liking. It didn't matter how I angled the flash to bounce the light with the pop-out, white bounce card that lives in the recesses of my strobe (shown above), whether I used the strobe on-camera or on a flash bracket, or whether I used the pop-on diffuser that also comes as an accessory to the strobe. The end result was always the same - some kind of annoying shadow. Until now, kids. Say hello to my leetle friend, a 5-minute, do-it-yourself, cheaper than dirt gift from the Gods that has solved the problem.

Take a look at the first image I posted. That's about as good as it gets with a one-strobe setup, lighting up a group of people in a somewhat dimly lit room. Notice that there's no red eye in anyone's eyes and no glare in either the glasses worn by one of the subjects or on the huge, framed jersey. Normally, a 24"X36" piece of glass is a nightmare to have in an image when shooting with a strobe. It's just sitting there, daring you to fire a strobe at it, waiting to erupt with glare and/or contain a nice big blown out reflection of the strobe. I can now scoff at such obstacles.

Here's the secret. The Oli-Bounce (soon to be Trademarked), an 8"X12" piece of foam core cut with a tab on the bottom end attached to the top of the strobe with a couple of rubber bands. Even the most do-it-yourself impaired among us can manage to make this in a few minutes. The final dimensions do not need to be exactly 8"X12". just something in that ballpark. I sized mine to fit inside the outer, zippered pocket of my rolling case and an 8"X12" piece of foam core fit nicely. The larger the better in terms of light reflection capability but at some point you have to factor in practicality.

Attaching the card to the strobe is far from rocket science. You can choose to go with velcro or devise some other cutting edge method. I chose to go with the K.I.S.S. method - a couple of rubber bands. Since rubber bands will break when you least expect them to, I stashed a few extras in the case.  This method works just fine.

 To shoot the lead image, I simply angled the flash at approximately 45 degrees, mounted it on top of my camera, and let the magic ensue. Easy Peezie, Lemon Squeezie. One nicely lit group image in a dimly lit room without red eye, glare, reflections or obnoxious shadows.

It's All In The Details

I love cars. Always have and always will. There's just something about a bad ride that makes me drool. So what better way to combine something else I love (photography) than by shooting photos of cars?

I've been reading posts by +Scott Kelby over the past couple of years as he has dabbled in some car photography after hooking up with +Tim Wallace, a UK based automobile photographer. Scott is a car nut too and just as it is for me, combining two things he loves (photography & cars) is just too cool for school. It was just a matter of time before Scottie took the plunge into car photography, but I am so glad he did because when he gets into any aspect of photography, you can expect him to seek out the best of the best in the field and have him or her provide the rest of us with the road map to successful shooting. Every time I decide to dabble in a new aspect of photography, I know I can go to +KelbyTraining.com  and there will be insightful, helpful video tutorials on how to do just about anything. Shooting cars was no exception.

Scott had Tim create some videos for Kelby Training on the ins and outs of shooting cars.  I watched three of Tim's videos and I was soooooo hooked as I drooled over some of the images that one might create with Tim's method. I was chomping at the bit to shoot some cars, but the problem was equipment. In order to shoot cars a la Wallace, studio (as in artificial) lighting is essential. I have studio lights (monolights) but they're not very portable and they require AC power. For us mere mortals who don't make a living at shooting stuff on location, having portable power packs/strobes on top of everything else is just not in the cards.

That's where for me, hot shoe lighting is the ticket. I've been putting a portable, serviceable, location lighting kit together using hot shoe strobes as the foundation for about a year or so. For the every-now-and-then location shoot that requires lighting, I felt like this was all I needed and it wouldn't break the bank. As hot shoe strobes have become increasingly more versatile and powerful, they have become a viable lighting option, indoors and outdoors, for a lot of people; and when folks are willing to spend money, all the necessary equipment suddenly becomes affordable as knock off gear is mass produced. Can I get an Amen for knock off gear?

All of the car images in this post were shot with one (and on a couple of images, two) Nikon SB-800 strobes which you can pick up in used, great condition for $250. Most photographers have at least one high end strobe like the SB-800 in their camera bag so a lot of the shots I got would be possible for most everyone without dropping a wad of cash on gear. The strobes are mounted on inexpensive hot shoe flash brackets (depicted above) designed to accommodate light modifiers such as softboxes and beauty dishes. The best part is you can buy them all day long for $30.

The mounting system for light modifiers is the Bowens system (L, with three protruding tabs) so the only thing to which you need to pay attention is that your light modifiers have Bowens mounts. Bowens-mount beauty dishes and softbox speedrings are probably the most universal of them all and thus it's easy to find light modifiers that will work. I wish the flash brackets came with the Photogenic mounting system as all but one of my studio monolights are Photogenics. Unfortunately, they don't. If they did, I would have a plethora of Photogenic-based light modifiers at my disposal and could use any of them with the hot shoe strobes at a moment's notice. Fortunately, I have one Bowens moonlight and because of that, I already own an 18" Bowens-mount beauty dish with grids and diffuser plus two Bowens speed rings for softboxes. In a pinch, I can use any of my softboxes with the hot shoe strobes by changing out the speed rings, a bit of a pain but an option if need be.

For detail car shots, a strip softbox is the secret ingredient. You can easily drop a couple of hundred bucks on a strip softbox if you go with a hoity toity name brand but I'm just not a hoity toity kind of guy when it comes to gear that will only get sporadic use. For me, something serviceable that will accomplish my needs without the Gucci label is just fine, especially if there's no difference in the quality of light. While at Photoshop World, I asked Joe McNally if there was any difference in the quality of light between expensive softboxes and the Chinese made versions and he said no, not really. He did say that the expensive ones are made better, will last longer, and are built to withstand the abuse of constant take down and setup, but since I don't intend to use my portable equipment very often, if I can save a few bucks, I am down with a $50 version instead of a $200 one. I bought two $50 9"X36" strip softboxes (with grids that I did not use in the shoot) and used them in all the car images you see above. So much for not having the Gucci label on the boxes.

The last piece of gear I used to do the shoot was a Nikon SU-800 Commander unit which was the camera mounted trigger for the SB-800 strobe(s). This is where cost cutting can mean the difference between getting shots and a very frustrating experience of intermittent flash firing. A reliable trigger that consistently fires the strobe(s) means the difference between your strobe(s) firing and not firing, especially when you shoot outdoors in broad daylight.  Cheap infrared triggers or wireless poppers (aka, "Chinese" poppers) are readily available and tempting, given the cost, but they're a waste of money. The cheap infrared ones are useless in daylight (the infrared light beam is too weak to overcome daylight so the strobes don't sense it) and the Chinese poppers may work once or twice (if at all) but give them time and I'm told they will crap out on you when you least expect it.

Other than the SU-800 (or using a strobe with a Commander feature like another SB-800), I would go with Pocket Wizards as flash triggers. I chose to use the SU-800 (instead of Pocket Wizards) so I could take full advantage of Ninon's Creative Light System (CLS) which includes strobes like the SB-800 and a trigger like the SU-800. CLS allows me to adjust exposures by up to three stops up or down by just pushing buttons on the SU-800 instead of having to adjust light output  manually on the strobe units. When shooting with just one strobe, not a big deal; when shooting with multiple strobes, it sure is nice to be able to fine tune the amount of light generated by the strobes without having to do anything but push a button on a camera mounted device.

Technical Exposure Details

Tim Wallace's method incudes shooting at f22. Trust me, the man knows his stuff. If you want the huge light dropoff that yields the dramatic, dark shadows with nothing lit except whatever the light modifier(s) are illuminating, you have to be at f22.

When I first set out to shoot, I grabbed my 85mm f1.8 lens that I frequently use in the studio. It has a max aperture of f16 and I thought it would be no big deal - f16 and f22? What's the big deal? Hah. At f16, enough light spilled over to light the areas around the fenders, hood, rear, etc. in the images. The images did not look like the ones I saw in Tim's videos.

After the initial, disappointing test shots, I changed out lenses to a 35-70mm f2.8 lens that was capable of going to f22. Voila. Literally and figuratively a night and day difference. For all practical purposes, the car images above required no shadow darkening in order to create the dark, dramatic lighting. That was pretty much straight out of the camera when using f22 as my aperture.

I also used a 1/200th second shutter speed, ISO 200, and shot with the lens at 70mm which is in the focal length range Tim recommends for detail car shots.

Next Up

Now that my first car shoot is over (note: I completely forgot to shoot the engine...rats) the next step for me is to take the car to a covered parking garage or other cool looking outdoor location to get some full length shots  of my baby. For this, I will need to use larger strip softboxes and multiple strobes. In a parking garage or indoor warehouse setting, Tim Wallace's method employs 4 lights and two large strip softboxes. Rather than take the larger soft boxes I have from the studio, I found some 12"X56" strip boxes sold by ePhoto.com for $60 and the price includes the $30 hot shoe bracket and grids. Two are  already on the way as you can't shake a stick at the price. I realize that Tim uses somewhat larger strip boxes when shooting his full length car images but he's powering them with 1600 w/sec flash heads and I'm limited to hot shoe strobes.  It will be interesting to see if an SB-800 can light up the 12"X56"softbox and put out enough light for use at f22 but I think they can, I hope they can.

All in all, I was ecstatic to walk away from my first foray into detail car photography with the shots that I got. As with any kind of photography, the more you do it, the better you get so I'm hoping I can improve on what I got as I shoot more cars. Yesterday's exercise accomplished several things, though: 1) I got to try out the portable, hot shoe gear I've been acquiring in a no-pressure situation; 2) I learned a lot through trial and error on where/how to place the lights; and 3) I got a shoot under my belt in preparation for shooting some ultra cool cars for which I will have access.

Workin' For The Weekend

My potential first guinea pig - my Hummer H2

It's Friday and life is good. The new Star Trek flick opened this week and it's a definite on the weekend agenda. Now that the new website is almost finished, it's time to actually get back to shooting. As I mentioned yesterday, I'm a gnat's eyelash close to starting on a personal photo project I've been wanting to do for a while - detail shots of vintage, rare, Elvis-cool cars. I've been prepping for this by watching the videos on +KelbyTraining.com on shooting cars as I've never photographed cars (at least not the way I want to do it). I always find that when I've never done a certain kind of photography, +Scott Kelby's videos serve as a good platform from which to gain a basic understanding of what to do (and not do).

Capital Eurocars Porsche dealership

I've done a couple of commercial shoots for auto dealerships but the focus was on the facilities and not so much anything fancy-schmancy with the cars. Now it's time to take the leap into detail shots of these babies - emblems, grills, tail lights, wheels, anything that is distinctive about the vehicle.

My other potential guinea pig - my 911 Carerra Cabriolet

In addition to watching the videos, I've accumulated and organized portable lighting equipment so I can get the shots that I'm seeing in my head. I'll walk you through the lighting equipment and actual setups in a different post, but for now, I've pretty much got everything I need to tackle the job. Primarily, I will be using strip softboxes, hot shoe flashes and a commander unit to trigger the flashes. For most of the shots, one small strip softbox will be all need but for some shots I may use two small strip boxes or maybe two larger ones that I have in the studio. Another light modifier that may get some use for full shots of the rear end or front end is my new Westcott 7' shoot through parabolic umbrella.

Photos courtesy of Tallahassee Antique Car Museum

Before I finalize the details of when I can shoot a collection of some 100 rare, vintage cars (a Tucker, a couple of Batmobiles, and all manner of drop dead gorgeous, perfectly restored cars from early classics to muscle cars to sports cars), I figured I'd better get my feet a little wet and get some hands-on experience with the lighting and setup for the shots I want to get. It's one thing to watch videos but an entirely different thing to actually shoot something yourself. If and when I head to the location to do the shoot, I don't want to waste time inventing the wheel.

So, this weekend I'm going to take a few practice swings with a couple of my own cars which are somewhat cool in their own respect. I haven't decided which of the two I am going to use as my guinea pig (and I may shoot both, what the heck) but I will hopefully work out all the kinks and gain a lot of valuable knowledge from the exercise.

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

Saturday afternoon I'll be at Dick Howser Stadium for Florida State's final home game of the season. It's Senior Day and I've just gotten the assignment to shoot the game. Senior Day means not only getting the usual array of action shots during the game, but photos of the Seniors as they're recognized for their time at FSU. Lots of pageantry shots, players with parents pre-game, and trying to capture the emotion of the Seniors as they wrap up their careers s Seminloles.

Other than that, I'm ready for the weekend to begin. I was hoping that i would be able to retire from the practice of law after Wednesday's Power Ball lottery drawing ($390 Million and counting, enough to build me one boom-shacka-lacka photo studio and kick back) but the Force just wasn't with me and I didn't win. On the up side, neither did anyone else, so the jackpot is now over $550 Million and hopefully it will be mine tomorrow. If I don't post anything on Monday, it's because I'm off to Alaska, Australia, the Galapagos Islands, Machu Pichu, and who knows where else I'll go if I hit the big one.

Cheers.

Just Call Me Hemingway

So I'm sitting at the office yesterday, still laboring on the new website. The process of pouring through images, processing promising ones, uploading some, and deleting others is not complete yet but I am definitely seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, while at the computer, I'm alerted to an e-mail that, ironically enough, was sent through the contact page on the new website. So much for having second thoughts about launching the new website after terminating my account with Wix, even though it wasn't finished.

The e-mail was from the managing editor of Photoshop User magazine inquiring as to whether I would be interested in writing a 4-5 page article (with images) on the photography aspects of shooting youth sports for the magazine's September issue. The focus of the issue is going to be all the ins and outs of youth sports imagery with in depth, instructional articles on Photoshop techniques that will make these kinds of images sing. For the one and only "photography" article included in the issue, he needed someone to write about the actual photography aspects of shooting sports.

Little League, Pop Warner and youth soccer leagues are everywhere and there is quite the market out there for photographers who are industrious enough to set themselves up with local leagues and photograph all the budding A-Rods, Ronaldos and RG IIIs for trading cards and portrait packages. That doesn't begin to take into account all the high school programs out there which are ripe opportunities as well. This kind of sports photography might not be as hoity toity as shooting NFL games but it can sure pad the ol' wallet with buckeroos.

I called the editor to learn more about the assignment, stressing that I have only shot a couple of high school football games in my time, and only because it was my female offspring unit's school. I was supposed to help out a friend a few weeks ago, to help her shoot a number of Little League teams for portraits and trading cards but it never happened. However, shooting youth sports is really no different than shooting college or pro sports as the same things that make for a good action image on one level is the same for any other level. Moreover, since I have some studio photography experience, I felt I could walk readers through some basic portable lighting ideas that would generate good portraits for photo packages and trading cards.

No problem, he said. He had taken a look at the sports images on my website (reason #2 that makes me glad I launched the site Monday) and felt that my sports photography background would more than serve as a basis from which to write the article. He had not thought about the lighting aspects or portraiture as a part of the article and thought that would be a great addition. So, I've been hired to write the article and look forward to being published for the first time in something other than a Blog.

As The Website World Turns...

Still finding the occasional diamond in the rough by going through more hard drives, like the image above from a trip to Yellowstone. It's funny how easy it is to forget images that were taken and transferred to hard drives but never processed. I think this one will make a nice addition to my landscape portfolio, as will the image below which I found in the Yellowstone folder too.

I also completely forgot about several black & white processed images from Yellowstone, Yosemite, Grand Tetons and other Western U.S. National Parks that I may use, in conjunction with others that are already on the site, to create a separate Project gallery of images from the Western United States. Many of the images were part of a 6-week exhibit I  had at the local airport back in 2011 and I'm thinking that they should be back together again in one gallery. Here are a few of the ones that I am thinking about including.

Time permitting and if all goes well, I should be finished with the website this week and in between sports photo assignments, I can move on to something I've been itching to do for a long time...a photo project involving detail shots of classic, antique cars. I may have just gotten access to hundreds of vintage, rare cars to photograph and if things work out, I am going to be like a kid in a candy store. More on that to come.

A New Website Is Born, Part Deux

Ron Antonelli using the Wells template

After having made the decision to switch from Wix to Squarespace to design and build the new website, the first step was to select a template. Unlike Wix, Squarespace follows through with their model of simplicity by offering far fewer template choices to make things easy. For photography portfolios, there were three potential template choices that I deemed as possibilities: Wells, Front Row and Momentum.

My criteria was as follows: 1) a simple design that allowed the images to dominate the pages; and 2) depiction of images, one at a time, in a large format. In order to get a feel for how images would look with each template, i viewed the demo that Squarespace provides for the templates. I also searched out the work of other photographers who were using Squarespace templates. I had already seek +Scott Kelby's soon-to-be launched sports photography site and found Ron Antonelli's site on the web. Like Scott, Ron was using the Wells template.

I found another photographer who was using the Front Row template. Momentum was still in the mix but I kept coming back to Wells. White background, large images simple navigation. That was the ticket.

After choosing to go with a logo and opting to have the menu sidebar on left side of the page, font selection for the menu was the next order of business. This is where Squarespace deviates from limited choices. Holy crap, I was looking at at least a couple of hundred font choices and I had to pick one. Long story short, I chose Julius Sans One, which I thought went nicely with the Papyrus font I used in the logo. I adjusted the sidebar size, some of the cell padding including that of the gallery images (made the gallery images a bit smaller than full bleed), and went with the numbered gallery control at the bottom left instead of a "Prev/Next" or bullet type gallery control. After all that, it was time to begin work on the galleries.

Wide World Of Sports

Sports Pageantry

Since I am first and foremost a sports photographer, I had to decide how to display my sports images. My first inclination was to have a gallery of just football images and a second for all other sports. That gave way to having a gallery of sports action shots and a second with images depicting pageantry as well as behind the scenes stuff. The Gallery titles I settled on were "Wide World Of Sports" and "Sports Pageantry".

In The Studio

Next I wanted to feature my studio shots in a gallery. Primarily, I shoot aspiring models in my studio for their portfolios. A simple title, "In The Studio", seemed like a good choice. Landscape, travel, people, black & white, and wildlife were other genres I wanted to include on my site and I chose to have a gallery of landscape type images from around the U.S. in one gallery and a second with travel images from around the world. Gallery titles were mulled over and finalized for each category.

Entrance to Birkenau

Since I've decided to begin creating personal photo projects for myself, I wanted to include at least one past project on the site and that was one depicting the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps near Krakow, Poland. I will be adding more projects to the site as I complete them, and as of now, I'm thinking of one for cars, one for musical instruments, another for gymnasts, and one for firefighters. I just need to find the time to start on one of these.

My first DSLR image

Image selection has been, by far, the most difficult exercise in creating the website. Considering that I have taken tens of thousands of digital images, going through and choosing which ones to include in galleries has been a painstaking, process. I'm still not finished, but I have managed to cut the image galleries down to 20 images per gallery, discarding many images that I have featured in prior websites and replacing them with better (hopefully) ones. I want to get down to 15 per gallery, if possible. I'm told that after 12-15 images, most people's attention span begins to wane which is one very good reason to get down to 15 images. More importantly, limiting the galleries to 15 images ensures that the images are truly the best of the best, which is the goal.

With many images, there is a sentimental or nostalgic attachment that clouds my judgment in terms of whether to include them in galleries. Some images bring back memories, a special moment that has nothing to do with the image itself, or any of a million other peripheral reasons. For example, I am hell bent on including the car image above, not because it's an earth shattering rendition of a street rod, but because it was my very first image shot with a DSLR. In addition, my wife gave me that Nikon D50 for Christmas in 2005 and a couple of kit lenses so I could begin to explore the world of digital photography. After the Christmas dust settled and the battery was charged, I went out to test out my new toy. I happened across the car and fired off a few images. So, this image carries a lot of sentimental baggage with it.

That is where the advice of others comes into play. I have asked friends to view my site and pour through the images I have currently included and asked them to tell me which ones don't spin their wheels. After receiving feedback, I will take their advice into consideration and finalize the galleries. Hopefully, in a week or so, the process will be completed and the site will be finished.

A New Website Is Born

Mock-up of the new website design. The actual site uses a different font in the menu.

I feel like a new dad, after hours in the delivery room, agonizing over the birth of a new child. Well, OK, maybe that's a little much. The launching of a revised website (www.baselineshots.com) can't really compare to the two days my spousal unit gave me the best gifts anyone could hope to receive. But I'm a very happy clam this morning after hours and hours and hours of labor giving way to - drumroll, fanfare, trumpets, and a fat lady singing - my new and improved website.

For a looooong time, I was terribly disappointed by the promise of having a visually appealing, functional website and spending many hours designing/launching one through Wix.com. Oh the bells and whistles you have with Wix templates and features, music to my ears given my penchant for gaudiness. What originally led me to Wix was the ability to create a working site after only spending a bit of time getting familiar with the mechanics of their site building software. Several options exist in terms of how to present photo galleries, including more slide show options than you can shake a stick at. The problem is that even if you go with an HTML5 template (as opposed to a Flash-based template) so that your site will supposedly work on non-Flash-capable mobile devices (e.g., iPads & iPhones), the templates don't play nice with mobile devices. No matter what a mere mortal tries to do, the site design is all screwed up on an iPad, images take forever to load, and the slide shows look herky-jerky as the images appear and scroll through. That assumes that the site doesn't crash on mobile devices, which happens more often than not. Then there's the annoying differences in how backgrounds appear from computer monitor to computer monitor. It's impossible to have consistency in appearance from one monitor to the next given the plethora of monitor sizes people have.

Note that I made reference to mere mortals, which is what I am when it comes to HTML codes and jargon. I'm sure that if I was HTML savvy, I could have modified the HTML code to get around some, maybe many, of the issues that I (and thousands of other Wix users) have faced. But that's not why I went with Wix in the first place, falling prey to the siren's allure of creating a website without having to know a meta tag from a hole in the ground.

So, a month or so ago, knowing that my Wix Premium Package's one-year duration was set to expire this spring, I decided to divorce Wix. Fortuitously, the Grand Poobah of all things photography and  BFF +Scott Kelby mentioned that he had hired a web site consultant and designer to create a new website for him to feature his sports photography. Scottie was singing the praises of Squarespace.com; so were +Matt Kloskowski and +Pete Collins, Scott's partners in crime at Kelby Media. These are folks who have all things photography at their disposal, and if there's one thing I know about Messr. Kelby, and that is he only gets the best of the best of the best. If they were sold on Squarespace, I had to check it out.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I had seen a sneak preview of Scott's new sports photography site and it was everything I wanted but never had - a classy, simple design that beautifully allowed the images to dominate the page instead of the web site design dominating the page. For a photography portfolio web site, that had always been my goal but I could never get there with Wix. There were just too many options to throw onto a site and I am just not very good at keeping the Cuban in me from rearing his ugly head. My Wix site had bells, whistles and dingle balls hanging from the headliner, and like Jabba The Hutt, the more crap I could cram into the site's body, the more I gorged.

Squarespace's templates and design options are functional, simple, and just modifiable enough to allow one to personalize a template without going all Liberace on it. For someone like me, having fewer options is a good thing. Thus began the creation of a new site which was launched yesterday.

The final version of the logo

I began the site creation process by deciding what to call my site. Would it be BaselineShots, or some permutation of that since my domain name is baselineshots.com, or would I go with some permutation of my name? If so, would I go with "Photography" or "Photographer" after my name? Then I had to decide whether I would use just text for the site name or create a logo of some kind. In the end, I allowed myself one delicacy, one small bite from the forbidden fruit of gaudiness - a logo. The compromise I forced upon myself was to keep it simple and to use a classy font and basic colors.

I grabbed my Wacom tablet and using the pencil tool, I created a sketch of my very first SLR camera, a Pentax K1000 that came with a 50mm f2 lens. I still have that camera and could still shoot a roll of film with it. A few minutes later, I had a rough sketch and doodled around with fonts, text and composition.

Thinking that maybe I should use a more current depiction of a camera, I sketched up a version of one of my DSLR's and again went through the process of composing. I also thought about going with my full name instead of my nickname. Eventually I decided to go back to the ol' Pentax and just plain "Mike".

Ah, but just like the guy who drops 100 pounds and succumbs to the temptation of having "just one" Big Mac, once I got a bite of my Big Mac, I couldn't stop. Notice how the design permutations (above) became increasingly busy and more elaborate (read - gaudy)? Before I could stop myself, I had special sauce all over my face and clothes, culminating with the design below....

This is what happens when the demons inside are unleashed

That prompted an intervention by the spousal unit and female offspring unit who saw what I had done and gently reminded me that my goal was to keep the site simple and let the images dominate. Edit, delete, cut and the logo was thankfully saved from myself with the final version.

Tomorrow: Template & font selection, naming the galleries, how to display the galleries, and if it's not too long, the process I went through for selecting images (which is not yet over).