Came across this old Chrysler in the parking lot of the Haystack School of Crafts in Sunshine, ME. I jokingly said it was the Batmobile.

Sunshine, ME, August 24, 2010.

Then we looked inside…

Batman? Green Hornet?

Same parking lot, something more Maine-esqe:

Trying out a darker, more neutral version of my old theme.  Inspiration taken from the NYT Lens Blog and a new version of Oulipo which is available for WordPress.com users (not self-hosted WordPress.org’ers like me.)

Sunrise, New York, NY, August 17, 2010

An outtake from the assignment mentioned in the previous post.  The buildings I was photographing were behind me but this was too good to pass up.

Yonkers, I’m sure, gets a bad rap. It’s just north of New York City and in Westchester County but it isn’t the Westchester most think of. I don’t know the city other than having done one shoot there a few years ago. The kids I worked with then were great.

Beyond that Yonkers is the right angle you make going from the Sawmill River Parkway to the Cross County or vice versa. You are not really seeing Yonkers at that point but if you are moving south and driving at night, you come over a large hill and voilà - there is a valley in front of you, the near side of the ridge which overlooks the Hudson, and a multitude of lights spread before you. I don’t know how long we have been doing it but SOP as you come over the hill is to say, “Yonkers, city of lights,” knowing full well it’s no Paris.

Monday night, with a layover between two legs of an architecture assignment and a sunrise call for leg two, it made sense to spend the night. So, Yonkers it was – at a new hotel on top of the ridge, in one of those bizarre office parks which can’t seem to pick an identity.

View from my room. Yonkers, NY, August 16, 2010.

It was impossible to miss this tower at the top of the hill. Seeing it with the gas station at its feet I immediately thought of George Tice’s photo, Petit’s Mobil Station. Not wanting to copy that but drawn to the tower like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters I began to plot my move. A thunderstorm then rolled in, the window in my hotel room would not open more than 4″, so I made the best of it.

I don’t know if that’s a water tower. I don’t know if the cabling is to pull up a modesty cloth so it can be painted in peace. The cabling made it reminiscent of the Parachute Jump in Coney Island. Maybe the tower, like the office park, still needs to pick an identity.

Higher res version available here.

Work begins on the new studio. Hands on construction by Dave Klemmer and crew. Design/Build by Jim McAuliffe and Rich Carroll of McAuliffe + Carroll Architects. Jim and Rich also designed the other projects on our property; back patio/shed (here and here), main floor/front entrance (this image plus the next three.)

Video was shot with a Canon 1D Mark IV, edited in Final Cut Pro, and grading/color styling done in Color.

I’m realizing I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks other than earlier this evening. There have been assignments but I have also been gearing up for my first film assignment. It’s part of an annual report shoot. I’ll be creating a dozen environmental portraits (still images) and then producing/directing/shooting six short video pieces to accompany the annual report when it appears online.

The nature of the job is such that it is more cost effective to buy the needed equipment (HDslr, sound, continuous lights) than to rent because the work will be spread out over a significant amount of time.

Over the years I have owned between five and eight cameras at any one time. With the switch to digital that got whittled down to three and with the current generation of cameras, they’ve been rock solid, so I’ve only needed two. I shoot with Canon 1Ds Mark III’s. That body is pushing three years old so it does not have HD video.

Prior to this assignment I kept video as a professional option at arm’s length, even questioning the convergence of still and video. I was shooting video for myself but I was content knowing that when video reached the camera models I use, I would be able to dip my toe in then. Well… times change and so do clients’ expectations. With HD quality video becoming more prevalent in higher end dslr cameras and with the demand for video growing, clients are beginning to ask for and expect video.

So, for me, the first step was figuring out which camera body to get. In full disclosure, the film project I need to complete could be shot with a pro-level video camera. In fact, on a certain level it might be simpler that way. But if I’m going to do this I need to do it in a way which takes advantage of my current stable of lenses, my knowledge of still cameras, and sets me up for future projects. Those factors point toward getting a dslr with HD capabilities and which can create the shallow depth of field film look those cameras are known for.

Since I shoot Canon the options were the 7D, 5D Mark II, and the 1D Mark IV. I can’t go wrong with either of these for the upcoming assignment so it became a question of which will benefit me more after the assignment. Each camera has its strengths and weaknesses. The undisputed king is the 5D Mark II because of its full-frame sensor but it is also the most temperamental of the three. It doesn’t have the range of HD settings of the other two, it can be hard to focus, and it doesn’t play nice with external monitors once you start recording. It also does not have the build quality of the 7D or the 1D Mark IV.

In the end I went with the 1D Mark IV as much for it’s similarity to what I currently use as anything. Same body size, same build quality, same batteries, same accessories, same button layout. What it will add to my kit for the future is higher ISO capability along with the video strengths mentioned above. Would I rather have full-frame (the 1D Mark IV’s chip has a 1.3x factor)? Yes. Are the odds of Canon announcing a replacement for my current cameras, the 1Ds Mark III’s, this August good?  Yes, they are very good and, yes, it will probably have HD. But I need a camera now and one which can be vetted prior to this assignment starting.

While this has no bearing on the upcoming assignment – here’s a quick test of the 1D Mark IV’s low light capabilities:

This was shot a few nights ago, about 10PM. 1D Mark IV, handheld, 50mm f/1.2, @ 1.2, 1/50, 30p, 1080P, ISO 12800. The only tweak to the camera was to set the picture style to Neutral.

I am amazed you can see levels of detail in the trees, in the clouds, and those dots at the end are not noise. They are stars. Here’s a larger version (you can see the stars better.)

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09/01/10 – Realizing that Firefox does not play well with self-hosted *.mov or *.m4v movie files. It presents them as dark and contrasty. Safari works fine. So, if you are viewing this video (or any others on the blog) via Firefox don’t expect to see the detail I describe above.

Videos hosted by third-parties (e.g. Vimeo, YouTube) appear fine in any browser. I will look into these or WordPress’ VideoPress in the future.

The majority of blogs have few comments but, as with all things Internet, that doesn’t mean they are not receiving lots of messages. The bulk of them are coming in the form of spam.

I have spam filters for my blog and they catch most everything. Occasionally, some will slip through and get deposited in comment purgatory, awaiting my judgment, approved or spam.

Many are not legible, most are just annoying and do not warrant a second thought, but it is the rare one which can be funny or elicit a smile.

Must be a fan of Kevin Nealon’s Subliminal Man.

Two shoots in two days postponed. Tuesday, just prior to leaving. Today, after having prepped two portrait setups.

~1:30 PM, *driving in, wondering how hot our rooftop location will be.

Setup #1: camera #1, light, laptop, and 7' Sunbuster at the ready.

Setup #2: camera #2 and light ready to go.

We pack up. Mike marks light & camera spots for our return on Friday.

*Hard to believe I had my car washed just over a week ago.