Learning to See » Blogs & Web Sites

Oscilloscope Rock

Jon Roemer — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 17:23:50 +0000

In a tough week this made me smile. All the more appreciated because this is a song I can play on the guitar (I use the term “play” loosely.)

PressPausePlay

Jon Roemer — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:55:25 +0000

In a world of democratized media production what is king, where does value lie, and what becomes of quality?

PIPA and SOPA

Jon Roemer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 19:01:52 +0000

Click to view PDF.

PIPA and SOPA are not Kate Middleton’s sisters, they are proposed federal anti-piracy bills which if passed would severely censor the Web.

To learn more:

End Piracy, Not Liberty at Google. You can contact your congressional delegation in the column on the right.

Fight for the Future , video by Kirby Ferguson of Everything is a Remix.

Just When You Thought You’ve Seen Everything

Jon Roemer — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 16:51:42 +0000

Amazing portrait by Peter Yang of Stephen Colbert for the Sunday NY Times Magazine:

Peter Yang for the NYT. Prop stylist - Lisa Frantz, Clothing - Antonia Xereas, and Grooming - Kerrie Plant-Price.

FU Got Game

Jon Roemer — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:43:03 +0000

Just before the holidays I premiered a time-lapse video created for Fordham University. It announced Fordham as the home of College Basketball – New York Style. While that was an ad and, as we know, ads can say almost anything… this tag line is turning out to be true. Earlier this week Fordham defeated No. 22 ranked Harvard, their first victory over a ranked opponent in more than a decade.

I was up at the Rams’ “old bronx gym” in early December to photograph ESPN & ABC sportscaster Mike Breen for a magazine story. Additionally, I captured some of the game on my iPhone resulting in my first published Hipstamatic image.

ESPN & ABC sportscaster Mike Breen, Fordham Gym, NY, NY, Nov. 29, 2011.

Fordham vs. Colgate, Fordham Gym, NY, NY, Nov. 29, 2011.

I’ve always joked that someday I’ll shoot a job on my iPhone…

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Jon Roemer — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 16:12:27 +0000

Today’s New York Times Sunday Book Review includes Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow in its 10 Best Books of 2011, calling Kahneman the “world’s most influential psychologist.”

I don’t have a best selling book or any where near that degree of influence but I can claim one degree of separation. I took the author photo:

Daniel Kahneman, 2002 Nobel Prize Winner, Author, "Thinking, Fast and Slow." Princeton, NJ, May, 2004.

I photographed Daniel in 2004 as part of what I call my academic trading cards – a series of portraits shot for Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School. The photo is being used for the book and its promotion.

Canon EOS C300

Jon Roemer — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 15:46:51 +0000

I had mentioned the Canon’s new 1D X when it was announced in mid-October. Right on the heels of that Canon revealed its new EOS C300, a cinema style camera which kicks things up many notches in features, quality, and… price point.

Director/DP/Editor Jonathan Yi has posted what may be the world’s greatest test video of a new camera. As someone who has run into the HDSLR interview setup many times where the subject sits down and the moiré springs to life I can really appreciate the humor here.

Please note – some language and images may be deemed NSFW.

Jonathan has written an article for Canon on the C300. His Vimeo page has some information as well. Canon has a site dedicated to the camera, cinemaeos.usa.canon.com.

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Related – 1/26/12: Change, Flux, Reinvention.

Banner Images: Peddie School

Jon Roemer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:31:29 +0000

Early this year I did two blog posts looking at how clients were using my images to define and market their brands.

Banner Images: Creating a Brand for NYU’s Gallatin School

Banner Images: Fordham University and the Woodrow Wilson School

In the past month I spent two days shooting for the Peddie School and before I could follow up on the assignment images were already gracing their home page:

[FCP X] x 30

Jon Roemer — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 15:42:19 +0000

FCP X window; project with over 100 clips. Click to enlarge.

I have been using Final Cut Pro X extensively over the past month and I have to say – I really like it. Maybe it’s using Aperture for so long but FCP’s new interface, which is similar, is a breath of fresh air. I was never an expert in the old Final Cut Pro (v7.x), I used it for personal projects and for client work for about a year. It always felt kludgy and the interaction between it and Apple Color a bit of a dark art.

FCP X brings a consistent interface, intuitive design, and it delivers on its promise of keeping clips in sync. That latter is something I had grown to fear in the old FCP – reopening a project could open new wounds; edits lost, clips out of sync. The round trip to Color and back often required a lot of work to get the timeline back to where it had been.

There are many critics of FCP X but they come at it from a different perspective. If you are doing DLSR based video and don’t need legacy plug-ins or some of the above and beyond features of v.7 then FCP X will work very well for you.

Notes:

-Syncing Audio: If you recorded using second system sound and used multiple mics (e.g. lav & shotgun on a boom) you’ll want to pick which audio you want first before syncing the sound. You can do this in the inspector window for the sound file.

-FCP X has built-in utility to sync the sound. It works well but it is simple. Unlike Plural Eyes you don’t want to do a many to one sync command. Many video clips to one sound clip. FCP X works better if you sync one video clip at a time to one audio clip at a time.

-FCP X has a bug where syncing audio to a 1080p video clip will cause the synchronized clip to read as 720p. This will correct itself automatically if the synced clip is put into project which already has 1080p clips in it. If you are putting the synced clip into a new project you can reset it to 1080p by clicking the gear icon in the project library project inspector and changing the setting. I don’t know if this bug was corrected in 10.0.1 update.

-Even though FCP X is more intuitive it still helps to have a guide. I bought Ripple Training’s $40 Apple Pro Video Series: Final Cut Pro X. Well worth it!

-As expected, you can copy and paste settings between clips in FCP X but I don’t see a way to copy and then paste only select parameters between clips. One work around to paste only audio or only video settings is to detach the audio and video. Another method is to use the video animation or audio animation buttons. Either way, I’d prefer to be able to select what I am pasting via an options window instead of potentially deactivating and then reactivating settings on a clip.

-Apple updated FCP X to 10.0.1 yesterday. The update is only available via the Mac App store (similar to how an iPhone or iPad updates apps.) If, like me, the Mac App store tells you it cannot update FCP X you still can. TheC47 has a work around.

-Larry Jordan, in his blog, has a full post on what 10.0.1 addresses.

The last four videos on my Vimeo page were edited in FCP X. They can also be seen on this blog in the prior three posts tagged with video.

If you are curious to try FCP X Apple has added a free 30 day trial.

Sentence at Bernie’s

Jon Roemer — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 21:15:43 +0000

Judge Denny Chin, who I photographed in February, is back in the news – featured in a New York Times article examining the sentencing of Bernie Madoff.

It is interesting to see Todd Heisler’s portrait of the judge. We both found interest in the same corner of the judge’s courtroom and we both posed him within a few feet of each other. The results are very different, a reflection of the way each of us sees as a photographer but also of the purpose of each photo. Todd’s photo fits the NYT article perfectly. His use of dark space emblematic of the judge’s path toward a sentencing decision, the weight of that decision, and his sole responsibility for it.

My image is for a university magazine’s feature, a bio celebrating the judge and not tied to Madoff or any one case. The image had to be vertical to fit the layout and given its use heroicize him to a certain extent. On the day I shot available light was not an option (too much glare would have blown out the back window) but also not compatible with the piece. Instead I took my cues from the ambient light (the natural daylight and the artificial room lighting) and built my portrait from there.

Here’s another image from my session with Judge Chin:

Judge Denny Chin in his courtroom. Feb. 23, 2011. Click image to enlarge.

Earlier post – Chin Up at the Bar.