The Stage is Set

Post content:

Panasonic Lumix FZ30
Focus Enhancements FS-100
Panasonic AG-HVX200
Macintosh G5 Tower
Baltimore Sun
Olympus DS-2 Digital Recorder

It's time for me to get ready to rumble. With multimedia, that is. The new schedule's set, which means the first 3 days of the work week will be spent by starting at around 7AM, gathering footage and producing packages for our website. Thursday and Friday will be spent sleeping in (to start the afternoon shift) and work general assignments, since there is a shortage of late night shooters.

Weekend time will be spent recharging the batteries for the next week. Yesterday was rough. While trying to understand a Focus Enhancements Firestore FS-100 100-gigabyte DTE (direct-to-edit) recorder for our production camcorder HVX200, I had to roll out to Catonsville to document the scene with the still camera where a resident was killed and a state trooper was shot while serving papers early that morning. The father was upset as I entered his home, and the family shared their accounts of what happened.

Grabbing the Lumix FZ30 to capture some footage, he talked to other family at the top of the stairs, showing the large number of bullet holes that tore through the walls, describing the events that he witnessed. The still images were an afterthought as he expressed his account of watching how his son died, and told about his upcoming birthday near the end of December.

The time neared 6:30PM as we wrapped up, and a couple of calls later, someone was ready and waiting in the office to edit and post the captured footage. Attempting to transfer the files into our FTP site, the transfer rate for regular video clips was so slow (even for our high-speed network) that I simply sent the first half of footage into the multimedia folder and grabbed a CD and burned the other 5 files, running them out to the web point-person to edit and post.

The editors seemed rather pleased at the finished package when I reported to work this afternoon. Dudley, Chuck and I talked so I could understand the new schedule and what was expected of my efforts in 2007, and I retreated to one of our Macintosh G5 towers to try mounting that FS-100 onto the desktop so I could extract the 40 gigs of high definition footage I had been capturing over the past several days for a project several of us have been working on.

Listening in to a conversation between Chuck and Lloyd nearby, I heard about a convict who had been released from prison after spending over 30 years in jail for a crime he says he never committed. Lloyd had taken some great images as the family met the released man outside court, and my own creative juices flowed, expressing the regret that we didn't shoot any footage for the web. "That's just what I want you to do," Dudley said. "Look at the daily log for interesting jobs and shoot some packages."

Torn between word of a family party to celebrate the release north of town, and having to shoot the Maryland Terrapins' men's basketball game just a couple hours later in College Park, I called Steve to let him know that I'd try to document the party. Parking nearby, I grabbed the trusty Lumix as well as an Olympus DS-2 digital recorder and small shotgun microphone to back up the audio, since there would be a house filled with loud, happy guests.


Maryland Terrapins' Ekene Ibekwe rejects a shot attempted in Maryland's 101-50 trouncing.

The guest of honor sat at the center of the dining room table as friends, family, and defense attorneys broke bread together, celebrating the end of their terrible nightmare. Lloyd and I tripped over each other once or twice as we captured the event, happy that no one from the television stations were even there. Wrapping up with about 9 minutes of footage, I returned, burned a DVD with the audio and movie files for Steve to edit and post, and then hit the road where I sit in our cubby after Maryland's 101-50 beatdown of Missouri-Kansas City. I put the new Nikon cameras back to work, leaving the HVX back in the office and shooting a couple decent frames with the D2Xs in the first half.

The images from the Catonsville shooting are still at work on the desktop, so be my guest and hop over to the Baltimore Sun online. On this current page, there's multimedia taken with the Lumix of the father after the shooting and soon there will be footage of the wrongly-convicted man released, but get it while it's hot; the site is regularly updated.

Panasonic HVX200 Shoot: Invasion of the Jaggies!

Steve is shredded by the camera through an effect called "jaggies."


I didn't even plan on writing about this, but video jaggies were on my mind.

I had made a cheat sheet to help me figure on-the-fly about avoiding "jaggies," which are the video artifacts you see during camera shake, or when there's a jolting of the camera during shooting. It's an ugly-looking phenomenon, and I was bitten during a shoot this past summer, during a barbecue contest.

Mmmmm. Barbecue. Oh - anyway, while powering up the HVX200, I had started shooting in a native format, which was set in the menu at 24PN, shot at 480, interlaced. The footage looked all right, but I didn't hear any sound while shooting Steve, who was part of the taking part in the 2006 Bel Air Barbecue challenge. So I switched to 30P at 480i, which finally gave me some audio.

I played back the new clip, and heard the audio, but noticed the picture looked...just a little ragged. Thinking it was perhaps the fault of the stock flip-open screen, I kept shooting, until I had 32 minutes of SDTV (standard definition) footage, so I retreated to my albino turtle to transfer the files onto my PowerBook, which can actually play the files at that size. But double-checking on the clips, I didn't like what I shot, one bit.

The jaggies had invaded my footage! Those interlaced erect tentacles that look like perfectly-parallel lightning bolts were embedded in every clip I had shot. Somewhere along the line, I needed to work something out. But I had little time, since a deadline loomed. Onward I pressed, shooting what I could as quickly as possible to finish out the next 32 minutes of clips.

Returning to my car, I figured that a nice crib sheet was in order. It could rest as desktop wallpaper for a while, until I could memorize what was needed. The image could then be stored in the wallpapers folder for future reference.

Finally setting the recording function to 30P at 720 progressive, I shot the rest in progressive high definition with sound, but could only capture 8 minutes of footage, since my 4GB P2 cards could only store 8 gigs total, since each minute of 720P footage needs 1 gigabyte of space. But the HD footage can be turned into "filmout," which translates into frame grabbing, in my case. (It really means processing the file into footage that will be exposed on culluloid film.)

Frustrated by not remembering the correct settings I wanted, I sat down after work and color-coded files to give myself a crib sheet so that I could look at a glance at my desktop if I ever needed to refresh my memory, or positively verify the right settings before a shoot. I just color-coded the files that gave good results in green, while the jagged edge videos were tagged red. The blue is just desktop color.

Well, that's all, all. I've gotta get home to crash and burn. Right now it's tough, because I'm waiting for the multicolored balls to stop rolling in Google, which tells me that they'ye gotten my footage. I'm also working on a project that needs completion perhaps by the end of the week. And I'll try to remember to write about some feedback that my boss, Bob recently shared.

It wasn't praise.

I leave you, hopefully, feeling a hunger pang, since I'm posting a detail shot and a clip it was lifted from, of commercially-grilled BBQ ribs (the one's the contestants serve the public). Enjoy! And return soon; I plan on posting some video of this shoot as well, to show the effects of jaggies, and how it looks when you've set the camera properly.

Down-rezzed clip from 720P HD of commercially-grilled ribs.

Still image lifted from the video clip above, which was shot in 720P high definition.

HVX200 Video! Plus, There's Always Something I Forget...

Stage fright.
You may get over it, but you never forget it.

I just finished with the guest speakers at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD, and I still get nervous when all eyes stare back at me! Terry Dalton, who has hosted the annual event in which professionals - mainly from different news-gathering entities - visit his class to share information about their field of work.

I had told Terry back in the summer that I had a surprising presentation and couldn't wait for November, yet I actually had nothing in hand to show. Usually, the talk would revisit the year's work. Last year, I shared my images from Hurricane Katrina and the Indonesian tsunami. This year, I felt my work was seriously lacking, since I've been swamped with learning the HVX200.

Being stoked about the shift towards multimedia journalism, called "the voice in the story," I gathered some finished work from some of the staff. Algerina's sound slides of the Basilica, Monica's work on Factor VII, David Hobby's images of a tree in the fall, and Chiaki's piece about the Pleasant family's double-whammy cancer fight were some pieces short and good enough to send a message. I saved Barb's project on Recher Rock for last, just to let the class watch a little about indie bands.

The message was the same that I learned months ago: don't just be a photographer. Or a camera operator. Or a reporter, or audio technician, gathering for radio. Do all of those things, and learn through practice. Being sure to make eye contact, I didn't let the students know that I'm actually introverted. Well, I did hint at that, when sharing the fact that I feel more comfortable behind the camera, silently documenting others.




Maryland Terrapins' DJ Strawberry hustles and dives after ball!!

Ending the chat with some HVX footage of a basketball and a cool clip I shot at a Maryland Terrapins game (which is WAY down-rezzed by the YouTube folks, but I hope you still can enjoy it), a couple of those listening seemed a bit in disbelief that people are actually doing well by creating multimedia projects and blogging online. One, who stayed after class, picked my brain about the concept.

Everyone in her class has taken photos. With the cameras of today, anyone can take a pretty darn good image, if they work on it. Regarding the hybrid cameras, just a couple of clicks on the dial, and your still digital can instantly begin capturing sound and video. So, if you have any kind of light budget (or know someone who wants to loan you the gear) you can put a hybrid camera in your hot mitts and start teaching yourself about how to document the world around you.

The important thing I failed to share was that a web visitors can be limitless. Instead of showing your product to your friends, you now have an audience that's worldwide (depending on internet access and whether any particular country will allow your work to be accessed). Newspapers have always trained their sights on local coverage. But the web allows for worldwide viewing of whatever might be published. So if a newspaper's subscription total was 250,000, locally, it would be seen by an estimated 500,000 people.

On the web, there are billions of people online, and the viewers are growing in numbers, so there will always be an audience, until or unless the web decides to stop or change. No one can even fathom that happening, so the only one stopping you, is you. The web has opened the whole world to those who can access it. And it lets you and I be our own journalists, columnists, publicists, critics, managing editors and publishers. That's why big media has stumbled. People now have the ability to cover each other. Instead of waiting for the local news at 6pm, or the next day's paper,you and I can simply post it online ourselves. CNN and Fox have been getting their news clips and information from daily blogs and YouTube posts. The infamous video of "Kramer" Richards losing control? It was captured by an audience member's cell phone.

Find your niche and work on it. Whether it's a sport (or love of one), a hobby, a particular rant you care to vent, or the latest bad driver that carelessly drove past you, remember the most important thing: many people are just like you, and feel the same way. And they're currently Googling phrases that you could have already been writing about.


Conor gazes into the night, his eyes trying to spot Santa and Mrs. Claus.

As for this blog entry, much of it was written in the parking lot of a Cactus Willie's during some down time between jobs. The rest was finished here, at a Panera Bread in north Baltimore, after I transmitted pictures of 4-year-old Conor, searching the skies for Santa at a tree lighting ceremony. So, keep your laptop with you, at all times; at some moment, you may suddenly get the urge to fire up your PowerBook and pound your keyboard during a brainstorm.

Don't give up on your passion if no one flocks to your site at first. If you want that, you have to expose your site and make it searchable and easily-accessed. That's one reason why I've switched from MySpace, since they require membership, just to view a person's page.

Lumix FZ30 Shoot: First Video Embed; Frame Stills & Still Photo

These stills are frames from digital movie clips with the Panasonic FZ30. At the bottom is a comparison between the footage and an HQ still image, shot with the same camera.


Short Clip shot with the Lumix DMC-FZ30

As I wait for the accessories to start coming in for the HVX200, I'm training myself to learn how to creatively shoot digital film clips with the Lumix FZ30. It's actually a terrific starter camera for those considering video, considering it was around $500 new. It should be less, now that the FZ50 has been introduced. By allowing the user to switch between digital still and movie, an interesting process can be exploited.


Mac drives as the camera shoots from the dashboard.

I decided to record a subject who plans to design an ethanol plant, which forced me to work around a rather constricting location: his pickup truck. Mac drove his Dodge through the wind and rain of a strong nor'easter as we headed south towards Pocomoke City on the southeastern corner of Maryland. In that time, I shot about 25 minutes of footage while Mac shared the plans and vision of the plant.


The portability of the FZ30, working in the footwell.

But I also didn't want to conduct the interview outside for several reasons. First, it was a soaking, cold rain outside, and I had already begun feeling that tingly sensation in my throat, showing that I'm getting ill. I'm also using a camera with no external microphone, whose mic is built onto the upper left portion of the camera body, facing up.


A little hand detail captured while Mac speaks.

Remembering an important tip given by Brian Storm, I chose to let Mac speak about the ethanol process from inside the cabin of his truck, which is actually a truly great location to conduct an audio recording. The closed doors seal out much unwanted noise, and the interior creates a sound dampening room as the voice is absorbed, rather than reflected. The interior of such a tight space can be a challenge for someone who wants to express a creative side, but practicing the effort can yield better composition, creating visually appealing scenes by looking beyond the obvious.


A tight shot as Mac focuses on his destination.

The obvious scenes are capturing your subject from the position of the passenger. Shoot that way for more than a couple minutes, and the viewer will get pretty bored, because that turns the subject into nothing more than a talking head. They may as well stand behind a podium. Capturing such a perspective exclusively constricts your own vision, blinding you to other opportunities that can make the package fresh and appealing. Give your viewers angles that they haven't seen. Adding those unusual perspectives can heighten your audiences' interest, making them want to see what angle might fill the next scene.


Rain pelts the window while the FZ30 gathers audio.

What I love about a hybrid camera like the Lumix is that you can see composition by shooting digital stills. The FZ30 has the option to shoot still images in 3 formats: 4x3, 3x2, and 16x9. These are all formats currently in use in standard television, widescreen HDTV, commercial movie cinema, and 35mm film.


Mac, framed in his rear view, rides to destination.

Switch between the 3 still formats and see how your composition changes. It's a mind-altering experience, because you now have a scene-capturing camera that acts as 4 different cameras at the switch of a preference or a dial. You'll see how composition really matters, depending on the format. If you don't adjust between format sizes, you will wind up wasting vital space (I'll try to remember writing about cropping in a later blog).


A frame from the short, 7-second clip above.

By shooting footage, you may even be inspired to shooting some stills, switching your camera over to take some pictures, which happened to me, when we headed up to a farm that was purchased for the plant. I recorded him the first time we drove towards the farm, but wanted some still images, because the visual style I honed in on while shooting footage gave me some ideas to shoot the stills I needed.


Mac explains the proposed site, outside.

The majority of the footage was inside his truck, and Mac apologized for the bad weather, thinking it wouldn't make for a good camera day. But my opinion was that the situation presented itself well for a successful shoot, even though only a minute or so was spent physically on the property, outside his truck. After writing a caption for my Flickr page, I see now why the frame fits the subject.


Frame still from footage while driving to the site...


...yields this portrait, which makes people look more.



The image captures a different-style portrait of Mac, a traveling man who was given the assignment to find a viable site for an ethanol plant. Photographing him outside made him look more like the owner of the place. Seeing this image and analyzing it, Mac is separated from the site by glass, sitting where he's best known to be: always on the go. As his task winds down, he plans to tow the portable trailer that he's lived in, back to Richmond.

Early Rise=No Photos; Lumix FZ30 Shoot: Murder Suspects

I plan on posting the media clips from today's assignment; the clips right now are stuck in another location, so I'm attempting a direct link, which is a popup script. We'll see if the links to the clips (below) work, meanwhile. If they do, just follow them from here.

Police release details of arrest
Kyneita talks about what happened

My first day (I had hoped) of starting at 7AM in order to begin shooting some footage for the paper's website! The task: Meet with Paul, who works for the state, who cruises through the DC metro area (Maryland side), helping starnded motorists and accident scenes. It was a reshoot of an assignment that had to be postponed from the original shoot intended for last Friday. Calling him on my cell as asked, the call went directly to his voice mail.

Red flag number one.

Perhaps he's in the middle of helping with an emergency scene, I thought. Oh well. I left a message as I started driving south on I-95 to meet him just inside the Capital Beltway at 8am. Traffic crawled by the MD-216 exit near Laurel, but I was happy enough, gloating about the latest win for the home team in NFL football, being doubly happy that the team near Washington had lost again (sorry, 'Skins fans). Reaching the destination with a few minutes to spare, Paul's orange roadside assistance van was nowhere to be found among the parked cars and vans at the Park & Ride. A call to his cell went directly to his voicemail again. Leaving a message, I waited, finally feeling a little impatient after 30 minutes had elapsed with no return call. Since the shoot was for a daily story, I waited some more, firing up my PowerBook to copy some images from a recent shoot onto the desktop.

Finally, I'd had enough. At 9am, I called the picture desk and Jeff said to pull the plug. On the way back to Baltimore, I made a detour to Clarksville to grab a quick photo of a high school athlete of the week, then rolled straight to city police headquarters for some kind of presser. The time wound up being pretty tight as I parked the buggy on the sidewalk across from HQ behind some TV trucks. It was Lumix Day, I figured. Any press conference would be ideal to try shooting some video for the web. Since the accessories - especially the 100GB recording drive -- hadn't come in, I figured I'd use just the FZ30 to capture stills and video during the announcement.


Baltimore Police announce the arrests of 2 children,
charged as adults in the stabbing death of Nicole
"Nikki" Edmonds, 17.

Five minutes after arrival and the press conference began. The police made an announcement that two suspects - both children - were being detained, charged as adults for the murder of 17-year-old Nicole Edmonds, who had gotten stabbed to death after getting off at a light rail stop with her brother. The two were returning from Anne Arundel County, where they worked until midnight, and I understand that officials have accused at least 4 people of taking part in an ambush in order to take a cell phone. The FZ30 silently captured footage as they gave their accounts of how the boy and girl were found and arrested, and I switched over to the still mode to shoot some frames for print publication after feeling that enough footage had been recorded.

By 11:30am, a CD of the raw clips were taken to Steve, who started editing for a web post. Meanwhile Gus, who had been working on the story took me along as we tried to find the families of the ones accused of the crime. Striking out at our first location, we tried another 2 homes north of downtown. The door opened and then shut for several minutes as we waited outside as those within the home made up their minds. Eventually, we were allowed to come in.

The glum faces told the story as loved ones struggled to cope with the fresh news that someone they knew and loved had been named a murderer by the police. The family opened up slowly as we started to learn more as Kyneita began sharing more about her sister, 16-year-old Lataye.

The toughest part a journalist has is having to document the survivors dealing with the loss of an untimely death. But that's one of the aspects of being a journalist. And Kyneita refused to have her picture taken when I first asked.

Letting the interview continue, I listened to every word, because the job remains to exhaust every possibility to complete the story. Eventually, I asked again, expecting "no" for an answer. And that's when I had to tell her about what we had to go with if "no" was her final answer.

The only thing that anyone would know about her little sister is that Lataye was charged as an adult. The only thing people would see are images of a police mug shot. The only thing that people would hear would be what the police accused her of. Gus pulled out a photocopy of her mugshot, which was a hard dose of reality for them, as each family member wept when they saw an image of someone that they all loved, reduced to the label of an accused murderer.

Kyneita, 19, weighed her options and finally agreed to be photographed.


Kyneita, 19, pauses while talking about her younger
sister, Lataye, 16 following Lataye's arrest, charged
in connection with Nikki's murder.

Responsible journalism means trying to understand the whole story, and not just what any one party says. It was only a day since the boy and girl were charged, but some, like Lataye's family, wanted to let people know that it's not her nature to do the crime that she's been accused of. A big piece of the puzzle is missing, they said, saying that the adults said to have been part of the crime may very well be that big missing piece.

Taking her to a window near the kitchen, the FZ30 silently captured photos as Kyneita pondered about her little sister. Finally as we ended the interview outside, Kyneita shared some of her own thoughts in digital footage that she wanted to say to those who can't grasp why anyone had to be murdered at all.

Returning to the office, I burned another CD with the new footage to add to the short package and I edited the photos of Kyneita and the copies of her sister, who had posed while 12 years old, in images frozen in time as she had pictures taken of her in her cheerleading outfit, proud and outwardly happy and at peace for that moment in her life.

Lataye cheerleading at 12 years old.

As I was about to leave the office for the day, Chuck finally told me what had happened with Paul, the roadside assistance guy that never returned my calls. "It turns out that he was on vacation," Chuck said.

Transferring the MySpace Blogs!

I've been posting alot in MySpace, but my efforts have been made in a site largely used for dating popularity. Fortunately, however, I've been regularly keeping up with the postings. I plan on transferring my posts here in order to maintain a blog that documents the effort to change my job from photojournalist to visual journalist. Heck, I don't even know what to call the job title. Some call it "platypus," but I hate that term.

I'm not even doing such a thing, juggling different cameras and equipment. The gear is already available, and I have them. Funny thing, they're both made by Panasonic.


Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30:
A small camera that can zoom a 35mmm equivalent of 35-430mm and also shoot video. I can change the still image format from 3x2 (standard 35mm film size, aka 24x36mm) 4x3 (NTSC television shape) and 16x9 (widescreen HDTV format). This is my go-anywhere camera. I use it whenever I go on vacation (packing my passport and PowerBook as well) and can shoot for publication by being ready for travel virtually anywhere in the world, if ever needed.



Panasonic AG-HVX200:
An HDTV digital film production camera that shoots 1080i (1920x1080, interlaced). I've been known to shoot news, features and sports with this camera, which records up to 60fps (slow motion) while also recording stereo audio. Frame grabs can be taken from footage I capture and edited and toned in an image editor such as Photoshop or Aperture.

I've just figured how to transfer my posts here, while being able to preserve the dates, so I'm in business. I hope this weekend that I can deliver the process and begin posting here.

Nikon D2H/DMC-FZ30: 2006 Contest Season!!

Here we go again, another season of contest entries. The early one that Duds is lighting a fire under my feet on is the Atlanta photojournalism contest. Here it is, 4am, and I'm having yet another problem with the time, after Photo Mechanic inadvertantly copied someone elses caption information onto my photos. You know, I'm just gonna end it all.

No more editing. The CD is burning, and if there's a mistake, they can sue me! No, I have to get some sleep since I have to get ready for a trip to see my Moms Saturday. I'm excited because I can try to sell some raffles for a plasma television to benefit a friend whose sister contracted stomach cancer. I seem to know so many more people in the Arkansas area than here. I also have a paperwork problem I have to deal with at the MVA. Seems like they lost my tags that I returned.

Anyway, here's a brief thingy...



A picture on her cell phone is the only thing to remember 2-year-old Tyrese, who perished in an early spring fire in east Baltimore.





Shaken but not stirred, the driver holds his head down after escaping injury following a powerful collision that overturned an SUV.





Feroze Iqbal Porter, 6 of Lithonian holds to his mother Theresa Porter, watching as the hearse is prepared with the casket bearing Coretta Scott King.





Trying to keep the mood light while trailing in exit polls, U.S. Senate candidate Kweisi Mfume (D-Md) rushes off the stage after making a brief appearance at his election party.




Yesivette Declet, 5 gets angry as she waits for her mother Yesenia Marrero to take a 1-hour police recruiting test for the Baltimore Police, who are recruiting for bilingual officers in Puerto Rico.






Getting a taste of cabin fever, Lattice Carroll, 10 of Woodlawn has fun on the swing after compelling her grandfather, James Faulks to play as the sun sets.





Forgotten Baltimore' series: A young child peers from below the screen of his door in an East Baltimore neighborhood, ignored and avoided. (This picture story will be added here in about 2 weeks!)





Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis hammers Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Michael Pittman, who drops the pass.





Baseball fans watch off the left field line as Minnesota Twins left fielder Rondell White leaps to catch a foul ball.





Other contestants watch Miss Iowa, Soben R. Huon, gets videotaped as she dances to the music during a party for the Miss USA contestants.





There you go... I have some more images, all shot on the Nikon D2H system. But I simply have to get outta here and snooze. I'm working too hard. I had a dream that I was given exclusive access to photograph former President Bill Clinton, but he was curled up in a ball in bed, angry with me and refusing to talk more than a few utterances. I woke up as I tried to apologize. I think I covered enough campaigning for this season, and I'm glad it's over with no lingering results!

HVX200 Sports: College Basketball

Look Out!!


Terrapins fans watch Maryland Terrapins guard DJ Strawberry head for a crash landing as he hustles to retrieve the ball that he slapped from the possession of Vermont Catamounts guard Jason Green in the first half of the College Hoops Classic men's college basketball in College Park Wed., Nov. 8, 2006.

I guess this is my first "official game," shooting with this HVX200. And please, read below, for a statement that I may post in my main page.

A day after staying at work late, and I was still a little groggy because of lack of sleep. Honestly, I feel the effects of some clinical depression, which makes it somewhat tough to keep up the enthusiasm. But Chuck made me feel so good when he told me that I'd be covering a Maryland Terrapins men's basketball game in College Park. It was a preseason against the Vermont Catamounts (I always think about amber maple syrup when I think about Vermont) which was supposed to benefit "Coaches vs Cancer." After shooting my first job (a quick portrait of a high school football player), I drove through the mist and afternoon rush hour traffic from Lake Clifton-Eastern to the basketball arena, with a Nikon 300mm lens in tow, intending to shoot some stills.

But something in my mind made me switch to the HVX200, while I gathered my gear from the back of the car. A shooter from the Washington Post walked with me, asking about the elections and how things are at work. Still carrying my 2 still cameras as backup, I parked my gear in the photo room, set up my laptop, and went to the court to take some test shots of a consolation game going on.

The lights are a little dark for shooting high speed shutter, so I wound up cranking the gain all the way to -12db. "Gain" is a term that makes a camera more sensitive to lower light situations. It forces the scene to brighten inside the camera, but the drawback is that the image quality degrades. But I had tried some gain-up before, and figured that I would give it a whirl, which allowed me to crank up the shutter speed to 1/500th second - fast enough to stop moving action without much motion blur. An Associated Press shooter scoffed as he saw the digital camcorder in my hand. A freelance photographer sitting beside me shook his head. "You'll never get me to shoot with one of those," he glared. "I'd retire before using that."

I had once thought the same. I never knew that the profession would go so digital. I didn't think it would happen so many years before I considered even imagining this time. Back in the mid-1990's, we had a staff shooter named Perry who was issued a Canon XL-1 digital camcorder. Our boss Jim gave him the task of shooting video for the web, a task that newspapers hardly gave a thought. But suddenly, after a short period, the effort was scrubbed. Just to think what inroads might have been made, had we continued.... Perry was so far ahead of the curve, but the curve is now here. And I'm catching grief or stares from the still shooters as well as the TV videographers. How ironic that I'm in the middle, and what I'm doing is merging the two mediums together. I just sat quietly, adjusting my butt to the hard floor, while the game continued, trying to shoot while manually focusing the lens, anticipating plays on the court.

The far basket? The HVX showed it was 121 feet to the net. Midcourt, about 60 feet. The near hoop, 19.1 feet, all shown in the lower right corner of my digital viewfinder. Missing the first basket since I was shooting horizontally, I began flipping the camera to a vertical position. Soon, I was getting into a groove, shooting the Terps attempting a defensive trap at the far basket, capturing the hustle after trying to steal the ball at mid-court, and leaping to slam dunk on the near side.

It's quite a change after learning to anticipate and squeeze the trigger of a still camera. And the process of extracting a movie file, dragging the file for a moment in Quicktime, copying the frame (Apple C) and pasting the image (Apple V) in Photoshop adds several more steps than simply dropping images from a digital card and editing them. Adding to the ingredients would be saving the first images as raw files, then using Photo Mechanic to add captions on them, then opening the files again in Photoshop to prepare them for transmission. Yesiree, it makes for more work. Will that change? Perhaps if someone comes up with some kind of program to automatically work out the steps. Or maybe create a "droplet," which can be programmed to automatically do certain steps for the user.

But the automatic steps can happen only within Photoshop, and can't be flopped over to, say, Quicktime. If I had to work on a short deadline, I doubt if I'd be ready to do all the steps, unless I know every file's contents in order to zero in on a moment.

As I wound up my shoot in the first half, I stopped at the other end of the court to shoot a little of coach Gary Williams. At first, I had thought about shooting some still frames with the Nikon but abandoned the idea, since such a decision would be the same as not trusting your effort. A rather bull-headed way of looking at it, but hey: The game action was captured all right on the HVX200, do you think?

Do I seem like some kind of plant to sell people into purchasing this camera? Perhaps some might wonder, but I'm simply writing about what I'm shooting with. The equipment has been issued through where I work, and nothing is donated. None of the gear has been sold to us at some kind of discount that I know of, unless it's volume discount. And I'm not being paid to write anything here.

Panasonic AG-HVX200 Shoot: "You've Got a Choice"

It wasn't the time that I started but the time I finally dropped off to sleep.

The sand man finally got the eyes shut around 4am, and just as my batteries started recharging... *BZZZ!* *BZZZ!* *BZZZ!* Six o'clock. Time to get up, get washed and out the door to shoot some footage of voting in Baltimore City.

My albino turtle was glazed with dew that looked like the mist that still covered my eyes while starting the car to head for several polling places to capture Marylanders getting out the vote. Three different election wards yielded 12 gigs worth of about 75 minutes of NTSC size footage. Fighting my own instincts to shoot more, I returned to get started with editing the raw shoot for an election day package for the web.

John was ready for me as Final Cut Pro converted the MXF files that the Panasonic HVX200 camera wrote, into the ".mov" movie format. They were dropped into a huge 200 gig server, and John extracted them to begin laying out possible packages, trying to get the product onto the web by the mid-afternoon.

By the time it was finished, we had a 3-minute package that Steve was ready to upload, as he expected a large rush to view web footage. Walking back to the editing room, Steve unknowingly gave some desperately- needed feedback. During a web meeting, a number of editors commented about how the vision I have shot looked more creative than the video shot by television camera operators. And as Steve reviewed the edited footage, he noted several more shots that we placed in the package. "See, that's what I'm saying," Steve mentioned as it rolled. Another clip showed, prompting him to talk about it again.

Photographers have a more creative vision with camera angles. Honestly, picking up a video camera compels me to consider shooting the pan shots, or the zoom- ins or zoom-outs. It can be easy to step into the mold of treating a video camera like... a video camera. Video cameras can be shot without feeling, thought, or passion for the frame. It's important for the user to turn that camera into a digital film camera, and treat it with respect. It's still a piece of gear with a viewfinder, focus and exposure controls, and a way to capture what the user shoots.

Quite often, the shooter can be told to cover a podium function or other type of press conference. But remember: Anything that draws a crowd draws individuals within that crowd. And each person has a unique mind, which lets them do what they feel. But the camera user has that same special gift. We can do what we expect others want, or we can simply draw from what we know or have learned. Like one 73-year-old voter said, while waiting in his wheelchair to vote: "You've got a choice." The future is an open ticket. We're simply stamping where we go every moment.

If we screw up, learn from it. Messing up becomes a failure only when we fail to grow. I can only tell you that I'll look back on this video, shaking my head at how terrible it looks. But I've learned from the experience, and I'm growing in the process. Meanwhile, it's done, and even has a nice "thank you" smile.

Nikon D2H Shoot: Living Together, Separately

Chris (wearing glasses) said he couldn't speak English. Several coaches acknowledged his initial trepidation to talk with others as the pre-teen Korean boy took part in the BeMore basketball exercise at Park School.

The coordinators reached out to a number of churches and organizations to gather multi-ethnic representation together, compelling the adolescents to interact with each other. Asian-, African-, and Latin- heritage children formed a number of groups, like the Green Machine and Blue Lightning, playing a sport that finally brought them together, for a common goal.

They may have thought that the goal was scoring the most baskets. The true goal was bridging the separation of class and culture and belief.

Interestingly, the nation is a melting pot of diversity and customs. Yet many are taught to avoid anyone different than themselves. People are like fluid, able to travel and reshape. Yet one person acts like oil, avoiding another like they're water. The two will coexist if need be, but will never mingle.

Recall where people sit when there is open seating in a cafeteria, if you beg to disagree.

The only thing that children need is a fun game, and they tend to be in on the fun, allowing their hearts to soar with joy, no matter who plays with them. This was the case in the gymnasium, where total strangers were dropped onto a wooden floor, and unknowingly told to make fun out of playing with someone they never considered playing with before.

The first game had each team stand in line, facing a backboard. The first in line shot the ball until they scored a point. All they had to do was recover the ball and take it to the rear of their line and hand the ball to each person in front of them, so the next on in front could shoot. Christian handed the ball to Muslim. White handed the ball to Black. Boy handed the ball to girl. All the while, the smiles grew on all the faces.

Gathering the names of each of the Blue Lightning team, I gathered each name, until I asked Chris if I could take his picture. "No, no!" he resisted, extending his hand towards the lens while turning away, as if he were trying to avoid an auto accident. I became fond of his shyness, quietly rooting for him, every time he shot the basketball.

The next round of shooting was over, and the children gathered in a mass as they walked to the door of the main gym floor, waiting for the other group to finish their exercise. While I held my Nikon with the wide lens, Chris became curious about the camera, inching beside me and leaning in to take a peek into the front of the lens. *click-click-click* I fired off a couple of frames, startling the bespectacled child, startling him.

A smile crept on my face as I continued staring ahead, to signal that we could play a game. Chris grinned, knowing he was caught on camera, bouncing back a couple steps. I moved my hand to the trigger on the base and slowly turned the camera back towards him and Chris ducked. After a couple moments, I aimed and fired another few frames. At first, he seemed angry, but we both laughed, and I patted him on the shoulder as a gesture to say that he's cool, without saying a word.

I recalled befriending a classmate named Daniel, while riding to middle school on the bus. Being the last rider on the route, he found a seat hard to get with those who felt he wasn't cool enough to sit with them each morning. Noticing his plight, I started sitting on the aisle, refusing to let others sit with me until Daniel boarded, when I would move over to offer him a seat. We rarely spoke, but I didn't feel a need to press him to fight his shyness.

Who knows if the effort by BeMore will grow on any of the children, or even their parents. Watching them sit in the stands, it was difficult to see whether any of them reached out to each other. Wouldn't it be nice if one child's mind was enlightened to such vastly amazing ethnicities and cultures?

HVX200 Accessories Ordered; Plus, Be an Editor for 2 Minutes (Lumix FZ30, Nikon D2H)

And I want more.

Okay, what if I'm a gadget freak? I want the new gear to shoot better, and I love working with it when it works. The equipment's on order, and I'm waiting to add them to the HVX200. As I use them, I plan on posting some reviews here, in future entries.

Meanwhile, after working on the Senate forum earlier in the week, I realized that tripodding isn't the way to shoot for me. Sure, I'll get a set of sticks, but they won't be top-of-line. My decision turned 180 degrees after not being mobile enough to shoot the candidates at the podium. I felt more like a local television camera operator, than a visualist.

I felt impeded.
Contained.
Stationary.
Stagnant.

Chatting with Andre sealed my decision, backing away from the threat to ask Duds for a $2,000 tripod (you NEED a well-built true fluid head tripod, I warned him, or it's junk). Dre opened a short piece he shot of farmers and boasted that much of what he shot was hand-held. The drawback with doing this at all with the HVX200 is how shaky the shot looks if you shoot it without any added equipment.

Seems kind-of weird, doesn't it? More equipment would make a camera more stable? Well, it depends. And I'm learning this as I continue working with the gear.

The HVX has the typical hand strap on the right side of the camera, where you slide your palm in to hand-hold the unit from the side and base:



Doing this with a palmcorder isn't a big deal for about 10 minutes. Add more time of use. Or another 5 pounds. You'll get the shakes with the HVX. Weighing over 6 pounds, try balancing that weight steadily at he base of your open hand while holding it close to your face. The weight will not only be top-heavy in your hand, but will also want to flop to the left side, pulling the strap against the outside of your hand.

Cavision has been developing gear that I only discovered a few days ago. Unfortunately, I had already asked for some other gear, which has been ordered, but it didn't cost way too much. The company has been adding some needed accessories for not only the HVX but other indie camcorders as well. The gear I hope I can get would make the camera look a little bulky:



Add all that weight, plus a wireless mic system and external drive, and you may have a much better balance at work. The completed harness should make the unit balanced, as the shoulder supports some of the weight while holding the handgrips stabilize the camera. In all, the gear may cost another $1,000 or somewhat more. But I'll remind Duds that it's 50 percent of what I first told him that he might need!




You're the Editor; Which Image Would You Publish?

......................

Before heading to the inner harbor, I had to swing by the site where the BGE work crew dug beneath the city street to repair a natural gas leak in their line, which caused an explosion in the manholes in the area. Boy, imagine working on the sewer line when THAT happened!

I shot images with both the wide and telephoto perspectives. Hop into my Flickr images and respond, or feel free to jot down comments here or in Flickr. Tell me what you like or don't like about each image. Critique me.

Nikon D2H Shoot: Who Feeds Pigeons? Here's One Sweet Person.

Preface:

I had originally planned to cover a dance troupe that planned on performing at the amphitheater at Harborplace early in the afternoon. With the show cancelled due to the threat of inclement weather, I spotted Doris scattering bread crumbs for the birds. Glad to have herself in pictures, she shared some of her story. The pictures aren't at all award-winners. But a snippet of someone's life can make for an engaging little piece.



Doris visits Harborplace every day, she says, to enjoy the people and sights of downtown Baltimore.

There are too many bad things going on where she lives, and Doris yearns for an emotional oasis; a place where she can sit back, relax, and simply let her mind drift towards good moments and memories of her past 53 years.

"I like the water and the flowers and trees and the grounds are very pretty, and the grass is gorgeous. I can go shopping, I can go eat, you know. Meet people, talk to people; people that got respect for you. I like that."

For 30 minutes out of her afternoon, Doris enjoys life among her friends and family. Her friends are the strangers that walk by, or pause to take her picture. The tourists capture photos of her while feeding the dozens of pigeons and seagulls who keep her company. Doris calls them her children.

Her generosity even rubbed off on Kenneth of northwestern Baltimore, who sat ten feet from Doris at the amphitheater, after shopping in Fells Point. Running out of bread, Kenneth dug into his stash of handmade fudge that he had just purchased in the Light Street Pavilion.

"It costs too much money to give to the birds!" Doris calls out.

"It's all right," Kenneth responded, plucking small pieces off a slice chocolate fudge, flicking them down to the brick sidewalk. "I just realized I had some chocolate," Kenneth explains. "I didn't want all that they gave me - two of them free - so I kept two of them and just gave the other ones to the pigeons." The birds never perch on Kenneth's hands, yet they fight to rest on Doris's lap or hands. "They're like my children, my own children."

Her thoughts then turned to memories from her past.

Doris recalled meeting London, a World War II veteran, after running into him by chance at a shopping center in New York City. They married in 1976 and lived together until his death in 1984. Doris lost her residence and moved in with her sister in Arlington, Virginia, in 1994.

Eventually, Doris moved to Baltimore, but has no place to call her home. "I just live with some friends, until I can do better," she says, while brushing the last of a small stash of dried crumbs from the remains of a cupcake. "Every time I come out here, these birds will always come around me, and I always give them some bread, every day." With a heartfelt laugh, Doris's face beams with pride. "They notice me every day. Every day."

HVX200 Low-Rezzes Senate Candidates

(The above shots were all captured with the Panasonic HVX200, set to low resolution.)

"You can remember the dumbest things from your childhood, but you can never recall what you did yesterday."

I sit in the photo department while Gene works on photos of John (TV's "Gomez Addams") Aston, who now works as a film instructor at Johns Hopkins University. Gene starts singing the lyrics to the "Addams Family," and it starts getting in my head:

"They're creepy and they're kooky;
"Mysterious and spooky.
"They're alltogether ooky;
the Addams Family."

Gene couldn't help but sing the song, and it starts to get to me.

"You're putting that song in my head!" I yell from the back room. ""It's been in mine all afternoon!" Gene yells from a workstation as he tones the pictures he shot.

I just got finished with burning 5 DVD's after shooting more footage of the US Senate candidates at the harbor Marriott, earlier in the day. This time we had the trifecta: Michael Steele (R), Ben Cardin (D), and Kevin Zeese of the Libertarian Party attended the forum. Fortunately for me (and the gear I had), the candidates all agreed to allow each one the floor so he could answer a series of questions posed by a moderator. As the media signed in, the volunteer at the door commented about how many people from our work were there. Little did she know that Andre would arrive soon after to shoot stills, while John came to capture audio.

Each candidate had around 15 minutes to answer the questions, plus 3 minutes for a closing statement.

My HVX200, when shooting NTSC standard def video, can shoot 16 minutes per 4gb card. I only have 2 cards. So I decided to try "hot-swapping," where I would grab each full card from the back of the camera and download the data onto my PowerBook. The speed of the video card was fine for standard 480p, but all I wanted to do was transfer the MXF files to clear the disk.

First was Michael Steele, who gave his answers and closing statement. As Steele began, Andre started banging off frames with his camera, just to the left of me. Wishing I had an on-camera wireless system like the guy to my right, I could only glare towards Andre (my first time being upset about a still photographer's camera noise) while hoping that John was getting some audio that we could use, since I knew mine would be too spoiled for use. As the first card filled, I watched as the green light blinked and time dropped to about 16 minutes remaining, which is the halfway point, and when the cards would swap over, since the first card would have filled with data. When the light changes to green, you can remove it, but not during recording, when it blinks amber.

After the first P2 card filled, I removed it and inserted it in the PCMCIA card on the side of the Powerbook. It was filled with 3.54gb of the camera's native "MXF" files (which can be converted to movie files through Final Cut Pro). Transferring the data takes around 10 minutes, so I was really cutting everything pretty close. I grabbed my Lumix DMC-FZ30 to get ready just in case I ran out of space on the HVX, so I started shooting some "B-roll" with the camcorder feature. But Steele finished with several minutes to spare, and the forum called for a short break, so I transferred the data from the second P2 card and returned them to the HVX200 and reformatted each card, just in time for Kevin Zeese to take center stage.

I started getting into a rhythm of streamlining by wiping the P2 card on the laptop as the HVX recorded nearby. I started moving throughout the audience, getting more B-roll and angles as Zeese finished and Cardin began, just in time for another full P2 transfer and drink of water. But as Cardin was in the heart of his responses, my PowerBook warned that the disk drive was almost full! And I had to return the P2 card to capture his closing remarks. As the card's files transferred, there were less than 60 megabytes of free space left on my laptop -- talk about squeezing the files in!

But then, the other foot began to step on mine: As Cardin answered the final question, I showed only 3 minutes remaining on the first card in the HVX. Quickly, I opened the second camera card and unlocked the text file so I could drag it into the trash and delete the files, giving me a free card again. Just in time, I returned the free card into the port of the camera, which began recording as Cardin gave his summary. As he shook hands and left the podium, I had about 4 minutes remaining, so I went outside and captured some "establishing shots" of the harbor, the skyline, and the hotel where the forum was held and headed back to the office.

Back at the photo department, my disk burning is finished. Gathering all the filing papers and DVD's together, I smile, realizing that I'm a few hours ahead of schedule, while Gene laments about the impending rainout of the Cardinals/Tigers World Series game. Calling his wife, he suggests they make print-outs of the fun jingles to some of the old television shows, like "The Jeffersons" and "Car 59," for a future road trip they're planning. Gene tries remembering the lyrics to "Gilligan's Island" and finds it tough to recall the words to "Mister Ed."

Googling "Mister Ed" and "lyrics," he gleams with excitement, and I suddenly break out with the tune, through my own childhood memory:

"A horse is a horse, of course, of course;
"And no one can talk to a horse, of course.
"That is of course unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed!"

Now, what was it that I was upset about, yesterday?

Nikon D2H Shoot: "Early to Bed"? I Didn't Think So...

I'm exhausted.

I couldn't sleep until 4am, but had to get up at 6am to capture more candidate video as Martin O'Malley pressed the flesh while greeting rushing commuters inside the New Carrollton metro station. Driving there in traffic (how can ANYONE be up before daybreak??), I made it there just in time. But the place brought back some bitter memories of the first time that someone had broken into my car after I had taken some gear out of the trunk years ago. I had taken the metro to cover a march on the district and figured that parking there would be safe.

Little did I know that someone watched me pulling some gear out of the back and hit my car when I left. I didn't even know until a day later, when I tried opening the trunk to pull out my 400mm f/ 3.5 Nikkor, that my lock had been forced open by a large screwdriver. The trunk was barren. My 400mm, my 300mm f/ 2.8... gone. Fortunately, my father's homeowner's insurance covered a good chunk of the loss. But it didn't cover my sense of vulnerability and feeling of being emotionally molested.

I recalled that thought, but the open lot had been replaced by a tall parking structure. I grabbed my camcorder and went to the entrance where Mayor O'Malley stood. Gone like a bad smell in the wind were my visions of capturing O'Malley with the warm morning sunlight in his face as he smiled, shaking hands of supporters heading for the subway.

No, that's too easy.

Instead, I couldn't find him. Only his supporters stood with the green, black and white signs outside, in the cold breeze. The candidate was in the tunnel, but I couldn't even pick him out. Another volunteer pointed to him as O'Malley stood in the darkness, just in front of an overhead light, shaking hands in the darkness.

This HVX200 is great. The widest open aperture to pick up light is f/ 1.4. You can drop the shutter down to 1/24th second and get some footage that resembles film. But even this gear couldn't set a white balance in the light that was in the tunnel, because it was too dark!

Dudley had asked me to shoot some audio of all the candidates, so I figured I'd do that, and perhaps we could find a place somewhere else. About 3 minutes into my shoot, and !B-R-R-R-R-R-R-R-! SSSSSSSSSSS! Yup, guess.

A work crew had just started using a jackhammer, breaking up part of the walkway beneath the tunnel! I gave up and headed home, hoping to catch an hour of sleep before rushing back up to northern Baltimore to shoot some video of Ben Cardin, who, along with O'Malley, were gathering endorsements at an AFSCME retirees' luncheon. On the way up the BW Parkway, I saw a bicyclist riding across a pedestrian bridge. Ooh! I though, but I didn't have enough time to stop. So I debated going back and finally took an exit a couple miles up the road, swung back south, and returned. Pulling well off the shoulder, I grabbed my D2H and waited. Another car pulled in front (I feel really uneasy when someone does that, these days) and started backing up. "Do you need any help?" the man asked. Come to think of it, I didn't check his license plate (but I was getting ready to photograph it), so I thanked him for the offer and saw a guy walking to school over the bridge.



Anyway, I'm only going to share this little entry as I bail out of here and make myself invisible. It's almost 6pm, and I'm bushwhacked. Twelve hours of work after 2 hours of sleep equals exhaustion.

But at least I fed the beast with a weather picture.

Feel free to thumb through my Flickr pictures and share any thoughts about what I've been shooting. I know it isn't all that exciting, and I haven't really been able to breathe some of my personal vision into my daily work. Ususally, I have a little time between shoots where I might find a creative moment. I hope I can do this more often.

Meanwhile, I'd better skedaddle... I heard that the editors are looking for a warm body to drive up York Road to re-shoot a picture of a building front, after someone on staff failed to drop the picture into the system, and didn't burn a disk with the pictures they shot.

Shhh! I'm gettin' outta here!

HVX200 Gear Update; D2H Shoot: Crumbling Apartments

Suddenly, everything shifts, like a stack of wood on the back of a speeding truck.

In reverse.

I was told to abandon getting the Nikon D200's, by Dudley. Get the D2Hs and the D2Xs (nevermind about the pain I started feeling in my back yesterday!) I had made a plan to stay away from the more expensive cameras in order to completely outfit the HVX200. I don't need 8 frames/second. Or the audio recording function (it IS a GREAT feature). Or the alleged more sturdy build others claim that the "pro" bodies have. Or the larger body size. Or the -- well, you get the picture.

I planned on shooting with the D200 and attached body grip to shoot anything from the homeless to the Ravens. Some are worried that the D200 doesn't carry the FPS speed (5/sec) as the D2Hs (8 fps), but I used to shoot with a durable Nikon FM. And a Nikon EM. And, in the "early days," a Sears 500MX with a 42mm screw-mount, plus a Soligor 90-230mm 2-touch manual-focus zoom lens (hey, folks, it was all I could afford at the time)! Ah, back in the day....

While the price of the D200 was reasonable, getting two instead of the D2Hs/D2Xs combination would have led to alot of professional pocket change, and enough to equip this HVX200 with:

An Azden 200ULT wireless mic system ($750);
Redrock Micro M2 system for Nikon "primes" (using a lens adapter with ground glass that allows the mounting of any lens for different perspectives, $1030);
Audio-Technica stereo shotgun mic ($599);
Varizoom PZFI controller and Spiderbrace shoulder harness ($365);

PLUS...

A MacBook Pro, for editing high def video ($2,000);
Firestore FS-100, 100gb recording drive ($1,800);

and other things like a fluid head tripod. I hadn't even though about a light, actually.

Add that together and you aren't talking about a small expense. I had hoped that the savings from the smaller Nikon cameras would help, but they want the bigger still digital bodies.

I think of it like it's my own money, and I don't mind "cutting corners" with proven gear. So I spent the day writing up the whole list (it feels like Christmas!) and gave it to Dave, who queried about some of the gear, like the 35mm lens adapter. My reasoning? Buying a 2X converter and a wide angle converter would cost about the same amount of money, but wouldn't give the most versatile results.

Woops. I just remembered that I hadn't requested an external 7" HD monitor. Oh, well...

I understand that the ordering will commence soon, but I'll see how long it will take for any of this gear to arrive. I do know that the wireless system and drive recorder may be top priority. Wow. I just realized that by the time all this is put together, I'd be carrying perhaps a 14-pound camera....
I'll live through the pain.



A Little Spot News



Just when I finished the print-outs, Chuck asked me to run to Pikesville and cover the evac of an apartment building. Most (but not all) of the people were gone, and workers got busy unloading several flatbed trucks with supplies to shore up part of the building. It seems that some of the metal support columns had corroded, and one may have buckled beneath the weight of the building, which stood above a drive-through.



One woman retrieving her belongings seemed more upset about waiting, she said, for several years for a green card when she moved locally from Iran. Her body language seemed just a little different than those of locals, I felt, as she gestured skyward while asking someone how long it would take to stabilize the structure. Capturing that moment made me feel that I had an image that said everything about the event, beyond any of the physical damage that could be seen and I returned to tone and submit the image.

A Loooong Week.

Ugh. This one's gonna be pretty short. I started early, I worked late, and I still have yet to drop the video from today's campaigning into the hopper. Total drive: about 150 miles, and I didn't get past Silver Spring. After shooting the luncheon there, I drove back to Baltimore, dropped the video into the external drive, then rolled out to cover the 4pm varsity soccer game at Archbishop Spalding.

But there were some shorties playing on the field at 3:30. "Where's the varsity game?"

"They won't start until 5:30."

Calling Chuck, the admission came that there were 2 requests dropped into the system. One job went to a freelance shooter. The other had my name on it.

And I laughed my head off. "At least you're taking it well," Chuck said, telling me to return to the office. Hanging up the phone, I said to myself, "That's because I don't want to shoot the game!" Traffic started getting rough, but I made it to Lombard Street when the phone rang.
"Can you shoot the game, after all?"
What happened?
"The freelancer has another shoot and can't make it to the game."
But I'm hungry, and I haven't eaten. And I'm starting to boil.
"We need it shot. It's the number one seed against the number 3 seed."

Needless to say, I dropped two images from the soccer game in, and now I've gotta feed myself. And take some time away for a little while.

Perhaps I'll drop some more words in here on Monday. And I hope I can have some shots from more exciting adventures! lol

Nikon D2H Shoot: Preserving Sukkot (and the lighting scene, too)

As dusk fell, I made my way to Columbia to catch up with Rabbi Susan, who invited us to document the holiday of Sukkot. Feel free to check into Sukkot and what this Jewish holiday represents.



Never hearing of the celebration myself, I thought the dinner would take place in the kitchen, with the smells of cooked food filling the home. But I was invited to the rear of the home, where a hut stood on the deck! Ooh, wee, I do love surprises, and one that strips the traditional approach from my mind is even better. Not only did this present a fresh type of photography, it also opened a challenge, which is lighting.

Walking inside the hut, I looked around to see where the source of light came from. A single lamp with a metal shade provided the main illumination, as it was hung from the bamboo ceiling, focusing light on the center of the table. The family and guests ate dinner, as light bounced back towards their faces.

The night was cool as dinner continued, and Yonatan kept jumping up for his family and guests, bringing them things to keep their comfort enjoyable. At one time, he asked his grandmother what kind of hot tea she wanted, which made an interesting frame.

One can shoot inside or outside, but one objective was capturing the relationship between inside and outside. A wide angle 10-20mm zoom (made my Sigma, a lens and camera manufacturer I do swear by, and it's currently highlighted on the splash page) revealed the inside of the hut while keeping the exterior in view, showing the sliding glass door of the home. Inverting the camera did the trick again while Rabbi Susan brought out the soup as the light essentially mimicked the style of light inside.

But don't stop there. Step back from where the subject is, to see whether you can capture an image that gives an even clearer view of the relationship of the subject to his / her / its environment, and you may be able to find a cool shot.

Sigma has some interesting lenses available, and they tend to be very well-crafted. I'm not certain of every one; they have some pretty wide-ranging zooms hat I can't imagine could have been attempted as far as design is concerned. But that 10-20mm definitely did the trick for me, this time.

Nikon D2H Shoot: Photographing the Cheetah Girls

I have no kids, so I had no idea who the Cheetah Girls were. So the day started with my indoctrination into the battle for the parking spot. I thought I had it down pat: Park my car at the DAR building, off the main street, and wait until "rush hour" traffic ended at around 6:30pm so I could park on the street. But the soccer mom convoy beat me, pulling up to the line of metered spots in the right lane, 15 minutes before. All along the sidewalk, bands of children emptied from SUV's and minivans, dressed to the gills in cheetah outfits and pink, ready to watch the Cheetah Girls concert at Constitution Hall.

Outsmarted in my quest to get a spot, I circled the block like a vulture, trying to swoop in for an open spot. But they always pop up two cars ahead of you; by the time you get there, the car right in front claims the spot. Fortunately, I found one on D Street, and I guess people had thought that all the spots were reserved for the crew.

After making my way inside, all I saw were girls. Where were the boys, I thought? Perhaps they liked boy bands better, but I couldn't imagine that. Maybe the boys simply don't have a fixation about singers and groups? Talking with a security member, I waited for the opening act to play out, so I could take my position at the stage. The overhead lights went black and the stage lights were kicked up to white hot, and a high-pitched shrill of adoring fans filled the seating bowl.

"Hmm," I said. Gone are the days of a family outing to the circus or zoo; kids now might be bored to watch some clown with a polka dot tie, bike horn, and floppy shoes. Elephants are out; Cheetah Girls are in. It's all about the style and status.



I planned to shoot with my flash pointed down again in order to take photos of fans waiting for the group to make their entrance. With such a deep ceiling, there was no other option besides using direct flash (blech) and floor bounce. So I aimed it down towards my lap (I wore black pants) and used the TTL meter on my Nikon D2H.

Seven-year-old Nora, who lives in Virgina, struck up a conversation with me as I scanned the crowd for a good subject: "I'm so excited!" she said, her wide eyes staring at me with an innocent smile. So I moved back a little and started shooting photos as the crowd waited. A projection monitor threw video from the back of the hall, and I saw that there could be a nice moment to capture. After a short while, the overhead lights dimmed and the anticipation grew, as I fired off frames in the darkness. Compensating for the lack of light, I dropped down my shutter speed a little. But I didn't want to open the shutter too long, for fear of over-exposing the glow sticks.

My attention turned to the Cheetah Girls, since photographers are now generally granted only 2 songs to shoot before being kicked out. One person in the crowd, whom I needed to shoot, sat in the center of the section, making it impossible to get any clear images of her. So I turned my attention on the group, already finishing its first song.

Cranking out more images as they performed, I had to stop shooting as the second song was done. And I was happy with the results:

All the images taken were shot at ISO 500, using the Nikon D2H and the 17-35mm Nikkor lens at 17mm. The contrast setting is usually set on low, while the sharpness is set on high. I also usually set the camera to "CLOUDY."

The first image (at top of the blog post) was shot at 1/13th second at f 2.8. Notice how all the ambient light is all over the place? It looked nice, and I was going to use one of these images, but...

...suddenly, the lights went dark! I couldn't see anything, but I simply used the thumb dial and cranked open the shutter a few clicks. But my finger also hit the f-stop dial. This image was shot at 1/4 second at f/ 3.5. See how turning out the light switch made the glow sticks look like fireflies?





OMG, when I saw what happened, I just started banging frames off in the darkness, hoping to get a good frame. It's cool how the light from the stick hit the face of Nora's mom. And the late-comers walking through the far entrance added to the energy.

I just kind-of shoot things and watch for something better to happen. If you shoot something and you're happy with your first shots, just hold your camera ready (keeping your left hand below the body and lens while holding your right hand on the grip and with your finger on the trigger) and watch for something else to take place. Usually, things unfold even better than your first images, because people tend to go back to being spontaneous. They wind up ignoring the camera, especially if you simply tell then to ignore you.

As for the HVX-200, we got the same CitiDisk HD drive returned to us. I had plugged it into the Firewire port and turned the drive and camera on, but the same problem happened: the drive started blinking between red and green while the camera couldn't recognize it. So over I went to Dudley's office, explaining that we had a problem.

Calling Chris at Shining Technology, Duds put the phone on speaker, and I tried explaining what was happening. Chris then says that a future update needs to be developed to allow the drive to write in the MXF format. And that was the whole problem! The HVX only writes in MXF format. Since the drive doesn't write the file, we were sold a product we couldn't use. Chris finally acknowledged that we could return the $1,200 paperweight back for a full refund. The bone of contention? Shining's website claims that the drive writes the P2 format and can be mounted onto the HVX200. Well... not so. Not yet.

Nikon D2H Shoot: Rebuilding East Baltimore?

(This was actually shot the day before, but I wanted to add a little something about this.)



The planners and dreamers are back at work, trying to come up with a solution to the blight in eastern Baltimore. The neighborhoods along North Av south towards the American Brewery (along Gay Street) are in a state of absolute depression. More vacant dwellings stand than occupied ones. The grocery stores have left, while the corner liquor stores operate daily. The children that live there can only play in the street or inside.

But Johns Hopkins has been working at acquiring a bunch of acreage and wiping the rowhomes off the map in order to develop north of the hospital. Meanwhile, Baltimore City plans on trying to get at least 100 homes in order to spark redevelopment north and west of where Hopkins has been demolishing.

Eric and I returned to the old American Brewery building, and people were busy inside, pounding beams together to reinforce the structure. The rain beat down on us, making me too lazy to pull my flash out and get that wet, in addition to my D2H as we knocked on doors to ask people's opinions. Turning the corner from Gay Street, we were invited inside Tyrone's home.

He loved to talk and told us how he had lived in the community since he was a child. But just up the street was Miss Ayda (not her real name). I love elderly women, especially when they have an attitude. Miss Ayda invited us in, but immediately covered her head with her hands, exclaiming, "But don't take no pictures!"

She told us how she stopped caring like she once did. "You get too old to worry about things," she said. "When it's not fun anymore, you just stop doing it." I was mesmerized by her stories, and wanted to absorb more of her 93 years. As she shared some thoughts about her parents ("...That's their names, but that's not my name," she said, forgetting that her mail was lying on the kitchen table), Eric started reflecting on his own deceased father and mother. For a moment, I forgot about photography, and simply absorbed the heart-felt thoughts that Eric revealed about wondering how many times he may have hurt his father or mother when they were alive. "I miss them," he finished, as Miss Ayda shared the pain of her adopted son turning mean on her. "Why do people get so mean?" she asked. With only the sights and words to gauge any kind of answer, I could only guess that his service in Korea may have changed him.

We then took to searching for any photos of Miss Ayda that may have been hanging or sitting in the living room. She had plenty of photos of cousins, children, grand children, and friends. "Can you even find one picture of me?" she challenged. "Go ahead; look around," Miss Ayda boasted, as I entered the living room. "Is this you?" I asked, knowing it couldn't be. It was her sister, but she told me to keep looking.

"Oh, I see you!" I said confidently, staring at the image of a woman's picture in the center of a cluster picture frame.

"What makes you think it's me?" Miss Ayda asked.
"Because you look like you're ready to kill the one taking your picture," I replied.

She burst out with laughter, her grey ponytails bouncing as she slapped her knees. The spontaneous words, "I love you!" jumped from my mouth as I reached for her hand, kissing the paper-thin skin. Even though she held firm, I so wanted to take her photo. Not for publication, but for myself. So many people see through their pictures. They want to capture a moment as a way to try preserving it forever.

Yet everything lives for but a moment in time.

PS: Check out Stars Of The Lid, if you like ambient music. I'm listening to some on iTunes, through SomaFm. It's spatial music, but it was nice to hear while writing this entry.