Photographers don’t live the high life. We don’t get the business-class seats on a work trip, but we do — sometimes — get amazing access to locations/perks that otherwise would have completely avoided us.

Today my job was to photograph Brock Mealer, a big University of Michigan football fan whose brother plays for the Wolverines, and who ironically studies in Ohio State University, Michigan’s biggest and most hated (an understatement) sporting rivals. Because he rubs shoulders with the players and coaches, sometimes he gets the opportunity to run the field after a home game. The powers that be want to feature him in the magazine, so after Michigan narrowly edged passed Indiana 36-33 today, we were allowed on the field for about 45 minutes. I just snapped away.

Although the day started off wet and miserable, the sun Gods were shining down on us when we got on the field. Blue skies and a mostly blocked sun rounded off the good fortune. Shooting at the stadium is a real peach because everything there is so symbolic (if you know the school and the tradition), so there wasn’t any dearth of shooting opportunities. My only nitpick was a few other people on the field made shooting angles a little trickier (so as not to have them in the photo) and I was not entirely successful in exclude unwanted details.

Being my first time on the field after more than a dozen times watching from the stands, I understood how much pressure the players are under, what with 100,000 pairs of eyes staring down at you. Far from what you may believe, The Big House doesn’t seem as majestic from the bottom than from all those aerial views from media balloons or even from the upper half of the stands. That said I still thoroughly enjoyed myself walking on the golden ‘M,’ the 50-yard line, and shuffling my shoes over the synthetic grass.

Here’s a quiz for you: how many of the items above were shot by yours truly, and how many kindly contributed by the companies that built them? This was a compiled graphic for my feature article in the Magnet 2009 magazine, which was produced in the spring.

Now here’s the answer: two. Can you guess which ones?

If you can’t tell, then I’m glad as that means I did a good job of compiling individual graphics and photos together so that they appear as seamless as possible, as though they were taken altogether in a studio. Of course, after all the source material was gathered, I used Photoshop to put it all together. It didn’t take very long (and I’m not the most efficient user out there), and if you’re curious how I pulled it off, read on.

Firstly, I had to shoot the Acer netbook and Apple iPhone myself, as these items were easily obtainable, while items such as the Plastic Logic and Fujitsu readers didn’t exactly exist yet in the market back then. I took a white projector screen for the backdrop and lined the netbook and iPhone nicely on a white glossy paper which was actually the back of a world map, lying around in the office. All this white makes extracting the images easier in Photoshop.

All that was left is to politely ask the relevant companies for media images of their products. Arrange them around a little bit, with a little more Photoshop, and the end-result is a compact, aesthetically-satisfying compiled graphic for my feature article on the new generation of e-book readers.

I’ve been paid for covering events — many times — but I had never actually sold a print. That changed yesterday when a friend of mine bought a 12″ x 16″ print of Mt. McKinley! It was matted in a 16″ x 20″ frame. On the photo is a heavily obscured Mt. McKinley, which is the highest peak in North America. “Denali,” as it is traditionally known, towers above the mountain range, and a sliver of its peak can be seen peeping from the clouds.

The shot was taken in June, 2009, on my trip to Alaska. We’d climbed Thorofare Mountain to get an elevated view, only to find McKinley still obscured by the clouds. Undeterred, we  stayed on top for 3 hours in the hope of catching it before the last bus departed. And cleared it did.

Mt. McKinley / Denali

According to statistics at the Eielson Visitor Center, McKinley is only visible for 4-5 days every June (because clouds gather around mountains) so we were terribly lucky indeed. The view is made all the more majestic because McKinley really stands out like a king on a throne. Even though it’s not even in the top-50 list of highest peaks in the world, here in the Alaska Range nothing else beats it.

And if anyone else would like a print, please don’t hesitate to ask for pricing!

Meet Herman Chiu — my new partner in amassing beautiful images to make clients gleefully happy. Our plan is to bring together a small team of photographers/videographers and charge camera first into the highly competitive pool of wedding and portrait photography. We’ve got a few details worked out, including pricing and shooting arrangements, now all we need are clients to stroll right in. Currently our working name for the ‘company’ is Perfect Shutter, but since I’m all for creativity without the cheesiness on top, I’m open to any wacky suggestions.

A one-man show is tough. You’re a shooter naturally, but you also take care of marketing, administration, and finances. Photography I can do well; I’m not so sure about the rest. Having a small team or a business partner does make sense in this regard, as responsibilities can be distributed. Bear in mind that neither of us have a business degree, so we’re still in experimentation mode. But at the very least we can share gear and offer clients the luxury of two shooters.

Although another friend has asked me to join her event photography business in NY, that’s more of a part-time job for them. Since I’m here in the midwest, there doesn’t seem to be any harm in doing a little entrepreneurship. Small overheads and a close team of like-minded individuals should lessen the risks. Of course there is no guarantee of success, and that level of success is highly dependent on who comes looking for our services. My hope is they’ll come, but we also need to have a veritable marketing plan to make that happen.

For the past month or two, I’ve been silently (and secretly) building up the tools needed for a rather modest set up to take good portrait photos. This of course, is loosely following the business plan to dive into portraiture. Even though I’ve dipped my fingers into the numerous honey pots (events, news, weddings), I feel portraiture is so universally accepted that I have to offer this service as well.

This inaugurating series is a mixture of both natural and urban shots, stylistically a cross between and fashion and senior photography. My goal has always been to come home with one great shot, and this is probably it. That doesn’t mean all the rest were mediocre. Truthfully, I’m very pleased with most of them.

But the day started horrendously, with me not accounting for the swarm of mosquitoes at the Ann Arbor Arboretum. Half the time was spent whacking or scratching myself rather than hitting the shutter button. Lu, who was equally frizzled, still came up with some great poses, to her credit. We had brought along additional clothing to change, but the biting put a damper to that, and the photos weren’t half bad that we needed to switch out.

As this is my first time with portraiture, I went into experimental mode, despite reading lots about how to shoot and looking through hundreds of photos prior to this day. I brought two lights with me, but we most only shot with one. Without an assistant, all the work is on me, from creative concept to cheap labor to execution. While the both of us tried to come up with new ideas, much of my inspiration stems from Joe McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries book, which I’m still in the middle of devouring. A review of that book will come soon enough.

In total we spent about 2+ hours shooting, over maybe five locations around the Arboretum. No way did we manage to cover the whole place. That concluded part one (the natural environment) of the photo shoot. Come back soon to look for part two.

PART TWO

The hiatus was longer than expected, but the wait was quite worth it. As said earlier, “urban” and “posh” were two critical words used as the creative force behind this second shoot. This time we had less time (it rained on us unexpectedly) and we stuck to one on-campus location for four of the five photos (the last one was in a residential house).

True blue Michigan Wolverines can probably recognize the urban background, but for everyone else, that’s the new wing of Michigan’s Ross Business School. This glossy extension to the old building of clay and bricks sticks out like a blinding light to the eye. The new building is more glass and concrete than perhaps any other building on campus. In terms of campus aesthetics, maybe not a good idea. But excellent for our choice of shooting that day.

However when we got there, the light was quickly fading. I tried to get the images to play more with the mighty pillars at the school’s front porch. Some worked, but it was also disappointing. Some ideas I’d envisioned in my head were a lot tougher to execute. Gear-wise, I didn’t have enough control over the lights. Sure makes my to-buy list longer by a foot! On my part, I do need to do more planning and preparation, rather than fly by wire and hope some inspirational lightning strikes me while on assignment.

[Show as slideshow]

Last Wednesday Parsons: The New School for Design hosted Photo District News‘ seminar for young working photographers. Attending were about 100 photographers of various fields. Some were fine art, others were commercial. Then there were a few photojournalists like me.

Moderated by editor Holly Hughes, the seminar involved a few of the latest ‘PDN 30′ photographers who shared their history in shooting, plus some rare tips of making money out of it. However those were hard to come by, as PDN’s photographers kept on yapping about their personal history. (For those who don’t know, PDN 30 is an annual recognition of the year’s 30 photographers to watch).

Clinton Cargill, picture editor of the New York Times magazine, and Brian Smith, Sony Artisan of Imagery (means he’s sponsored by them) were the most helpful as they provided more professional advice and applications. The PDN photographers felt flimsy and immature in their pursuit of photographic excellence.

The best part came after the seminar, where everyone could mingle while downing free wine and food. I spoke to a couple of strangers, and both turned out to be freelance photojournalists who had no formal training in it. Although in a sense they were competition, it’s heartening to see like-minded snappers struggling to survive in the same mine field of journalism.

Overall it’s been an experience, and one that photographers should take advantage of as they’re free, unlike many other workshops. If I hear of upcoming ones, I’ll be sure to post them here.