Klyment.com - Journal

2010.04.26: Karyn Decore for Avenue Magazine Edmonton

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-08-01T22:47:36Z

During a month of shooting mostly commercial architectural interiors and events, Paige Weir's request for me to shoot Karyn Decore, president of Decore Hotels, for Avenue Magazine Edmonton's Style Q&A feature for June was a welcomed invitation. A bit of research revealed that our subject-to-be was also very attractive and in excellent physical condition . . . I was excited. We discussed locations and toyed with the idea of shooting at one of the Edmonton celebrity's hotels without making it look like we shot out of town and while I sense that there was a realistic possibility that we could shoot outside of Edmonton considering that Karyn was actually in Banff when we began discussing the shoot, certain scheduling and support staff elements made it much more desirable for the team as a whole to shoot in Edmonton.

Fortunately, Paige has hookups. Years ago, I shot my first billboard for Derk's Formals in the Red Strap Market space just east of the Edmonton provincial court house. Since then, architect Gene Dub had purchased the building and it had become more difficult to book time in the space to shoot but Paige made the arrangement and, once again, I was in the space where I did my first shoot for my first commercial fashion client. I did a building walk through with an interesting and eccentric Austrian gentleman who works for Gene and we spoke briefly. Some things about the building have changed but, for what we needed the building for, much has remained the same. I walked through the ghostly floors observing the windows which had now been plastic-wrapped over to help reduce energy loss. Some floors had a dense layer of fine dust that was largely undisturbed and may have collected over several months or even years. The space had become more beautiful and more characteristic with unoccupation.

Below are some photos I shot during the walkthrough taken with the Leica M7 and the Zeiss Biogon 35mm F/2 on Fuji NPZ.

On the third floor. For the Derk's shoot we used this floor only for photos after dark because it didn't have enough light for what we needed to do with it. However, this floor and the broken ladder became the setting for my favourite photos from our shoot with Karyn Decore.

Under previous management we weren't allowed to use the top floor because of the exposed insulation but this time no one stopped us from using this spot. Shooting in the other direction, Craig Hobbs, co-shooter on this shoot, created what would become the cover for Avenue Magazine Edmonton's June issue.

We used these west-facing windows as primary lighting for the Derk's billboard. We shot Karyn with lens axis perpendicular to this wall and directly adjacent the south wall for the portrait-oriented full length.

Craig selected this area to shoot Karyn in piece from Edmonton designer Natasha Lazarowich's line Temna Fialka. The white wall parallel to the windows affords a photographer a lot of working room with generous fill light which we sought out to complement Karyn's dark hair and high cheekbones.

Having Craig on set gave art direction and I the confidence to shoot exclusively 4x5 film while Craig shot his D3. In fact, more of his shots ended up being published. Below, all photos shot with existing light on Portra 160NC with the jade green Toyo VX125 and either the Schneider Symmar-S 210mm F/5.6 or the Schneider Symmar-S 135mm F/5.6. Film processed by ABC Photocolour in Vancouver and wet-mount drum scanned in house on the Howtek Scanmaster 4500 driven by Aztek's Digital Photo Lab Professional software suite.

Craig's shot with similar pose and same location ended up on the cover. Depth of field at F/5.6 even on the 135mm lens was very shallow and with the slightest bit of subject movement the subject's face became slightly out of focus. The cover would require a the image to be cropped to about 1/5th of its original area. That said, due to the low levels of enlargement required to get even an aggressive crop of a 4x5 shot to full page size, the softness was not visible at final enlargement size, matching the sharpness of Avenue Edmonton's May cover shot by Bleacher and Everard, the American photographers that Avenue contracts for their US Style Q&A features. Shutter speed was approximately 1/8th of a second.

A full length published with approximately 1:1 enlargement for the story.

My favourite shot from the shoot. Fortunately it made it to print but at reduced size. Subtle front tilt, swing, and fall applied. I had forgotten to tap the film holder to ensure that the film was sitting square but there was enough cropping room left to correct for the rotation. I didn't fully correct the rotation here because Karyn's posture and the ladder's position seemed more natural with this much rotation even though the straight lines of the space emphasize the residual rotation.

Karyn was a lot of fun to work with being very patient and charismatic with lively eyes and she pulled off many outfits that most women don't have the physique to make work. Her support team consisting of her hairstylist (sorry, I don't recall her name), makeup artist, Bonnie Paxton, her stylist/stand-in/modeling coach Kendall (a former international model) and designer Natasha Lazarowich helped move the shoot along smoothly and made all of the looks very polished.

In the extended body of this entry you'll find some behind the scenes shots taken with the Leica M7, Zeiss Biogon 35mm F/2 on Delta 400 pushed to 1600 in Kodak Xtol in stock concentration.

The Toyo VX125 setup to compose the first shot of the day: the vertical full length in the animal print dress.

Karyn getting initial hair and makeup applied.

Bonnie applying makeup as her hairstylist looks on.

I think our hairstylist is taking out hot rollers but I'm not sure.

Few makeup artists I've met are cool enough to have their own director's folding stools.

Paige making sure we're all doing our jobs. With taller models my pop up dressing room is a lot of fun because most model's heads are totally above the top as they change.

Ravi brings Karyn's and his standard poodles to the shoot. We try to use her for a few shots but we failed to control this element well enough to consistently shoot deliverable photos.

Craig and Hardy discussing some history and particulars of the building.

Kendall helps Craig direct Karyn in the narrow split level area where he shoots her in one of Natasha's outfits.

Another view.

2010.05.18: Glendon leaves for Chile on a motorcycle

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-06-18T10:05:02Z

My parents have two sons. One is a son that no typical oriental parents would ever want. Being a photographer, large format digital print maker, and an entrepreneur he is, by definition, a professional artist without a steady income. He completed a four year business degree program in a school that in 2001 ranked below a school that doesn't even have a business program in the business school section of Maclean's Magazine's annual post secondary institution rankings. He felt it was a waste of almost a fifth of is life upon barely graduating in 2005. When many graduates can joke that all they are leaving with is this piece of paper worth about $20,000 and four years of intensive study, this son has actually managed to lose this piece of paper. They constantly worry about this son not eating properly because he is the only member of the family with clearly visible ribs and protruding hip bones. He alienates people with a ruthless and non-sympathetic attitude valuing only results and never rewarding for fruitless but noble efforts. The other son is who many Asian parents would not only be pleased to have as a son but would eagerly and proudly tell other Asian parents about. He completed his co-op chemical engineering degree from one of the most revered universities for this field, has maintained outstanding academic scores, participated in structured extra curricular activities, is a crowd-charmer, just returned from a research placement in Norway studying carbon recapture and will likely lead a respectable and stable career in something related to his degree. He makes friends easily and is well-liked. On top of all of this, this son works out and is in excellent physical condition.

My brother, the son that many Asian parents would dream of having, leaves for what could be over half a year on a dual sport motorcycle to South America. I know that my mother is very worried for my brother's safety because of all of the accidents she has seen on the news in North America and some truly horrific incidences involving single track motor vehicles back in Malaysia. But I told my mom not to worry; I have instructed my brother that in case of a serious and crippling accident, make sure he dies instead. And since I have refrained from motorcycling for the past few years due to heavy construction on many of the roadways that I normally use, she only stands to lose one son to a motorcycle accident. I guess the math makes sense but I hope that they both know that I am just kidding.

He checks in whenever there is internet access and a chance to Skype back home. It helps keep our mother's worries under control. You can follow his journey on his new blog. I'm sure it'd be cool if you wanted to contact him to say hello but if there is a message you'd prefer for me to pass to him or you'd like to be informed right away of the latest patch of pavement or piece of debris he collides just ask. His blog may have a posting delay since our mother has finally started checking it.

I took a few photos of him before he geared up and left with his friend Jan. At time of writing, Glendon is in Mexico and I believe Jan is returning to Canada to begin his medical residence. If you read this, Glendon, understand that most of the aforementioned is written in jest. It isn't just mom and dad that are proud of you; I am very proud of having you as a brother and I am envious that you are taking this trip. I don't worry for you but still hope that you return safely.

As unbelievable as it may look, this really is his bike and he really does have a Class 6 license.

All shot on Fuji NPZ in the Leica M7 and with the 35/2 and pushed from the rated ISO 800 to about ISO 1600 or so. I had shot some other content on this roll thinking it was Delta 400 that I frequently push to ISO 1600 so everything was exposed for ISO 1600.

Jan is an experienced rider and I think the whole family is glad that he was traveling with Glendon.

The last frame I shoot of my brother for who knows how long. I hope you have a great trip.

2010.06.05: Slide film sucks . . .

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-06-18T08:38:04Z

. . . for wedding photography. Or so I thought until I received two rolls of Fuji Astia 100 non-F back from my pro lab of choice, ABC Photocolour, after Dong Kim and I shot a wedding for a black couple (with mostly black wedding party) a couple Saturdays ago. I don't usually blog wedding photos nor do I advertise myself as a wedding photographer but I feel that I need to share these images with a larger audience because I regularly express my feelings of aversion towards positive film for existing light photography because of its narrower exposure latitude, lower maximum speeds available, and inconvenience since the closest good lab being in Vancouver. Up until recently, I would shoot almost exclusively Fuji NPZ/Pro-Z ISO 800 negative print film rating it at ISO 640 and Ilford HP5+ or Delta 400 at anywhere from ISO 100 to 3200 and processed in Kodak HC-110 or Kodak XTOL. I would then shoot formal portrait photos on a dSLR like the Nikon D300 or D3 because of the flexibility of shooting at a low base ISO, higher maximum shutter speed than my Leica M7 or Zeiss Ikon, and the often superior colour output with satisfactory black and white conversions. These two rolls of Astia 100 make film rangefinder photography outdoors for formal wedding portraiture totally feasible with my shooting style. Positive frame borders deliberately retained when scanning with the Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED. All but the first frame selected from a roll of thirty eight exposures.

And a huge thank you to Yvette and Alvin for selecting Dong and I as your photographers. I couldn't have hope for a better start to the wedding season. The baring of unfiltered emotions, the love shared by all of the wedding party and guests which have been cultivated, in some cases, for a period longer than I have been alive, the dozen high school aged female total strangers that you allowed to join your dance, and even the hour and a half of beautifully composed, delivered, and thoroughly entertaining toasts during the reception made shooting this wedding one of the most fun wedding shooting experiences I have ever had.

I shot this image last of the set being posted but it makes more sense to see this image first. It just happened that we shot the formal photos before the wedding ceremony. Shot with the Leica M7 at 1/1000s and F/2 through the Zeiss Biogon ZM 35mm F/2. It's also important to note that all of my M-mount equipment is in chrome/silver colour because the colour of the camera equipment has a huge impact on the images it creates.

One of the few shots with "real" wind blowing Yvette's veil. Leica 90mm F/2.8 Elmarit, first generation in chrome.

In retrospect, the photographic challenges imposed by very dark-skinned person in very white clothing without artificial light control in a slightly backlit scene should have turned any more risk-averse photographer away as inexperienced as I from trying film technology which is known to have less exposure latitude than professional negative films and modern professional digital still capture devices on a production shoot but I am glad that I took the risk. Zeiss Biogon 35mm F/2 @ F/2 and 1/1000s. Strangely, the bride's face turned out noticeably darker than the rest of her exposed skin. In the final deliverable photos I will likely lighten her face to be a bit more consistent with the rest of her body.

Alvin had an irremovable grin on his face the entire day. I struggled with it at first as I tried to create more dramatic and serious photos but as a photographer trying to take a contemporary approach to wedding photography I think it is more important to act as channel for the day's emotions than to try to create something untrue; Alvin really is the happiest groom that I have ever seen.

The problem with having only one roll of film loaded at a time is that you are stuck using whatever film you have loaded even when the situation changes. I originally wanted to shoot some HP5+ and let it overexpose a little by using it at rated speed and then processing in Ilfosol S as part of the non-formal coverage of the formal portrait session to allow for some noticeable grain structure but I had a few frames of Astia left loaded in the camera so that's what I used. Same settings as previous frame. I noticed that Astia 100's anti-halation measures may be weaker than with other films thus resulting in more "glow". The glow is further amplified by the dirt on my lenses that I refuse to clean off.

The graduating high school classes and the handful of other photographers with wedding parties at the Alberta Legislature were very co-operative keeping out of our field of views and giving us time to work. Which is good or else the bridesmaids were ready to muscle us through the crowds and maintain a perimeter. Still, I think someone's elbow is just into the frame near the bottom right edge. Leica M7, Elmarit 90mm F/2.8 first generation M-mount.

It was about time to leave the formals location when we realized that we needed some shots of just the couple. I haven't seen Dong's shots yet but he has some more dynamic arrangements. That said, a bench in the Lois Hole Garden east of the main building gave us what we needed to change up the terrain a bit.

Hahah . . . awesome.

With the exception of a handful of shots during the ceremony and some ISO 12,800 shots during the reception, I was Nikon D3-free for the entire day. This allowed me to pack a two camera digital/analog hybrid system with the M7/35mm Biogon/90mm Elmarit and the GH1/20mm 1.7/14-140 with twenty rolls of film in a bag with total weight around 8lbs. If you're wedding shooter looking to lighten up your kit I highly recommend considering the combination of the GH1 and an M-mount rangefinder like the modern Zeiss Ikon, Leica MP, Leica M7 or, if you can deal with the replacement of chrome with paint on a Leica body, the Leica M9.

2010.05.30 flojuggler!

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-30T09:28:39Z

Ethan posted this in a forum considered by many of its users as one of the few places on the internet where you can get honest feedback to photographic work. He posted the link with the ironic text "[o]h man, this app is going to streamline my life." flojuggler is a website that allows you to track the menstrual cycles of up to ten women at time of posting. The creator has an FAQ with some creative applications for this website. Anyhow, why Ethan's comment is ironic is because other than his mom, I doubt there are other women in his life to track.

On second thought, Ethan probably shouldn't be tracking his mom's menstrual cycles anyway but thanks for the link!

2010.05.21: Binatone iDECT X5 Phone

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-22T04:15:25Z

I was looking for a unique land line phone with sharper lines like those in my HTC Touch Diamond GSM and came across Binatone's iDECT X5 phone. I ordered the phone through a UK seller on eBay because I was unable to find a North American seller and because all of the European sellers wanted £40-70 ($60-$100) or about 50% more than the eBay seller and wouldn't ship out of Europe. Overall, the phone is beautifully designed with thoughtfully laid out keypadand call quality is excellent. Fit and finish is good though the AAA NiMH batteries (included) rattled inside the battery chamber a bit due to poor fitting band because they were stacked linearly and not in parallel. Fixing the rattle was easy; I wrapped a bit of tape around each battery and reinstalled them. The body of both the handset and the stand are made of plastic but the finish is no uglier than that of the blasphemously-painted top plate of the silver $9000 Leica M9 digital rangefinder cameras. But maybe some people prefer the damage-prone plastic-y painted finish over the chrome or black chrome finishes of the current pre-M9 Leicas considering Leica now offers to paint instead of chrome your M7 or MP for an extra $100.

Box shot. Yes, it's beat up but hey, I work with what I get. Plus it's probably the only box shot for this phone on the Internet at time of writing. The graphic design on the exterior of the box is attractive and the printing quality is satisfactory.

The phone in front of the base, adapter, and a plug adapter that I picked up from Black's for the system. I checked London Drugs for a plug adapter and they didn't have a physical plug adapter but had a universal adapter with interchangeable tips that would completely replace the packaged adapter for $15. A sales rep suggested that I check out The Source and 220 (I think it's spelled like that) at West Edmonton Mall. The Source had physical plug adapters but they wanted $15 just for those. Zellers didn't have universal adapters or plug adapters and suggested that I check out London Drugs or the Source. As I was about to exit Kingsway Garden Mall I decided I'd stop into Black's and check. They had a well-built plug adapter for $9. I'm guessing that Princess Auto would have them cheaper and had I been more patient, I could have asked my parents to bring me an adapter from home because they have lots of that sort of stuff.

Phone on its base. The base has a recorded message counter. My criticism of the base is that it may be a little too minimalistic in that there is no large "guide" to help a user who attempts to sloppily replace the phone to quickly get it back into place. It also lacks the audio and visual feedback of plugging in/charging that my Netgear SPH-200 Skype/Standard Dual Phone offers. Still, these are minor complaints.

Photos shot with the tungsten modeling lamps of Norman IL2500 Illuminator heads modified with a Chimera Video Pro Plus Medium and the Norman 22" beauty dish with diffusion sock attached for frontal lighting all driven by the Norman D24r power pack and captured through a 25mm F/1.4 CCTV lens @ F/1.4 on the Panasonic DMC-GH1. Underneath is the next piece of 18ga aluminium that I am about to clean, sand, clean, precoat, print, and varnish for a client.

2009.07.11 Rescued by drum scanner

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-19T06:25:21Z

Well . . . sort of. This frame has been on my list of 4x5's to rescan once I got the drum scanner up and running. We shot this almost a year ago when we were scouting that abandoned house site north of Bon Accord.

If I recall correctly, this film was Ilford HP5+ shot at stock speed and processed in Kodak HC-110 Dilution B. The fixer had been exhausted or had otherwise gone bad and my usual policy to peek into the tank after the first two minutes of fixing probably killed the film. I closed up the tank and remixed a batch of fresh fixer but the damage had already been done. Still, kind of a neat look for the frame. Photo shot with the Sinar X and Schneider Symmar-S 210mm F/5.6. Colours deliberately retained and levels adjusted so that the maximum amount of tonal information would be retained which doesn't always mean the scan will be neutral or linear.

At left is the negative from which I made the previous scan and to the right is a properly exposed and developed frame shot on the same film for comparison.

2010.05.17 Activating Colour Management in Google Chrome

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-17T17:30:57Z

Google Chrome has been colour space aware since version 3 (I think) but a recent search for "Google Chrome colour management" on Google, ironically, did not yield instructions for how to activate it. For this reason, and for personal reference, I am posting the instructions here. I have only tested this functionality in Windows Vista but I am guessing that Windows XP w/ Windows Color Control Panel installed and Vista and beyond plus Mac OS should work similarly.

In your shortcut to launch Google Chrome you'll need to add this switch after whatever you find in the "Target" box in the shortcut's properties:

--enable-monitor-profile

So it should look something like:

Now just make sure that you use the shortcut and not some other way to launch Chrome and you should be set. Hopefully Google will integrate colour management settings into a control panel similarly to how it is handled in Firefox.

2010.05.12: Art Gallery of Alberta's Art on the Block event . . . with the Panasonic DMC-GH1

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-17T06:19:40Z

My Panasonic DMC-GH1 Micro Four Thirds camera with the standard 14-140mm kit lens and the 20mm F/1.7 that's normally packaged with the Panasonic GF1, Rode NTG-2 microphone and shock mount arrived the morning of the day I was to shoot the Art Gallery of Alberta's Art on the Block silent auction fund raising event. It is the first Art on the Block event held by the gallery since it has been reopened as the Art Gallery of Alberta and, fittingly, it was the first time that I was to shoot any event with a camera with a smaller capture area than that of the APS-C sized dSLR sensor as the primary camera. While I packed the Leica M7 and the 35mm F/2 Zeiss Biogon I only shot a half roll of Ilford Delta 400 at ISO 800 and I have yet to process the film. The digital files have already been delivered to the AGA. I don't normally blog about event photos but I feel that being comfortable shooting this event with, effectively, an interchangeable-lens high end point and shoot digital camera, as the official photographer says something about the viability of using such a system for serious photographic work. I have already joked to Dong Kim, Ethan Oblak, Corey Thompson, Justin Poulsen, Craig Hobbs, and Leanna about quitting shooting with Nikon dSLRs for small format work and while I don't really intend on selling off my Nikon gear, I don't see a need to pack it for event work anymore. For the foreseeable future, I intend to shoot events with just the GH1 and the Leica M7 and their complement of lenses.

All photographs shot with the Panasonic 20mm F/1.7 and processed in Adobe Lightroom 2.x. Most of the shots were made at least three quarters of a stop underexposed . . . sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally. I had just gotten the camera and had accidentally changed exposure compensation without figuring out how to change it deliberately until later in the night and, at least for this evening, camera had a tendency to underexpose to preserve highlight detail even if the photographer made no exposure compensation offset. Thank you to Adam Neufeldt at McBain Camera for helping me with my purchase.

The main auction and entertainment area.

Mid-action awkward facial expression and body position shooting started pretty early.

This scene is heavily backlit which proves that the camera handles scenes with high contrast acceptably. There were shots in which the sky is blown out but it doesn't blow out in a way that most smaller sensor-equipped cameras typically blow out the sky.

I was worried that the less oblong 4:3 aspect ratio of the camera would impact my hand held compositions but was pleasantly surprised to find that all of the visual elements that I wanted to incorporate into my shots fit naturally. The 4:3 aspect ratio feels more similar to the 4:5 aspect ratio of the Toyo VX125 than it does to the 2:3 aspect ratio of almost all of my other cameras and the Toyo is always shot on a tripod.

The camera lacks an optical viewfinder and typical auto focus points that you would find in a normal SLR with a mirror. Instead, the camera uses contrast-based autofocus off of the image picked up by the sensor like what most point and shoot digital cameras use or like the contrast-based autofocus found in the Nikon D3 and D300 when in tripod live view mode. Except this auto focus is very snappy . . . snappy enough to capture certain people's facial expressions before they recognize me. Autofocus is comparable to that of the D300 in similar situations though I know many would argue that the D300 may still be faster.

The backlit donor wall has been a challenging background to use when tuning for natural skintones even with the Nikon D3 but the GH1 seems to handle the situation satisfactorily. White balance was unaltered from the original capture with only some adjustments made to brightness and contrast.

Using the "automatic everything" autofocus mode was convenient and fun though about 10-20% of the shots could have been focused better. That said, the shots weren't completely out of focus; one would sometimes prefer to have a face facing the camera in focus than the back of a head but the photographer could opt for a more deliberate autofocusing mode.

One of the major complaints of the Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds format is that the smaller sensors lead to shorter focal lengths being used for the same angle of view as one would achieve with a larger sensor. However, when lens manufacturer's follow through with one of the original design and marketing pushes of offering wider relative aperture lenses, one can easily overcome the increase in comparative depth of field with wider apertures. All of this in a lens that barely protrudes from the camera body more than the grip.

Processing almost 250photos in about an hour after shooting them was pretty easy considering how Lightroom worked with the raw files. It seems that automatic white balance information was fully communicated through to the software and the white balance information gives the photographer a useful start from which to tune. That said, at ISO 1600 and above and under mixed artificial lighting conditions white balancing a Nikon D3 file would yield cleaner tonal transitions and with more pleasing and natural skintones.

This image along with a few of the other images from the set exhibited some interesting blur around faces. I don't know what kind of camera and subject movements could have created the blur around the gentleman's face while keeping the face of the lady in red relatively sharp and in focus in the way we see it here but I don't find it objectionable.

Tracking movement with this camera was similar to tracking movement with a Contax G1 or G2, Zeiss Ikon, or Leica M7. On top of that, one could very quickly achieve focus and continually maintain focus as subject and camera moves unlike the Leica M-mount range finders which would require the photographer to predict distance changes and continue focus adjustment blindly unless one were to compose with subject under the rangefinder patch in the middle of the frame. In the case of the Contax G system, there is no way to focus track without keeping part of the subject under the single auto focus point. Like comparisons to the Nikon D3, these may not seem like relevant comparisons but when choosing a camera for a particular assignment we need to consider what the absolute best tool for the job is and not just what works within a certain budget or which cameras review best by non-photographers running review websites reviewing under hypothetical laboratory conditions.

The 20mm lens rendered subjects in close range attractively and without objectionable distortions that even lenses like the Nikon or Canon 17-55mm F/2.8 lenses typically render when shot in landscape and at under 35mm.

Obviously not shot by me but this photo goes to show how easy it is for someone who has never used this camera before to pick it up make a technically-sound photo. Furthermore, I am far from being model material and I am long overdue for a hair cut but by Klyment-standards this looks pretty good.

2010.05.07: Howtek Scanmaster 4500 Up and Running!

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-07T05:46:53Z

Just a quick update since I'm still working through a backlog of scanning. Most of the new scans are still under embargo. Full artist profile associated with this photo to come. I'm still pretty new at the mounting thing but I feel that my colour management experience has made the colour handling part of learning this new technology fairly painless. If anyone needs some drum scanning done in the next month or so I'm willing to do drum scans to 16bit per channel TIFFs at up to 4000DPI for just $20/scan plus $10/mounting and burned onto your choice of DVDs or Blu-ray discs. For 4x5's I can comfortably mount two frames per mounting but have been having luck with the last two mountings in which I put four sheets of film. For 6x6 I'm guessing I can get six to twelve frames in per mounting.

Christina and Aaron Ignacio-Deines' dining room, as styled by Christina and Aaron Ignacio-Deines. Shot with the Schneider 72mm F/5.6 Super-Angulon XL on the Linhof Technikardan 45s. Filtered with a Lee 80A polyester filter. Kodak Portra 160 VC. F/8. 30s exposure.

Unsharpened 100% crop from the previous image. Scanned at 4000DPI on the Howtek Scanmaster 4500 drum scanner (circa 1994) driven by Aztek's fantastic Digital Photo Lab Professional software. Fluid mounted with Kami fluids and Aztek-packaged optical mylar. Full resolution 16bit per channel/48bit TIFF is almost 2gigs. The "noise" that you see here is film grain, not digital noise.

2010.04.30: Stuff I'm Selling

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-05-01T03:24:39Z

Here's a link to Klyment's Garage Sale so it's not a giant ugly sticky clogging the top of my blog. Thanks, Leanna, for the suggestion.

2010.03.09: Avenue Spring Fashion Feature

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-04-29T05:40:23Z

I was hoping to make a bunch of chronologically-ordered posts but I figured it may be a good idea to get this entry out before the current issue of Avenue Magazine Edmonton is off the stands. We were originally scheduled to shoot a week earlier but due to some scheduling conflicts we moved the shoot to March 9th. Capture was destined to be all digital so the later shoot date didn't seem to scare Paige Weir, our art director, as much as it sometimes does when I try to convince her that I should be shooting 4x5's or film rangefinders or something similarly de-evolutionary. Below you'll find a one-sided discussion of the results of several hours of planning spread over several weeks. We reviewed, or rather, Paige reviewed and I suggested numerous models for this shoot and she finally settled on three beautiful and extraordinary models who had the unlucky fate of having to meet us early at the studio with two of the models coming from out of town and shooting with us for a solid nine hours. Most of these photos didn't make it to the magazine but you can see low resolution versions of the files in the article on Avenue Magazine's website.

Makeup by Adrianne Thomson, hair and styling by Nikolas and assisted by Jacqueline Ohm, music on set by Corey Thompson, and Craig Hobbs and Adam Goudreau assisted on the photographic side of things. Julie and Jessica are represented by Sabrina Notte and her agency, Deja Vu Modeling International of Red Deer, Alberta. Nikon D3X loaned to me by Huy Sam and Manfrotto Autopole/Expan system loaned to me by Curtis Comeau.

I first saw Kayla in the parking lot behind my studio last year. She was dropping off promotional supplies for a beer company that she represents to the pub on the main floor when I spotted her in the parking lot as I was moving some paper up. I told Corey, who happened to be at the studio. I needed Corey to convince me that I would regret not getting her number to shoot her in the future and Corey did what I hoped that he would do. I got her number and a year later she ends up on the cover of Avenue Edmonton. This photo was my favourite from the yellow dress set but another photo was chosen for the cover. Shot with the D3X and the 135 F/2 Defocus Control Nikkor. Key lighted with a 22" Norman beauty dish and sock with centre dome in place, filled with a Chimera Video Pro Plus large strip, and rimmed with a Chimera Video Pro medium softbox with Lighttools 20degree Soft Egg Crate from the right all driven with the Norman D24r and Norman IL2500 heads. Background lit with a bare reflector on a Bowens Esprit Gemini 500.

Avenue Edmonton April 2010 cover.

Julie modeling one of the outfits that didn't make the cut. It's one of my favourites from the shoot. Hopefully Nikolas will notice this entry and leave comments as to where all of this clothing is from. Similar lighting to cover but shot with the 70-200/2.8 VR Nikkor.

Jessica modeling another outfit that didn't make the cut.

This outfit actually made the cut but with a softer facial expression for Kayla. Jacket by L.A.M.B. from Thread Hill. A scarf from She Matters is being used in the model's hair. And I love the suspenders but don't know where they are from.

A less weird shot from this set made it to press.

Another outfit that didn't make it to the magazine.

The collar on this coat was such a pain. It wouldn't stand for more than a few seconds on its own but I think that Julie made it look as good as it was going to look in photos. It looked great in real life.

A shot from Craig's Leica M3 and 50mm Leitz Summitar on Ilford Delta 100 processed in stock working solution of Kodak XTOL but then fixed in stale fixer. I should have done a clip test before fixing. A certain someone who was working for my studio had significant loss of working solution when they used it introducing a lot of air into the bottle which I suspect caused the premature failure of the fixer.

More discussion of the shoot in the extended body of this entry.

Those reading this entry from Edmonton know of the difficulties of doing seasonal shoots or swimwear within the city. It's May 2nd and we are just starting to see buds on trees. Spring content easily needs to be shot a month or two before it is meant to circulate so outdoor shooting options are non-existent. There are few indoor shooting locations so we often resort to shooting on background papers. Paige saw a photo from another shoot with a light blue background and while that shoot was done with a white background and then just colour tuned to have a cool cast overall, we managed to find a decent match for the colour in Savage Paper's Mist Blue.

To give the shoot a more summer-y look, the photographic team created a lighting design that was fairly low contrast without being too flat or boring. It was a fortunate decision in a number of aspects. Adrianne chose to use makeup products that looked "wetter" or sometimes metallic and would otherwise be very difficult to photograph properly had the lighting been more contrast-y. Her choice of makeup seemed to be something that Nikolas rarely ventured into because of his concern for the guys handling the lighting and the camera but Adrianne's more aggressive makeup choice paid off in what I feel is a fresh and glow-y look that worked very well for this shoot.

Choosing to use Huy's D3X may have been a mistake. Not a mistake in that the camera failed to perform but that the D3X lent little to the shoot save for a nominal sensitivity of ISO 100 and a reverse-boosted ISO 50. The larger files contained little to no additional image data and while tethering to a desktop we often saw backlog of images of up to a minute. But to be fair, I recall not turning lossless RAW compression on until after the shoot was done. In the future continue to use the D3 for tethered commodity type fashion shooting. And now with the drum scanner fully installed I am tempted to try some high throughput fashion shooting with some film SLRs and rangefinders if the need arises for a black and white shoot or something that could benefit from interesting chemical processing.

2010.04.11: Content to come!

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-04-12T01:36:33Z

Here's a quick teaser note about what I'll be posting over the next two days:

Details about my drum scanner purchase (Please note that my Microtek M1 scanner w/ the full Silverfast AI Studio software suite is now for sale for $675)
What I'll be doing in California March 14th to 21st
Avenue Magazine Edmonton's spring fashion feature/cover shoot (April/current issue)
Architectural photography portfolio

Some other stuff that will be coming but may not be in the next two days

HOPEFULLY some updates to my general portfolio
Acquisition of my dream camera, the Toyo VX125 in Jade Green
The rationale behind and purchase of some Norman lighting
Recommendations for building a very capable photography workstation and discussions of related equipment purchasing strategies

My phone number while I am in California: 310.774.6687

2010.02.28: In Three Days . . .

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-03-01T01:21:27Z

. . . I promise to have my studio fit for a shoot with three mainstream specification female models, makeup artist, hairstylist/stylist, art director, two assistants, and tag-along.

Shot of my "war room" table on Delta 400 pushed to 3200 in XTOL stock solution. Processing [mis]handled by Rico Moran.

Both images in this entry shot with the Zeiss Biogon 35/2 and the Leica M7. Same film and processing as previous shot.

2010.02.25: Folding@Home Top 1000 out of 1,362,305 participants!

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-02-25T20:27:22Z

Well . . . more like top 900. If you're not familiar with the Folding@Home project you should check out their website. In short, the project co-ordinates the spare computing power of many computers interconnected by the Internet to act as one single, loosely-coupled distributed super computer to help scientists understand protein misfolding-related illnesses. The headline diseases are cancer and Alzheimer's of there are many other diseases the scientists using this system research. Less interestingly, there is little evidence to support the conspiracy theory that Folding@Home participants are helping Stanford University develop biological weapons. There are also some arguments against running Folding@Home if you care to read through them.

I have a few computers around the city running various Folding@Home clients. The one's in my studio are running on a few overclocked Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550's (3.4+ GHz), an overclocked Intel Core i7 920 (3.7GHz), two Nvidia GTX 275's and one Nvidia GTS 250. The machines are left online so that automated off-site backups and maintenance can complete uninterrupted and without interrupting work during the day. These other processes are not computationally intensive so I might as well put them to work.

2009.09.12: 310-DUMP Franchise Package

nospam@example.com (Klyment Tan) — 2010-02-18T09:38:00Z

I first shot 310-DUMP over five years ago making the company my first commercial client. Before that I had only shot weddings and model and actor portfolio work. I met Greg Kirkwood, founder, president, and CEO, at The Standard when I was shooting an event at the night club. All I am going to say about that meeting was that it was an interesting and late night. Shortly after, Greg gave me a call as he had some freshly-painted trucks that he needed shot and so began our working relationship.

Fast-forward to 2009, 310-DUMP has been thriving for fourteen years and is primed to franchise. They select Nabeal Mansour's Media-Masters Creative Communications Inc. as the agency to develop a new website and a franchise package. 310-DUMP recommended me to their ad agency. The budget for the project was limited, Media-Masters is still considered a relatively small ad agency, we were shooting fairly late in the season to shoot non-seasonal-looking content, and the expectations were high but we prevailed as a team. I felt that we were often arguing but perhaps it is through strife that we realize our greatest work and I doubt that we could have produced a much better marketing materials for a service as base as waste management. Over a hundred person-hours went into model casting and planning even before any photos were taken and I can't even imagine many hours Matthew Fagnan - the designer behind the website and print elements of the project - spent to plan the visual elements and to work on the final assembly. While the product may seem simple, it represents the culmination of weeks of work by some of the most capable people in their fields with whom I have had the honour to work.

Concepts co-developed by Elizabeth Szabo and Nabeal Mansour with some input from Greg Kirkwood, Sam Soliman, and myself. Hair, makeup, and styling by Nikolas for the first day of shooting and we worked without aesthetics support for the remaining shoot days. Shoot assistant was Ethan Oblak for the entire project. The model list is huge and I don't have everyone's full name but if any of our models see this entry accept my sincerest thanks.

All delivered photos shot with the Nikon D3 and either the Nikon 24-70mm F/2.8, the 135mm F/2 Defocus Control Nikkor, or the 70-200mm F/2.8 VR Nikkor version 1. Shoot candids taken by Ethan with a Zeiss Ikon, Zeiss Biogon 35mm F/2 on Kodak Ektar.

Matthew's concept drawing of the interior of the franchise package folder. The booklet pulls out and reveals an unobstructed view of the house in the background. Everything is drawn to scale in relation to how it should look in the actual folder. The concept drawing made the end goal easy to understand but finding a house that was tall enough with enough lawn in front to allow for the proper placement of the elements required to print over the folder was nearly impossible. On top of all of this, because of the amount of space and the shooting angle required, ideally you'd want a south-facing house on a slightly overcast day but with blue sky behind the building. We settled for a nice house that was close enough and Matthew "grew" a fence and lawn and composited the family onto the lawn.

Matthew's concept drawing of the outside of the folder.

And a sample page of the interior of the drop-in booklet.

The photo concepts were meant to appeal to specific customer types who would be likely to use 310-DUMP's services. In this photo, Mike Isaak and Brandy act as the happy couple working on home renovations. Interestingly, 310-DUMP doesn't haul paint or any hazardous wastes but Elizabeth's idea to have the couple covered in paint and Nikolas' careful application of the found acrylic paint helped polish up the look of the shot. The photos were shot to allow as wide an aspect ratio as possible to minimize the amount of height consumed on the web pages they would be used on.

A franchise owner pepping his workers at the beginning of a new day.

An engineer and construction workers in front of a construction site.

Christine Hopaluk and another Matt (I hope that's his name) pose as customer and 310-DUMP employee finishing some paperwork.

Mother and daughter (who aren't actually mother and daughter) spending time together after booking full service waste pickup with 310-DUMP.

Most of 310-DUMP's full service residential bookings are made by women so most of the full-service oriented imagery feature women as the customers.

It's a lot of work getting back up after having settled into the ground for the right angle for a shot so Nabeal got down to have a peek. Of course Ethan had to choose the worst possible moment to snap a photo of us discussing composition.

The shot of the young couple renovating was made from a slightly higher angle. An adjacent home's white wall provided the necessary fill for this shot.

Sometimes we find the best camera positions in some of the most unlikely places. Ideally I wanted the shade of a tree right where our models would be but Garth did a great job standing in for one with the Scrim Jim and a blocking screen.