Weekly photos Jan #4
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series. You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series. You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Weekly photos Jan #3
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series. You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series. You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Billing Work Flow
I've always been curious about what work flow people have for billing. I know there are many great programs and online solutions. My work flow is always changing, so I need flexible tools. I prefer software-based solutions rather then web-only bas...
I've always been curious about what work flow people have for billing. I know there are many great programs and online solutions. My work flow is always changing, so I need flexible tools. I prefer software-based solutions rather then web-only based solutions because the software solutions can be integrated with the OS better. I'm often on location and need to be able to access information when I don't have an internet connection. I use Blinkbid for my contacts, estimates and invoices.
I use
for my calendar along with OX server to host my own
. This allows me to add and edit the calendar from all my computers and from my iPhone. The other thing I've found really useful about iCal is keeping track of billing. In the notes area of every job on the calendar I add the date when I invoiced the client and when payment was received. I also add a link to the original email that was sent and attach a copy of the invoice.
During the project I need to keep track of expenses that will help me when invoicing the client. For this I use
. I have a job log in Evernote that my assistant or I can fill out. The great thing about Evernote is that I can edit the job log from my iPhone, web or a desktop client.
When I'm on location I use
on my iPhone to add receipts. Scanner Pro then sends the receipts to Evernote. It makes adding receipts fun and easy.
After everything is billed and payment is received I use
to keep track of everything for the accountant.
Weekly photos Jan #2
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos"series.You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos"series.
You can read more about the series here. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/45-weekly-photos
Dwell Night Tables
No matter how long I spend on an image it's always a thrill to see it in the final layout. The images I shot with the dry ice a few months ago (http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/42-dry-ice) were just published in Dwell Magazine. Something about s...
No matter how long I spend on an image it's always a thrill to see it in the final layout. The images I shot with the dry ice a few months ago (http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/42-dry-ice) were just published in Dwell Magazine. Something about seeing the photo with the final text layered on it, in print, is so satisfying.
Weekly Photos Jan #1
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series
Here are some more photos from my "Weekly photos" series
Dwell planters
I just finished working on a shot for Dwell magazine showcasing modern planters. It was a fun and refreshing set because the "plants" were all made from hand-cut paper by a designer (who turned out to be a fellow RISD alumni). Here are some shots ...
I just finished working on a shot for Dwell magazine showcasing modern planters. It was a fun and refreshing set because the "plants" were all made from hand-cut paper by a designer (who turned out to be a fellow RISD alumni). Here are some shots from behind the scenes:
Merlin Steadicam test
http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=8070404&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=ff9933&fullscreen=1 I've been wanting to try out a Steadicam for my Canon 5D Mark II for awhile now. I wasn't sure which kind to get a...
I've been wanting to try out a Steadicam for my Canon 5D Mark II for awhile now. I wasn't sure which kind to get and the more research I did the more confusing it became. I finally concluded that the Merlin Steadicam was the best fit for what I needed.
I'm a strong believer in renting something before you buy. Everyone that I spoke to said that a Steadicam was something that needed lots of practice and it wasn't something you could rent for the day. I went against my own advice and bought the Merlin Steadicam. When the Steadicam arrived I thought I was going to pull it out of the box and start filming (duh, see above about the warnings regarding practice).
I spent most of the day learning to balance the camera. Setting up the camera was much harder than I thought. Once I got things configured I went out and started filming. My assistant Michael and I tested walking, running, panning, and walking on stairs. Things were looking good, but we wanted to test something that combined all the challenges at once. We found a block-long flight of stairs to test on that would work perfectly. We needed something to track as we were testing, so of course I volunteered to ride my bike down the stairs as Michael filmed.
I was very impressed with how smoothly things looked considering we didn't have much practice. If this had been filmed without the Steadicam the movie would have been extremely jumpy and unwatchable.
The purpose of the movie was really an exercise to see how the Steadicam would perform in a difficult situation with very little training. I was very happy with the results and am excited to see how much better it will look once we REALLY figure things out.
You can also watch the video on youtube.com http://youtu.be/PbiVNb7I65Y
Macworld: Puttin' it all togehter
I've just completed the opening photo for Macworld's annual Editors Choice Awards. It was a huge puzzle, because I had to take so many different photos and piece them together. The process of assembling the images is the big moment where you find ...
I've just completed the opening photo for Macworld's annual Editors Choice Awards. It was a huge puzzle, because I had to take so many different photos and piece them together. The process of assembling the images is the big moment where you find out if you've envisioned things correctly. As it turns out, just before I took the set of the red carpet down, I decided the photo needed more depth. I took another shot of the red carpet going into the photo rather than straight across the frame. Thankfully, I was able to make this change because when I photographed the people I had them stand to the left, right and center. This gave me the flexibility to move the people around and play with their final positioning.
Recognize that hand holding the award? It's mine. I don't normally use my hands in shots, but because of scheduling it just made things easier.
Rob at Macworld will be adding some words to the awning in the final design phase, but other than that the image is pretty much complete. Keep an eye on news stands for the magazine sometime in mid January.
Here's a link to the sketch that the photo was based on. http://www.peterbelanger.com/posts/46-the-sketch-that-started-it
The sketch that started it
Every year Macworld Magazine has an Editors Choice Awards issue. This year the concept for the article's photo is paparazzi and the red carpet. Below is the sketch that I made while I was on the phone with the art directorI realize the sketch does...
Every year Macworld Magazine has an Editors Choice Awards issue. This year the concept for the article's photo is paparazzi and the red carpet. Below is the sketch that I made while I was on the phone with the art directorI realize the sketch doesn't convey my art school education. Today I photographed various parts that will be compiled for the photo. Here are some photos from the process:
Weekly photos
As much as I'd love to share the behind-the-scenes details of every project, sometimes the clients don't want to be written about. I've started a new series of images taken while working, but not showing sensitive content. Most days I'm in the stu...
As much as I'd love to share the behind-the-scenes details of every project, sometimes the clients don't want to be written about. I've started a new series of images taken while working, but not showing sensitive content. Most days I'm in the studio shooting, and I have the curtains drawn for 10 hours. That really limits the subject matter of the images! It's kind of a fun challenge. I'll post my favorites at the end of each week.
Halloween
Photographing my kids for Halloween is fun, but isn't without challenges. One of the biggest issues is that it is so dark that the camera can't focus. Another challenge is that the kids move so fastrunning from door to doorthat it's hard to get th...
Photographing my kids for Halloween is fun, but isn't without challenges. One of the biggest issues is that it is so dark that the camera can't focus. Another challenge is that the kids move so fastrunning from door to doorthat it's hard to get them in focus! In the past I've used manual focus with a higher aperture which worked okay. I've also used the flash pulse to light up the scene so the camera can focus. This also worked okay, but overall I wasn't that happy with it.
This year I used my Surefire flashlight to light up a scene so the camera could focus and it worked great. What I like about the Surefire flashlight is that the light only stays on while the button on the back is pressed. When I let go of the button the light turns off instantly. This makes it easy and fast to turn the light on just long enough for the camera to focus. It is no surprise that this precision flashlight is what police officers carry.
It was convenient to be able to hold the light just under the lens and point it where I needed focus rather then have it mounted on the camera. Without the flashlight the photo above would have been completely out of focus. And for the record, I chose the photo above as an example simply because no faces are visible. I have more interesting shots, but not with usage permission of all the trick or treaters.
Dry Ice
Recently I had a shoot that called for a dreamy, cloudy effect. I decided to use dry ice rather then a smoke machine because dry ice smoke stays lower to the ground, which would highlight the products better. It sure makes a project interesting wh...
Recently I had a shoot that called for a dreamy, cloudy effect. I decided to use dry ice rather then a smoke machine because dry ice smoke stays lower to the ground, which would highlight the products better. It sure makes a project interesting when you have an uncontrollable, organic element in the photo. At several points most of the floor in my entire studio (not just the set!) was covered with the fogvery surreal.
On the technical side, the dry ice effect doesn't last very long and we had to come up with ways to prolong it. The dry ice becomes especially activated when placed in hot water. At first we used the hot water from the tap and it didn't fog up very high. We found that boiling hot water really made the fog go into overdrive. We rented 3 large coffee carafes and used them to make gallons of boiling hot water. Next time I might even use a 4th carafe. They are power hogs and kept blowing a fuse, so we had to put each one on it's own breaker.
Most of the time we placed the blocks of dry ice in bowls on the floor, which created a really nice, billowing, San Francisco fog look. I found that to give the fog some more shape it helped to pour it out of buckets. The fog looked great but it disappeared fast.
Overall, the dry ice and it's fog doesn't get things wet (hence the name dry ice). But because of the method of keeping it in hot water, sometimes when we poured the smoke from the buckets we also poured a little water on the floor. Luckily the fog covered the floor and the puddles were not visible.
Mailer
Like most photographers, I send out email campaigns. They have always been a great vehicle for self promotion. About a month ago I sent an email campaign to about 2,500 prospective clients. I was happy with the results (23% of the emails got viewe...
Like most photographers, I send out email campaigns. They have always been a great vehicle for self promotion. About a month ago I sent an email campaign to about 2,500 prospective clients. I was happy with the results (23% of the emails got viewed). As good as the results were, it was nothing compared with the success of my cover creation video.
The above 80,000 visits are over a 2.5 month period. Compare that to the results below which reflect a years worth of traffic. During most of that year I didn't have a blog so most of the traffic was to view my portfolio only. This further shows how important the blog is to my web site. That is why I've moved the link to my blog from the side menu to next to the portfolio linkit has become just as important.
Digital Lens
Now that I'm using the Phase One P65+ I've noticed that my non digital 150 isn't as sharp as it once was. I was using the Schneider APO-Symmar L lens 150/5.6. I've upgraded that to the Schneider APO-Digitar M lens 120/5.6.I did a very quick test o...
Now that I'm using the Phase One P65+ I've noticed that my non digital 150 isn't as sharp as it once was. I was using the Schneider APO-Symmar L lens 150/5.6. I've upgraded that to the Schneider APO-Digitar M lens 120/5.6.
I did a very quick test on a flat surface. The digital lens does much better with sharpens and retaining detail in the highlights. I photographed at f-16 rather than the optimal f-8 or f-11. I wanted to test the lens how I would be using it, which is mostly f-16 - f-22.
8 ft. Reflector
Here are some photos from a recent editorial photo shoot. I'm always happy when I get to incorporate my Profoto 8 ft. reflector.
Here are some photos from a recent editorial photo shoot. I'm always happy when I get to incorporate my Profoto 8 ft. reflector.
Macworld cover time lapse on YouTube
I've posted the Macworld cover time lapse video on YouTube. It's the same video just another avenue for viewing. The main difference is you can now watch the video from any mobile phone that supports YouTube, such as the iPhone. [youtube=http://ww...
I've posted the Macworld cover time lapse video on YouTube. It's the same video just another avenue for viewing. The main difference is you can now watch the video from any mobile phone that supports YouTube, such as the iPhone.
Casual photos part 2
I've posted before about finding time to photograph casually.Well when I'm on vacation I have a similar problem. My kids are still at that stage were they need my attention every waking hour. I've been working better at taking a second here and th...
I've posted before about finding time to photograph casually.Well when I'm on vacation I have a similar problem. My kids are still at that stage were they need my attention every waking hour. I've been working better at taking a second here and there to shoot things as I'm out and about with the kids. Here are a couple photos I took from my recent trip. Unlike my last postI kept my camera gear to a minimum. This time I only took the Canon 1Ds MarkIII with a 24mm-70mm lens. It worked well for most of the situations.
cover creation
After working on the latest cover for MacWorld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a s...
After working on the latest cover for MacWorld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a small amount of time. The only drawback of time lapse is that since half a day goes by in 30 seconds, the whole process seam so easy! Lots of details were left out of the design process (like the cover meetings and rounds of layout options). I began to photograph the design process after the layouts had already been narrowed down to just three cover designs.
On the technical side, for the time lapse video, I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm-70mm zoom. I chose the 5D because of its great image quality with high ISO's. Canon's sRAW1 gave me the flexibility of a RAW file with the file size of a jpeg. The actual Macworld cover was taken with a Phase One P65+ digital back attached to a 4x5 Sinar X camera with a 65mm lens.
Many thanks to Rob Schultz for allowing me to invade his office and literally shoot over his shoulder.
The music was used with permission by The Brokenmusicbox. You can see more of their music at
After working on the latest cover for Macworld Magazine I wanted to show what is involved in making a cover. I focused on the three main areas: the photography, photoshop and design. I chose a time lapse format to convey lots of information in a small amount of time. The only drawback of time lapse is that since half a day goes by in 30 seconds, the whole process seam so easy! Lots of details were left out of the design process (like the cover meetings and rounds of layout options). I began to photograph the design process after the layouts had already been narrowed down to just three cover designs.
On the technical side, for the time lapse video, I used the Canon 5D Mark II with a 24mm-70mm zoom. I chose the 5D because of its great image quality with high ISO's. Canon's sRAW1 gave me the flexibility of a RAW file with the file size of a jpeg. The actual Macworld cover was taken with a Phase One P65+ digital back attached to a 4x5 Sinar X camera with a 65mm lens.
Many thanks to Rob Schultz for allowing me to invade his office and literally shoot over his shoulder.
The music was used with permission by The Brokenmusicbox. You can see more of their music at http://www.myspace.com/tbmb
Air Conditioning
The air conditioner for the server room was finally installed today. It may not look like much, but it's going to make everyone happy. For those of you that have been in my studio, you know the servers made a lot of noiseI had to keep the door off...
The air conditioner for the server room was finally installed today. It may not look like much, but it's going to make everyone happy. For those of you that have been in my studio, you know the servers made a lot of noiseI had to keep the door off the room because the servers were so hot. Thanks to the air conditioning, the door could be reinstalled. What a difference! Now it is nice and quiet in the studio.