 ...some information on how my photos are created
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photographie par richard murrian - richard murrian photography - photographie par richard murrian - richard murrian photography - photographie par richard murrian
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richard murrian photography - photographie par richard murrian - richard murrian photography - photographie par richard murrian - richard murrian photography
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DISCLAIMER: The portion of this page dedicated to "gear" is provided simply as a reference for those interested in comparing what I use to their own tools of choice, or those just starting out looking for iideas of what to buy. BEAR IN MIND- It is *NOT* your equipment that makes your photographs- YOU do! What you use is not even a 10th as important as HOW you use it. The old adage that states "a poor workman blames his tools" rings true in the case of photography. Without question, a bad photographer wielding a $7000 Hasselblad kit will still produce bad photos while a good photographer can produce excellent results using a $20 second hand 20 year old Vivitar SLR. Take this info below for what it's worth but no more than that. THEGear |
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The Pentax 67 Medium Format SLR
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CAMERAS: I use Pentax cameras. Well, with a small caveat. I'd used Pentax 35mm film cameras from when I began pursuing photography seriously in 1998 until I switched to digital in early 2002. The best 35mm film camera I've ever used is the Pentax MZ-S, a professional 35mm SLR, and one of the most unique and ingenuitous cameras ever made. When it became neccessary for me to have a digital capability, I switched to Nikon as Pentax offered no digital solution at the time and Nikon seemed to have the better of Canon after testing both systems. At that time I grudgingly sold my Pentax system and bought a Nikon D1x and a F80 film body. The D1x and I had a nice honeymoon period, then it became clear it wasn't the camera for me. Too heavy, too bulky, and with a horrid button layout (no AE lock on the vertical position?!? What were you thinking Nikon???). After a time I switched to the D100. This camera I liked! Light, great feel, better photo quality than the D1x in fact, and great button layout. Unfortunately, within it's first 60 days it was returned to Nikon for service *3 times*. A bit of research on the Internet revealed a "out of the box defective" rate of nearly 40% for this camera. Not good. Then we have the F80. No, this is not a "pro" body and it would not be fair to compare it to the Pentax MZ-S. But I went with the F80 as I expected most of my work would be digital from that point on and expected the film body to get little, if any, use. And that's what happened- it got little use. Yet, on only it's 5th time out of the bag, the motor drive when out. Back to Nikon it went. So, my experience with Nikon has been (1) Unhappy with the design of the "pro" digital and (2) Repeated defects with the digital and film "enthusiast" products. I'd be very hard pressed to recommend the Nikon line to anyone just getting started. That said, my friends that use the Nikon F100, F5, and older manual bodies are very happy with them, and if you need a pro sports or war journalism digital camera, the D1-series might be right for you. Now, back to Pentax... After working with digital for several months, I realized that, as remarkable as digital is, it still has some shortcomings. It is still lacking some of the qualities of film in a way I can't really articulate, but the holes are there nonetheless. I decided I needed to continue to shoot film as well, but decided that if I was going to begin shooting some of my work on film again, I wanted something more substantial than 35mm. I'd been dabbling with medium format for a few years using a Russian made 6x6 SLR, but decided I needed a more serious MF camera. I choose the Pentax 67, which is one of the world's most popular and respected MF cameras, having a design quite similar to a 35mm SLR, but delivering a transparency of 6 x 7 cm in size. Now, I use the Pentax 67 together with my digital SLR during shoots. As far as digital, I have the new Pentax *ist D digital SLR on pre-order so will have one the day it releases, and in the meantime, I continue to use the Nikon D100- which really is a nice camera were it not for the repeated malfunctions. I do not shoot much 35mm film anymore, but when I do, I am currently using an old Pentax LX manual SLR, though just to have one, I'll likely pick up another MZ-S sometime soon... just in case! One other big advantage of Pentax: Your 35mm, digital, and MF systems can all be from the same manufacturer and even share the same lenses. Nikon, Canon, or Minolta do not offer this. |
The Pentax *ist D Digital SLR
(July 2003) |
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| LENSES: Every experienced photographer knows that more important than the camera body itself is the lens that's attached to it. In this area, my motto is simplicity. Firstly, I avoid zooms. Virtually all my lenses are primes. Further, I prefer to work with what is called the "standard" or "normal" lens. In 35mm film photography, virtually all my photos are shot using a 50mm f/1.4. On the 6x7 camera, I use only a 90mm f/2.8. On the digital, I use a Sigma EX 28mm f/1.8- however, you must realize that on most digital SLRs, the CCD sensor is smaller than a 35mm film frame so the focal length of the lens is increased. A factor of 1.5 to 1 in the cases of the Nikon D100, D1x, and Pentax *ist D. This means that the 28mm effectively becomes a 42mm lens when attached to these DSLRs (28 x 1.5 = 42). So in fact, I use a "normal" lens for virtually ALL of my photography. Yes, I do have a few other lengths, but they don't see much use. An exception would be a very strange and quirky T-mounted manual "soft" lens I use called a Dreamagon. This lens is produced by a small company in Germany and is a extremely simple manual lens that uses a fully manual "triad of triangles" diaphragm and produces very unique "impressionistic" effect. It is difficult to use, throws the camera's TTL metering completely off, and is a painfully long 90mm (135mm on the digitals) which keeps me further away from my subject than I prefer to be, but it is capable of producing some striking, highly "painterly" images. Any of my photos that look extremely like paintings were likely produced with this lens. That said, I use it probably less than 5% of the time. Returning to the regular lenses... 3rd party lenses have a bad reputation, often deserved. However, in the case of the Sigma EX professional series of lenses, it is not. These are a fantastic range of lenses and you should check them out- In their wideangles (the 20, 24, and 28mm series), they offer the fastest apertures going at a lightning fast f/1.8. Give them a whirl and you won't be disappointed I promise. Excellent glass. |
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PRINTER: I'm jumping a bit here... When it comes to serious Inkjet printing, Epson reigns supreme. I've owned a series of Epsons, and I believe there is no other serious option in this catagory. My current printer is the 1290 Silver Edition. This printer prints as large as Super A3 (19 x 13in, or 48 x 33cm) with a resolution of 2880dpi. Epson has this market nailed down in my opinion. This printer is capable of outstanding results and I use it for exhibition prints and sales of "poster-prints". For LE exhibition-quality prints offered for sale, however, I have the printing done by a service bureau using either Lightjet or Durst-Lamda printing. | |||
FILMS: Most of my work is done digitally now. However, for color film work with the 6x7 camera I shoot chromes exclusively. A giant 6x7 slide just looks so damn good on a lightbox. My color film of choice in the 35mm format is Fuji Sensia which has great tone, wonderful grain, and pushes very well. However, this film is not available in 120 rolls so I use Fuji Provia instead which offers the same tone and push ability. I generally use Provia 400F and will push a stop or even 2 when needed. For mono, I prefer Ilford films. I most often shoot XP2 Super chromogenic film but the Delta true b&w films are nice also. The XP2 Super does NOT push well at all. If you need a super fast mono film you don't have many choices in the chromogenic range and are best off with a true b&w silver film. I recommend Delta 3200. For special purposes, I do like to play with b&w infrared now and then and prefer Kodak HIE, which is available only in 35mm form and requires special handling. Easier to work with, but not nearly so dramatic, is Ilford SFX film which is a near-infrared type available in 120. I've been shooting a lot of architecture photographs using this film lately. |
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SOFTWARE: This is one "alternative" choice I can't back up with arguments for. Suffice to say this: Corel Photo-Paint is the equal of Adobe Photoshop. Anyone who says otherwise has probably never even used Corel and has no dea what they are talking about. Does that mean I recommmend you buy it instead of Photoshop? No. I came to be a Corel user because well before I was a photographer I was working in promotions and marketing for a hotel chain. Part of my job was designing adverts and the software I was provided was CorelDRAW 4, which happened to include Photo-Paint. When I started shooting as a hobby it was only natural that I'd use Corel Photo-Paint to play with my photos as I already had a copy of it (this is waaaaaay back in 1996). As time went by and I got more serious about my work I continued to upgrade my Corel to more recent versions, up to Corel Photo-Paint 9, the last version I used while still a Windows user. I was convinced by fellow photographers I needed to "get with the program" and switch to Photoshop. And I tried. I acquired Adobe Photoshop 6 in 2001 and for a year I worked with both it and my Corel 9, really trying to switch over. In the end, I couldn't. I'm just so used to Corel's commands, names for things, and layout I eventually stopped using the Adobe altogether and continued working only with Corel. When I switched to Mac last year, I bought Corel 10 Graphics Suite. Corel and Adobe actually look much the same, and in fact, Adobe "borrowed" the layout of it's desktop from Corel 4. (don't believe that? look it up!). One thing of interesting note for you is that the TV show "South Park" is created in Corel, NOT Adobe. Imagine their budget- they can use anything- and they choose Corel. That's saying something. Corel Photo-Paint is compatible with all Photoshop Plug-ins and does cost a couple of hundred dollars less than Adobe- though it's certainly not cheap. Like Photoshop, this is a professional application and therefore it's a bit costly. All this being said, for those just starting out and considering buying Photoshop, don't take this as a recommendation to choose Corel instead. Photoshop *IS* the standard, hands-down. There is infinitely more support for Adobe in books, in magazines, and on the Internet. If you have a problem, you're much more likely to know someone who can help you with Photoshop than with Photo-Paint. Corel is great software, but I fear it's days may be numbered... |
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| COMPUTER: Like the Epson, this is another example of where I do in fact "run with the pact". For serious photographic purposes, the Apple Macintosh is quite simply a superior system to a Windows PC. Macintosh OSX is a fantastic operating system, with a silky smooth and sexy "Aqua" user interface. Before I go any further, let me tell all you Windows users out there one little thing that you might find hard to believe: Since switching to Mac and OSX nearly one year ago, I've not had even one OS-level crash. NOT EVEN ONE. Imagine that on a PC. Never once having to re-boot or press the "CTRL-ALT-DEL" to bail out of a lock-up or a operating system crash over the span of a year. Can you say "Stability"?? My primary computer now is a iMac 700Mhz with 1.2GB of RAM. Additionally, I have an iBook 600Mhz that I use for location shoots. I love my Macs. Plug in your Epson, and it works. No driver needed. Plug in a Fireware CompactFlash card reader, and it works. No driver needed. Color matching? Leaps and bounds ahead of Windows.... and did I mention "Stability"? |
The Apple iMac
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THETechniques "There can be no Art without direct intervention on the image by the photographer" My photography usually goes to the Pictorialist style and in fact has been greatly influenced by them. I do generally consider myself to be a "Pictorialist" as my photos involve a strong degree of altering the reality of what is in front of the lens in an never-ending attempt to capture a dreamlike alternate reality. My photos aren't about realism- they are about Fantasy. While the original Pictorialists such as Demachy altered that reality by working with alternative printing techniques to alter the photo after the shoot, I prefer to alter that reality by affecting what the camera actually sees. There is in fact only so much I want to give away here- Not so much because I'm trying to protect "secrets", but because at some point in the future, I will be opening a Workshop site that will be paid access and will offer in-depth instruction and lessons on my photo techniques, "secrets", and other related subjects such as how to recruit models, how to conduct a shoot, etc... In the meantime, you can get much more in-depth info on this subect via my www.asg-gallery.com site than I am willing to offer up here for free. Let's begin with this, the basics of my theory of working as a art photographer. But remember, there is really no "right way". These are just MY ways. Adopt any or all of them if you wish and if they suit you. If not, go out there and define your own! THE BASICS: (1) LESSON ONE: Shoot more photographs. A photographer is like a salmon- you need to lay a lot of eggs to get a few baby fish up that river. I don't think "overshooting" is possible- shoot your subject. Then shoot it again, and then again, making subtle changes every couple of frames. Then shoot it again. When you think you've got enough exposures, shoot it again! Double it! (2) LESSON TWO: Get it right IN THE CAMERA. There is no substitute for this. "Post" work is time consuming and not instantaneous. I very rarely do any post-shoot work on my images, and I hate cropping. (3) LESSON THREE: Keep it Simple. Don't go to a shoot with 12 lenses and think spend more time thinking about which lens to switch to for each shot. Remember, in my case, most of my shoots are conducted without a single lens change during the session. Keep it simple and work around the equipment you have on hand. Be inventive with simple tools rather than boring with complex ones that in the end simply produce boring images. SPECIFICS: During the shoot. As stated above, I try to always "get it right in the can". I deplore doing post-work. Although I work entirely within a "digital darkroom", I use those tools to do little more than could be done in a traditional "wet" darkroom- a little cropping now and then, some color tweaking now and then, and of course printing. The "look" of my photos is achieved through traditional analog means. FILTERS: I use lots of filters. Lots of them. Warm-up filters are a favorite, as are various soft and diffusion filters. I prefer B&W soft-focus from Germany, Hoya fog filters and sepia filters, and Tiffen "Pro-Mist" filters. Also, a standard UV filter carefully smeared with Vaseline is an old traditional technique and a favorite of mine, as is shooting through mesh material. The Vaseline effect is something that must be done carefully and can be a very creative enterprise in and of itself. It's not as simple as smearing it on a filter (and for God's sake DON'T smear it directly on your lens's front element!!!). GRAIN: Film grain and false grain (noise) in my digital work play a strong part of the "look" of my work. In film work, this is achieved by using fast films and "pushing" the film. For those not familiar with this term, this means shooting a given film at a higher ISO than it is rated for and then making up for this resulting underexposure by developing the film longer. This increases the grain and the contrast of the film and lends itself perfectly to the "pictorialist" styling of my work. In digital, it is a bit trickier. Shooting at higher ISO settings on the digital SLR gives noise, but this look isn't quite the same as film grain and is not always pleasant. I do usually shoot at 400ISO and allow some of the noise to "gritty" up the image a bit. Most of my images are left at that. But for times when an image demands more truly film-like grain, I've developed a technique in Corel (also works in Photoshop of course) that will emulate film grain quite well. Here is an example. The image on the left is straight from the camera. The one on the right is after the grain technique is applied.
LIGHTING: Most of my work is done with available sunlight, most often through a window. When that is not available, I am forced to use artificial lighting, and sometimes I will mix the two. My lighting, like everything else in my work, is extremely simple. Though I own a couple of studio strobe monolights, I find flash is usually isn't right for me. So I use a pair of Interfit tungsten photo-floods. Sometimes just one and when using both they are usually coming from the same side. A nice thing about these lights is that they help keep the model warm! (you try being naked in a cold room for 3-4 hours and see how you like it!). When shooting film, these lights of course cause a color balance problem. A filter can fix that, or, I simply shoot without the usual warm-up or sunset filter and let the warm-yellow light of the tungsten supply the color cast. On digital, it's an easier prospect as you just dial in "tungsten" in the camera's white balance and you're all set to go just as if you were working with the sun. I do have a love of shooting by candlelight as well and many of my candle light photos are visable on this site. In all cases, I am almost always working is very low light levels, which is why I need to work in such high ISO ranges (I hate tripods!!!) and why I need such fast lenses- I rarely am stopped down more than f2.8, which is a strong contributing factor to the flattened, shallow depth-of-field look to my photographs. METERING, EXPOSURE & BRACKETING: I live by the camera's built-in spot meter. My method of shooting works like this: The AF system is set to the center sensor and locked. The exposure mode is set to Aperture-priority. I select the focal point of the composition, focus, and lock the setting. Then I choose the area of the image I want to meter from, based upon the desired effect (ie: strong light & shadow, or a more balanced exposure). I point the spot meter at that area, take the reading, and press the AE lock. Now the camera is set. I re-compose the image in the viewfinder and fire. In the case of digital, an instant preview appears on the LCD. I check that, take a look at the histogram, and if I'm satisfied, move on to the next shot. In the case of film, as there is no preview available, I will bracket half a stop over and half a stop under. Sometimes a full stop depending on how dramatic the gamut of the lighting is in the given scene. When working with the 67 in unison with the digital SLR, I will shoot the image first on the DSLR, then pick up the 67 and set it to the same exposure setting as used on the digital, and re-shoot the scene, again bracketing a half stop over and under to be safe, and making any possible adjustment for ISO difference between the film and DSLR's setting (not usually needed as I generally shoot both the film and the digital at ISO 400). AFTER THE SHOOT: Post-work Ok, this is not my favorite part of the work. What I like is shooting and exhibiting. Those are the "fun" parts for me. I'd much rather be spending my time with a beautiful young model making pretty new photos or be in a gallery somewhere showing them off than sitting in front of my computer doing "editing". It's extremely dull. But, there are times when some post-shoot work is required. The image examples above demonstrating the faux-grain technique is a perfect example. I rarely, if ever, touch an "effect filter". If I ever do it's perhaps a touch of a diffuse glow where the effect wasn't achieved sufficiently using traditional methods during the shoot. I do at times need to do some gamma and color correction with my images however. Sometimes, working in digital, it is impossible to get the white balance perfect and you have too much or a red or green tone. Same with scans from slides. Of course when shooting by candlelight there is often a lot of color correction to do in post. Outside of that, there really isn't much to explain in my post-work as far as editing because I really don't do much. That's brings us to printing... Printing however I can talk a bit about... PRINTING: My first choice of paper media is Epson Radiant White Watercolor Matte. This is a brilliant paper and when used with soft painterly images it comes out looking like an actual watercolor painting. Beautiful stuff, and of course Matte paper fares much better in the area of durability when exposed to light. Good stuff. If I need to use something more traditional (some images just won't work on Watercolor paper), I avoid real "glossy" finishs and choose the Epson Semigloss Premium paper. This is a nice "pearl" like finish that works much better with sharp images than the Watercolor without going into gawdy full "gloss photo" looking material. These two papers require considerably different settings to get good results from the printer. Matte tends to go dark, the semi-gloss tends to color shift and over-saturate. For top quality prints to sell, I used to have Cibachromes made. Then I discovered Durst-Lamda and never did another Ciba. This involves a drum scan of your tranny and than a digital "wet" process print being made from the scan onto either positive or negative paper. It's a beautiful process and offers outstanding control and when used with positive paper gives the same "archival" qualities as a Cibachrome print. Since discovering Durst-Lamda, I've also had some Lightjet prints made and have been equally happy with those. Well, this isn't the most in-depth look into my techniques, but it does give you an idea about how I work. Keep in mind that in the future I will be opening a full blown website that will be a virtual Workshop for photographers wanting to learn my own techniques and those of other accomplished photographers, all working in the vein of Modern Pictorialist or soft-focus photography. Be sure to check back on this site now and then for site opening information! |
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