There is no question that we have a convergence happening in the imaging creative community. The unique abilities of photographers to see the world in a different way remains the key value of the craft of photography. The insane pressure to drop prices and do more for less has meant that many photographers stopped shooting or have found a different way to get paid for creativity. The effect on the community is a total polarization in photography to either the top of the market or the bottom. For all intents and purposes, the middle has pretty much disappeared. Perhaps remarkably, the creative photographic world does not just roll over and die! Instead, many photographers are augmenting income with Video and CGI (Computer Generated Imagery). In many cases, this is allowing for a complete re-invention and a move up-market in terms of billing. In other cases, this convergence has allowed photographers to evolve into a new creative entity!

I have been watching the seemingly mete0ric (over many years since nothing happens over night) rise of a local Toronto photographer, Michael Lee - http://www.mikeleephotography.com. His work has always been top notch,  with a total commitment to quality. Michael has been shooting with Phase One backs for many years but remarkably, the Phase One back is mostly being used today to shoot backgrounds for CGI automotive industry work.  Michael has focused his efforts on learning how to produce world class CGI images.  This evolution from photographer to CGI artist and photography really questions the labels we use for ourselves and what they should become?

Michael has learned to merge his unique sense of lighting with still images of locations, elements like live models and his CGI creations. The result is, without question, surreal and yet oddly believable! His clients certainly like his work and that’s the true judgment of the value of creativity in a difficult or terrific economy.However, it’s not really photography and it’s certainly not retouching and it’s not purely CGI work. What is Michael Lee today?

In the same sense that Michael has evolved his talents, many photographers have added video to their creative tool kit. Give a photography the stills and video and the result is a remarkable level of continuity. So we come back to  a base talent of photography with new electives in Video and CGI. What should this cross discipline be called?

My favorite current suggestion is Visual Artist. Imageist, Imaging specialist, and many other weaker suggestions just seem out of place and do not really describe what the talent mix really is. It would be powerful to hear you ideas and coments. Maybe we can help re-brand the craftsmanship that is the essence of the photographic experience!

Background

The Achromatic+ is a digital back co-developed between Phase One and a research partnership of businesses and not-for -profits headed up by Jim Tasket and Karla Johnson of Bear Images in San Francisco. What makes this digital back so unique is that it has no color filters on the sensor and no UV cut off filter in the version that I used during my trip to Denmark and Sweden. The Achromatic+ back is designed as a scientific instrument that replaces black and white film in the research community. The capabilities of this back includes the replacement of  specialized products like infrared or ultra violet sensitive film. Although the basic idea is simple enough, the project took over 2 years to complete.

The Achromatic+ back is 39 Megapixels and is available in all of the mounts that Phase One makes available - Phase One / Mamiya, Contax, Hasselblad V-series and Hasselblad H-series. Images captured with the Achromatic+ can be imported into Capture One for processing. Tethered operation is also supported. For all intents and purposes, the Achromatic + back is a P 45+ with numerous modifications of both the sensor and the chassis.

This all started with the opportunity to write some articles about the Achromatic+ back. I contacted Jim Tasket for an interview and convinced Jim to send me a back for testing. My first thought was to enlist the aid of Michael Reichmann  of Luminous Landscape. Michael was delighted to take a look at this unique product and see what he could do with it. Michael produced an article of his own and involved fine art photographer Mark Dubovoy out of California.

Over the course of 2 weeks, I monitored all of the back and forth, more like a voyeur. My event and teaching schedule was heavy. Combined with traveling, I had little opportunity to add much. In those 2 weeks, Mark got an opportunity to shoot with the Achromatic back as well. My schedule was so insane that I had no opportunity to go out and see what this back could do. All I managed to do was shoot tests with the UV and IR filters to see what the images looked like. I tried a few with no filtration at all and at that point I had a Eureka moment! My decision was to go with my gut instinct and use no filtration. I realized this was risky at best since the Achromatic+ sensitivity range goes beyond the visible spectrum and includes both Infrared and Ultra Violet. The reason I did this is that the look of the images was completely seductive!

Shooting

My hectic schedule was finishing off with a trip to Denmark and Sweden for a conference. This looked like the only opportunity I would have to go out and shoot with the Achromatic back. The Friday at the office was complete mayhem and I did my best to pack everything I though I could use. My flight to Copenhagen started early Saturday afternoon with a flight from Toronto to Newark New Jersey. After a few hours stop-over, I took a flight directly to Copenhagen arriving at about 7:30 AM on Sunday morning. I am one of those people who finds it extremely difficult to sleep on long flights and this flight was no exception. With no sleep and a free day, my opportunity to test the Achromatic+ back had arrived.

Arrivals in Copenhagen opens into a grand hall that, in my mind, embodies everything Danish. The architecture is monumental with cement and stainless steel everywhere. The addition of wood makes the whole place comfortable, functional and beautiful, all at the same time. I started taking images here and in a blink, an hour had gone by. The results were stunning! The unusual side of the Achromatic+ back became immediately obvious. I could be shooting at 1/250th at F2.8 to 1/250th at F22 in the same room with the same light. It all depended how much IR or UV was in the shot.

Great Hall Copenhagen Airport #1 © Walter Borchenko 2009

I eventually pushed myself to get a train ticket to Copenhagen central station and proceeded to the track level. The contrast range of this back is beyond anything I have ever worked with. Working with no filtration made everything I photographer look remarkable. The experience is completely unique. The images on the LCD looked amazing. The images looked even better once I downloaded them. No question that this is a very seductive process to work with.

Copenhagen Central station #1 © Walter Borchenko 2009

These images have had minor adjustments in Capture One 4 PRO or no adjustment at all. The results feel to me like I have been working a long time in the darkroom to achieve this look.

Espen on the Marina dock © Walter Borchenko 2009

Dock detail © Walter Borchenko 2009

Copenhagen Central station tunnel © Walter Borchenko 2009

The images I have shown so far are some of the first picks from the more than 1000 images I shot in Copenhagen and Malmo Sweden. As I sort through these images I see lots of additional unusual images. More to come on the experience of shooting with the Achromatic + back!

Getting There!

Heading off to Melbourne on Wednesday morning started with an interesting time at Sydney airport. We were flying Virgin air and they have fantastic service. Getting to the flight was a different matter. We had delay after delay because of wind and rain combined with lots of other flights being cancelled because of no aircraft. This is the usual situation with inclement weather.

     Sydney Airport - Pacing and waiting                                                                                    © Walter Borchenko 2008

Arriving in Melbourne a few hours later was a welcome relief from all the humidity and moisture. Very quickly, it becomes obvious that Melbourne is dry and arid. This is almost desert country. As we travel into the city from the airport, things start to green up a bit. The temperature was 34 Celsius 93 Fahrenheit with a deep blue sky and wispy clouds. What a difference from Toronto weather in November!

     Driving in to Melbourne                                                                                                    © Walter Borchenko 2008

The route into Melbourne is terrificl. Melbourne has a feeling that is all it’s own. I have never found nor do I believe that there exists a place that is anything like Melbourne. One foot is in Victorian England with metal gingerbread on the houses and a quiet residential mystic and the other foot is at the cutting edge of today. This is a city that marches to the beat of a different drummer. It’s neither fast nor slow, hard nor overly polite, just right to feel comfortable. Everyone is so welcoming, it’s like being in someone’s living room!

 Our hotel is downtown and is something called a hotel apartment. These are fully furnished condos that are offered as hotel rooms. The room, quality of furniture and the view is completely unexpected and far better than most hotels. We are up high near the top of the building and the view is spectacular! The clouds are almost too perfect and made to order!

    Hotel View                                                                                                                             © Walter Borchenko 2008

   Downtown Melbourne                                                                                                                       © Walter Borchenko 2008

The events in Melbourne included Rory of Specular, the local Phase One dealer. We had our public open house event on Wednesday and the full day training at a local photography school on the Thursday.

The Wednesday public event was really a lot of fun. We had the event at the studios of photographer Colin Page. His work is spectacular and his methods are really a lot of fun. Much of his work is with actors and actresses for the stage. He uses really large lights and puts them really tight to the subject. High model lamps bring out a slight glistening on the skin, which creates a terrific look. Many of these are done in a sepia finish so I worked hard to deliver his look with Capture One 4 PRO. I think we got very close.

  Theatrical Portraits from our live session                                                                                  © Colin Page 2008

The event and all day training went especially well here in Melbourne. We had the perfect group for the all day training program. Lots of questions and an really involved photographic community. We also had a good turn-out with over 20 at the training program.

Getting there!

This was my 2nd trip to Australia and the best one yet! Toronto to Los Angeles is about a 6 hour flight, especially when you consider how long it takes to take off from Toronto and land at LAX. Circling around LAX can take a while. 

Tom Bradley International Terminal LAX                                                                                                                  ©Walter Borchenko 2008

Getting ready for the next leg of the journey is tough. LAX to Sydney Australia is 14 hours in the air! I usually start with a lot of hydration that includes water and soup. I stay away from drinking coffee or liquor and I try not to eat salty, heavy foods. You definitely know if your hydration is high! The flight was really smooth and I managed to sleep a fair amount.

Sunday Treat!

Arriving in Sydney was incredible because this is the summer season for Australia.  We arrived in the morning on Sunday. Everything feels kind of fuzzy after a flight like that. Bruce and Richard from L&P Photographic are my hosts for Australia. Bruce came to pick me up and i just had to get the feeling into an image.

 Bruce looking just like I feel!!!                                                                                                                                         © Walter Borchenko

I think Bruce has a really good idea of what it feels like since these guys have to travel out of Australia regularly! A real surprise was in store! I travel a lot so the offer of staying at someone’s home is always welcome. We when off to Bruce’s home were I could shower and change. The weather was gorgeous!

Bruce had arranged for us to go sailing. The plan was to sail right into Sydney harbor. This was the last thing I expected and a terrific way to spend a Sunday!! Sailing with Bruce and his family was a huge treat! It really helped get all of the jet lag out of  the system.

           Sailing with Bruce and the family!                                                                                                        © Walter Borchenko 2008

On Monday we had a public event for the P 65+ and Capture One 4 PRO with great attendance. On Tuesday we had the largest paying class I have ever had with 43 photographers joining us for a full day session that went over 8 hours! After the event, it was time to pack and head off to Melbourne!

The Olympia Center, London UK

This was a remarkable trip! With Capture One 4 PRO released, it was the first event where we could start to show off the final released software and figure out what’s new and what we could do! The Capture One 4 PRO software release was on October 15th, just a few days prior to the event.

The event was at the Olympia Center in London, near Hammersmith station, October 23rd, 24th and 25th. The event included a number of different smaller shows put together like Mac Live Expo and Linux Live Expo so we had a diverse and unusual crowd!

We had a small presentation area in the booth. In additon we provided several daily presentations in the main area of the show that could handle 100+ people seated. For the large presentation, I had the pleasure of working with a new photographer to me, local London celebrity photographer Jim Marks www.jimmarks.co.uk. We worked together with a terrific model, lighting set-up and a live audience. The draw was powerful and we quickly had a full house. The results where equally terrific. All of the following images where created live in a period of about 20 minutes. I worked as the digital tech running Capture One 4 PRO, building Styles on-the-fly and Jim did all the hard work with the model and lighting!

Working with real professionals is always a pleasure and Jim Marks ranks right up there!  The results we achieved were much better than anything I had done in Capture One 3. This was the first event with the newly released, none beta software!

The show ended up as a test for both content and new techniques that I offered up in Australia, India and Canada. More on that in a future post.

Surprising sunny London weather!

The real surprise is that the first 2 days of the show provided outstanding sunny clear weather - IN LONDON. After visiting some 7 other times in 2008, the opportunity to shoot in sunny weather was impossible to pass-up. After our first presentation, I ran out onto Hammersmith road and side streets,  catching some of the flavor of the area. I love black and white so this was the perfect opportunity to use my technique linked to Panchromatic black and white workflow in Capture One 4 PRO. For me, this opportunity  seemed as good as it gets while traveling for events! Little did I realize what I would find in Australia and India!

The conditions were superb! Here are a few more of the  250+ images I  captured in the hour or so that I had to run up to Hammersmith station. With a quick cab ride, I made it back in time for the next presentation. The magic of the black and white process I used on these images comes of finding the conditions that work best with the style instead of changing settings to make an image look a particular way. As unusual as this may sound, all of my images of London in black and white use one Style with only a levels adjustment in some cases. I don’t change the settings in Capture One, I train my eye to expose for the best results. The experience is divine!!

Photokina show

Photokina was a crazy show this year. Phase One was in Hall 4.2 and the traffic was the most intense that I have ever seen at Photokina. Talking to a few of the others working the show, many halls where like bowling alleys with nobody there! Maybe we were just lucky or maybe the interest was really high for a good reason! For the dealers and Phase One, Photokina was a bonanza of sales and leads. This was one of the best  Photokina shows for Phase One.

I worked with photographer Drew Gardner and several models including Gary Stretch, the world record holder for the most stretchiest skin and the most cloths pegs attached to the face. I believe he had 172 cloths pegs attached to his face for his world record.

Drew did a spectacular job photographing Gary and we had a lot of fun. We created an enormous amount of traffic. The interest was extreme, especially with our program where we created these different looks and styles live. We would start with only 10 or 15 people and in minutes, we had large groups of 75 to 100 or more.

In addition I did a program with Uli Dinger, a German photographer who offered a program in German with support for the demo side handled by myself. I also did a program at the Microsoft booth with Drew Gardner. We used a PC workflow with Capture One 4 PRO on Windows and we did a live shoot. This was proof positive that for all of us Mac heads, there are other options. The windows solution providers are starting to figure it out!

Phase One had a lot of announcements and a surprise alliance with Leica! The announcements included a new line of Phase One digital lenses for the Phase One camera system, additional leaf shutter lenses and the P 65+ digital back, which we used during our presentations ( it was twice as fast to shoot with at 60.5 megapixels than the P 30+ which only has 31 megapixels). Capture One 4 PRO was also really well received by lots of surprised photographers who got very very excited! Photographers could really see the difference between Capture One 4 Pro compared to Lightroom or Aperture and the interest was far beyond my expectations. I am sure I have missed a few things!

Phase One vs. Hasselblad

The interesting thing at this Photokina were the rumors and the apparent battle between Phase One and Hasselblad. This battle started when Hasselblad announced the H3D platform several years ago and through some software changes in the body, made all other backs (Phase One, Leaf, Sinar) incompatible. When cooperation and alliances are building some of the biggest opportunities in digital capture, shutting down a platform and alienating the rest of the medium format industry seems like an unusual strategy.

The real outcome of the Hasselblad strategy became clear when Hasselblad announced a significant drop in price on their digital backs at Photokina. When a product is not selling well based on its own merit, price can become the only way to move product. For their sake and to help the stability of the medium format industry, I certainly hope that they start to have some success. With Phase One continually gaining in sales and success with the pro market and the rental market, Hasselblad has now resorted to using price, instead of features and quality, as the sales tool. In addition, Hasselblad has discontinued upgrade paths for photographers who have purchased Hasselblad backs. Removing an upgrade path for the pro community could have very serious long term effects on Hasselblad future sales.  The consumer market has never had upgrade paths in any serious way so maybe Hasselblad is now going to focus on the low end and consumer markets.

This new low price strategy seems to be focused on the prosumer, low end professional market that is dominated by the DSLR solutions. To confuse things even more, Hasselblad calls their solution a DSLR. The 645 format has never been called a DSLR format before. I believe that Hasselblad does not give much credit to the intelligence of the professional community since they masked off the 645 format on the H3D to the smaller format covered by thier 39 megapixel sensor and are telling everyone that this is full frame coverage. Double speak by any other terms is still double speak

I believe that most professionals are smarter than Hasselblad gives them credit for. Based on the sales and the significant interest in Phase One products at Photokina, photographers do consider quality, an open platform, creative options, product durability, software that supports DSLR’s and backs and an upgrade path, are all important.

It has been suggested by numerous industry professionals that the medium format industry is too small to have 4 companies doing R&D, sales and marketing. Maybe this will mean that Phase One will handle the professional community and Hasselblad will handle the prosumer/consumer market segment. Time will show.

One of the rumors circulating at Photokina was that the economic downturn in the banking industry was forcing Hasselblad to lower prices to generate cash. Let’s hope it’s not true.

What about Leaf and Sinar?

The announcement that Leaf is now distributing all Sinar product globally is also the indication that Sinar is backing out of the medium format industry. The reduction in the number of medium format players seems to be starting. It will be interesting to see how Leaf does with the Sinar brand. I expect that any Sinar users will soon be using Leaf products. Maybe the Sinar technical cameras will survive. The Hy6/Leaf AFI was really an exciting product when it was announced last Photokina in 2006. Unfortunately, price, lens delivery and limited support for the platform have made the Hy6/Leaf AFI solution less than successful. It will be interesting to see what the future will hold for Leaf.

That’s it for now.

With the upcoming release of Capture One 4 PRO, Phase One will finally deliver on software announced almost 2 years ago. I am sure that there are many of you who have moved to Aperture and Lightroom. Many have asked me why I have stuck with Capture One through this torturous time. It’s really simple. I don’t achieve the same results with competitive products like Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom. It’s easy to get caught up in bells and whistles but the real value is the effect on the final results. I’m not saying that these products are bad. On the contrary, for many people who record the image and just need to get it out, don’t concern themselves with the craftsmanship side of photography or focus all their attention to the retouching side of making images, these products are fine. If you are really serious about the journey of photography and capture, then Capture One is an experience on a completely different level.

Capture One provides me with an anchor for my work that just doesn’t seem to happen with competing products. I do as much in shot as I can with 95% of the balance of the image happening in Capture One. I concentrate on black and white or unusual color in my current work. I need the consistency of process to know that I will get what I need as I’m shooting. It’s really close to the feeling I used to have about my black and white when I shot film. I knew what my film could handle and I had significant experience in what I could do in the darkroom. As I approached lighting situations the fit the process, I felt a great level of confidence that I could get the look I wanted and I usually did.

I have had a few photographers who have come to my courses and there has been a lot of doubt. When they try it, especially with competitive products, the results speak for themselves.

Remarkably, I don’t think that Phase One understand what they have in Capture One. There is also no question that the results notch up a few levels when working with the Phase One backs over DSLR’s. I have used a few Phase One models over the years with my previous back being the P 30 and my current back being the P 45 +. They are all different and I have been playing with a beta version of Capture One 4 PRO. It’s really hot and now I can’t go back to Capture One 3 PRO because I can achieve things in 4 that I never could before!

I expect that many will be excited by Capture One 4 PRO because it delivers for the Phase One community and does even more than I expected! My process has not been compromised, the workflow scales to Capture One 4 PRO and the results are better than before, which reduces my retouching even more.

I have to be honest! I did not get into photography to do retouching. It’s great that we have all these tools but for me, the image is made at capture. Stay tuned, I expect to post a review of Capture One 4 Pro soon but I can’t give away any details before it’s time!

Back to the question. I continued to use Capture One because I could not get the same type of result with competitive products. You may question how is this possible when we have Apple and Adobe who have huge budgets for producing software. Phase One is a small boutique company in comparison.

The answer will be the topic of my next blog entry!

The magic of having something constant is that you can find the conditions that create your look. Once you start to get used to this idea, your mind becomes better and better at recognizing the conditions.

These first two are highly reflective conditions. The first image was shot in Atlanta Georgia in January of 2007 with my Phase One P 30 and a Hasselblad H2 wih 80mm lens, f6,8 at 1/200th of a second, ISO 100. The second image was shot in Stowe Vermont in July of 2008 with my P 45+using a Mamiya AFD II and the Mamiya 28mm lens, f6.0 at 1/145th of a second, ISO 200. The style I applied to these two images is virtually identical outside of the fact that I upgraded to a P 45+ in 2008. There is a consistency of light conditions that creates the look!

This next image is shot in Melbourne Australia in July of 2007. Once you train your eye for the conditions, the results start to speak for themselves. It becomes something that you begin to define the limits of and through this visual disciplining, a look becomes your own.

The last two images in this post shows one of my greatest photographic fascinations, working in the rain! The first image is in Barcelona Spain back in April of 2007. The second image was captured in Vermont in July of 2008. Having a benchmark or anchor to keep a mental reference can help create a remarkable consistency in a wide variety of situations that show a similar light condition. The anchor or constant that I use to create all of these images is Capture One and the Styles tool. For the most part, there is no retouching with these images. That’s how they come out of Capture One! The consistency of experience is nothing short of breathtaking. I have both Lightroom 2 and Aperture. Neither product makes it as consistent and as simple as it is in Capture One Pro!

It’s given me back the most important aspects of what I achieved with film but without all of the stuff about film that I really don’t miss!!!

Photography is a visual idea, an expression of who we are, what we feel and how we see the world. Most importantly, for those of us who are serious about photography, these visual ideas define what’s important to us. It’s our ability to reproduce the specific feeling we are looking for in representing the subject that creates a photographic personality. There are some images the are easy to recognize as those of a particular photographer because there is an apparent photographic personality. To me, that’s what craftsmanship is all about. To fully understand how to get a particular situation to happen again and again takes shooting in those conditions until you know exactly what to expect and what to do to make it happen. It takes experience and a process. One of the most important parts of any process are the constants the allow for a repeatable result.

To achieve the kind of results we strive for as photographers, we need some constants. There needs to be an anchor or a point of reference. This may seem like a strange statement at first, but this is the very heart of why Capture-U exists. This simple idea “having a constant” is why I believe that Phase One backs and software are helping us preserve some of the essence of photographic craftsmanship. This is also at the heart of why Capture-U  is focused on the Phase One process. Creating a photographic personality comes of building a process based on constants that can allow you to achieve the look you need, when you need it.

In my next post, I will show some examples!