Photographing The Cast of ‘The Wire’

I had the privilege of being the photographer of the Advanced Leadership Initiative’s “Revitalizing Cities” Think Tank, held this past weekend at Harvard Law School. One of the main events at this conference was a panel featuring many members from the cast of The Wire. Some of you may know that Harvard Law School actually offers a class based on the series (side note: I regard it as the best television show ever made). That class’s professor was able to wrangle the cast to join us for a moving panel about the need for change in urban areas all across the country.

All of these photos were shot using a Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS USM II lens on a Canon 7D. A few quick notes:

The Canon 7D’s low-light performance is pretty great. Even at ISO 1600, images are still quite usable (or at least, up to my standards). The same can’t be said of the Canon 50D, which I also shoot with.
Some people argue that shooting in JPG saves time. But in a situation where you are shooting a lot of different lighting set-ups in rapid succession, even the camera pre-set white-balance options may not encompass your white-balance needs. I am glad to shoot in RAW and edit the images afterwards at my leisure.
I’ve found that even with image stabilization activated, it is difficult for me to get a clear shot at a shutter speed of anything under 1/125th of a second. Hopefully, I will continue to improve this rate as time goes on.

Pixel Pocket Rocket Review

One of my most obvious needs for shooting photography gigs is an apparatus for storing compact flash cards. The world seems to have moved on to SD, but Canon’s 5D series, the 7D, as well as the 50D all still use compact flash, so if you want to use those cameras, you gotta deal with the cards. Sure, I could stuff them into my pocket, but this creates a number of difficulties (e.g. the cards can get dirty, crushed, and/or difficult to retrieve). Thus, I wanted some kind of card wallet for storing them.

Think Tank Photo’s Pixel Pocket Rocket seemed like just the right purchase for my needs (they make a smaller one that also holds SD cards). It’s cheap, well-designed, and it does the very simple task set before it. The Pixel Pocket Rocket feels durable, and has see-through mesh pockets for your cards so you can see which ones you’ve already used. It can store up to 10 cards and it’s super light, although when folded up, it can be a little thick to fit into a pocket (no thicker than average-sized wallet though). There’s also a neat see-through compartment for your business cards.

You can use the strap to attach it to a belt loop, other clothing articles, or even other Think Tank photo products. While the strap and the stitching that it attaches to feel solid, it doesn’t look that solid, so I did get a little bit nervous while using it. I feel like to use this product ideally, you’d loop the strap around your belt loop, then store this thing in your pocket and only take it out when switching cards. I personally would prefer something that doesn’t require you to put it inside your pocket (perhaps something that attaches to a belt), but that would be a different product entirely. Leaving the Pixel Pocket Rocket flapping around attached to your belt loop is NOT a good option for storing important cards.

Nonetheless, for $16, this thing basically can’t be beat. I plan on getting years of mileage out of it. Here’s my video review of the Pixel Pocket Rocket:

Below are some more photos of the Pixel Pocket Rocket. You can also check out my other reviews, or posts about photography.

Banksy’s Wall and Piece

One of the cool things about doing what I do is that sometimes, people send me things for free. Such was the case last night when someone named “Alphonse” and with the initials “AAA” (is this a real name?) gifted me a package through Amazon that contained two photo books: Jeff Bridges’ Pictures and Banksy’s Wall and Piece. First of all, Alphonse, if you’re a real person and you’re reading this, thanks so much for the awesome gift! It made my day.

I haven’t had too much time to dive into either of the books, but they both look incredible. In particular, Bridges’ book, which I didn’t even know existed, has tons of awesome behind-the-scenes shots from his decades as an actor. Very cool, and especially salient to me given my developing photography career.

I wanted to share some quick tidbits from the book, which is essentially a compendium of Banksy’s street art.

Here’s Banksy’s foreward, which lays out his motivations for his work:

I’m going to speak my mind, so this won’t take very long. Graffiti is not the lowest form of art. Despite having to creep about at night and lie to your mum it’s actually the most honest artform available. There is no elitism or hype, it exhibits on some of the best walls a town has to offer, and nobody is put off by the price of admission. A wall has always been the best place to publish your work.

The people who run our cities don’t understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit. But if you just value money then your opinion is worthless. They say graffiti frightens people and is symbolic of the decline in society, but graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people; politicians, advertising executives, and graffiti writers.

The people who truly deface our neighbourhoods are the companies that scrawl their giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff. They expect to be able to shout their message in your face from every available surface, but you’re never allowed to answer back. Well, they started this fight and the wall is the weapon of choice to hit them back.

Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better looking place.

Great insights into the mind of one of the most audacious artists of our time. If you have a chance, check out our review of Exit Through the Gift Shop.

I also love the back cover quote.

Highrock Easter Service, 2011

I recently picked up the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 USM II lens. This thing is a beast. It is long and heavy, and looks like you could shoot a small cannonball out of it. That being said, it’s also one of the best lenses in existence today. With an extremely wide aperture and a image stabilization (thus allowing for fast shutter speed in low-light situations), this lens is considered by many wedding, portrait, and event photographers to be absolutely essential.

One of the biggest difficulties of using this lens is that it’s so conspicuous. You can’t carry this around a public place without looking like either a photographer on a job or a stalker. As a result, I only feel comfortable using it for specific events.

I was thrilled that my local church, Highrock, allowed me to shoot its Easter Service, which was held at Arlington Town Hall in Arlington, MA. It was an awesome celebration, and while the service itself was moving and powerful, the meal afterwards was pretty awesome, resembling a town fair more than a church luncheon. Here are some of the photos I was able to produce:

I’m still getting the hang of using this thing, and I am particularly curious about the use of image stabilization, and trying to optimize it in certain settings.

The Fraternity Project

With the sheer volume of media I produce, I have to offload files on a regular basis for the purposes of backup. Between the podcasts and photos, I’ve probably already consumed several terabytes in the past year alone, far exceeding the measly 1 TB allowance of my 2009 iMac.

Today, I had to offload some large files that could only be copied onto an NTFS hard drive. So I dug an old Western Digital MyBook out of my closet and tried to move the files on. In doing so, I discovered some old photos that I’d taken, but never uploaded onto Flickr:

The above is the first photoset that I ever put together. It was my final project for my Introductory Photography class in college. These photographs were taken at a UMass-Amherst fraternity over 7 years ago. They were taken with a film camera (Canon Rebel) on Kodak Tri-X black and white film, developed and printed by yours truly, then scanned into a computer in JPG form. I remember physically printing these photos out by hand in a dark room with all those delicious chemicals. Ahh, the good ol’ days.

It’s fascinating for me to look back into the past like this. Not only do the photos represent people who have undoubtedly moved on in their lives, but they also reveal my own technical and compositional limitations at the time. I’d like to think I’ve grown as a photographer, but I still think a few of these shots are pretty awesome.

How One Man Transformed The Photography Industry

Steven Weiss has written a brief profile of David Hobby, the man whose blog, The Strobist, has changed the face of the photography industry. With the amount of information Hobby was able to dole out to amateurs, amateurs started taking pretty darn good photos on their own. The growing number of skilled photographers has had unforeseen effects on the industry:

[P]rofessionals who are outraged at photographers like Lam or at sites like iStockphoto miss the point. Neither Lam nor iStock would have had such an impact if their photography didn’t meet the market’s demand for quality. What’s diluting the market for elite photography is the transfer of professional skill to amateurs—the work David Hobby is doing. Though his blog is entirely about how to light photographs at a professional level, his reader surveys reveal that 86 percent of his readers are amateurs.

As someone who’s just breaking into professional photography myself, these words ring true. But they’re also indicative of the transformative power that the internet has across industries. Film critics can’t make $60,000 per year writing reviews anymore, because mouth-breathing yahoos like me are willing to do it for free, while thousands turn up to hear it.

In the days ahead, I’m going to plan on focusing this blog a bit more on my photography. I’ve just gotten enough gear to the point where I feel ready to shoot/cover any event, and I have some accessories coming in that I’m actually kind of excited about. Expect more photo sets, as well as reviews of cool photo products. As always, your constructive comments are appreciated.

Don’t worry: I’m going to keep sharing the cool links and attempt the full-length blog post every now and again, just as I’ve been doing for the past 5-6 months. But for the near future, photography will be one of my main focuses, and I’ll hope we can learn about this stuff together.

Faneuil Hall Street Performer Auditions, March 2011

I was able to attend and photograph the street performer auditions at Faneuil Hall this year. Dozens of hoping performers gathered here to compete for a chance to be an official street performer in front of popular Boston landmark/tourist trap Faneuil Hall. The rewards are great, but so is the danger. In particular, Bob at Large, the guy balancing on five cylinders, really took my breath away.

Cambria & Friends

On a whim last night, I went out on the town in Cambridge, Massachusetts to see if i could find a concert to photograph. I succeeded when I stumbled into the Cantab Lounge in Central Square. Andy Cambria and a bunch of his bluegrass colleagues put on a hell of a show. Who would have thought that Boston was a thriving community for fans of bluegrass? Here is a photoset of the concert that I threw together:

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

More of Andy’s music here