SilberStudios.tv

Ansel Adams! (& what we’ve been up to this month…)

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Talking Ansel Adams @ Yosemite

Nice work if you can get it

In the course of our “work” this month we got a chance to uncover the stories behind some of Ansel Adam’s most iconic photographs. Ever wonder how this legend visualized his photographs, developed the Zone system and what techniques/advice he offered his colleagues? We often have and got a chance to get insight on all of the above from a pretty reliable source: his own son, Michael Adams, with Yosemite Valley in the backdrop. All in all, not a bad day’s work. Kudos to Rocky Barbanica and Lance Silber for their work on this project! Click here to watch.

Other April Goodness:

What’s coming up?

Just like our friend Ansel, we love to teach others how to advance their photography. You may remember we were doing a beta test on the AYP Club (Advancing Your Photography), well with your help, we’ve wrapped that up and are about to release a new supercharged yet streamlined version. How would you like to learn and advance your photography, step by step with simple easy to follow videos on each component of photography and end up with photographs that you love? Well, stay tuned my friend, we started shooting last week!

Wedding Photography Tips from Wedding Photographer Anna Kuperberg

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Lena Hyde - Tips for Fantastic Children's Photography

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Robert Knight Photographs of Jimi Hendrix

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

How-to: Mount your GoPro Hero 3 to your surfboard!

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

What's in Our Bag (For Video)

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Joseph Holmes - Emotions in Photography

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Michael Zagaris - Go With The Flow

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Camille Seaman - Quality of Light

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Anna Kuperberg - You have to be Curious!

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Bob Holmes - Tips on Equipment and Travel Photography

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Help us Help You With a Quick Survey!

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Photographers, please take a moment to fill this out, it will really help us help you! Click here to take survey

Thanks!

Pro Photographer Bob Holmes–What’s in My Camera Bag?

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

We recently met back up with Bob Holmes and asked him to show us what’s in his bag. He gave us a look inside with some good tips along the way for cleaning dust from your camera’s card slots, packing spare equipment and packing a separate bag for use in the field and more–and catch the outtake at the end!. Thanks to Bob holmes for sharing. Be sure to catch his other videos
And thanks to our friends at ThinkTank

Remembering the Photography of Allen Ginsberg

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Here’s an interesting look into the life of Allen Ginsberg by a friend of our blog, Eve Pearce. Eve is an avid photographer who likes summer sunsets and writing in cafes. She looked into the life of Ginsberg and discovered that like all of us here, he had a keen interest in photography.

Remembering the Photography of Allen Ginsberg

Allen Ginsberg is best known for his poetry and his role as one of the leading figures of the 1950s Beat Generation. However many people are unaware of the fact that as well as being regarded as the poet laureate of the Beat Generation, Ginsberg was also a keen amateur photographer. As a young man, he bought a thirteen-dollar Kodak Retina camera at a pawnshop and began to take photos. In the early 1960s, he lost his camera, bought another and then somehow managed to lose that one as well. This caused him to stop taking pictures for a while but then, in his later life, he rediscovered his passion for photography and continued to take photos until just before his death in 1997.

Defying Convention

Ginsberg’s life was always marked by his refusal to go along with social norms. His attitude to his photography was equally non-conformist. Whilst other photographers basked in the recognition that they received for their work, he remained modest and self-deprecating, stating that he believed that people only took him seriously as a photographer because he had already established himself as a poet. ‘If you’re famous, you can get away with anything!’ he said.

Bringing Out the Luminousness of the Ordinary Event

Ginsberg primarily took photos of his friends. Many of them would go on to be famous, which means that those pictures now generate high levels of interest. One photo, which is displayed in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, shows Jack Kerouac wandering along the street after visiting William S. Burroughs. It is not a particularly well-taken shot but captures Kerouac pulling a funny face, which is a moment that most photographers would not have been close enough to him to photograph after his rise to fame. Ginsberg stated that he believed that both poetry and taking photos possess the power to bring out the ‘luminousness of the ordinary event.’

Simple Yet Striking

Most of Ginsberg’s best known work features his friends either going about their everyday lives or standing next to sites of interest. His pictures are more like holiday snaps than photos that have been taken to try and impress anyone, which is perhaps the beauty of them. A photo in the National Gallery of Art depicting William S. Burroughs standing next to a sphinx at the Natural History and Metropolitan Museum of Art is a classic example of this. It is the type of photo that a child might take on a school trip. However another of Ginsberg’s strengths was his ability to capture intimate moments of friendship or tenderness, for instance his photo of actor Neal Cassady. Ginsberg had an eye for an emotive shot and was able to bring across genuine warmth.

Vigour and Enthusiasm

Ginsberg’s work celebrated the vigour and enthusiasm of the creative individuals that he surrounded himself with. His shots always had an upbeat feel to them despite the fact that many of the people that featured in them would eventually fall victim to drink, drugs or a combination of the two. Some of his pictures included telltale signs of what was to come, for example a shot of Kerouac taken in 1964, which showed him looking bloated and unwell. Five years later, Kerouac died of alcohol-related health problems. Essentially, what made Ginsberg’s photos so poignant was the fact that he was able to get close to so many iconic figures. He successfully documented the Beat Generation with his camera and preserved it for the generations to come to look back on.

- Eve Pearce

52/50 : A project by Alexander Gage

Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Alexander Gage has been active in our little corner of the interwebs here at Silber Studios for a long time. He’s a British expat who lives and works in Switzerland. We admire the absolute passion Alex has for photography and wanted to let you know about a project he did over the course of a year that we thought was pretty cool.

For the duration of 2012, Alex participated in his own, self-imposed 52 photography project. The “52/50 Photography Project”, was shot solely using a 50mm lens which Alex found to be the most challenging out of his collection. The project turned out to be both immensely enjoyable and educational. We all know how difficult it can be find the time to take and publish a single shot once a week, especially if you have a pesky day job that gets in the way. The end result, in our judgement, seems to have justified the year long effort. It’s amazing to see how a bite sized goal like 1 picture a week resulted in quite a collection of photos.

You can see Alex’s work by clicking here and on his mirror gallery in Google+

Here’s Alex commenting on the process in his own words:

I underestimated how time consuming such a project would be and how remarkably difficult it was to take a single (publishable) shot within a week, particularly in addition to the day job which always took priority.

Related to the above, I found that planning and preparation were the most important aspect to get right for this project to succeed. Walking around town and looking for photographic opportunities is a lot of fun, but across the span of a year there will be those times when you have little time, or you feel tired, fed up, or even ill. A plan or an idea can help you focus during these times. I kept a notebook of ideas of types of shots (indoor and outdoor) that I wanted to try and referred to that when I was feeling uninspired.

Having said the above, a lot of my shots were taken on the spur of the moment as the opportunity arose. (e.g. the “Firestarter” shot was completely unplanned.) The old adage that you should always have your camera with you worked out well in those instances, even if you can’t always rely on the the fact that such an opportunity will present itself (particularly before that ever present deadline of Sunday night).

I chose the 50mm lens because it was completely outside of my comfort zone and the one which I found to be the most challenging. The 50mm is now my favorite lens and after almost a year I know it inside out. It is portable, fast, great in low light conditions and has a depth of field which I think adds a special quality to the pictures.

The project has forced me to try out new ideas, experiment and generally have a lot of fun with my photography. I thoroughly recommend it to anyone who is prepared to put in the extra time.

Thank you Alex for sharing your work and the things you learn from this project with us. If you have a project of your own that you’d like to share with us, drop a line and let us know!

Video Tutorial: How to Use your Camera’s Histogram

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

What the heck is that thing called a “histogram” and how do you use it anyway?

A histogram is a graph that shows the exposure from pure black on the left, to pure white on the right. It is a tool you can use to see how well your image will be exposed in your camera. One of the secrets of photography is to learn to “see” what your camera sees. Your eye can see a much wider range of light than your camera, so using the histogram can help you see only the range of light that the camera will capture. The word histogram is derived from histo meaning mast (the vertical lines) and gram denoting something written or recorded–as a graph. So in our case it is a graph showing the range of light being exposed on your camera’s sensor.

Master photographer Joe Holmes gave us a short tour of how to use your histogram, with some tips for getting “perfect exposures.” Watch this video then grab your camera, take some shots and look at your histogram and see what you can learn from it.

Note: You also have a histogram in your photo editing software like PhotoShop and Lightroom, as well as video editing software like Final Cut Pro,so you’ll want to get to know how to read these graphs as a tool to get better exposed images and digital films.

And for an advanced lesson, take a look at how using the histogram fits right in to Ansel Adams’s “Zone System” and stay tuned for more on the subject…

Joe McNally on things learned during his 30 year journey as a professional photograper

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

We got a chance to talk to the one and only Joe McNally, who’s shot cover stories for TIME, Newsweek, FORTUNE, Entertainment Weekly, and The New York Times Sunday Magazine. Joe also happens to be the photographer who shot the first all digital coverage in the history of National Geographic Magazine. He was kind enough to share some of the tricks of the trade that he’s learned over the years.

What should we ask Joe the next time we catch up with him?

Bambi Cantrell: How to capture !EMOTION! in your photographs

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

Bambi Cantrell is one of the world’s most decorated and sought after professional photographers of our time. She’s been recognized by everyone from Microsoft to American Photo Magazine and was the first woman to be honored with the prestigious “Golden Eye” award from the Russian Federation of Professional Photographers. Clearly she’s got the technical side of her game in order.

But we feel one of the main reasons why she’s shot for The Estee Lauder Family, legendary basketball player Gary Payton, and members of the Royal Family, Dubai, UAE is her ability to really make her subjects comfortable. The ability to connect plays a huge role in getting truly personal shots that make her portraits really resonate.

Natural Lighting Techniques from Camille Seaman

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

This interview with Camille Seaman is packed with so much goodness. She talks about using natural lighting in shooting subjects as varied as giant icebergs to TIbetans who don’t use lights indoors at all during the day. More importantly what really struck a chord is how WHO a photographer is plays a central role in their work.

Lighting and Composition tips from RJ Muna

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 00:00:01 GMT

We had a chance to catch up with our good friend , renowned studio and dance photographer RJ Muna. RJ’s won a couple of hundred awards (really). We love RJ because he has a great sense of humour and despite the fact that he’s so accomplished he is very generous in taking time to talk about his craft. He gave us some choice tips. If there’s something you’d like us to ask RJ or our other guests when we see them next, leave comments below!