Calm after the storm
Every year at the end of January or beginning of February, Vietnam is in a chaotic flurry of buying, preparing and tidying up in anticipation of Tet. I hate this time of year and so do most other Expats as the traffic and general feeling of the city is all too stressful.
Yes more than normal.
What I do like is the calm and tranquility that replaces the chaos that was just one week before. This is the first morning of Tet. If you are ever lucky enough to experience it, it would be to experience Hanoi, Vietnam in its true Zen like or Valium induced state. The streets are empty except for the odd straggler here and there. You can hear birds clearly while walking down some of the larger streets in the city like Dai Co Viet. People are in a joyous and festive mood and will let you take photos of them with no problem (big deal for me as the ratio of asking is usually 1/3). All in all, it is really amazing and a joy to experience.
Since most photographers love to take photos or get assignments of the leading up of Tet, I thought why not show the actual first day of Tet and how calm it is and what remained after the chaos has subsided. So I set out at 6 AM and anyone I saw on the street I took a portrait of them. Got to say after 3 hours there were not so many portraits as it was really that quiet.
My first intention was to do this purely with images, but as my time on the street progressed I wanted to capture the sounds I experienced in the hope of helping place you, the audience, next to me in my morning journey. Sorry the sound is not better all I had was my iPhone, but I think it can still put you in the setting
I hope everyone has a great new year. May the year of the dragon bring you luck.
2011 EAW Thoughts and Assignment
It has been just over a week since I got back from the 2011 Eddie Adams Workshop. I must say I had a great time there and made some really good friends. Recently I was contacted by Wonderful Machine owner Bill Cramer, who was a real pleasure to meet at the workshop. He asked me to write a little bit about my time at EAW and it got me thinking once again about exactly all that I experienced there and what I took away from all the sleepless nights.
I know it might sound cheesy but, an EAW acceptance was something I had strived for ever since I first heard of the workshop. Since I didn’t go to photography school, being accepted was for me, a total a validation of my work from the industries best people. It felt really great when I found out the news. During my time there I made some great new friends I hope meet again in future, listened to amazing speakers and began the foundation for lasting relationships with some of the editorial industries best editors.
One of the most memorable moments of the workshop for me happened after it all ended. I was sitting drinking a coffee the day after and thinking about everything when I realized that EAW was like a team building and bonding experience between photographers, editors and the suppliers that work in our industry. For me, this is a very rare experience and I would imagine it is rare in our industry as a whole to connect to people like you do at EAW. I now can see why many of the editors and organizers of EAW use words like “Family” and “Love” to describe how they feel about the participants and the experience in attending EAW.
I thought to myself at that moment, how often do photographers get to just talk to editors you don’t know, one on one, like a normal person where your not selling yourself? Most of the time when I talk to a editor I know they are very busy and are tired of being bombarded with emails and promos of photographers selling themselves. So to be able to have a normal conversation that wasn’t 5 min long and then later show my work for another 30 min was just amazing.
It was also a great opportunity to meet a lot of the industries suppliers like Anthony Pak from Manfrotto who hooked me up with a bunch of missing parts (I know I owe you a photo. I promise it is coming) and hanging out with J.C. from B&H during my whole assignment day talking about life and of course photography. These are good people who work in the industry and want to help photographers do their jobs. Now that we know each other, I’m sure i will be a loyal customer to them and they will be happy to help me out in the future.
EAW gave me the opportunity to meet all these great people from all over the industry and connect with them on a personal level and hopefully make new friends in the business.
It was truly a once in a lifetime opportunity and I will never forget it. Thanks to all the sponsors, editors, producers, black team and the Adams family for continuing this tradition in pushing and inspiring new generations of photographers.
For me this made my trip from Vietnam very worth while and something I will remember forever.
The photos above and below were from my assignment, which was to shoot downhill mountain biking. On my assignment, I meet 15 year old Taylor who is a fearless pro downhill biker. Needless to say I love what I do and had a great time shooting the sport even if I’m not a “sports” guy. Thanks again EAW. Love you all.
Stolen Moments – Nam Hai Resort Da Nang, Hoi An
Last week I had a photography assignment shooting a corporate event at the Nam Hai which is between Da Nang and Hoi An, Vietnam. I have to say the Nam Hai is pretty amazing and I have had the privilege of staying there so I know it rocks. My assignment was pretty straight forward and my clients and subjects were really great to work with. As with all assignments you get a couple of hours of down time so I went around taking some images of this beautiful place. There are a some amazing resorts in Hoi An and Da Nang but for me I am hooked on the Nam Hai, but have heard the Fusion is pretty good. Later this year I have another 2 photography assignments down in Da Nang and Hoi An and hopefully with a little downtime I will be able to take some more images of these other resorts. As always thanks for looking.
3 – 5 min max!!
Tube Mogul Research
These days I do my fair share of videography / multimedia / photo film or whatever you want to call it. Probably more than the average photographer and I love all the creative options it offers in being able to tell a story .
That being said, if you do start to get into this type of work you will probably run into lots more paperwork, budgets, scripts, 20 page proposals and complicated production schedules than your average photography job. Another thing I also find, is that most of my clients think they get more value for their money if they have a longer film. i.e. 10 min or 30 min.
The problem with that idea is that most of my clients don’t show their video in a movie theater or on TV, it is shown via the web with all the distractions of email, Twitter and Facebook to steal their audience away from their video. Clients love the web because it is an extremely cost effective way to publish their video to the public and it has added benefits that TV can never have like viral dissemination to help spread their message to more people than they could reach by themselves.
Most clients think that everyone will of course want to watch their video because they are amazing and if they don’t, it’s because you didn’t do a good job.
Well …… sort of.
Most of us that are hired for this type of work know how to make something that isn’t total crap, which is why they hired us to start. Where you failed in doing your job was not in the content that you created but that you didn’t convince the client to change the length of the video to something more watchable online. So as you can see this is pretty dam important. If you don’t convince your client to change their epic film ideas to something more realistic and effective they might think you did a crap job even though you didn’t.
So how do you convince your client to change their 15 min epic corporate video to a 3-5 min video?
- Ask them when they last watched a video in full online? What kind of video was it? How long was it? If it was a corporate film or NGO film that is more than 5 min put it on in the office and wait to see how long it takes for someone to start talking. Most of the time I find people start talking in 2-3 min. AMAZING!! You prove your point right there.
- Next show them some independent marketing research to back up your professional opinion. This helps out a lot with skeptical clients.
Ok the first part is easy and may be enough to convince your client, but sometimes …. I know wait for it…. Clients are difficult. Shocker I know!!!
So now armed with some independent marketing research on online video length you can change their mind and earn some professional respect to boot. But wait! Where is this marketing research your telling me about??? Well it is below so stay with me.
Back in old 2008 a great photography professor at the University of San Francisco, Ken Kobre, found some companies that published their research about the length of time people will watch online videos. Now you won’t find this awesome research on his new site but thank god he didn’t delete his old blog and you can still see his informative blog post here: http://kobrechannel.blogspot.com/2009/01/whats-perfect-online-video-length.html
Now I wouldn’t tell a client that “Ken Kobre says this and that,” even though he is my hero for publishing this great post. I would point them or give them a link to Tube Mogul. Tube Mogul is the company that did the research and they would be the authority http://www.tubemogul.com/research/report/18
I also like the other research that Kobre found from another source but strangely enough their website doesn’t work anymore.
Finally, I have found some other peoples thoughts about this topic that is more current than 2008. Here are the quotes:
Jeff Misenti – VP of Fox News Digital – “the drop-off (watching vid online) after 90 sec is pretty severe.”
Joel Schwartzberg, – A director at PBS digital – “[he] cites attention span of 3 minutes for video.”
Anyways, I hope this helps you out on your next web video project. If you have any comments, strategies or other research you use to convince your clients to change the length of their video, please share them below in the comments.
The Process: Setting Out
So from my previous blog post so keenly entitled “The Process” I went out do some more research around Hanoi on my idea as well as contacted some people who could help facilitate in my getting access to the topic I am working.
I went to the Red River to talk to some people there and ran into a really nice boat captain. Even though he didn’t really know where I could find stuff related to my topic he did his best in explaining some places he thought I might be interested in going.
I first came across him as he was sitting on his barge checking himself out in the mirror. I proceeded to go over to him and after a chat he allowed me to take his portrait. One of the great things working on a new project is all the people you meet on the way. Some good, some bad but the adventure and experiences in the process are one of the many gifts a new project brings.
Yangon Photography Festival
Last March my agents at Noi Pictures told me that my photos of a recent story I did about a woman living with HIV had been selected to be shown at the Yangon Photography Festival. I was very honored to be able to show my work with so many other great photographers. Thank you again to Noi Pictures for helping me out with everything. Above is a little write-up about the Photography festival by Photo.fr
If you would like to see the photo story you can see it here A Mother’s Love or watch the photofilm/multimedia I made where the woman Lan tells her story in her own words Film:A Mother’s Love
The Process
I have an idea…. and that is it. So to start to understand how I am going to approach it I am beginning my process. Of course, like all creative people I want the result of my work to be great and to communicate my idea to other people. My process is to go out, experience, shoot, analyze, write down new ideas and approaches and then go out again and shoot. I will try to get access to places, meet new people and slowly let this idea mold itself into something more concrete.
I will be posting images here as I go through my exercises. For the mean time this will be filed under, “The Process”
Organizing & Memories
I have finished up a long commercial project (will be posting that in a couple of months) and have been starting to prepare for 2011 in Vietnam. 2010 was an amazing year for me in both photography and film making and I know that 2011 will be even better. I started organizing all my photos into a massive lightroom archive so that they are more easily referenced when I need them.
Through this process I have come across some photos from Van Mon leprosy village that I like but didn’t make the cut in telling the story of the place. Storytelling isn’t always about showing your favorite photos, but to…. tell a story. These photos are more like singles, but moments that I liked when I came across them again.
When I look at these photos, it reminds me how alone and isolated the people at Van Mon lived. It also reminds me that I need to go see them for Tet this year and see how they are doing.
Normally I would leave these on my hard drive as the project has been finished for over 3 years now, but I found inspiration to show them from fellow photographers Aaron Joel Santos and Julian Abram Wainwright who have also been reminiscing on their older work and it inspired me to do the same. Hope you kind gentlemen don’t mind?
It is really good for me to look at my old work, see my mistakes and think about how you would do something different today. Thus is the process of continual growth. Never be content and always look to improve.
Thanks for looking.
Possessed by Gods – Work in Progress
Been busy busy busy working on a commercial for the last 2 months and it is finally finishing that up.
I had some time the other day to go do some research into a new project which right now i’m titling, “Possessed by Gods”. I still need to do some more research on other direction I want to take it, but here are some pics from yesterday. More updates soon.
UNESCO Annual Report outtakes
I’ve been pretty busy as of late doing annual reports, commercial, corporate and event jobs as well as working on a long format commercial film spot.
Awhile ago I was out on an UNESCO assignment for their annual report. They were looking for iconic images of their international Director on her historic trip to Vietnam. As always, shooting VIPs here in Vietnam consists of a lot of pushing, shoving, security grabbing and go go go time. It is not for timid people with poor balance that is for sure.
The one thing that is fun about these gigs is listening to the meetings between the big boys/girls. Always great insight into what this country is up to.
Here are some outtakes from this shoot. Some of these I took when I had 5 min to look around where I was. The others just didn’t make the final edit cut for different reasons but I still liked them.
Thanks for looking.
3 hours of Hanoi’s 1000 Years
Thursday morning my wife Trang told me that the streets near our house and the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum would be closed for the practice of Sunday’s parade.
I thought it might be a good time to go out see what they are doing and take some snaps. I left my house at 3:00 and shot until 6:00, which was a great way to spend the afternoon.
Girls dressed up in Ao Dai, event workers shifting out propaganda posters and military personal dotted the area around the mausoleum. People visiting from the countryside came to see what their capital had prepared for them on Sunday’s anniversary. Vietnamese people are at heart very kind and easy going people. I really had a great time walking, talking to them, having my photo taken with them and of course taking snap here and there. The only thing that was a little bothersome was all the police being rude and forcing people from watching the preparation of the parade from the street.
To me it is sad, because most Vietnamese are proud of Hanoi and want to celebrate the 1000 year anniversary. Only authorities and VIPs were allowed to see the parade in person leaving the rest of the population to watch on government TV with advertising.
Besides all that, it was nice to meet friendly strangers who were more than willing to let me take some photos of them. I couldn’t ask for any more than that for a Thursday afternoon.
60D $1099 of Video Goodness
Canon PR photo
Canon just released a new DSLR that shoots HD video for $1099. The one thing that I love about this camera is the fact that it has a LCD screen can be moved in to a number of different places making it so much easier to shoot video. I think this is a great idea from canon.
The video quality is pretty similar to the 7D or 550D. You can see that here from the video examples from Canon.
Canon video examples
I would love to get my hands on one of these to see how it performs. I think it could be a great second camera / backup body to have. I bet it could be really great to have that LCD screen for steadicam work. I wonder if they will do this for Canon 5D Mark III everyone has been rumoring about.
Canon PR Photo @ DPreview.com - Click for larger photo
Canon PR Photo @ DPreview.com - Click for larger photo
Canon PR Photo @ DPreview.com - Click for larger photo
Here are the specs on the camera for all you junkies out there:
- An 18MP sensor with 4 channel readout. Very similar to the sensor found in the T2i and EOS 7D, though the 7D has 8 channel readout to speed up operation.
- Full HD video at the same selectable resolutions and frame rates as the Rebel T2i/7D. Manual exposure setting is possible.
- There is a “wind” filter which can be used when recording audio along with video. The built-in mic is mono, but there is a jack for a stereo mic. There is no manual control over audio volume.
- The AF system has the 9 points found in the Rebel T2i, but all are cross (dual axis) sensors as in the 50D. The 7D has a more advanced AF system with 19 cross type sensors.
- 63 zone metering as in the Rebel T2i and 7D
- The viewfinder has 96% coverage (the 7D is 100%).
- The ISO range is 100-6400 plus “H” (12800), same as the T2i and 7D.
- The EOS 60D now uses SD(HC) cards like the T2i. The 7D uses CF cards.
- Canon has abandoned the BP-511 battery of the 50D in favor of the LP-E6 which is used in the EOS 7D (and 5D MkII).
- The maximum frame rate is 5.7 frames per second (fps), between the 3.7 fps of the T2i and the 8 fps of the 7D
- The LCD has a 3:2 aspect ratio and Canon’s current (and excellent) anti reflection technology.
- For the first time on any Canon DSLR, the EOS 60D has a tilt and swivel LCD. This doesn’t help much for conventional still photography, but it can be very useful in Live View mode and when shooting video.
- The weathersealing is somewhere between that of the T2i and the EOS 7D. It’s not super weather sealed, and it’s not designed to be used in heavy rain, but it shouldn’t quit if it sees a little drizzle!
- The shutter is good for 100,000 cycles. Max speed is 1/8000s and sync is 1/250s
- There is an electronic level, but only for the horizontal axis. The 7D has both horizontal and vertical levels, the T2i has none.
- There is a dedication position on the mode switch for video and a dedicated “start/stop” button. When not in video mode, the button starts and stops Live View.
- The mode dial has a locking button in the center which must be pressed before rotating the dial to change modes. This makes it harder to nudge the dial and inadvertently change modes. Hopefully Canon learned their lesson with the A2, which had a similar, but notoriously fragile, mode change locking button.
- The on/off switch is now directly below the mode control dial (as in the EOS 7D)
- The buffer should be good for about 58 JPEGs or 16 RAW images. Better then the T2i, not quite as good as the EOS 7D for JPEGs.
- The 4 way controller used for menu selection, AF zone selection etc. is now incorporated inside the rear QCD on the EOS 60D.
- $1099! HELLO HONEY!!!!
Here are some other people’s thoughts on the new camera.
PDN: http://www.pdngearguide.com/gearguide/content_display/reviews/e3i7666b0f985795021e1a4172694176374
DP Review: http://www.dpreview.com/news/1008/10082620canoneos60d.asp
OGV what??? Universal Platform Publishing for Video
Today people have soooooo many ways to see your multimedia/videos/photofilms.
It is truly great to be able to show our content to our clients and potential clients on so many platforms through the internet. Unfortunately, the average photographer or film maker is not web intelligent which is why so many of them have flash websites which are expensive but easy to use.
What is the problem with this? Well if you haven’t seen the trend, people have decided that mobile viewers like iPad, HTC and iPhones are another way they want to look a content. For example my website has more and more viewers that are using an iPad or iPhone. Last month for example I had 113 people look at my blog and website with an iPhone or iPad.
So why is flash bad? Well if you didn’t know this the iPad and iPhone can’t and will never will see flash and Android based phones do a very poor job at letting you use flash.
So it seems that when you embed your videos with the standard flash based embedding, clients that want to look at your work will be missing out.
Do not be glum my friends. Let there be joy in the world. Some smart people got together and have fixed the problem in HTML 5.
So how do you take advantage of this HTML 5 and be able to show your videos across every platform known to man? Well you have a couple of options.
#1) Use Vimeo Plus which is $60 a year. Sweet deal.
#2) Use free Vimeo (or YouTube) and embed multiple video inputs for every platform out there and host the HTML 5 compatible videos on your own server.
Wait what? Embed multiple video inputs? Sounds like a lot of work.
Well no.
There is a very simple way to do this and i’m going to show you step by step.
#1) First you should use Firefox and add the plug-in Firefogg. Firefogg will help you convert your movie into the HTML5 complaint .ogv video file which is needed to for Firefox viewers.
#2) You can read about all the settings for Firefogg here but most of the time using the Preset in Firefogg does the job well. Just make sure you choose the option that has “Theora(video) and Vorbis(audio)”. ( I just found out that Firfogg can also encode your videos in Google’s new format called WebM. Very nice!)
#3) Now you will get a .ogv file. keep it.
#4) Now download another free program called MPEG Streamclip. Open up this application and go to “Export MPEG-4″
#5) Convert your original video file into a mp4 using h.264 or x.264.
#6) Upload your 2 video files (.ogv and .mp4) via FTP to your server. Make it easy for yourself and make a folder called “Video” where you will put all these files. Make sure you know the file path on your server (http://www.yoursite.com/Videos/Name_of_your_Video.mp4).
#7) Upload your .mp4 video to Vimeo or YouTube.
#8) Open your web-page (with your web editor) or wordpress (Post -> HTML) and paste the following code. Make sure you change the file names and locations and read the directions below.
<!-- first try HTML5 playback: if serving as XML, expand `controls` to `controls="controls"` and autoplay likewise -->
<!-- warning: playback does not work on iPad/iPhone if you include the poster attribute! fix coming from Apple in OS4.0 -->
<video width="768" height="432" controls autobuffer> <!-- You can make this any size as long as you encode in that size and it has the same aspect ratio as your original video -->
<source src="../Videos/YOUR_VIDEO_NAME.mp4" type="video/mp4" /> <!-- change your video name and location -->
<source src="../Videos/YOUR_VIDEO_NAME.ogv" type="video/ogg" /> <!-- change your video name and location -->
<!-- fallback to Flash: this is the embedding code that YouTube or Vimeo gives you -->
<object width="768" height="432"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12816435&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1" /><embed src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12816435&server=vimeo.com&show_title=0&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="768" height="432"></embed></object>
</video>
This last bit of code is your embedding code that Vimeo or YouTube gives you. This is flash and it is needed for all those poor souls that are still using Internet Explorer or haven’t updated their browser.
Well there you go. Now everyone can watch your great video work on any platform whether it is a computer, iPhone, iPad or Droid. By using this way of publishing your videos on your website you are publishing it for the future and for those people who are still using old browsers.
Now this embedding code is not my creation entirely. I modified it to use embedding code for Vimeo and YouTube from Kroc Camen. Without his help I would be as lost as you. So if you want to know more about HTML 5 from a super genius web guy go check out his site here: http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody.
Now after all my talk were is my example?? Well here you go sparky!! This is my published HTML 5 video example for you from a recent project I worked on. Go ahead and right click on the video. No adobe and no flash (unless your on Internet Explorer 
). Ahhhhhh so nice!!!
Also, so you don’t freak out about the video interface for different browsers. Each browser has their own different video interface.
Firefox
Firefox
Google Chrome
Google Chrome
Safari
Safari
Well you get the idea. The important thing is that your clients can now watch your work on any platform they want to. It is all about accessibility.
Happy publishing!!
Backpackers & Yogurt
As of lately I have been feel that my photography work is not progressing as fast as i would like it to. I asked my agent/buddy Francois at Noi Pictures to get me some local editorial assignments which will force me to go out and shoot things i’m not used to shooting.
As most photographers know, local or regional magazines pay…. how do I say it in a nice way…. way way way below standard editorial day rates. This is why in the past I stayed away from them. Now though i am happy i changed my mind. They are fun assignments where i get to meet some interesting locals and shoot some stuff i normally wouldn’t get a chance to shoot.
All in all, it is good practice when i have free time and it’s fun to meet some different locals.
I had two stories this week. One on Kinh Do Cafe which makes all their own deserts and yogurt from scratch. The owner was a super nice old guy and the fresh yogurt with honey and fruit is amazing. I really enjoyed talking to him and taking his portrait, eating the free cake he made me eat (i didn’t want to be rude) and shooting the shit with Ian the writer.
The other story I was assigned was about backpacker fashion. I took some portraits of Tiffini, the owner of The Drift Backpackers Hostel who sells those crazy baggy backpacker pants in Hanoi. If they were gold they would totally be MC Hammer pants.
Since the the article was supposed to be about backpacker fashion I took to the streets and did some fun portraits of backpackers and their fashion. I had a really good time with this and half way though my portraits I decided to do 1-2 second shutter releases while having my subjects standing in the middle of the road. I got some pretty nice results out of it due to the traffic driving around the subjects, but it was difficult to keep the subjects still for 1-2sec.
Unfortunately, I can’t show them here right now since most of the photos were chosen by the editor and I only have a few out takes.
So with out further boring you with my writing here some out takes from those two assignments. Thanks for looking.
Painting with light
150 Layer Light Painting
For over a 2 years i have been lucky enough to befriend a really great guy and talented photographer, Boris Zuliani. He used to live on Truc Bach lake and we would have beers in the evening with other photo buddies talking about our love of photography and film (or until our wives or girlfriends called). Boris’s true love and art in photography is light painting. He uses it with great skill and passion in his personal work and for some commercial work.
When I first saw his work I thought it was just beautiful. I loved how soft the light was and at the same time giving the exposure a different kind of contrast then that of a normal photograph.
As Boris and I talked over beers I started to think about making a video of light painting. I didn’t want to make a “tutorial” video showing the process of light painting, but more about the feeling light painting gives to the subject and showing the gradual exposure of a photograph out of darkness.
Then some time later……. I met a randy young lady named Gillian. Boris had done a couple of light painting portraits of her and she said that the experience was so different from any other portraits she had posed for in the past. She explained it to me, but this was some time ago and my brain has been punished by Hanoi’s cheap beer so i don’t remember word for word. Though, I do remember her saying how much she enjoyed it and that the experience was something special.
Then some more time passed…….. Boris called me up and pushed me to make the video. Then Gillian called me up and pushed me to do it as well.
Time to put my thinking cap on. I had to figure out a way to show a light painting photo slowly exposed in video format using the extra variable of time. Hmmmm…. then i figured it out (oh that engineering degree served me well).
I would use a very slow shutter speed and do a kind of time-lapse while Boris did his painting. Then i would layer the photos to be gradually exposed over time and make all the layers add the new exposure to the old one (yeah i’m a nerd for this stuff).
So me and my gun-hoe /semi intoxicated team went out one night by West Lake (Ho Tay for the natives) and shot this video in 40 min.
Post production took an incredible 24 hours of rendering in CS5 Premier Pro with my i7 core iMac (thing was burnin’ up!!!). I guess that is what you get when you have 150 layers in a video editor.
No grading, special effects or effect editors (After Effects or Motion) were used to make this (except for my logo). The video and photos were shot on a 5D Mark II and the video was all shot hand held at 50mm.
Now making sure that the subject was fully exposed is tricky because when we did the light painting in this way you can’t see what you have exposed, which is why some of Gillian’s leg is not exposed. Also you have to remember that each exposure adds to the next exposure so i also had to be careful not to make my image too bright or too dark other wise the final image would be over or under exposed. I think the exposure was perfect for the layering, we just missed a part of the leg. I’m putting blame squarely on the intoxicated aspect of the project.
All and all, I am happy I was able to do this and thanks to my buddies for helping do so. It was something fun, different and somewhat challenging.
It could be interesting to make a clothing designer commercial like this. If your keen for that please drop me a line.
And now the final video. Thanks for watching.
Light Painter: Boris Zuliani
Model: Gillian Sturtevant
Photography & Video: Ehrin Macksey
Music: NiN
Hoa Binh Hydroelectric Time Capsule
Last weekend was a national holiday in Vietnam. My wife and I went with some friends to Hoa Binh to spend the night at a man made freshwater lake. It’s glassy water was dotted with small islands similar to Ha Long Bay. This lake was a little eerie to me as it seemed to be very still with very little life in it or around it. Maybe, this is due to not seeing much wildlife or this could be very normal for this kind of body of water. You see, this lake was made to be a reservoir for the Hoa Binh Hydroelectric plant. Underneath it’s still waters lies 3 villages and the now islands, used to be hills or mountains. Even though it was quite quiet and a little eerie it was still nice to see and even more interesting to explore.
The next day we all went to see the Hoa Binh powerplant, which in in it’s heyday was a symbol of great national pride. This place was like taking a step back into time. A time where the computers were the size of the room, you had big colorful lights blinking on and off and that, 1970′s Industrial Communist design is everywhere. Amazing place.
I have driven through Hoa Binh a handful of times and I can’t believe i have been missing out on this gem.
This dam was made in partnership with the USSR. That is right, USSR. Most of the writing on instruments is in Russian and you can see “Made in the USSR” marked on all of them. This was very much a highlight for me to see.
As i was about to enter this catacomb of Industrial Communism, I was stopped and was told i wasn’t allowed to bring my camera. Such a shame, as it would have been nice to have better high resolution photos of this place. Oh well.
As i entered the tour, i whipped out my iPhone and started to shoot away. No one seemed to care about my iPhone so i shot as much as i could. Our tour guide, a government employee that does the day to day work at the plant, was drunk off of rice wine and was very proud of where he worked. On a few occasions, he forgot about me in is his self-involved explanation of his fine facility and left me to wonder around by myself. So here is a short photo essay about the great Hoa Binh hydroelectric plant.
Enjoy!
Nha Trang, Vietnam Wedding Video
*** UPDATE ***
If your looking for Vietnam wedding photography or videography services please visit my new wedding business : MWeddings | Destination Photography & Film | Vietnam & Southeast Asia
*******
Back in 2010 Kim, the bride to be, and i started to talk to her about making a video of her wedding day. I asked her a lot of questions about music and what will be some of the activities at the wedding. Since she was overwhelmed with organizing the wedding she didn’t have much time to respond to me. So i kind of went into this job half blind, which always makes me nervous.
About 2 weeks passed by and i found out that the wedding would be held at the Six Senses Resort. Six Senses is a private secluded island that you can only get to it by boat. Not such a bad place to work if i do say so myself.
Since there were 2 photographers already going to be at the wedding taking photos Kim didn’t want 2 guys filming as well. She felt that it would have made it a circus having that many people documenting the event. I agree with her and don’t. Weddings happen fast and no one waits for the photographer or the video guy to prepare something. You have to think fast and work even faster to get good images. In my opinion, if i had another guy shooting video i could have covered sooooo much more of the actual event and of the preparation. With two shooters one person would cover the groom getting prepared and the other would cover the bride.
Since i was working on my own, i had to run back and forth between the two which means i lost time filming since the groom and bride were staying 15min away from each other. If i was to do another wedding video again i would also suggest getting a full Steadicam system which has a vest and a stabilizing arm. It would have been nice to have gotten some good movement shots of the wedding.
I did shoot almost 99% of this video handheld using a custom built RedRock system I designed. To me hand held gives you an almost a POV of what you would have seen if you attended the wedding. I like that.
Later on when I was documenting the preparation of everyone in the wedding I found out that Kim’s sisters and brothers were pretty famous musicians in Australia. They had written a song for the occasion and were going to perform it on stage at the wedding dinner. So with not much preparation or an idea on how i would edit it, I shot as much as I could of their rehearsal so that I could maybe cut together a nice music video of the wedding and the song they wrote.
I really like how this video turned out, but it would have been nice to be able to shoot some more or have another shooter with some more angles ect. Also I really wish I could have had time to record the song separately from their performance as the only audio i had was recorded through the PA speaker system they used. This is defiantly not the best for recording sound and at times the recording has some distortion because of this.
All in all, it was a great experience and it was an honor to be able to document Kim & Scott’s wedding day.
Here are the two video. I hope you enjoy them.
Ehrin
Nha Trang Wedding Music Video from Ehrin Macksey on Vimeo.
Nha Trang, Vietnam Wedding Video from Ehrin Macksey on Vimeo.
Potain – Annual Report Photography For Vietnam Project
In December, right before i went to America for a month, I shot a commercial job for the crane and heavy machine company, Potain. They wanted me to shoot the Son La Dam and the cranes from their company for their annual report. They told me that they had 8 Cranes on site, which was more than any other job site in the world for them. They also wanted the photos to only contain their cranes and not cranes from other companies. Fair enough right? That was what i thought.
At the time i thought that this would be a fun job, little did i know there were 20 operational cranes at the job site and that the Son La dam is a OSHA nightmare. As you can imagine, it is dirty and wet, very very dirty and very very wet. There were fine particles of soot everywhere you walked and when mixed with water (they are building a dam, so there is lots of water) became a super slippery substance. If you haven’t been to the dam, this place is HUGE. To get from one place to another was all done with hand made 1 bar rebar ladders bridges. Let me tell you, slippery mud and 1 bar rebar ladders, is not a good time. (see the first photo below)
Before the shoot, I was informed by the advertising company that hired me, London Based SE10 , that i would have a full day to shoot at the location. I thought this was great! I would shoot from 6AM until 6PM and have lots of time to go everywhere on the site.
Unfortunately, when i got in to the van full of advertising and sales execs to go to Son La (7 hours away), I was told I would only have a few hours to shoot the job as the execs i was traveling with were on a tight schedule and had to catch a plane to China.
No problem.
So what did i do, I shook loose my handler (It is a Vietnamese Government dam, every foreigner gets one) and shot the shit out of that dam. It was DAM fun (sorry I had to say it). I knew i needed about 25 solid photos for the client, so once i got those i had some time to take a few shots of the workers on the site. Here are some of my photos for the client and of the workers at the dam.
All in all, even with the time pressure, I am so happy to have done this job. My client was super happy writing me, “Best photos we have had in years.”
I love it when everyone is happy.
Tired and orange – Hanoi flower market during Tet
While this is my 4th Tet in Hanoi, I still enjoy going out to the night flower market just before the New Year. It is usually full of life and action, but this year it had a very different feeling. It was very dark and dirty and the flower sellers all looked very tired. Some of them said that it was a bad year to sell flowers as Hanoi had a hot flash for about 2 weeks before Tet which made most of the flowers bloom prematurely. For a flower seller in Hanoi, this is very bad as their Hanoian customers want their flowers to open up on the first day of Tet as it is considered an omen of good luck for the year. I feel bad for all the flower sellers, when their fight is strong they can haggle you to death, they just didn’t have that spirit in them this year. I missed it.
Keep your chin up all you flower sellers out there, next year will be here before you know it and with a little good luck the weather will be on your side.
5D Mark II & Bhaya Cruises TVC
In September, the agency that represents me, Noi Pictures, contacted me about a new contract they got from Bhaya Cruise. The contract was to produce a TVC type film in 5 languages to promote their cruises.
When i first thought about this project I instantly thought that i should use my 5D Mark II to make it. I had used the camera to make a short video for Blue Dragon and i really liked the results and image quality. Now, keep in mind, there are many issues with using this camera, but i found (after a lot of research) a lot if not all the solutions to fixing these. With those issues in mind, me and Francois (my super agent) set out to shoot the most beautiful TVC we could do in 3 days.
I did have some great talent, Ruth and Issak who made my life so easy as i didn’t have to direct them too much. Surprisingly enough they had read the script (like actors are supposed to do) and knew what i was looking for. Thank god for them and for them being professional at their job.
A lot of people have asked me what equipment did i use to shoot this? Well i did not use much. I used my dolly and boom that i bought as well as a trusty tripod. Besides that, i used the motion of the boat to my advantage to get some nice shots and stuck to my storyboard.
Also, if you look carefully the sunset it is a time-lapse i shot with the camera. These are all still photos connected together to create a time-lapse shot. I think there were 1000 something photos to make this. I don’t recommend this to everyone as it reduces the life of your shutter, but for me it is worth it.
If anyone has any other questions about this shoot i am happy to answer them.
-Ehrin
Photography award for NGO work – Photo Philanthropy
Last June I submitted my photography work to a new award contest. This contest is different from many other contests because it specializes in photography work done with an NGO. The organization that held the contest, Photo Philanthropy, believes in the power of photography and it’s combination with NGO work. They know that this combination is a sucessful format in not only informing people on what the NGO is doing, but to impact the decisions of the audience to help either financially or in other ways.
There were more than 150 professional photographer entries to this contest from all over the world.
Even though I did not win the big award I was given 1 of 4 honorable mentions which I graciously accepted.
Any photographers or NGOs working with a photographer should mark their calendar to apply and support this kind of award.
It is truly a great for everyone involved and I am happy to see it existing.
Me?? 100 notable multimedia professionals. Thank you!
Over the last 4 months I have had a serious increase in hits on my website. I went to my Google Analytics and low and behold the traffic was coming from Tracy Boyer‘s website Innovative Interactivity. Seems that she has put me in a list which has the top 100 notable multimedia professionals in the world. For those of you that don’t know what ”multimedia” means in the photography world, it basically means the combination of photography and video / film. I am highly honored to be included in this list with big industry name people like Andrew Devigal, multimedia editor for the NYT and Brian Storm, owner and producer of Media Storm.
Tracy if you see this post. Thank you for thinking so highly of my work.
Blue Dragon
About a month ago i met cool and friendly Ruth Mortimer who works for Blue Dragon. Blue Dragon is an local Hanoi organization that gives underprivileged kids a better chance at life. Ruth asked me if i wouldn’t mind donating some time to the organization and make a short video for them. I was happy to help.
I had one day of filming as i am in the middle of another project. This made all the shooting very fast. Ruth did a great job helping me organize the kids and getting the interviews done quickly.
The video is a thank you video to World Vision for their generous support.
So here it is, hope you enjoy it.
Responsiblity and Guilt
What is a photographer’s responsibility to the subject after the photography has finished? This has been stewing in my mind for sometime. I’m quite lazy about writing in my blog but I hope that I can get some feed back from others about this. Here are my thoughts.
I have done only a handful of stories, in each story there is a bond of trust between me and the person I’m photographing. We see each other everyday. They let me into their lives to document and then to show to other people. That is a lot of trust to give to someone with a camera and you don’t know.
It must be difficult for the subjects of photo stories after the photographer has finished the work. I wonder if they feel used or if they feel they are not important to the photographer anymore?
I mean really think about it. You make a new friend who cares about you and is interested in your life. This friend, with a camera, comes with you everywhere. They ask questions about everything your doing and why. This must make the subject feel pretty special.
Then, BAM!!!, after 2 weeks, this person with a camera says goodbye and you see them if your lucky one time a year.
This must be difficult for the subject. I wonder how they justify the photographer leaving them in their mind?
I do try to go see the people that have allowed me into their lives. When I do, they always say I don’t visit enough. I usually smile guiltily and say that I have been busy working but I have not forgotten them.
I wonder what some of the big photographers like James Nachtwey or Stephanie Sinclair think of this? Do they feel the same or do they just keep on moving and don’t look back?
As my life as a documentary photographer continues there will be more stories with more people. Then, there will be more people to visit to make sure they know I think they are important and that I appreciate them letting me into their lives. At some point it will become impossible to visit everyone. I hope they will understand.
So, should I feel guilty or not if i can’t find time to go visit the subject of a past project?
I’m trying to rationalize it. No conclusions as of yet.