I recently had a conversation with some fellow photographers about lens recommendations for a beginner.  As usual, up came the topic of the much maligned “kit lens” — usually a smallish aperture, plasticky mid-range zoom lens that trades on the used market for ~$100.  It doesn’t matter if it’s from Canon, Nikon, Sony, or Pentax, the “kit lens” has become a derogatory phrase used to describe what most would call a mediocre lens.

However, the kit lens is useful for a lot of reasons, just as a fast prime, like a 50mm f/1.8 or similar (I mention this one because it’s usually the OTHER beginner lens that people recommend) is useful as a learning tool.  With a cheap midrange zoom, the new photographer isn’t plunging deep into the expensive waters of fast, professional glass, and he or she has the opportunity to try various focal lengths to find what suits them best.  He might shoot for a while, find that he is always on the 55mm end of the lens and decide he needs something longer, like a telephoto.  Or she might find that she enjoys shooting epic landscapes, and that a wide angle lens is right for her.  Or they both might decide that that the kit lens is limiting because of it’s smallish apertures, and move on to a fast prime for shallower DOF and better subject separation.

Wherever it leads, the kit lens is a good tool for general photography, and for helping to orient someone to various focal lengths and photography in general.  What does all this have to do with a challenge, you say?

Well, the kit lens is oft-maligned because it is so frequently and mostly used by rank amateurs who may or may not be great photographers — in other words, a lot of garbage photos get taken with the kit lens.  Generally, unless someone is very well off and/or enjoys expensive hobbies, he’s not going to get started with top-shelf L primes or professional zooms (yes, I know, there are exceptions to that rule).  Then there is the perception that you need those expensive professional zooms to take great photos, since most pros use them.  Indeed, the more expensive lenses are generally optically superior, have larger maximum apertures for more flexibility in different light, and focus more quickly, but a lot of what pros are paying for is for the dust and moisture sealing, the sturdier build, the reliability.  To trot out a tired analogy, just because you have paintbrush doesn’t mean you can paint the Mona Lisa.  Sure, a nicer paintbrush might make it more pleasant to paint, and might save you some time (can paint brushes do that?), but the skill and the knowledge have to be there already to know what to do with that brush.

So here, finally, is the challenge: I told my colleague, this photographer who suggested that the kit lens wasn’t good value for money, that I would take on the challenge of shooting a salable image with the kit lens, and include it amongst the images I was delivering to a client.  So confident am I that the lens can get the job done, I made this brash claim.  Only problem is, I don’t have a camera that will take a Canon EF-S lens (APS-C sized sensors… if you don’t know what the heck I’m talking about, it just means the lens won’t physically mount on either of my cameras).  Fortunately, another esteemed colleague of mine has a Rebel XTi moldering away in his closet somewhere, he having moved on to bigger and better things.  He volunteered to loan it to me if I bought the kit lens, and so the challenge started coming together.

And so here we stand — the infamous kit lens — the Canon EF-S 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 lens that came standard with the Rebel XT, 20D, and 30D — is on its way to me, and hopefully soon after a Rebel XTi to which to mount it.  Once I have them both, I’ll bring them on a paid shoot and use the kit lens to prove that it’s up to the task.  It may be hubris, it may come from wild claims after having a little too much wine, but I have confidence that even in Canon’s lowly consumer line there is optical quality to be found.

And more importantly, I’m fully confident that it’s not really the gear that makes the difference, anyway.

In some ways, shooting portraits of musicians is old hat — portraits are what I shoot mostly, after all.  But each shoot is a new opportunity to be enriched by talented and interesting people, and to make new contacts, and to try new things.  These were my first posed shoots with instruments, for example, and it was fun to try to figure out how to pose them with those instruments to showcase both the artist and their musical tools.

I also think that what musicians do is somewhat analogous to what photographers do — their playing is part craft, part art, and soul and emotion are every bit as important as any other art.  Where they have an oboe and a violin, we have a camera and a lens.  Just as a musician can be technically proficient without any soul in their music, so can a photographer take lifeless, but technically perfect, photographs.

Without waxing too poetic, it was really fun to meet Dovid and Melanie, to have a little bit of time to get to know them, to have that moment in their lives and to try to capture it all in a way that is authentic and beautiful.  I hope that I’ve achieved that for them, and that my photographic life will continue to be filled with interesting opportunities and tremendously talented people.

I just wanted to take a moment to compliment my wonderful, crafty wife who made these party favors recently.  Our friends Amanda and Eli are getting married in a few weeks, and Hanna made these birds nests — complete with eggs and origami birds — for an engagement/bridal party we threw for them.

She also made some great food and other decorations, but I really liked how these little packages came out.

Good job, honey!

I haven’t updated the photoblog recently because it’s been really hot (record hot!) and humid, keeping me from being out shooting for myself, and I am gearing up for a wedding in August and one in September.  In the meantime, I still feel like I should update the blog from time to time, hopefully with something interesting and worth reading.  And I realize that I might just be shouting out into empty space here, but I’m wondering what anyone might be interested in reading about.  I know that I find blogs about photo gear and technique to be really interesting, as well as those that discuss the state of the industry — not just the photographer’s industry, but the technological industry that brings us new cameras and lesnes.  It’s neat to find out which new technologies are making an impact (micro 4/3rds), and which cameras are selling well for their makers.

For someone visiting this site, though, I’m not sure what you’d be interested in reading about, so you tell me?  I’ve purposefully avoided technical or gear talk in my photoblog before, but maybe you all want to hear about that, or something else entirely.

If anyone is interested in some sort of photo workshop, please leave a comment on this post or contact me through the website.  It’s not restricted to friends, necessarily, so if you are a visitor reading this and might be interested, please introduce yourself!

I also would like to know what times/days would be convenient for people — it’s much easier for me to schedule if I have some idea of when other people are free — as many of  you know, my schedule is very irregular so this is something I have to plan out in advance.

If no one’s interested, that’s okay, too, but I thought I’d throw it out there!  I always love an excuse to get out to shoot and/or hang out with people who share an interest in photography!

Patrick, Brianna, and McClain — I can’t wait to set up some time to get you some photos that we can show off!

Jessica and Brian, I learned, are North Carolinians working with disaster relief in Mississippi.  They are getting married at Duke Gardens in a few months, and were in town to do some planning and to get some engagement photos.  I hope their time was well-spent on a blustery, nearly-stormy Memorial Day!  They were a great couple to work with, having sought me out because they didn’t want traditional, posed, unnatural shots.  I really enjoyed getting to know them, and spending some time observing their dynamic together.

New Yorkers enjoy the weather in the Brooklyn Bridge Park

I don’t remember how, exactly, I came upon it, but I discovered that New York’s Museum of Modern Art was holding a retrospective exhibit of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work, spanning the whole of his career.  I knew I had to go, and had to find a way to do it.  I wouldn’t say that Henri Cartier-Bresson is one of my favorite, or even one of my biggest influences, but I couldn’t pass up a photo-centric pilgrimage to New York to see a huge collection of photos by one of the most important photographers in history.

It seemed fitting to me to go to New York, and try to see it and shoot it in a different way, as he had shot in Paris.  My goal was not to emulate Cartier-Bresson, exactly, but to take the time to wander the city and really see its richness.  One thing that I definitely do take from Cartier-Bresson is a focus on the ordinary — I like to find everyday things and elevate them, to show the little moments that make up our lives.  So I went to the famous places that I hadn’t visited before, and instead of focusing on the famous places, I tried to focus on the people in and around the famous places, and how they interacted with the city.

In a lot of ways, I was way out of my comfort zone — not exactly shooting from the hip, but shooting moments as they happened, trying to be ready with the camera, pull it up, focus, compose, take a photo.  I took a minimal kit that is not my most familiar, and shot in ways I don’t normally shoot.  The experience was freeing and fun, and reminds me of the revelations about my own hometown when I took the time to see it through the viewfinder, to explore it and see it in a new, fresh way.

The wonderful and annoying thing about New York City is that there is just so much — it’s sensory overload.  It’s very difficult to filter, to make sense of the sensory cacophony.  On the flip side, sometimes I felt I could point the camera anywhere and find something new, interesting, and worthwhile.

Manhattan, as seen from the Brooklyn Bridge

Walking around, seeing the thousands of people — tourists, locals, visitors — and the thousands of cameras and the thousands of images being made all around me, I couldn’t help but think that nothing is original, that I couldn’t — and can’t — hope to capture something unique, something special about this city.  And if that’s so, I’m okay with it, because I think this trip was important, and the images I’ve brought back with me have meaning, even if only to me.

Thanks for taking the time to look at them, and to read this blog.

I have watched in dismay as my photographer friends’ Facebook fan pages have grown like wildfire while mine has hovered around 40 fans for what feels like forever.  In an effort to jump start some spreading of the word, I am holding a spring prize give away.  All you have to do is go here to my fanpage, become a fan if you aren’t already, and then tell your friends.  To be entered in the giveaway, every friend who you have referred must list your name in a wall post.  The contest will end at midnight on June 1st.  The winner will be whoever has brought the most referrals to my page.  That’s it.  That’s all you have to do.  Simple, right?

So, what’s the prize?

For your trouble you will get a two-hour photoshoot at a location of your choice (within a 2 hour drive of Durham) and a disc of edited images.  You can expect the same quality and commitment that you see of other photoshoots on this website.  Additionally, there will be an online gallery of your images with an option to order high-quality prints.

If, by the end of May I have over 500 fans, there will be an additional, special prize (hint: it will be something that you can use to take your own photos).  The great thing about this part is that you don’t even have to be the one who gets me to 500, you just have to have the most referrals!

Feel free to post questions/comments on this page for any clarification.

**Fine Print: Session date will be set by me and the winner(s).  Not all dates are available, but I will do everything in my power to work with your schedule.

I always get nervous when I am photographing someone I know or that I am related to.  Even though I know I’m a good photographer, I am thrown into an unfamiliar situation where I have very little control over the light, the energetic children, the setting, etc.  Then there are the expectations.  These are people who know me, who know my work, and have seen the stuff that I’ve shot very deliberately, during the best light of the day, under the best sorts of conditions.  My expectations for myself are very high, and I project these on to them.  Fortunately, these are the sorts of situations I shoot in all the time, so I’m used to it, but they still make me nervous.

So, it was with some trepidation and a lot of excitement that I accepted when my stepsister Amanda wanted family photos while they were in town for Easter.  Before every shoot, I try to visualize what I want it to look like, given that I know where we will be ahead of time.  I think of certain settings, certain scenes, certain poses that will work well.  Inevitably, when three year olds are involved, you have to throw all that careful planning out the window.  For this shoot, I brought both cameras, had them both out and ready to go, and then held on tight for the ride.  I am always looking for the moments of real emotion, real joy, real laughter, real anger, whatever.  When you have a three year old who wants to see everything — the cranes, the piles of wood, the machines, the bridge, the park…. you have to let things unfold and catch the moments when you can.  If you try to exert yourself on the situation in any really overt way, you are destined for phony looking photos.  And I don’t want no phony photos.

Amanda, Andrew, and Jacob were a lot of fun to shoot.  Kids have a lot of energy… a LOT of energy… it’s fun to watch their curiosity and their exuberance, to watch as they discover new things and try to describe things that are unfamiliar to them.  Durham’s Central Park proved to be a great place for family photos, even with the numerous distractions.  It was a beautiful morning, and there were lots of visually interesting things to put behind them and lots of things to keep Jacob’s attention, however fleeting.

I don’t usually mention the technical things on this site, but I will say that a fast, pro-level camera really makes shoots like this easier and smoother.  Having a rapid-fire shutter and telepathic autofocus really help capture some of those fleeting moments before a smile turns into a frown, or a laugh into a scowl.  Try also to remember that even though you are shooting a whole family, that you are presenting the photos as a set, and that you can isolate moments and interactions between family members — they don’t all need to be in every shot.  Hanna and I have a collage of shots (by the beautiful and talented Rachel Garrison) of various combinations of Isaac and us that as a whole, expresses our family.

So thanks to the Glasgows for a fun morning — I hope they enjoy the photos, and eventually we’ll get up to Brooklyn for a shoot.