Shopping for a bit of photo history

I'm on the lookout for a pair of 8" Petzval portrait lenses. If you know of a source for these please send me a message. These lenses were made starting in 1840. They are characterized by extremely sharp center of focus with a quick falloff to a swirly bokeh. My plan is to try to adapt them to fit on the Gowlandflex, so if you have any experience with this also please let me know.

-Michael

Plainview - Use Macs, you need this.

I was at an AIGA SF studio tour at The Barbarian Group last night. More about that in another post. They showed off their work using a browser they created - just because they needed it for their own presentations. Now they are giving it away for free. If you use a Mac and do any kind of presentation you need Plainview. It's just a browser but it hides all the controls and headers so your HTML or Flash preso takes up the whole screen. So, photographers, designers, sales peeps ... throw away Power Point and use your own website in your presentation. You can download it here: Plainview dowload. Of course if you are on a PC and you use Firefox just hit F11.

Happy New Year from Winokur Photography

I love my clients, most are friends all are creative collaborators. Each year I pick something that I can brand and give to them. This year I chose the Sharan SQ35 pinhole camera which happens to be sold by my friend Doug’s company Noted. The Sharan camera is a cardboard kit with a pinhole lens that makes square images on 35mm film. Since the kits take about an hour to build I figured none of my clients would build them – so I assembled all 25 cameras, packaged them with film and decorated them with custom “Winokur Photography” stickers. In previous years I’ve given “private label” wine. Since this year’s gift was so much more labor intensive then the wine I had to keep the list quite tight. The cameras went to my current clients and some very special dream clients.

I figured no one would have film hanging around anymore, so each camera was given with a roll of film to get started. In a week or so I'll be emailing everyone who got the cameras and asking them to submit their pinhole camera photos for display on this blog. Of course there will be a top-secret, super special prize for the person who sends the best pinhole image.

The instruction on the SQ35 make Ikea's instructions seem stratight forward. Assembling the cameras got easier after the first few but the design has some quirks and I ended up going over every one of them a second time to make sure all their little parts were properly stuck together. If the Sharan folks read this, I have some free advice for improving the kit.

Twenty-five note cards and 25 sets of promo cards.

Recycling: I used the original Sharan box as part of my home-made packaging.

Say twenty-ten. New Year's note cards, with Kurt Herr's logo design.

The labels for the cameras were printed at Community Printers where our friend Ross helped me get everything tuned up. We didn’t want to spring for a die cut so I thought I’d be hand cutting each sticker. The Xacto cuts just weren’t pretty enough to satisfy my QC team so I went to Techshop and used their Helix laser etcher engraver for a high-tech, low volume die-cutting substitute.

The Winokur Photography labels on the cameras were printed in six flavors.Those hi-tech black rubber bands are a key to the workings of the SQ35 - they hold the back shut.

My assembly plant all cleaned up after the build, everything counted out and ready pack.

The post office took 16 days to send the boxes I ordered, last minute purchase from U-Line and one-day shipping saves the day. Of course, the day after the cameras shipped USPS shows up with 25 boxes. Notice the Burberryesque ribbon, that's how you know we're styling here at WP.

All present and accounted for, ready for the post office.

Collaboration

Several years ago my friend Nancy Dobbs Owen and I conspired to do a shoot with her jewelry. Nancy brought along make up artist Jackie Yost. Jackie and I have been working together ever since.
Just over a year ago I got a call out of the blue from Chrysta Giffen who wanted to talk about the photography business in San Francisco. She has been doing digital post, printing and compositing work for me ever since.
In a business where most people work alone, where projects range from requiring one or two people to scores of talented contributors - having a team is critical. Knowing who to call when there is a client is one part of the equation, having relationships with people who share your vision is also key to the constant effort of making new work. So, when I have an idea I know who to call; it works both ways.
At one point while we were working on some portraits for a pharmaceutical client Jackie told us about her interest in a creating beauty images with funky eyelashes. I put her and Chrysta together and we all started looking for talent. Chrysta found Laurie and Allison on the website Model Mayhem.

This is Laurie.

This is Allison.

My work is focused on a real authentic look, so these images a outside of what I would call my style. However I am a portrait photographer and I think there is plenty of space for the "beauty portrait" in the work I'm interested in. Plus my health clients are interested in skin care so I'm happy to have samples of work that are all about beautiful skin. Images that showcase the team it takes to make an image with the look of beyond perfect skin.

Family Portraits

My parents were here in SF visiting over Thanksgiving so I used some of my precious and aging supply of Type 55 to make some portraits of them. Being that they are my parents they are willing but not necessarily agreeable portrait subjects.
This was a happy Gowlandflex accident. My finger slipped while cocking the shutter. I was going to dump this but instead made a second exposure and processed it out. I caught my dad smiling and looking tough on one piece of film. He always wants to look super serious in photos.
I don't think my dad will like this picture but hopefully he won't be too mad that I posted it. I love shooting this close with the Gowlandflex. It's a challenge because the parallax adjustment on the camera can't compensate at this distance, so the composition is always a guess. Seeing how well the Rodenstock 150mm lens performs this close you know it's worth fussing a bit with the camera to make it work.
While I'm talking about my parents I should give them a little blog shout out. They are fantastic artists you can see their work here and here.
This last photo is also with the Gowlandflex but it's on Fuji 160s not Type 55. You can see why so many people loved the Type 55. It's just as sharp as you can imagine but with an incredible soft tonality and the Polaroid x-factor that is hard to match.

Let's get personal.

Erik Almas' grand prize winning picture from 2008.

If you're not already on it you should be dreaming-up, shooting, editing or retouching your best personal images for the APA SF Something Personal show. That's APA's annual 100 print exhibit and blockbuster party; fourteen-hundred people came to the show last year. If that's still not enough incentive for you to get your work ready for the contest, then the incredible panel of judges we have lined up should seriously motivate you.

I've got to save some surprises but I'll give you a taste. Some of this year's judges include: One of the most talented and influential creative directors in the magazine world Scott Dadich, Creative Director at Wired. Margaret Johnson, GCD at Goodby the top creative agency in America according to Archive. Jennifer Jerde, Owner of Elixir Design, her beautiful work is in the permanent collection at SFMOMA and Fabio Costa, Creative Director at Cutwater where he works on Ubisoft, Nvidia, Ray-Ban and Persol.

Your odds of winning are good. Last year we had about 600 entries so the chances of winning were about 1:6. Just to put that in perspective, your odds of being struck by lightning are 1:280000 so you have a much better chance of getting in this show then being struck by lightning. Last year the 100 images in the show came from 62 individual photographers. So the average winner had 1.58 images represented in the show. We know of one photographer who tracks a national advertising campaign back to having his images in the show, and another who got a solo gallery show out of her winning images.

Are you ready to enter? I thought so. Entries are due October 20 (click here for the entry for). Seriously there will be no extensions.

Dan Winters in San Francisco September 23 with APA and AAU

We're all getting pretty excited about this week's APA lecture featuring Dan Winters at AAU's Morgan Augitorium. Dan's talk will be interesting for photographers as well as anybody in the design or editorial world. Here are the details:

September 23
7:30 to 9:30 PM
Doors open at 6:30
AAU Morgan Auditorium, 491 Post, San Francisco

Checks and Cash only. APA Members: $10, General Admission: $15, Academy of Art Students free with AAU ID.

I've been a huge fan of Dan's work for years now. I think the line he walks between commercial, editorial and fine art is an example of the space today's photographer hopes to occupy. He clearly brings a style and vibe to the table that clients seek out.

The NPR Blog has a short interview with Dan here:

Winters knows his predecessors well, photographers and painters alike, and fully acknowledges their influence. Edward Hopper, Irving Penn, Alfred Stieglitz -- all the midcentury greats. "You're either a Stieglitz guy or a Steichen guy," he asserts, "like you're a Rolling Stones guy or [a fan of] The Who. They're two different kinds of people." Interestingly enough, Steichen was the more commercial photographer. But Winters still associates himself, and his work, with a school of early documentary photography.

I hope we'll see you out on Wednesday night.