Keys To Being A Successful Assistant, Letting Your Junk Hang Out and Making It Rain: RAWtalk 182
One of the keys to being a successful photographer just may start with you being a quality assistant. I asked DigiRichie to join me on this weeks show to talk all things “assisting” and what it takes to be a solid assistant.
This weeks show is brought to you by MyRodeReel.com which is back for its third year!!!! This is the contest you should at least try to enter because you never know, you might just win.
Photo News, Senior Portraits, Mail Time, Interviews, Wheel Of FRO and MEME’s.
00:00:16 – Show Start
00:00:41 – Noah’s BTS Instagram Handle
00:01:05 – Night Out with the Guys
00:06:45 – This Week’s Plug: MyRoodReel.com
00:09:31 – Allen’s Canon Ball Reminder
00:10:33 – Photo News
00:16:10 – Our High School Senior Portraits
00:28:10 – Reader Email
00:40:57 – Text of the Week: Heidi
00:41:48 – Mail Time!
00:51:13 – Digi Richie Interview
01:31:40 – Todd Makes It Rain
01:32:45 – Wheel of Fro
01:38:47 – This Week’s Memes
Here’s all of Stephen’s photo news stories in detail:
Nikon Offering Free Battery Grip with FX Body Purchase Throughout May
Nikon is offering a new battery bundle promotion throughout May where they’re giving out free battery grips with their current full frame lineup. The campaign states that if you buy a Nikon D610, D750 or D810, then you will get their battery grip free of charge, and that’s a value of up to $350! Head over to your favorite Nikon certified reseller like Allen’s Camera to pick up a new FX body with a grip! (via FS)
Student Poses with Privates Out in Yearbook Football Photo, Gets Charged with a Felony
A 19-year-old Arizona high school student named Hunter Osborn was charged with indecent exposure after posing in a yearbook photo with the rest of the Red Mountain High School football team, with his you-know-what out. The picture in question is just a standard football photo, with students dressed in their football gear, standing on bleachers. Osborn was in the 2nd row, with the two players in front of him giving him just enough space in between them to show his privates. Well, the prank went unnoticed and the photo made it all the way to the yearbook, essentially exposing himself to thousands of teens. And get this, the photo was printed in both the yearbook – which was sent out to 3,400 students — and in the school’s football program, which was sold at games and seen by many family and community members; ouch. Osborn has since been charged with 69 counts of misdemeanor indecent exposure, and he has been booked with one count of “furnishing harmful items to minors” which is a class 4 felony. Officials say they arrived at that number of criminal charges because there were 69 students, ranging in age from 15 to 19, and 10 faculty members present when the picture was taken. If individuals in the photo are older than 18 and do not wish to press charges, the number of criminal counts could be reduced. Osborn says it was all because of a dare by his fellow students, and he now says he’s “disgusted” with himself for doing it. Many students say they didn’t even notice it until several adult parents starting making a big deal about the image. School officials say the yearbook has been recalled so the school can make “a minor but critical edit for the inappropriate content.” In the meantime, the community has started a Change.org petition to free Osborn. Check out the full news story on the whole incident below along with his first appearance in court—harsh punishment for a stupid prank… (via KPHO)
Samyang Announces First Pair of Autofocus Lenses
After 40 years of making manual lenses, Samyang has unveiled its first official autofocus lenses. The debut pair of AF lenses to be released will be a 50 f/1.4 and 14 f/2.8 for Sony full-frame E-mount bodies. Samyang says the lenses are the “widest and brightest lenses in their class and offer superb quality images to photographers.” Spec wise, they both have internal focusing systems that are optimized for both Phase and Contrast Detection sensors. The lenses are metal in design too with a 67mm filter thread. They’ll be available in July with no price announced just yet, but a rep at the Samyang booth at the 2016 Photo & Imaging show allegedly said they will sell between $400-600. Check out a video of the lenses autofocus being demoed in live view below: (via SAR)
Rapper Responds with Profanity After Photographer Simply Asks for Photo Credit
A music photographer named Michelle Grace Hunder says Rapper Danny Brown responded with profanity when she asked for a simple credit request after he posted her image to his social media. Lauren Ziegler, the Editor-in-Chielf for Howl & Echoes, a small Sydney-based online music site whom the photo was taken for, messaged Brown asking him to credit the photographer, saying “it’s only fair to note the photographer just as you would to a sample or a song” and sent him the photographer’s Instagram handle. Brown later responded to the text with, “how bout I just delete them since you guys are so butt hurt.” Nic Kelly, who’s a festival promoter, later tweeted and posted a screenshot of the conversation, calling it “gross” to see Brown disrespecting photographers like that. Since it was all in the public eye at that point, Brown tweeted out the following: “Did I ask for a muthaf***a to take my picture?? … Well shut the f*** up then!!!!! Note to all photographers!!!! … If u want credit for your pictures then don’t take any of me if I didn’t ask u to!!! … F*** outta here!!” Nic Kelly quickly responded in all caps: “HEY IDIOT, TELL YOUR MANAGEMENT TO TELL MEDIA THEY CANT SHOOT YOUR SET THEN. OTHERWISE YES YOU LITERALLY ARE ASKING FOR THEM.” The photographer pretty much stayed out of all of this, tweeting “Photo is deleted now. All we asked for is a credit. I don’t get it.” She goes on to tweet, “Why not have a mutual respect for our art forms? Mostly music artists do!” The original photo has since been deleted from Brown’s Instagram account. (via Reddit)
Introducing Drone Fishing
A group of dudes used their drone to capture some serious long tail tuna. Their setup is simple too: attach the fishing line to the drone so it disconnects easily once the bait is taken (so the drone doesn’t get taken down), fly it out to sea, and snag a tuna, all while a fisherman on shore reels it in—basically a modern day version of “kite fishing.” While this was all happening, the whole ordeal was caught on video too, as the drone was filming the entire thing. Watch it all unfold below: (via FS)
Researcher Discovers New Method That Makes Rechargeable Batteries Never Fade
Researchers at UC Irvine say they have discovered a new method to make rechargeable batteries that never fade after recharging cycles. UC Irvine PhD candidate Mya Le Thai says she was playing around with nanowire technology when she stumbled across what might be the biggest battery breakthrough in years, discovering a method to recharge batteries hundreds-of-thousands of times without losing any capacity. They note that typical rechargeable batteries die after about 5-7,000 cycles at most. She put her battery through 200,000 recharge cycles over the course of three months and says they still couldn’t detect any loss of capacity or power. This could eventually be something very big for photographers—yeah, we’re looking at your Sony and your terrible batteries! Check out her research paper for all the nerd data here along with a video of her explaining how she made the new battery technology below: (via IR)
Marine Recreates War Photos with Star Wars Figurines
A US Marine named Matthew Callahan recreated iconic war photos with Star Wars figurines. Callahan was injured in Afghanistan, and later re-enlisted as a combat correspondent who tells real stories of the men and women in war but through his lens. The new project, dubbed “Galactic Warfighters,” uses sixth scale figurines (12”) which he calls glorified GI Joes. He places them in combat positions, sometimes recreating exactly what he took in camera. He says it can take him anywhere from 20 minutes to over three hours just to set them up properly. Callahan also recreates iconic images that he didn’t take, such as one from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. In the image, Sgt. William Bee seeks cover as sniper fire creates an explosion of debris which inspired Callahan’s drone trooper version that you can see in the video below. Most of the images are created entirely in camera too, with very light post-work done in Photoshop. Watch a behind-the-scenes video on the whole project below and check out his project here. We salute you sir! (via SLRL)
A photo posted by Matthew Callahan (@galactic_warfighters) on
New Kickstarter Campaign Aims to Replace Every Ad in London Tube Station with Cat Pics
A new Kickstarter campaign wants to replace every ad in a London Tube Station with cat pictures. Run by The Citizens Advertising Takeover Service—aka The CATS—the campaign is legit, seeking £20,000 (~$33,000 USD) in order to buy out every ad slot in an unspecified London Tube location for about 2-3 weeks. Their reasoning behind the cat takeover? “a) it would look amazing; and b) it’s exhausting being asked to buy stuff all the time.” They note that it can actually become a reality too: “We’ve asked, and they actually will [let us do it]. We can turn an entire station into a roaring festival of cats. If we raise £20,000 we can do a whole platform in one of the smaller stations – any higher and we’re in the big leagues.” As a bonus, If they hit their stretch goal of £75,000 (~$110,000 USD), they could do an entire station! They acknowledge that the campaign is ridiculous too: “Dumb yes, but also this is about trying something, flexing our collective voice in the most idiotic of ways. From all this madness something amazing could happen. Perhaps we’ll start to realize that buying stuff isn’t making us happy. Maybe cats won’t make us happy either, but it’s got to be better than insurance adverts.” They’re asking you to “pledge Meow,” with a £5 pledge getting you their special C.A.T.S. ad blocker (which replaces online ads with cats). £15 will get you a C.A.T.S. sticker. £30 will get you a C.A.T.S. T-shirt, and £100 gets your cat photo onto one of the ads, and £2,500 earns your cat photo its very own poster in the Tube. They have about two weeks to go at the time of writing this article, and have already raised about 1/3 of their final goal. Check out their official Kickstarter promo video below and pledge meow! (via PP)
Photography Hacks with a Condom
After realizing they can use a balloon as a flash diffuser, a pair of Russian photographers known as the Koldunov Brothers on Youtube, wanted to see if they could use a condom to achieve similar results. Well, they quickly realized that they couldn’t use the condom as a light diffuser since it’s so transparent, so they wanted to see if other photography hacks can be done with it. The concepts they came up with? If you don’t have a lens, for some odd reason, you can fill the condom with water, stretch it over top of the lens mount and it will gather light similar to a lens and let you shoot through it—I probably wouldn’t do this though…Also, if you want to get low to the ground and position your camera without a tripod, you can fill the condom with grain or seeds and make a bean bag-like creation, which will allow you to position your camera low to the ground any way you want, and be stable—this I would do. They go on to say that you can use it as a filter too: if you want to soften your image. you simply stretch it over your lenses front element. Watch them demonstrate all of this in a short video below: (via DIYP)
