jeff singer photography BLOG

I’m working on a redesign of my current website. Below is a link to a sample of what would be the gallery “engine” of the website. Currently I use Livebooks to power my website and while it has worked well, I’m getting a little tired of the format (that and it seems like every other photographer’s website I go to lately is a Livebooks page with the same basic layout).

So far, I like the new gallery (although I don’t know what I’d do with the overall site design just yet). However, I often like things because they are new and different rather than better… I tend to get sick of things and I’ve had the same web design for a while.

We all know that most photo buyers prefer a simple “show me the damn images” website without being fancy. It’s usually the photographers who get off on the elaborate, intricately designed and oh so clever websites that take forever to load and are impossible to navigate but are supposedly “worth the hassle.”

Some things I like about the new gallery:
- I like being able to see all the images at once in the thumbnail view
- I like that the images are a lot larger when viewing full size
- I like the interface and prefer its navigation (when using the arrow keys its quicker to go from image to image).

Some things I don’t like about the new gallery
- It seems to load slower
- The images are displayed in random order. This means I can’t put the images in the order I want.
- The image order changes every time you load the page so if a buyer wants to show another buyer a particular image and say’s “I like the 3rd picture on the 2nd row” it means nothing because that image changes location every time the page is loaded.

So, if you’d like, check out the new gallery and let me know what you think or if you have any problems with the page:
http://www.jeffsingerphotography.com/testnew/test/

And of course you can see the current design here.

I recently did a shoot with cyclist Liz Hatch for Bicycling Magazine. Liz was gracious enough to come to San Francisco’s Chinatown for the shoot even though she was in a pretty bad crash about a week before the shoot. She could barely lift her hand to shake mine when we met. And yet despite knowing she was in agony, I asked her to heave her bike onto her shoulder (yeah, the bad one). Without complaint she obliged, although I did feel bad as I watched her struggle to find a comfortable position for the bike…. hey, you’re supposed to suffer for your art, right? Oh wait, it’s me that’s supposed to suffer… right?

Needless to say Liz is a lot tougher than I am and could probably kick my ass even with her injuries.

Internship Pay: $0
Educational Value: $0
Working with Jeff Singer Photography: Worthless

My intern Jill standing in before a shoot.

Seems that I made the cut over at Rob Haggart’s A Photo Editor slideshow of photographers he likes. You can head over to the Fickr page or the slideshow website and check out a lot of great work.

Just remember to come back here and hire me.

The blogging has been a bit scarce lately. I’ve been traveling back and forth between San Francisco and my hometown Stockton. My mother was just recently diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. This week she started her chemo treatment. Her doctor has had her in the hospital since Monday for her first treatment to make sure there were no adverse reactions. She gets out of the hospital today. So far she is feeling fine so hopefully that will continue.

A friend of mine, Deirdre, is running for “Team In Training.” She will be running marathon and is looking for sponsors to donate money. All the money goes to The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. If you would be interested in donating (as little as $25 is possible) you can do so on her link here:
http://www.active.com/donate/tntgsf/tntgsfDSabow

Her goal is $2800 and she’s 59% there as of now. Of course we could put her way past that if we tried.

If you know anyone else who may be interested in donating please forward her link on.

I’m sure I’ll get back to writing more completely useless blog posts soon.

Upon finding this funny link showing some classic Olan Mills photos I think I discovered an early Platon image. You can clearly see his style has developed over the years:

Now, the really funny thing about those Olan Mills photos is that I could have made the list. Here I am with my dog Fancy on the left (yes, I named her) and my mom and I on the right circa 1978. Sweet tank top and grey slacks combo:

This week I’m moving studios. It’s not that big of a move since its only two doors down from my current studio. The new studio is much larger than my current studio. And look, it even has its own website:http://www.studio308sf.com/The idea to move started a couple weeks ago when Caren Alpert asked me if my studio mate Natalie Bowen and I would be interested in moving into her studio. The timing was perfect since our lease was set to expire at the end of this month.If you’re a photographer in San Francisco looking for studio space you know it can be hard to come by. It won’t take them long to fill it, but if you’re interested my old studio #306 is now on the market. You can get contact information here:http://aicproperties.com/

The wonderful and brilliant “A Photo Editor” (you’ll see why I’m kissing up below) decided to team up with photo consultant Leslie Burns-Dell’Acqua and do a “live” consultation with a photographer for purpose of posting the results on his blog. Much to my surprise, out of hundreds (thousands, millions maybe?) of photographers I was among the few he selected to get the consultation. However, there is one last step… the “winning” photographer is being selected by the public on his blog.Now, I’m not posting this to get you to go over there and vote for me. I just wanted to let people know that I was chosen to be considered for the consultation. Check out the other great photographers and vote for the one you like best. Of course, how many of them were in a life threatening car accident recently?Whether I win or not isn’t important, I am just happy to be nominated. Did that sound sincere?

So far I haven’t made any posts about the technical side of photography, topics like equipment for example. This is actually quite amazing given that I am such a tech/equipment dork. It had to happen eventually so here I am with my first equipment post. And in true tech dork fashion, its a complaint.

I’ve been shooting with the Phase One P25/P25+ for about a year now. Before that I was shooting with a Canon 1DS MkII, which I still have and use for certain shoots. I’ve been mostly happy with the Phase One back, with one major exception: backlit scenes. When shooting into the sun or an artificial light, image detail is lost on a “strip” of the image near the light source. Here is an example:

Here is Phase’s response to the issue:

“the light is hitting the ccd at such a strength that is goes way above and beyond the dynamic range capabilities of the sensor. The anolog electrical signal produced in the pixel is more than it can handle and it gets passed to the next photosite in progression, hence the straight line. A similar thing happens in silver hallide crystals of film with the exception that they pass energy in all directions.”

Not very helpful to someone who likes to shoot with heavy backlight.

The problem I have with the response is, I never experienced this with my Canon 1DSmkII. So, I’ve sent off an email to Leaf to see if their digital backs would exhibit the same problem. I fully expect an email touting how great the Leaf back is and that it will not have the problem. If that is the case I’ll blindly buy the Leaf back and live happily ever after… yeah, right. In reality, if I do get a response saying the Leaf back won’t exhibit the problem I’ll have a Leaf tech come to my studio and prove it does in fact work well in backlit scenes. I’ll keep you posted on the results.

If anyone reading uses a Phase, Leaf, or another MFDB and sees or doesn’t see this problem, let me know.

I always find it interesting how people get to my website or blog. Some come directly here and some arrive via another website. But often people get here via search engine searches. Here are some of the more interesting ways people found my website and blog:

i get naked but girlfriend doesnt
how to forget your girlfriend
post your girlfriend
why girlfriend doesn’t want pictures taken
how to become a maxim photographer
how to look charming to your girlfriend
forget girlfriend
photographing nude
naked workshop
dirty photo very funny picture happy christmas
you suck maxim
bel biv devoe (are people really still searching for them?)
alone with her nude
nude chilly
high school nudes (disturbing to say the least)
assignment photography self nude shy portrait
make my pictures look cool
stop junk mail from playboy
entry into locations other tourists can’t get into, photography
what singers ever get naked on the internet
40 year old woman naked
how to photograph a woman naked
how woman feel about having there picture taken while naked
dirty christmas cards
I DONT WANT TO BE YOUR GIRLFRIEND
san francisco undercover cop
PEOPLE LOOKING COOL
“tail end” “magazine”" ass”
jeffs naked girlfriend

And, just today I found my favorite:
naked girl duck hunters

I’m surprised I didn’t see this one in the list:
Jeff Singer is a complete hack

I get over 600 different search phrases a month. Since I don’t feel like going through the whole list, this list was only from the last few months .

Of course, by now everyone knows that search engines index websites based on the words found on the site. So, I’m going to seed this post with some words to see what other interesting search phases I’ll find in the future… here we go:
I’m often excited by
horses
impregnate
my next door neighbor’s
mexican brothel
best way to
how to tell parents
my boss is a
unrelenting itch
red bumps on my

That’ll do… can’t wait to see what I find.

FS: 2004 BMW X3. Low miles, slight wear, air bags never deployed.

Some more pics from the tow yard.

Unfortunately for my friend Jennifer (hey, this is her second blog entry in a row), she asked me to pick her up from her family’s Christmas to take her home… I say Unfortunately because on the way home, while driving along on the highway, we were greeted by an out of control car… The other car suddenly lost control and veered right into us. I had no time to react beyond a quick (and apparently futile) attempt to avoid the car. I’m not sure what things looked like on the outside, but on the inside we had a long and terrifying ride, most of it upside down. According to a very kind witness who stopped to help, we flipped 3-4 times. I can tell you that whatever was going on, it seemed like it lasted forever.

Thankfully nobody was seriously hurt… But as you can see by the pictures, my car didn’t fare so well. Even the firemen were amazed we just got out and walked away.

Some other nice people, possibly feeling the Christmas spirit, helped by stopping and gathering all of our things that were scattered about the freeway.

Needless to say I feel very grateful that Jennifer and I were not more seriously hurt than we were. After many hours in the ER getting patched up and after a brain scan (with which the doctors could find no conclusive evidence of my having one) they let us leave the hospital. Head and neck pain and some cuts are what we are left with today and hopefully that will pass soon.

Here is the fine print for you lawyers and insurance adjusters out there: (please read in very fast unintelligible legal disclaimer voice) I am in no way stating that we have no permanent life altering injuries. I am not a medical professional and have no way of knowing the true extent of our injuries. I am in no way relinquishing any claims for any damages caused by or because of the wreck. . Odds of winning are 1 in 3,000,000,000. No participation necessary. May cause dizziness, headache or leaky bowels. Offer not valid in Ohio or Maine

I figure i had to say something like that because you know lawyers and insurance people would just jump at the chance to use this entry as an admission of some sort.

Anyway, I hope everyone else had a good (and safe) Christmas… Here is to a great new year.

I’ve never really done nudes before. Once back in school they had us do a nude assignment. The school provided us with models to use for our shoots. My girlfriend at the time refused to let me photograph another woman naked. And yet, at the same time she refused to let me photograph her naked. Knowing that I had to complete the assignment she eventually caved. I guess the thought of me photographing another woman naked left a worse taste in her mouth than posing for the assignment herself.At a workshop I recently attended we were given a model to photograph. Everyone in the workshop proceeded to photograph her naked. Each photographer had a few minutes with the model and they did their thing. With 15 people in the workshop, the poor model was poked and prodded as if she was a piece of cattle on the way to slaughter. It was now my turn. I don’t really like to be watched by a lot of people when I take pictures (if I can help it, which often times, I can’t) so I went last. As I walked up to the model I said to her “Ok, I’m going to ask you to do something really weird.” The model had a horrified look on her face as if I was about to ask her to do something even Larry Flint would blush at. Instead, I set her mind at ease by asking “would you mind putting your clothes back on?” She laughed and obliged my not-so-deviant request. Everyone else in the room thought I was some sort of weirdo for having the naked woman put her clothes back on.So why nudes now? I’m not quite sure… My assistant Emily does nudes, so maybe rather than my style rubbing off on her as is often the case with photographers and their assistants, it is her that is rubbing off on me. Either way, I had been thinking about exploring nude photography for the last few months, so when given the opportunity I decided to give it a shot. And what better opportunity than when my friend, the lovely and beautiful Jennifer, despite her reservations (something about the pictures ending up on the internet… which I assured her would never happen), let me photograph her one chilly morning last week.Jennifer isn’t a model so having her photo taken isn’t exactly a routine event for her… let alone having her photo taken while undressed. Despite feeling a bit uneasy at first, she did a great job and quickly became relaxed in front of the camera.I do realize these aren’t technically nudes since Jen is covered up for the most part. I didn’t really do anything different than what I would do shooting a clothed woman. I guess thats a good place to start until I figure out what it is I want to do. Maybe next time I’ll try something outside my comfort zone. That’s what this personal work stuff is all about after all… trying something new and different.

So, last night was the big ass kiss fest that is the annual APASF Something Personal exhibit. This is the time of the year when all the big shot San Francisco photographers like to gather around and pat each other on the backs for how great we all are. Its the same collection of people every year interspersed with those that are now deemed worthy of participation.One of my favorites at the exhibit was a series of photographs by Heidi Montoya, who I believe is one of these newly crowned “worthy” exhibitors.  There was an abundance of great work to be seen and a few “huh?” moments as well.  But as with all art, it is subjective.As usual, a good time was had by all and we all left with a great feeling of self worth because of all the times we heard “oh I love your work” throughout the night. Of course, if you go by what people said to me, my picture was the best in the room. Which of course, it was.I can’t wait until next year.

It seems like talking about assisting on your blog is all the rage right now. It started over on “A Photo Editor’s” blog and now has continued over on “Whats the Jackanory.”I never really did much assisting. A few years ago I got a late start in photography after many years in the tech field. I was 32 at the time and I felt like I was too old to be assisting and didn’t really want to do it. Not because I thought it was beneath me, but rather, I felt the need to get to work on my own career having had such a late start. It surely wasn’t because I felt like I had all the knowledge and skills and was ready to be a professional photographer… quite the contrary. I mean, at the time I had literally only been using a camera for little more than a year. What the hell did I know?I assisted a few San Francisco advertising and editorial photographers on a few shoots but soon discovered that I was a.) really bad at assisting and b.) really didn’t like it. So, partly due to my own stubbornness and largely due to my own ignorance I stopped trying to get assisting work and decided to focus on my own photography. Another reason for my decision not to assisist (aside from nobody hiring me) came on one of my last attempts at working as an assistant. I emailed Timothy Archibald, another great blogger, to see if he needed an assistant. Thankfully, rather than hiring me, he gave me some encouraging words. I hope he doesn’t mind my quoting his response (which I can only imagine having been made while highly intoxicated):

I just got a chance to visit your site, your work is wonderfull. the portraits are very human and introspective, important qualities that are hard to find together in one shot.that said, i would discourage you from trying to find work from me. you clearly should be supporting yourself being a photographer! currently i am not in need of anyone as an assistant, but i will keep you in mind. tho i’m quite sure you will be on your way as a photographer by the time i’d ever get around to giving you a ring. ha.keep up the good work and do not sell yourself short.

Now, maybe this was his way of politely blowing off someone who would clearly be a horrible assistant, but the joke was on him because I took his comments seriously and it helped my push to do my own work.There are some aspects of the photography process that I feel I missed out on by not assisting. Andrew, over at “Whats The Jackanory” pinpointed exactly what it is I feel I missed. Here is what Andrew had to say:

I learnt so much [from assisting], but in the end I was more interested in the process then the technicalities, I enjoyed watching how people worked, their relationship with their subject whether it be alive or still didn’t matter. Everyone has a different approach and it always fas