JEFF SINGER BLOG - SAN FRANCISCO EDITORIAL & COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER » Kodak

Larry Kurzweil & Bart Simpson

Jeff Singer — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 18:34:41 +0000

I got to head down to Universal Studios Hollywood a while back to photograph the President of Universal Studios, Larry Kurzweil for Carnegie Mellon’s alumni magazine. The one requirement, not imposed by the magazine, was that one of the Simpson’s characters had to be in the shot. Universal PR was insisting on this one point and the magazine was ok with it so I obliged. The studio originally wanted Homer in the shot but the costumes are so enormous in real life that Larry was dwarfed next to Homer, so we went with Bart.

I think the best part of the shoot for me was that I was given a “VIP” pass to the park. That meant unlimited access to all the rides with no waiting in line. So where did I head first? To the Universal Studio tram tour of course; to confront a childhood terror. You see, when I was about seven, my dad took me to Universal Studios like any parent with children would do when visiting Los Angeles. And this included the studio tram tour which I enjoyed quite a bit… that is until, we came across Jaws.

If you’ve never been on the Universal Studio tram tour, it takes you through the studio lot where you can see actual sets used in many movies. It also has staged “exhibits” based on Universal movies. One of those exhibits was for Jaws. The tram pulls up to (what looks like) a serene scene with a man in a fishing boat. You then see a fin come out of the water and approach the boat and eventually the boat and fisherman get dragged under. But the danger isn’t over yet… the fin starts heading towards the tram. When it gets closer, BAM, a shark slams into the tram tracks and the tram falls towards the water and gets stuck. The shark goes around for another pass at which point it bolts out of the water with it’s jaws chomping as if it was trying to eat someone on the tram. It just so happened that I was seated EXACLY where the shark was at it’s closest to the tram, so that someone was me. Needless to say I didn’t take it well because as far as I was concerned, it was a real shark. I don’t remember anything else about that day other than the shark attack and balling my eyes out when it happened. To this day, I hate going in the ocean too deep.

Not having been on the tram ride since that summer as a kid, I was actually a little nervous when we pulled in to the Jaws scene. However now that I’m older, he doesn’t look so menacing (and they don’t do the whole tram falling into the water thing any more… probably got sued for mental anguish or something). I was happy to confront one of my childhood traumas and survive:

Mamiya 7II

Jeff Singer — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 01:42:25 +0000

Last summer I bought the much hyped and hard to get Fuji X100 camera as a little carry around camera. After using it I instantly determined that, while the files it produces are very nice, the camera itself is infuriating to use. As I noted on my trip to New York City, even though the X100 was with me everywhere I went, I used my iPhone instead.

Then recently Fuji announced their latest camera, the X-Pro1. It looks like a pretty nice upgrade. This camera will have changeable lenses and better manual focusing. So I thought, “hmm, maybe that would be a good little camera to get.” The only thing I’m not thrilled about is the smaller-than-35mm APS-C sensor. But Fuji is doing something with this sensor that other manufacturers haven’t… they’re making the pixel patterns random to give it more film like look. Film like… sounds good to me.

But then I thought… What are they going to come out with next? What am I going to want NEXT year?!?! So I decided to buy different camera all together. It comes with a full frame 6×7 sensor with an ACTUAL film look and hasn’t changed much since it was first introduced in 1990′s: The Mamiya 7II. Ok, it’s far from what you would call a “little” camera… but I know I like this one thanks to Fabien Penso who let me come by and try his out last summer at his office (which has quite the view as you can see above).

I found a really good deal for a used 7II on ebay and it should be here tomorrow. I have some editorial shoots next week where I’ll put it to use now that I’m shooting film on editorial assignments.

Here’s some unsharpened detail from an Imacon scan:

Shoot Film

Jeff Singer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:07:20 +0000

I’ve been shooting film on all my editorial shoots so far in 2012 and I plan to continue (unless things like deadlines call for digital). Whenever I mention that I’m shooting film to the Photo Editor or Art Director, they pretty much say the same thing; “Film? Cool! I love film!” A Photo Editor just the other day said to me: “Oh, you shoot film? No wonder I love your work!”

Then, when I get to the shoot and pull out something like my Mamiya RZ67, every subject has said just about the same thing; “Whoa, what kind of camera is that? You’re shooting film? Wow!” You know what I hear a lot when I pull out a Canon digital?

“Oh, I have one of those.”

Update:
Of course, the day after I post this, Kodak files for bankruptcy. Time to stock up?

Christopher Hitchens RIP

Jeff Singer — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 03:04:11 +0000

Christopher Hitchens died today. As I wrote here before, Hitchens has been one of my most interesting subjects to date. He was actually one of the very first assignments I received after becoming a photographer… my second editorial assignment to be exact. It’s intimidating enough to be a new photographer and working on only your second editorial shoot let alone having it be Christopher Hitchens (it didn’t help when his wife told me, during the shoot, how Annie Leibovitz photographed their wedding with a Holga).

I was familiar with Hitchens through appearances on shows like The Daily Show and Bill Maher and some of his writing for Vanity Fair. I knew going in I didn’t want to discuss politics with him since I would be far outclassed but given that there was an election coming up, it was inevitable. It was interesting to hear the perspective on the candidates (and their wives) from someone who actually knew them personally. When most people give their opinions on a candidate it’s based on what they see or read in the news, but when you’re with someone telling you about having dinner “at The Kerry’s”, it gives a different level of credibility to what they’re telling you.

The shoot probably went on longer than he anticipated but he was incredibly patient with me and made the shoot enjoyable. It was an honor to get to meet him.

RIP Mr. Hitchens.

Smile

Jeff Singer — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 18:01:28 +0000

Today over on A Photo Editor there’s a link to a Rodney Smith blog post about smiling in photos. Rodney doesn’t think smiling photos have substance. I don’t know that I agree with that, but I know I tend to like non-smiling photos. I have a total of seven on my entire website and only one in my portfolio (although it depends on what qualifies as a smile… there are some very slight smiles that I didn’t count). I tend to take things a bit further though… It seems I don’t even like people looking at the camera.

I posted about this a year ago, but looking over recent shoots I think I’m getting worse. I routinely choose the photos where the subject isn’t looking at the camera (I will say, the client rarely chooses those). I keep wondering what this says about myself.

NYC Prep

Jeff Singer — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:06:05 +0000

I’ve been spending the last week printing a new portfolio for an upcoming trip to New York. I forget how long it takes to print out all those images when you’re as anal as I am about prints. A lot of these are prints I’ve made before so you’d think I’d have everything ready to go. But not for me, I’m always fidgeting with images even after I’m done with them. So of course as I revisited all these images for printing the new portfolio I had to spend countless hours agonizing over minute details that nobody else will probably even notice (this morning my girlfriend told me she saw virtually no difference between two prints. The thought in my head: “What are you talking about… one is WAY more green!!!”).

Anyway the new portfolio is just about finished and I’m looking forward to my New York City trip to show it around.

Color Blind

Jeff Singer — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:34:56 +0000

I’m never happy with how I’ve worked color images so I’m always fidgeting with them. I mentioned in a previous post that if I have a retoucher work on an image I usually don’t mess with it (after all, that’s why I paid them to do it). But for some reason when I’m doing the post on an image myself I’m never satisfied. So, I was playing with this skater image that I like and messing around with the look. I like them both. The original treatment of the raw scan is more natural and this version looks a bit more processed. What do you think (poll below):

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Don’t Look!

Jeff Singer — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 16:40:04 +0000

I’m thinking about reorganzing the galleries on my website and while I was going through the images I realized, I really like it when people aren’t looking at the camera. I know I usually ask people to look away, I just didn’t realize I did it so often:

Longboard Surfer

Jeff Singer — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 18:05:29 +0000

Here is the first of the surfer shots I recently had scanned. As I mentioned in my skater post, I feel like it’s still a work in progress on the post production side (in fact as I’m uploading I already see a couple things I want to adjust). More surfers to come.

Embarcadero Skater

Jeff Singer — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:48:35 +0000

I have some recents scans (I’m trying to shoot less digital these days) for what will probably be an ongoing series of surfers and skaters . This is the first of them. I just got the scans back from Hanson Digital and made a few adjustments to get the image where I liked it. I’m still working on it. I like where it’s at but now I’m trying to decide if I should have a retoucher give a pass at these images.

I don’t usually have a retoucher work on my images but have a couple times in the past and I usually like the results more than what I did with the image. I’m not big on heavily retouched images. I tend to like images that look more natural and film like. These days it seems like far too many photos are retouched and processed to within an inch of their life for my taste. But getting a nice consistent look for these would be great.

Another problem I have is endless fiddling… One minute I’m happy and then when I come back to an image I want to make changes. It’s hard for me to be done with an image. But when a retoucher gives me back an image I never touch it… to me, it’s DONE.

What do you think? We’ll see what I decide once I get some more photos taken.