jeff singer photography BLOG

I’m not exactly a celebrity photographer. Not that I wouldn’t want to photograph celebrities, but I just don’t seem to get many calls for celebrity shoots. They say if you want to shoot celebrities you need to already have celebrities in your portfolio. Quite the catch-22. However, the few times I have received a call to photograph a celebrity it seemed to be the same story: “we can’t pay much…. But hey, you’re going to get to photograph <insert b-list celebrity here> and you’ll get photo credit!”

I’m not sure why they think I would accept less money just because I’d be photographing a celebrity. I always want to ask, “would you do your job for 50% less pay just because Janeane Garofalo was in the cube next to you?” Probably not.

I’m always usually willing to work with clients to meet their budgets, but if it comes down to getting a good rate and photographing a nerd in Los Angeles (Seriously, I just did a shoot for Psychology Today… they called and told me they wanted me to photograph a nerd) or a low rate and photographing Brad Pitt, I’ll take the nerd every time.

This week Photoshelter began testing a new print service for limited edition prints. One of my photos was chosen to be in the trial run of the service which will be going on through October 1st.

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.

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’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.

This is a shout out to my dear friend and assistant Emily Merrill. Emily entered the above picture into APA San Francisco’s Something Personal Exhibition and was notified that not only was she accepted, she has in fact won best image of the show! So suck on that all you big time San Francisco advertising photographers… my assistant can kick your assistant’s ass… and yours for that matter… and mine!Yeah, I had my entry accepted into the exhibition as well, but clearly the truly talented are the ones that get the recognition.Emily, I will be submitting my resume to you ASAP. I hope you will consider me for any assisting positions you may have open. It would be an honor and joy to work for you. And remember, all those times I mocked you in front of the clients and locked you in the car… I was totally kidding! (Why have you stopped returning my calls?)Congratulations Emily I am very proud of you. Can I tell people I discovered you?Here is a shot of Emily I took on a shoot last week. She often makes my life difficult because its next to impossible for the real subject to be as lovely and graceful as Emily is in the setup shots… you try sticking a grumpy business man in her place and comparing the results!

Its been a while since my last entry. I’m hoping I’m providing quality and not just quantity. (although I realize its likely neither) This weeks entry is in honor of Halloween.My friend Deirdre has what I consider to be one of the cutest dogs I’ve ever met. The dog’s name is Dingle (named for the port in Ireland, not the berry). Dingle is a small Hungarian Puli. As some (crazy) people like to do with their animals, Deirdre occasionally dresses Dingle up in strange costumes. Normally I find this practice annoying, but for some reason I enjoy seeing Dingle in her various outfits. Deirdre got the idea that Dingle should be dressed up as a Mexican in a sombrero and poncho for her Christmas cards last year (of course).I wanted a grimy border town feeling for the picture so we headed to a back alley in a not so savory section of The Mission. The alley had exactly the look I wanted, so we set up shop and begin taking pictures. During the shoot, I was approached by a “lady” (there is a reason for the quotes around the word lady). She walked up to me, looking around suspiciously, and asked me if I had any crack. She was asking in a way you would think is only done in movies, as if I or someone near by just might be an undercover cop. I had to let her down by telling her I in fact did not have any crack for her. Disappointed, she walked away. During our little shoot she returned quite a few more times to check back in, just in case my supply had changed. It hadn’t. I’ll give her this much, she was very persistent… or she just didn’t remember having already asked me… I’m not sure which.As we continued taking more pictures of the the siesta-esque Dingle we believe that the woman apparently found what she was after. Not thirty yards from where we were, we noticed her and some of her “colleagues” standing in a circle enjoying what we can only imagine to be what she previously was hoping to purchase from me. It was at this point we thought it would be a good idea to pack up the gear, grab Dingle and move on.Needless to say we were very happy to get out of there not only with what I think is a funny picture of Dingle, but also with our lives. And you’ll be happy to know that Deirdre won “best Christmas card” among her friends and family with the “Dirty Dingle” picture. Maybe I have a future in taking pictures for greeting cards… and with that thought, please excuse me while I go kill myself.I hope everyone has a happy Halloween.

I just got back from spending a few days in Montana visiting my Dad. I’ve lived in a big city of some type all my life, so visiting a place like Montana was a bit different for me. Nothing but space, space and more space between… well, everything. This is a shot of my dad on his “ranch.”

While exploring an area near near Quake Lake in Montana we came across a boat coming to shore with a few duck hunters. One of them was a young girl who apparently got a couple ducks. Being a city boy I’m not used to seeing blonde girls holding any type of carcass, so I thought it would be a good photo opportunity. The girl obliged and as her family looked on with bewilderment I took some pictures of the girl, her boat and her dog.

They say you can learn as much about the photographer who takes a picture as you do about the person being photographed. I was never really sure about that, especially when it came to my work. What did my images say about me?Then one day my friend and assistant Emily Merrill said something that struck a chord with me. She said that I’m always trying to make people look cool. I never really thought about it, I just did what I did. But in looking back at most of my photographs, I can see some truth to it, for the most part. I’m not talking about some kind of ultra-look-at-how-cool-I-am kind of cool. To me its a subtle cool. My subjects tend to look like they don’t give a crap. And in particular, they don’t give a crap about being cool. Because, anyone who gives a crap about being cool, isn’t cool.If pressed, I would say that this subconscious desire to make people look cool stems from my lack of coolness. I mean, I think I’m cool, but doesn’t everybody think they’re cool? Unlike a lot of people, I can admit that outside my own head, I’m not cool. Usually it’s high school where people become paranoid about coolness. I wasn’t unpopular in high-school. I wasn’t one of the kids that all the cool people made fun of. I wasn’t one of the cool kids either. I wasn’t particularly anything. I was pretty shy back then and I had my few friends and that was about it. So, not a dork, not cool… just, there.Oh, don’t think I’m trying to pour my heart out here and get sympathy for feeling left out in high-school (who wasn’t… and I’m not talking to you Johnny Tango, we know you were cool in high-school). But if I had to pinpoint where my preoccupation (if you can call it that) for coolness began, that would be it.So now that I have this realization about my images, how will this affect the way I work? Will I now attempt to knowingly make people look cool, when before it was just the way I worked. If I do that, things may seemed forced. And anytime something is forced, it doesn’t usually work. Who knows. Maybe I should do the opposite, maybe I should make people look uncool or quirky. I just don’t feel like that would be me. So, maybe I should just get out of my head and do what I do.What I listened to last week:The Rolling Stones, Exile On Main St.What I watched last week:Mad MenWhat I read last week:Image Makers, Image Takers

Miguel Migs is a San Francisco based DJ I photographed for Remix Magazine. This shot is actually an out-take from the shoot that the magazine didn’t use. The magazine wanted shots of Miguel in his studio, but I knew there was an opportunity to get some great shots of Miguel on the roof of the building where his studio is located.I immediately knew I wanted to get a shot with the sun going down behind the buildings in the distance with Miguel in the foreground. It was too early in the day to get that shot so we got all the indoor studio shots done while waiting for the sun to set. Of course, the indoor shots took a bit longer than expected and when I casually wandered outside to check on the sun I was surprised to see it was already beginning to set behind the buildings.I yelled to Miguel and my assistant Emily to get up to the roof NOW! Emily grabbed my gear and Miguel got up there just in time to get a few shots off before the sun went completely behind the building. Half blind from looking into the sun through my camera it was hard to tell if I got the shot, but I was pretty certain I captured what I was looking for.Any time I do a shoot I’m always looking for the best shot that the client is looking for. But, I’m also on the lookout for shots that I’m interested in. As it turned out, the magazine ran with the shot of Miguel in the studio but also ran some of the rooftop images as well.On a side note, I just read about a service that will stop junk mail… not SPAM, but actual physical junk mail coming to your home. Check it out and sign up. Its only $15 and they will even plant a tree in your honor. The website is GreenDimes.Here are some more pics from the Migs shoot:

I recently photographed a dancer at my studio. This was the first time I’ve photographed a dancer so wasn’t really sure how to go about doing it. I’ll admit I’m not the quickest at pushing the button, especially when shooting with larger formats. I generally like to work slow and methodical, so if something springs out of nowhere in front of my lens, chances are I’ll catch the tail end of it by the time I’m in focus and ready to push the button. If I were a sports photographer, I’d likely get “The Celebration” rather than “The Catch.”Having finished the shoot and gone through the images I already know what I’d do differently. I can see that I didn’t get enough movement in many of the earlier photos from the session. A lot of the images look like she is either posing or doing Yoga even though she was actively dancing. My favorite of the dancing shots is one above that showed movement. I like how the hair is covering her entire face and just one eye is focused right on the lens (although in the low res version it does look like her eye is closed). It shows movement and a connection to the viewer. I like a lot of the other images, but this would be my select for the dancing images.Let me know what you think of the images and if you have any tips for shooting dancers I’d love to hear them.Here are some more of the dancing images:Photo hair/makeup: Veronica Sjoen

I thought I’d post a link to a blog entry I read recently on John Loomis’ Blog about the bidding process and low priced photographers. It was a coincidence he posted about this subject when he did because not a week before his post I was confronted with the same exact problem he writes about and was discussing it with some other photographers. I guess all photographers who value their work and bid on projects accordingly run into this problem all the time. The problem of course being photographers who bid next to nothing for a shoot and give away all their rights to the images.

As a client, I would be worried about hiring the lowest bidder for fear that they don’t really know what they’re getting into. If you’re dealing with a larger production and someone says they can do it for a quarter of what an experienced photographer can do the job , chances are they don’t really understand the complexity of the shoot. Once you’ve hired this photographer, you may not know how badly things are going to turn out until its too late. Not only that, there is usually a reason the low priced photographer is low priced and even if it isn’t a big production you can’t be sure of the quality you will get.

Unfortunately we don’t live in a perfect world and quite often it is the lowest bidder, and thus lowest quality, that is chosen. Not only that, often times “good enough” is good enough as can be seen by the abundance of visual crap we see on a daily basis. I remember not too long ago, after i submitted an estimate for a job I was called by the potential client asking if I could come down in my price. They told me another photographer was significantly lower in price. I asked who the photographer was and looked at his work online. As politely as I could, I let them know why that photographer was so cheap. Clearly they would have been getting a lower quality photograph. The potential client’s response to this was… and I kid you not… “how much would you charge to take a bad photograph?” I laughed and told him I just didn’t think it would work out.

Here is to the clients that want to produce something better than”just good enough.” Thank you!

This week I’m shooting a series of image for San Francisco Magazine. Normally I’m hired to photograph people, but they liked my beachscapes of the Santa Cruz area. So, for this shoot I’ll be photographing Costanoa, which is just south of Pescadero. So, weather permitting I’ll be heading down the coast the next few days.

I’ve been busy working on a few different projects and some fun things like promotion… I thought I’d at least update some pics even if I’m not saying much! These pics were from another personal project I was working on. I would photograph interesting looking older people in the park. I love these guys… I call the one on the left the “latin lover.” I can just picture him driving many women at the senior center crazy!