Chelsea Art Walk - Michael Mazzeo Gallery

[caption id="attachment_527" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="© Carlos Loret de Mola - Cold Shower, 2007 "][/caption]
The Chelsea Art Walk is a great way to see some amazing art. And possibly bump into old friends. Really!!!

Last night I walked into the Michael Mazzeo Gallery. Michael just happens to be the very first photographer I assisted for in New York City in 1993. Being brand new to the city I was going around knocking on doors looking for work, the old fashioned way. I remember meeting Mazzeo at his studio one day in his kick ass loft over on Lafayette. Michael was kind enough to take the time to meet with me. After a brief interview I went home. Upon entering my apartment the light was flashing on my answering machine, old school right. It was Mazzeo asking me if I was available to assist the next day!

Fast forward ohhhh 18 years later there I am standing in Michael's Gallery. He recognized me instantly, he lifted the hat off my head to make sure it was me. We had a good laugh.

The Michael Mazzeo Gallery specializes in contemporary photography, works on paper and related media.The gallery was founded by photographer and educator, Michael Mazzeo in October, 2005. It has since become one of the premier showcases of new and under-recognized talent in New York's Chelsea Gallery District, having awarded twelve artists their first solo exhibitions in New York City and including more than 100 others in group exhibitions. Mazzeo's artists and exhibitions have been featured in many prominent publications, such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Art In America, the Village Voice and numerous online venues.

Small Business Accounting - Quickbooks Tip

Accounting... :-p yuck! But it is something all small business owners have to deal with on some level.

I’m an avid user of Quickbooks. It really simplifies my photography business accounting tasks. You can even back up your books to MobileMe in one click. Which is a good idea to keep a back up record of your financials off site. Just in case a twister comes and takes your business to the land of OZ.

BTW there is an update for Quickbooks 2011 in preparation for Apple’s OS Lion.

For more info on small business accounting tips go to Chase Jarvis's Blog.

Back Up Your Media - LaCie Drives

Backing up is the key to a secure media library. We cannot stress how important it is to your workflow, or daily life, to do a routine back up system. Whether you are a professional creating video and photo media, or a teenager just taking snaps with friends, if you don’t have back up of your media you will seriously be upset when your drive crashes. Ohhh, yes, at some point it will……

At Spencer Gordon Studios we buy two identical LaCie 1 TB drives. Why only 1 TB in size, because we don’t want to put a lot of our eggs into one basket. Keeping your drive size down obviously limits the amount of media that can potentially be lost or corrupted. Next we name our drives, for instance, in the photo above the two vertical drives on the right are named DuWop and DuWop Copy. The black LaCie drives on the left are named Digit and Digit Copy. We specifically name the drives that way for back up purposes. Giving them a name with “Copy” attached to it let’s us know that this is the mate of the working drive, by the way Digit Copy is going into retirement this week, we’ll explain that in a moment.

SilverKeeper is the LaCie back up program that is simple to use. After you create the “Back Up Sets” in the program and the scheduling of the sets, that's it, you're ready. We back up everyday in our studio, at 5pm our SilverKeeper program kicks in and starts to back up the days work from DuWop to DuWop Copy. Effective, mindless, and no extra work on your end.

As we mentioned before, Digit Copy is retiring this week. What that means is Digit and Digit Copy are nearly full. Digit Copy is being packed up all comfy and put into long term storage off site. Off site? Digit Copy is staying at my sister’s house if you must know. It is always best to store your long term back up away from the original. Fire, flood, wild party, you never know, just make sure the Copy drive is somewhere else safe.

TIP: Don’t fill a drive completely. Good rule of thumb is to leave 600mb – 1gb of free space on the drive. Why? Sometimes a drive can potentially lose / corrupt information if the drive is filled to the max.

Lytro Camera - Focusing on NOT Focusing

Lytro is redefining the word Focus… the new 5 letter word.

Eliminating the 'element of focus' allows the user to focus on what is 'actually' in the picture frame. In the picture above imagine the shot taking place at night with the camera focused on the city. The shot is ruined because the nude model is out of focus. Take focusing out of the equation, the user is free to compose and capture the moment.

A big complaint, from users of point and shoot cameras, are missed shots while waiting for the camera to focus. Lytro’s camera has a no shutter lag time which means you don’t have to anticipate the shot. Lytro captures the moment when it happens, allowing the Lytro user to focus on the moment at hand.

Eric Cheng talks on Lytro's blog with Richard Koci Hernandez, a photographer who has actually used the Lytro camera. For those few that have had the chance to play with the prototype… lucky dogs!

Kick Butt Color Correcting Lighting Tip

Here is a color correcting lighting tip for the photographers and filmmakers of today's generation. Have you ever heard of Kelvin? No not Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes... silly goose. Kelvin is a measurement of the color temperature of light. For instance daylight in the photography / film world is 5500k, which is considered neutral in color temperature. Tungsten lights on the other hand are 3200k, so if your camera is set for daylight your image will look quite warm in color. Now obviously you can just change the white balance setting on your camera to compensate. However what if you are combining natural light 5500k and tungsten 3200k? If you are anything like me and want to avoid as much post production as possible. I like to get the image as close as possible in camera.

Here's what you do.... you add a FULL CTB to your tungsten light. CTB.... what is this guy talking about? CTB stands for Color Temperature Blue, so if your light is orange / warm in color to get it back to neutral you need to add blue. This FULL CTB converts the tungsten light back to a daylight balanced light source. Note that the FULL CTB will block 1 stop worth of light, so adjust accordingly. To see a light and compensation conversion chart CLICK HERE.

If you want to go full out on how to correct for other non-tungsten lights you may want to buy a color meter. Depending on your level and how detailed you want to get with your light color temperature control. Beware color meters are pricey. Not to worry most lights these days have the color temperature rating assigned to that particular light. So it won't be to hard to figure out what you need to correct the light for your assignment.

Spencer Gordon New Website Launch

Spencer Gordon recently launched an entirely new website / blog.
Go to www.spencergordon.com

Please note that this blog will be discontinued. Please refer to the new site.

Bike By Me - The Super Hero of Custom Bikes

Bike By Me building bikes designed... well by you. Yep, that's right you pick the colors for the frame, chrome, seat, grips, rims, tires right down to the chain. Cool huh?

Bike By Me are the cape crusaders of colorful fun clean designed bikes. The superhero beacon in the Manhattan scene above is part of a concept shoot Spencer Gordon shot after Bike By Me's debut in the New Amsterdam Bike Show. The concept was to shoot the bikes in an iconic NY setting. Then the composite image would be used as an interactive piece. The viewer will mouse-over the photo stumbling upon a person holding a bike in the scene. By clicking upon a particular bike it will open that specific bike in Bike By Me's website. To view the completed version of the shot above click here. Mouse-over the city skyline to turn on the Bike by Me beacon.

The design of these bikes and the company's website has been notarized by various publications. The latest was from NotCot.org highlighting this concept photograph.

Fun fact about the final image. In post production over 840 spokes had to be recreated.