Over Exposed

Misguided by the 405

2009-03-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

This gallery project, and coming up with stories about myself and my work has got me thinking, where did this all begin. On a day when my Mom gets laid off from a company she has put in 30 plus years, I set out to write about my path and what I’m doing. In my short time working as a photographer the one thing I have learned is that there is not sense of loyalty. I don’t even know if that is the right word, but what I do know is you go out of your way for people, you work hard, you give a hundred percent of yourself to your work, and many time the payoff at the end is less than desirable. Seeing the stress my mother has gone through over her job is ridiculous. I cant imaging giving that much of myself to something to just be sent packing. I’m in a similar situation, but I have been at my job for almost a year and I’m a contractor… I will simply not be asked to come in. It’s a little scary, but that doesn’t change my work ethic, or the quality of work that I put out.

At lunch, driving on the 405 I was thinking of the edits I have been working on and some shots that I still want to make. Specifically this shot off the overpass of the 405 looking back to LA from the valley. I got the idea for this shot driving home from this girl’s I have been chasings place. Kind of buzzed, but not drunk, but probably not legal to be driving. I have the music on, it’s pouring outside, like torrential downpour, almost he type of rain that reminded me of driving through the desert from Arizona. The final outcome of moving home to be with someone didn’t really work out the way it was planned, but I ended up getting into photography which lead me to working this pretty sweet job. So chasing this girl, I’m not really worried with what happens… if it works for a little great, if not at all that’s okay too. The fun really is in the chase, all the beginning jitters and all that sort of stuff. Its much like making images. For me the part that I truly love is the act of setting it up, working the subject or coming up with ideas and making them come to fruition. Some work some don’t. The shot posted, involved me hanging off an overpass to use a magic arm to mount the camera to a sign and then using infinity focus. I guessed at the exposure, and came away with this photo… it works. I think you can’t look at things so cut and dry as just the final product, just your job, or getting a girl or not. Its about the process of making something… re-reading this its incredibly disjointed and all over the place… much like my A.D.D. maybe this could have been summed up in short by saying:

This is my picture, it was a bitch to take, and it’s inspired by a girl…

enjoy

Overdue

2009-03-16T15:48:00.000-07:00

Long time, no update. I’d be lying if I said that I have been too busy but the truth is I haven’t made an image or done anything really worth updating in a while. Just within the last few weeks have things been picking up. At work, while incredibly bored I have been sketching robots and trying to incorporate photographs I have taken into the scene.

A few weeks back a friend said she was putting together this gallery at UCLA and that the theme was Los Angeles inspired images or work in a variety of mediums.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

1. 5-10 JPEG IMAGES, or a website link including the images you would like to exhibit.
2. ARTIST BIO: Summary of your experience, influences, interests, or life history.
3. ARTIST STATEMENT: Description of the ideas behind your artwork.
4. ARTWORK DOCUMENTATION: Document with description (please include measurements and weight) and price of each piece, for insurance purposes.

Her suggestion was to just take horse photos I have made, print em, hang em and be done. Instead of taking the easy route I decided to go out, gas up the car and drive around LA for a day. Ill be posting some of the images over the next few days with some sort of story about it, or what was the inspiration

...

2008-11-25T11:26:00.000-08:00

So I have been trying to write this blog for over a week now, and each time I only make it a few lines, get incredibly bummed out, and hit the delete key. A good friend of mine passed away 2 weeks ago at the young age of 19 in a sailing accident. The adage “It’s not tragic to die doing something that you love,” doesn’t seem like a sufficient consolation.

This got me thinking of how I live my life, and do I make the most of everything. Sure there is a chance that it could be all taken away from you like that. I buy into this lyric from a song “I rather live my life in regret than not take part in it.”

There is the finality that comes with death, which I cannot really grasp. The death of P.J. showed me what a tremendous effect he had on the lives of so many people at such a young age. What kind of effect do I have on people? When I am long gone there will be gigabytes of images and boxes of prints and tear sheets left over, and maybe someone will see them and say, “Hey this kid wasn’t that bad of a photographer and a heck of a guy too.”

Take for instance this photo I shot over a year and a half ago of P.J. and my sister before prom. I had another paying gig that day that I turned down to photograph them and my sister’s friends before prom. At this time, shooting only freelance with limited clients, I didn’t really have the money to turn down a paying job, but I understand this whole American idea of the dream high school prom, and the importance of being their for your family. After a few hours of dealing with my sister, who can be temperamental to say the least, I was pretty fed up with her and her endless bitching. So we head out to this park, and at first I’m looking at the sun and the angles and seeing that the light it’s going to be nearly perfect. Then I see that the park we are going to is covered with trees not really allowing any light in except for a few concentrated areas. So after about 10 minutes of scouting and thinking about how I am going to shoot this with a limited selection of glass (yes I only took out a 300 2.8 and 16 -35 2.8) I settle on this one area that you can fit 3 people comfortably into the frame, and start shooting exposing for the skin tones planning on having the background fall of dramatically. This was the final result.

I went from being extremely pissed off to intrigued by the challenge of making a beauty of an image. There were many frames from this shoot that were really nice, including a huge print of my sister and her roommate that hangs in their house, but this one frame says so much. It shows two best friends, neither of them were really the “prom” type sharing a laugh. A frame like this cannot be staged, but is a moment that is captured, that my sister will have forever.

At the funeral reception last Tuesday, there was a slide show playing, and people got up and shared stories. There were so many great ones to share, many of them too inappropriate to tell in front of 1500 people. My sister doesn’t like speaking to large crowds, my dad far too choked up to say anything, so I took the mic. And said a few words, but none as lasting as that image.

I guess the bottom line of this incoherent post, is that as a photographer it is your job to put everything you have into every picture you make. Whether it is a tedious industrial shoot of some products, or the sun setting over the Pacific, you owe it to yourself and those who will see your work. Be proud of the photos you make, and don’t just settle on setting your camera to program and clicking the shutter hoping that you might get lucky and capture something. Make something compelling, thought provoking and beautiful, you never know when you are going to make your last photograph.

<3

Time Lapse

2008-11-07T15:29:00.000-08:00

Since I haven't posted in a few weeks due to massive amounts of work and fun, ill post two in one hour...

Last week I spent two days in Long Beach photographing the set up and trial of a video production event. It was something like 20 hours of shooting over 2 days, and anther 5 of editing. The room was poorly lit and the color temperature was all over the map so it was a challenge to make the images look interesting and not so yellow and flat due to the tungsten bulbs. I found myself shooting with the fisheye to make a stagnate room a little lively.

By far this is my favorite shot, relative to the time lapse. It shows a final product and i kinda like the dark red table cloths.

Photoshopped

2008-11-07T14:44:00.001-08:00

Since the shopping season is quickly approaching... (what thanks giving is in a few weeks right?) I have decided to update on a shopping spree of my own... Photoshop is a massive program, and combined with Lightroom there is almost too many tools to use. I think the statistic is, a photographer uses 5% of Photoshop's capabilities. At any rate, when there is down time at work, I play around in Photoshop, and these are two recent things that I have worked on.

The first originated as a poster of an astronaut who was part of a guest speaker program... I always wanted to go to space as a kid so I figured what better way to fake it than a photo of myself in the official 400 pound suit.

To accomplish this i went into the studio and duplicated the lighting condition of the original astronaut photo. Then carefully cut out my head and transferred it over to the original. Then used the free transform tool to scale my head down to the appropriate size, while holding the shift key to constrain the proportions. After some clone stamping around the head to make it softer and some burning to add the effect of shadows, I came to the final product. The white undershirt is completely made up from pixels and burning and dodging.

The second example is a photo of me playing at the Staples Center. Every time the Red Wings come to town we get the ice before the game and play a pick up game the LA Guys vs. the Michigan Guys. I'm a Wing nut at heart so I played with them, and a few guys wore all wings gear... It was super fun.

This piece started as an example to demonstrate a color scheme for a pair of Easton hockey gloves, and turned into changing the color of the whole uniform to match our Gong Show team.

The right is the original. To do this you have to select the area you want to change. Once selected with the marque tool, go to hue saturation and select pull the hue to modify the color. For the light blues, I had to go into levels after the hue modification and lighten the color to achieve the same color as another jersey. I'm also a big fan of larger tongues on skates, so in the image on the right I used the liquefy tool to make the tongue "flop"more.

In other news... Please grow your moustache, in support of Movember, the month previously known as November. The cause is to raise awareness for prostate cancer, as well as other men's health issues.

Visit www.movember.com

writers

2008-10-14T03:05:00.001-07:00

Sin City

2008-10-09T14:52:00.000-07:00

There were two choices for todays post... On being about working ridiculous hours and making deadlines for two sometimes three different clients, the other about photoshopping photos to look like they are from the movie Sin City. I will go with the later, seeing that I have been working since 6 am and its nearly 4 oclock in the afternoon.

The goal here is to add a comic book text bubble, adjust the levels and saturation to make the image really high contrast. Then to add grain to the image in a way that it creates a rain effect. Then i did a quick wikipedia search for Sin City quotes that fit the image. For this particular image I settled on the quote "There's wrong and then there's wrong, and then there is this." I felt it fitting with my buddy holding a wad of cash...

First step is convert is to desaturate the image, and then go into levels. Pull the left side to about 57 , the grey level at 1.00 and then the black level somewhere around 73- 140 depending upon the photo you start with. (i did this to three photos, with mixed results. This was the best final product, and the final level number was like 110)

The next part is adding in the rain. Create a new layer and then go to Edit> Fill and use 50% grey(this will make the layer appear grey). Then add noise and set it to 400 % Gaussian (this will make the layer appear like snow on a television) Then add a motion blur to the layer set the angle to 90 and the distance to 999 pixels. You will see the layer change from a snowed in television to a bar code. If you are using a file that is really large from a higher end dslr you are going to have to hit control F a bunch of times to make this effect come in. I scaled this image down to 3 by 2 at 180 dpi. Then go to transform and use the skew to pull the layer past the image border creating two triangle adjacent to one another outside the image frame. You are trying to make the bar code looking lines slant as though it is raining at an angle. After this the next step is to convert this layer to vivid light, and your original desaturated image appears with heavy rain. Use image adjustment, levels to tweak the histogram to achieve a desired effect. You can also change the opacity of the rain layer to lessen its effects.

Repeat this step again, changing the angle of the rain to make it look my scattered in the final product.

Lastly select the circular marquee tool and draw a circle where you want the text box. Select the Polo lasso and make a triangle coming out of the circle to create the carrot form the circle, remember to use the control key when drawing it so that it adds on to the existing circle, not making a new triangle. Use the fill tool to make it white and you are set. Just add whatever text you want.

In the end I burned around the subject and it fortunately turned the kitchen background into what looks like a cityscape behind the subject. Play around with your image and see what you get.

I'm sure it would be easier to show with screen grabs of the different steps but if you have questions just email em to me...

Have fun and Good luck

Retouching Time

2008-10-08T20:12:00.000-07:00

Things have been a bit hectic over the last few weeks, working a freelance gig, and then my regular contract job. There have been days like Monday where I am up at 4:30 am driving to Arcadia to shoot at 6am in the car by 6:30 editing images while sitting in traffic to make it to another shoot at 8:30 back in Manhattan Beach, but i'll save that for a post later in the week when things slow down a bit.

The point of this is to talk about a negative retouching job I completed yesterday for the Los Angeles Times. I got a call at 3:30 asking for a photograph of a former C.E.O who was instrumental in bringing in projects for NASA. The request was really specific. They did not want a staged photo of him looking busy at his desk but rather interacting with spacecraft. Digging through the archives... (which is a whole different story about digita asset management and the joys of digital photography and archving) we came across shots of him in a simulator.

I had to scan these negs in a create a proof sheet, then select the image that best fit the needs of the writer, clean the color up and give the Times a presentable photo in 30 minutes. The file i started with was terribly blown out, and out of focus. I shot with manual focus cameras in situations with less control than this, and was able to produce a sharp image, but the photographer who captured this image was not as lucky I guess. After spending 20 minutes on the photo, we sent it out and this was the final result.

Curlin's first morning at Santa Anita

2008-10-02T00:36:00.001-07:00

Its been a long bumpy road since my first cover, almost 3 years to the date. It feels good to know that I have been able to build a list of clients that appreciate my work. Hopefully there is more of these to come, with just my name on the photos. No alias, no other companys, just Alex Evers.

This cover is of Curlin's first day on the track at Santa Anita. Not my favorite shot but it fits well with the story the write worked on mentioning how Curlin is always on the track at first light in the morning, so i guess this sort of tells the story.

Personally I liked this shot of him with the sun rising over his head and you can kind of see his blaze. It was tough to make a nice image in really poor light with only extremely wide glass or really long heavy glass. The mid range zoom was in another car.

More to come in the next few days about some photoshop techniques that achieve a Sin City type look, and some portraits.

hi speed

2008-09-26T17:59:00.000-07:00

first attempts at high speed video more to come

57 Chevy

2008-09-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

I have always had a fascination with the lines and look of vintage cars. They all seem to have this cartoonish personality. I tried to capture that the best I could in this photograph... enjoy

Vintage Film

2008-09-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

I have always been fascinated with photos, I guess it started with my Grandfather, who would show me old photo albums of family trips he had shot with various medium format cameras. There is a certain antique aspect that makes the photos interesting. Whether it was their odd shape making composition difficult or the lack of technology in the emulsion of the film or the processing, old photos seem to have a certain romanticism that current digital work lacks. Scanning old negatives and Turing them into digital files inspired me to find a way to do this in photoshop. Scanning through photoshop magazines I came across an action that creates the effect of old film here is finished product with a film border I scanned from a 1978 negative.

New Job

2008-09-11T03:07:00.000-07:00

The new job I have been working is great. Its nice to get a consistent check every other week for large sums of money. The only bummer is I feel like this gig keeps me away from my friends, also it seems as though its easy to get trapped in a permanent position. Sure benefits would be great, but sitting in a studio doing portraits, and photoshop work is not something I want to do forever. I love the challenge of more journalistic work. I guess i'm using this job as a crutch so that I can build clientele and freelance more. I have a couple of stock agencies Im in touch with, that hopefully lead to more opportunities. Either way im satisfied that im able to get paid well to do something I am passionate about and enjoy...

Nikon D3 Thoughts

2008-09-04T14:49:00.000-07:00

Four years ago when I found myself searching for film cameras to learn about exposure and shooting manual focus film I came across a 20 year old Canon AE-1 Program. From that point on I had exclusively used Canon gear, with the exception of a free Nikon D1 that I used for a remote for a few weeks. I have always been very pleased with the performance of the Canon digital 1d series of cameras, so when I heard about the release of the Mark III a few years back was eagerly awaiting to have it be my main body, and use the Mark II as the backup/remote body. However when I got to test the camera out last October after it had been out for a few months and had a firmware update I was extremely disappointed with is auto-focus performance. My burst rate was around 40% in focus and I was shooting in conditions that Canon proclaimed that the camera would excel. The file sizes and the ISO performance were better than I had expected, but that is really a side not if the camera cannot get a frame in focus. Therefore I shelved the idea of getting a Mark III until either a newer better camera was released or they could fix the problem.

Nikon D3, 28-70mm F2.8, 1/2000 @ f6 ISO640

Almost a year later in New York I am given 2 Nikon D3 bodies and access to essentially the entire Nikkor collection of glass. My first reaction was, thanks but ill continue shooting my canon gear, but I needed a full frame body for a shot so I reluctantly took out the D3. At first it was difficult to get used to, for me shooting Nikon is like driving a car with the steering wheel on the passenger side. After the race is over I take the files back to the room and immediately download the card and start browsing in Photo Mechanic. Literally 93 % of the frames from the D3 were tack sharp. The color, which I have believed was a little off on the previous Nikon bodies was more accurate and vibrant, and the clarity of and image shot at 800 ISO blew my mind. So for the remainder of the week I shot stock photos using the D3 and was continuously impressed. The real selling point for me was when I was forced to shoot the camera in nearly dark condition with a beam at the finish using a 600mm F4 at 4000 ISO. I produced a crisp image with extremely low noise. Another nice feature was the quality of the screen on the back of the camera. The Canon Mark III seemed to lack contrast and was muddy looking, where the D3 was sharp and vibrant.

Nikon D3, 600mm F4, 1/640 @ f4 ISO4000

The only problems I had with the camera were in really low light the camera seemed to hunt around and not want to lock focus on subjects. This happed one burst out of 100 that I shot. Also the crop mode which lessens what is exposed on the sensor to give the appearance of a longer lens was laughable at best. The camera would not focus at all on moving objects, but was considerably better shooting a still subject.

The bottom line is that Nikon stepped up to the plate and hit a home run with the D3 leapfrogging Canon to have the most powerful Professional DSLR on the market. The question remaining is what will Canon come out with next? I think it will be a 15.1 mega pixel body with a tremendous buffer and a screen equivalent to Nikon with ISO performance in the same range as the Nikon. Lets just hope this one focuses well.

Curlin

2008-08-31T03:23:00.001-07:00

I stayed in Saratoga an extra week, to get this shot... I was pleased that it worked out.

2008-08-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ive found a way to circumvent the virus for posting pictures... I spent the evening sending all my important files to my friends computer so that I can burn them in hopes of being able to run a clean install on this machine. Im kinda backed up on writing, I worked on a post about the Travers its saved somewhere. This week I got a gig out here shooting artistic pictures for Nyra so they can use them in promotional material. I was given two Nikon D3's and access to whatever lenses I want. Im not really a fan of Nikon gear, aside from their old manual focus lenses that I converted to Canon to shoot remotes, but these five thousand dollar bodies are worth every penny. Tomorrow morning, Im going to photograph Curlin, and hopefully some Saratoga Mist. Then the Steeplechase race with some wide angle remotes... until then here a shot from Monday

Virus

2008-08-24T23:01:00.002-07:00

Somehow my computer has managed to contract a virus that does not allow me to upload photos to this and or my gallery site. In addition to that I can receive emails but not send them out, and I cannot create new email accounts outside of gmail, for instance hotmail, or yahoo...

just one more reason im getting a mac when I get home.

2008-08-22T18:44:00.000-07:00

It only took 2 planes, a car, a blown out tire, and triple a for me to make it to Saratoga. It was a similar journey for Ginger Punch who was bottled up shuffled back and made a 5 wide move to stick her nose in front long enough to be declared the winner of the Personal Ensign.

I am far too tired to write anymore tonight, tomorrow should be interesting.

2008-08-21T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ah, the joys of traveling...

Tsa loves me, taking 30 minutes to inspect my camera bag.

2008-08-21T01:47:00.000-07:00

The plane leaves tomorrow at 1pm and I feel pretty prepared despite the fact that its almost 3 am and i haven't packed any clothes. My gear is all taken care of and I have gone through the list to double check its all there (listed bellow). This is where the "little kid" in me really kicks in. I have been to Saratoga the last two years, and traveled many times to photograph various events, and it never fails the nights leading up i cannot sleep. All I can think about is the images i am going to make and how I am am going to make them.

Another tradition before a trip is cleaning off all unnecessary files from my lap top so that I have the maximum amount of space. This generally requires plugging in 2 hard-drives, compact flash readers and a Dvd burner. Seeing this is the first time ill be traveling from our place in Redondo Beach, I had to set up in the kitchen to maximize the wireless internet. This left me with a rats nest of cables to contest with which seemed to be a fire hazard, but hey the toaster was close.

This year I've decided to bring along a small video camera and document some of the things on my trip. Here is a sample of a time lapse shot while packing the camera gear. Its a little under exposed but when I get the stripped version of Avid I will be able to clean it up.

Gear Inventory for Saratoga 2008

Cameras:
Canon 1d MKII
Canon 1d
Canon 1d
Nikon D1x
7.1 megapixle canon point and shoot (for small video clips)

Lenses:
300mm 2.8
300mm f 4
70-200 2.8
50 mm 1.8
17-40 f4
15m 2.8
1.4x Converter

Accessories:
Magic Arm
2 Ball Heads
4 Mini Pods
580 Ex Flash
10 CF Cards 1gb-2gb
Custom Remote Plate
4 Canon 3 pin cables
Pocket Wizards
2 Triggers
2 Card Readers
Lap Top
ipod
Bluetooth Head set
Rain Gear

Bernardini with Javier Castellano aboard wins the 2006 running of the Travers Stakes (c) Alex Evers

Saratoga 2008

2008-08-20T03:28:00.000-07:00

I am starting up this blog to tell my accounts of the people, places and things that I photograph. I have been relatively quiet this year, and haven't made a compelling image in a long while. This trip should be a nice break from sitting in a studio editing photographs for hours at a time.

I leave tomorrow at 1pm and will be in New York after midnight, I am not packed. A third of my gear is here, the rest in Westchester, and I have no clue where my memory cards, and or rain gear is located. It wouldn't be a trip without waiting till the morning of to pack.