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Life Before Photoshop

Life Before Photoshop: Prince Tennis Racquet Campaign

Look ma, no Photoshop.

Look ma, no Photoshop.

I continue my quest to bring to those of you that discovered photography in the digital era, an idea of what it was like way back when. I’m talking about a time when Adobe was a style of house found in the Southwest part of our fifty states. A time when my producer had to drive around to find a phone booth to call me, a person on our crew, a client, a location scout, etc. A time when you had to create images all by your lonesome, and “in the camera”.

Sound scary? Well it was, as I think back about it!!! However, I didn’t know any difference. It was just something you did, and everyone was on the same playing field. Yes, “those were the days my friend, oh yes those were the days.” When I teach my online class with the BPSOP, and I take my “Stretching Your Frame of mind” workshop around the planet, Photoshop is put on hold. We work on getting photos “in the camera”. I don’t mean to suggest that I never use Photoshop because I do. I just love the ‘content aware’ tool!!!

The challenge for me and one I ask of all my students is to be able to get as much as you can without the use of Photoshop. If there’s one thing I’m sure of in this “crazy mixed up world”, is that it will make you a better photographer, and that’s my goal. I’m not interested in my classes becoming better computer artists, just better shooters.

I was shooting a campaign and a series of posters for Prince, the makers of tennis equipment, and the campaign was called, “Let the games begin”. It was about what people will go through to become better players; aside from using Prince’s equipment. The photo above was taken in Santa Barbara, California, and I had scouted several locations with my Sunpath chart and my Morin 2000 hand bearing compass. I knew from those readings that the sun would hit this location at sunset. I stood where I was going to place the tennis player, took a reading with my compass, and determined that he would get perfect late light.

Since most of the work comes in the pre-production stages of a photo-shoot, I was feeling pretty good about the prospects of coming away with a “keeper”. Now, all I had to do was set up the tennis balls, put the model in the right spot, put the Prince blue bag as far away as I could, and still make the client happy, then wait for the light.

Well, here came Murphy’s Law. You know the one, that pesky law that says, “if anything can go wrong, it will. If there’s a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.”

So, you’re asking yourself what could have gone wrong? Well imagine everything set up perfect, the late sun shining low and bright, and a Santa Anna wind coming up from nowhere and blowing every tennis ball off the court. Can you imagine? Well, I can tell you that it was just about the last thing that was on my mind, but that’s exactly what happened.

What did I do back then without the help of Photoshop? I did what I had to to make it work. I had everyone grab some Duct tape, tear off several thin strips and secure every ball to the court. So every ball you see has two pieces of very strong sticky tape under it.

This is what people look like when they’re taping tennis balls to the court.

“Oh yes, those were the days!!!

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Watch for my workshop schedule I’ll post at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime and listen to a million stories just like this one.

JoeB

Life Before Photoshop: Rubbermaid Outdoor Furniture

Look ma, no Photoshop

Look ma, no Photoshop

I often wonder what kind of photographer I would have turned out to be had there been Photoshop way back when. Way back when Adobe was a type of house in the Southwest part of the US. What would I have done differently? It’s always a topic talked about with my online students at the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet.

Remembering back when whatever you did in terms of creating a photo that the client would buy, had to be done in the camera because way back when there weren’t personal computers.

The big companies were just starting to use computers, and these giant behemoths I was occasionally sent to photograph took up an entire floor to generate the power that can now be found sitting on my desk in my iMac 27 with 32 GB of RAM, a 4.0 GHz processor, and a three terabyte Fusion hard drive…maybe? Close?

In my opinion, I wouldn’t be near the photographer had I had access to Lightroom, Photoshop, and all the plug-ins that one can find out in the geek-produced/induced digital market. I would have wound up with a sore butt from the hours that would have been needed sitting in front of a computer to achieve what I did in the camera.

In terms of my imagination, and my eye, and always thinking about “coloring outside the lines” these things would not have been any different. It’s using that imagination and my ‘eye’ instead of digital help that I’m talking about. Using the Elements of Visual Design and composition, and being a student of the Light is what made me whatever I am today, and not a computer.

I even know how to focus manually!!!!

🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a purist in any sense of the word. I love Photoshop, and I use it on every photo I take to some extent…why not!! I just personally like the challenge of getting it in the camera.

In the above photo, I was shooting for Rubbermaid outdoor furniture, and had two truck loads of their entire line that followed me down the California coast. We were in Big Sur at the Ventana Inn. Actually, we were on the roof of the Nepenthe restaurant and it was mid day.; not the ideal time to shoot as the light was hot and harsh.

I needed the light to be soft so it might replicate the period of time we were going for; it wasn’t going to happen without help.

If this would have been shoot in the digital age, creating that feeling in front of the computer would have been easy, but it wasn’t. Instead, to get that feeling I set up my 20X20 silk to diffuse the harsh light. coming from a sun that was directly above us. As you can see, this isn’t a small item, and it took an hour and a half just to set it up in the wind.

Think about a 20X20 piece of silk…that’s 400 square feet of sail, and if not tied down correctly on huge stands that were held down with sand bags, it would take my assistants over the ocean and deposit them in really cold water inhabited by things that can eat you…or maybe just play with you until you drown.

400 sq. ft. of sail.

400 sq. ft. of sail.

The good news is that it wouldn’t take me ( as I would be the only one left) near as long to break down what was left of the set.

🙁

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, and follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my  workshop schedule at the top of this blog, and come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

 

Life Before Photoshop: Fine Dining

Look ma, no Photoshop.

Look ma, no Photoshop.

Here’s another photo in my ongoing category to show those of my fellow photographers how it was when Adobe was a type of house prevalent in the Southwest. Both in my online class with the BPSOP, and in my “Stretching Your Frame of Mind” workshops I conduct around the planet, the vast majority of my students became interested in Photography after the demise of film and the cameras that shot it.

These same students think that computers with Photoshop, Lightroom, and all the available plug-ins downloaded into them are a necessary part of the new digital age. To some, it’s the only way to create photographs. While it’s true that Photoshop and Lightroom have been an important part of my photography, I can also tell you that you don’t need any of it to make memorable pictures.

On the first day of my classes, I tell people that for the duration of the course, whether it be the four weeks of my online class, or my one week workshops, they’re not allowed to use any post-processing of any kind. I can’t tell you how many people freaks out!!! “What? Are you kidding? No way I can do that”, just to mention the three most popular come-backs.

FYI, auto focus is a luxury, not a necessity. That really has them baffled.

The above photo was taken for a company that was building a mid-level high rise in Houston. Since the building hadn’t been built, they wanted to show what amenities there would be in the area for those that would live there. One of the ideas was to create a photo that suggested Fine Dining in the area.

I created this photo in the wine cellar of a well known restaurant in the area. With the bottles of wine in the background, I set up a table and arranged the wine glasses and tulips from edge to edge. That was the easy part. I wanted to show a hand coming into the frame lighting one of the candles. Trying to open the shutter and exposing for the table setting and then having the hand light the candle proved to be impossible. I just couldn’t get the flame to stand up and look delicate. Remember that this was before the days of Photoshop, where it would now be soooooooo easy to create it on the computer.

I finally figured out a way to make it work. I had the waiter hold his hand in position with an unlit match in it. I turned off the modeling light and fired the flash to record everything. While the shutter was still open, I placed a black card in front of the lens and lit the match with another one. Once the smoke cleared and just the flame was showing I removed the black card and exposed for the flame.

What you see here was shot on one piece of film and one exposure.

Visit my website at: www.joebaraban.com, follow me on Instagram: www.instagram.com/barabanjoe. Check out my workshop schedule at the top of this blog. Come shoot with me sometime.

JoeB

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