Jorge Quinteros

» Photographer Spotlight: Adam Swords

Aged just 21, Adam Swords is highly motivated, self-taught photographer that learned the ropes of running a successful photography business through assisting reputable photographers within the industry, such as award winning commercial photographer Chase Jarvis who Adam interned for in Seattle in 2009.

A seasoned traveller, Adam has traveled to over 20 countries and has a passion for local culture. He shares quality advice and his experiences of the photography industry on his blog and Twitter as well as posting behind the scenes videos giving us an insight in to his working methods.

How would you define your photographic style?

My photographic style is ever changing and my work is influenced by so many different things. If you take a look through my portfolio right now you’ll see dynamic images with rich blacks and vibrant colours that seek the attention of the viewer.

It’s very hard to describe my own style so I’d love to flip that question around and ask you how you and the readers here would describe it Jorge?

What does your camera equipment consist of?

I’ve used both Canon and Nikon and will never be caught trying to argue one is better than the other. I shoot Canon simply because my very first camera was a 300D that I bought second hand for a great price and once I started investing in lenses I saw no reason to jump ship.

• Canon 5D Mark II
• Canon 40D
• Sigma 10-20
• Canon 17-40L
• Canon 24-70L
• Canon 70-200L F2.8 IS

I also use Sandisk Extreme UDMA 16GB Cards, Pocket Wizards Plus II wireless triggers, Lowepro camera bags (my main bag is a Vertex 300 AW) and Nikon SB24 Speedlights that work great for small compact lighting solutions on location, especially for the extreme sports stuff.

What’s your post-production software of choice?

Don’t hate me Mac peeps but I’m a Windows user so I use Adobe Lightroom to manage and edit my photographs and then import them in to Adobe Photoshop CS4 for final editing and retouching.

Are you considering any equipment upgrades in the future?

I’ll be getting my hands on 1D Mark IV later in the year and I’m currently looking in to which lighting set-up to invest in. Currently Bowens are my top choice.

I’ve also started shooting video with my Canon 5D and I’m heading over to Dubai in a couple of weeks to help teach at the Gulf Photo Plus photography workshops where Vincent Laforet has a class. Needless to say I’ll be picking his brains about rigs for the new breed of video shooting DSLRs.

Share with us your proudest photograph.

My proudest photograph…wow that’s a tough call. I think it’s probably this shot I took in Dubai nearly three years ago when I was 18 years old. I was a student on the same workshops that I now assist at and I remember getting back to my hotel room later that afternoon and editing the photos.

When I came across this one there was just something about it that I loved and made me realise that photography was my calling as a career. I wanted to shoot more photos like this and see them printed out on billboards around the world. Three years later and my dream has become a reality and at 21 I have my own great photography business.

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February 22, 2010 |   Tags: photographer spotlight

» Photographer Spotlight: Matthew Mawson

Matt Mawson’s introduction to photography began while assisting many London fashion and still life photographers at Holborn Studios. Eventually he left the artificial lighting of a studio and began contributing to a number of European press agencies that focused on covering many world conflicts.

After numerous assignments and having experienced two creative approaches in the industry, he’s managed to really establish a distinctive photographic style that’s excels both in terrific lighting and composition. He’s stream on Flickr is one to be looked at for daily inspiration.

How would you define your photographic style?

My pictures, I can say, are all about capturing a “moment” within a strong graphic composition. Most of my recent assignments have been through design agencies and designers like a good graphic composition so the image sits comfortably on the page or across two pages.

I like to divide my pictures into thirds using lines or anything that suggests a line. I find that pleasing and I think now I usually include those divisions intuitively in many instances.

However, I work quickly because if you think too much about something it’s gone and then the moment is gone. And when I work that way often I capture lucky accidents, someone walking into the frame for instance and that’s what can make a picture. Serendipitous, I suppose you could say.

What does your camera equipment consist of?

Up until a year ago I used to drag around a Hasselblad 503CWD with the large 16mp sensor and winder, a spare 503CWD with 16 mp sensor and 5 lenses - 40mm, 50mm, 100mm, 150 and 200mm. The big fat light gathering sensors on those digital backs make for beautiful images that ‘snap’ with quality.

However I did a 10 day shoot on the streets of Shanghai and Beijing using the Hasselblads and that was enough. I appreciated the great image quality but it was so damn noisy and heavy working in the street and stopping to change the large lenses, so now I use a Canon 5D MK2 and a back-up Canon 5D and two lenses – 24-105 f4 and a 70-200 f2.8 L IS USM.

The image quality at a pixel level is not as good but for what I do they are perfect. I use Quantum Q Flashes for the Weegee affect and its wide even light and keep a small Canon flash 270EX on the cameras at all times.

I also have a Canon G10 but never use it as the quality is not good enough for commercial ad and design work. I still have all my film cameras – Canon EF, New F-1, AE1, 2 T90s and a Leica M6 and lenses and Hasselblad film backs but who wants them so I hang onto them for sentimental reasons.

I use a Gitzo tripod and carry my gear in a Crumpler backpack. I still use the Hasselblad digitals whenever I shoot some static corporate imagery or cityscapes that are joined together in Photoshop as a panorama.

What is your post-production software of choice?

Everything goes through Lightroom first and if I have to change pixels I obviously use Photoshop CS4. Processing hundreds of 67mp files through Lightroom you need a lot of processing power and I use a MacBook Pro stuffed with as much RAM as it will hold.

I have an older MacBook Pro as a spare and use a 24 inch non Mac screen and on location I take LaCie Rugged 500GB portable hard drives although I am changing to Western Digital 500GB because they are smaller and more reliable.

Are you considering any equipment upgrade in the future?

I will swap my 5D to an update of the Canon 5D MK2 when that becomes available and the new 70-200mm lens that is out in April I think. But that is upwards of £2800! I will also look at the 1Ds Mk 3 update when it comes out.

They say it may have a sensor of more than 30 mp. But I think this megapixel race is crazy as it is the size of the light gathering sensors not the amount that make for great image quality. For instance those I mentioned earlier on the Hasselblad 16mp back.

Share with us your proudest photograph:

I am proud of dozens of my pictures, some taken under extreme circumstances for instance during the genocide in Rwanda and fighting in northern Iraq, others shooting from the hip as it were and getting an image that could never have existed any other way.

But this image taken whilst shooting the Beijing Olympic site works for me. I was standing in amongst the Pampas grass using it to frame the stadium and when I stepped back tourists were watching me use it and decided to try their own version and I got this attractive woman in her shiny red shoes posing strangely in the grass.

On Lightroom I brought back the saturation and increased the blacks and contrast which made the reds stand out. It is a happy picture.

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To view more featured photographers, check out the series page.

February 15, 2010 |   Tags: photographer spotlight

» Photographer Spotlight: John Carey

John Carey is a 28-year old photographer living in North Carolina who also works as a live audio engineer for a local production company and loves both sides of his career.

He has been part of the online world for just over 10 years starting with his previous online project which had reached notoriety because of all the wonderful free desktop wallpapers he presented but the project was eventually retired to gain a fresh start with his current project, fiftyfootshadows.net.

There he shares his photographs, stories of travel and life, his love for music and more desktop wallpaper. Equally engaging, you can follow his updates on Twitter or Tumblr.

1. How would you define your photographic style?

I have been searching for my voice as a photographer for quite a few years now and this year I am starting to feel things fall into place. I feel I have two distinct approaches, one is the digital side of my shooting where sharpness, clarity, color, and creating a striking, moody version of the moment captured rules my mind.

I love shooting digital and the beautiful imagery I can get with it as well as the malleable nature of it with post processing which I try to do as little as possible because I like to push myself to get things right out of the camera instead because even with digital, good exposure and balance of light is a must.

The rules and compromises within photography still apply with digital photography. But as for style, with digital I tend to look for moments and scenes that I can capture in a way that I can make an ordinary moment feel larger or more grand than it may feel in reality.

Also, I think the photos I have taken to be used as desktop wallpaper imagery for fiftyfootshadows.net have influenced my approach in photography very much. Added a sense of simplicity to my approach photography that has definitely carried through most all of my photos, even the busy ones.

Then there is my film photography which I hold to a different light. I tend to romanticize shooting with film as it captures the light in that one singular place on the film, and in that physical form it feels to me like it is capturing the soul of the moment. I take maybe one film shot for every 30 or more digital photos taken.

When I click down the shutter release on my film cameras I cant help but feel more connected to what I am shooting and my style while shooting with film reflects that feeling. I usually try to capture things that make me feel something. Something that hides a narrative of some kind, even if it is subtle or understated. I guess you could say I am aiming for a more fine art approach to this side of my photography.

2. What does your camera equipment consist of?

Right now, in my camera bag (a simple Lowepro) I carry a Canon 5D with a 50mm f/1.2L Canon lens, a Voigtlander Bessa R3M rangefinder with a Voigtlander 40mm f/1.4 SC lens, and, the newest member of the group, a Hasselblad 501CM with the standard 80mm f/2.8 on it.

Along with the cameras I have a Sekonic L-358 light meter, a couple of things for lens cleaning, three extra batteries for the 5D, a few gigs worth of memory that I rarely need and usually a couple extra rolls of film for the film cameras. I love Souldier camera straps and have two red seatbelt straps, one for the 5D and one for the Hassy. I also have a Manfrotto 190XPROB tripod with a medium weight ball head but it lives in my car most of the time.

I have worked on finding a small group of cameras that fit a few different desires I have when shooting and I feel like these three have really been as close to that perfect balance as I can get for now. The big beautiful 120 negatives from the Hasselblad, the quiet operation and small size of the rangefinder, and the handiness and power of the 5D. I choose not to play the lens collecting game. I like to find a capable prime lens for each camera I carry capable of taking the kind of shots I like to take and I love the flexibility and speed of a nice fast prime.

I like to stay as simple as possible with what I have around to shoot with as I like to get to know a camera/lens combo well enough to use them to their full potential. The cameras are like friends to me that help me capture the light around me and each has their place and time where they work best.

The poor 5D is probably my least used camera these days, but it has seen a lot of action and is physically pretty beat up with a chunk missing from the metal body near the battery and some tape across the bottom to cover up a missing screw hole but it still is as reliable and wonderful as the day I bought it.

I have been through a number of other wonderful film cameras though most all of which I have given to other people to use rather than collect dust on my shelf. Notably an Olympus XA and XA2 which I really love. Small but versatile and get beautiful images. Also a Yashica 124 and my personal favorite, a Canon Canonet GL-III QL which I had two of, both broke and I would love to have another working one some day.

One last note, I suppose I should mention the relevance of my iPhone 3Gs camera, as silly and tiny as it is I have managed to get some really nice shots from it using simple post processing apps like TiltShift Generator.

On a recent trip to India I chose to shoot all film and the iPhone started out as a snapshot camera for memories and little moments but ended up being a pretty viable means to capture some things. There are some shots that a simple device like a phone can take where a larger camera may fail simply because of the discrete nature of shooting with a phone. The only downside is the usefulness of the images due to the small resolution of the final image.

3. What’s your post-production software of choice?

I have been using Photoshop since version 3 way back when and still use it (newer versions of course, heh) for really basic things like cropping, sharpening, and touching up scanned negatives. For digital photos I used Apple’s Aperture for a long time and really love the work flow of it but it does drag a bit on my macbook and I have been giving Lightroom a shot the past few months which I have gotten used to pretty quickly.

It’s hard to say which I prefer but at the moment I am surprised to say Lightroom has taken its spot as my main digital workplace and organization tool. Although if Apple would finally give us an Aperture update I may be convinced to move back.

4. Are you considering any equipment upgrades in the future?

I think I will probably be replacing my 50mm with a 35mm f/1.4L soon because I owned that lens before and miss it a lot recently. I prefer a little bit of a wider lens but will replace the 50 eventually I think with a different one. I hope to upgrade the 5D this year as well if I can manage. The low light capability of the MarkII is something I can not wait to get my hands on. Also, because I would like to start putting myself out there as a photographer for hire this year. I will most likely invest in another L lens or two when financially possible, not sure which yet though but maybe the 24-70mm f/2.8L and/or a tilt shift.

5. Share with us you proudest photograph?

Now there is a tricky question. As I mentioned, I tend to explore a lot of different approaches and subject matter when shooting so its hard to narrow down. Nearly impossible actually because of a few different reasons so I will go with one of my recent favorites.

This shot was from the first roll I shot on the Hasselblad late last year and it really got me excited about my future with this camera and because I am building a darkroom I am developing black and white film on my own now.

In that light this image represents something of a peak into a new beginning for myself and my photography this year. As for the image itself I think it seems very bold and contrasty at first but I love the way the subtle dark shadows start to come to light as you look closer into the figure.

January 11, 2010 |   Tags: photographer spotlight

» Photographer Spotlight: Mike Matas

Having recently declared his departure from Apple where he worked on the iPhone Human Interface Design Team for the past 4 years, icon and interface designer Mike Matas has equally proven that his artistic skill is not just limited to work accomplished on a computer. He’s also quite the accomplished photographer with an exquisite eye for seeing beyond the mundane and extracting the best out of any situation.

1. How would you define your photographic style?

I really don’t consider myself to have a photographic style. Not that most of my photos don’t have a style to them, they do, but that style really comes from whatever it is I’m taking a photo of, not me forcing a style on it.

I don’t approach taking photos by going “let me take a photo of this in my photographic style”. I try to really embrace and exaggerate whatever emotions I get out of what I’m taking a photo of and turn that into the style of the photo.

One style I try to be careful when using is the “vintage”. You know, black & white, screwed up white balance, the Polaroid look, stuff like that. It’s a really easy trick to take an ordinary photo, mess with the white balance, maybe give it a thick vignette and voila! it looks like a nice old photo.

I really try not to use that stuff unless it acts as a sort of character in the photo and helps tell its story, rather than just having it literally look old. Screwed up white balance, black & white, the Polaroid look, these did not used to be styles, they were just the way cameras took photos back in the day, whether you liked it or not. It’s only looking back threw the lens of nostalgia that it becomes a glorified style.

I think the same thing is gonna happen with grainy digital artifact filled cellphone photos of today, in 10 years once cameras have grown out of all that people will look back and get all nostalgic about the charm of the digital artifact filled cellphone photo and start using that too as a style.

So that’s just a long way of saying I try to take photos that look like they were taken today, using modern technology, so in 10 years, they will be nice old photos with all the faults and charm of todays modern technology.

2. What does your camera equipment consist of?

I currently use a Canon 5D Mark II with these lenses:

• Canon 16-35mm 1:2.8
• Canon 50mm 1:1.4 
• Macro Extension Tube
• Canon 70-200mm 1:2.8
• 2x Extender
• Canon 15mm 1:2.8
• Canon 28-135 1:3.5 - 5.6

I’d say 90% of the time I am either using my wide 16-35mm or standard 50mm.

I also have a couple Low Pro camera bags, my favorite is the Primus AW. I traveled for a month last summer all over Europe with nothing but this backpack. It’s got a great specialized camera compartment in the bottom half with a little door on the side so you can quickly grab your camera without taking the whole thing off your back. The top half of the backpack leaves room for what other non camera related stuff I need with me. The back of the bag has a exposed sleeve where I carry my 15” MacBook Pro and the bottom of the bag has is a built in hide away rain jacket.

3. What’s your post-production software of choice?

Currently I’m using iPhoto and Photoshop’s RAW editor. I think Photoshop is one of the most important and unacknowledged parts of photography these days. When I’m shooting I almost always just throw the camera into the automatic settings, not worrying about color, exact exposer, flash, or any of that. When I’m shooting I just focus on getting a good composition that’s in focus.

If I can get that then I can do the rest at home. It’s one of my favorite parts of doing photography, sitting there with a photo and tweaking the colors, the lighting, the contrast until it looks the way I saw it when I went to take the photo or until looks the way I wish it would have looked when I took the photo. It’s something cameras just can’t do on their own. Photoshop is where the serious art happens.

4. Are you considering any equipment upgrades in the future?

I’m really happy with the Canon 5D Mark II I got in January. I’m sticking with that for now.

5. Share with us you proudest photograph?

I would not call it my proudest photograph, but it’s one I really like personally. I was in the back of a giant prop propelled Chilean military Hercules C130 cargo plane over the Drake Passage on my way to Antarctica. I had got up to go the restroom, a propped up outhouse in the back of the plane.

Climbing over crates of supplies the plane was brining to Chilean scientist stationed on the content I passed by this officers who was drinking tea from a thermos and light from one side by this little window. He had this amazing look on his face that I read as “We are on our way to Antarctica, one of the coldest most isolated places on earth. I have a family back home, what am I doing here?”.

I didn’t have my camera on me but the whole things was so perfect and wrapped up for me so ended up going back and grabbing my camera and asking him if he minded if I took his photo. I love when photos just present themselves like that, where you don’t have to go looking for angles and stuff like that to try to make something out of nothing.

September 5, 2009 |   Tags: photographer spotlight