Category Archives: Strobist

Berlinale 2014: Hollywood Invasion

I spent the better part of this month photographing Berlinale, one of the country’s biggest and most important film festivals. The big winner this year was “Black Coal, Thin Ice”, hailing from China, claiming both best actor and best film. Though plenty of German stars are to be expected on the red carpet, the presence of Hollywood has become somewhat overwhelming. Photos from a festival like this fly around the wire within minutes, but the most interesting photos are rarely even picked up by an agency let alone sold to a magazine. This is a selection of some of my favorite shots of mine from two weeks in Potsdamer Platz. These are about light, about character, about something happening.

Edward Norton and BIll Murray were around for opening night, part of The Grand Budapest Hotel and the Monuments Men teams. They enjoyed the red carpet. Mr. Murray posed for us while Mr. Norton mocked us.

Fans sleeping in the mall in Potsdamer Platz to get tickets for the public, which go on sale early in the morning.

Uma Thurman graced the red carpet with presence at the opening of the controversial film Nymphomaniac. This shot caught the flash of another photographer directly behind her head, giving a perfect halo.

Bill Murray chats with a TV crew on the red carpet at the premiere of Monuments Men. Changing his hat every time and always having fun, Murray was certainly a media favorite this time around. A “Natural Light” shot.

Nothing but love at the photo call for In Order of Disappearance: Hans Petter Moland, Bruno Ganz, and Stellan Skarsgard. Sure. they are actors. But this one shows some emotion, hard to snag at a festival.

Diane Kruger poses for a selfie with a fan after the press conference for The Better Angels. Overhead shot with a Fuji X100. I love that she is holding a camera but using her cell phone for the selfie.

Edward Norton at the Photo Call for Grand Budapest Hotel. My flash did not fire but I caught someone else’s hard light from the side. Intense.

Martin Scorsese showed up to a screening of an unfinished work of his at Berlinale. I wanted to take my Rolleiflex with me that morning but knew I wouldn’t have the time to shoot with an extra camera. But I could crop this shot down to a square, my favorite for portraits.

Shia Laboef at the premiere of Nymphomaniac from Lars von Trier. After keeping his head down in the photo call and leaving the press conference after a couple of minutes, he decided to brown bag the red carpet. Potentially the most exciting thing that happened during Berlinale. He strikes me as a bit off.

Berlinale’s director Dieter Kosslick takes a pause to read the news at the food carts, a gourmet addition to the scene – but still less pricey than the junk in Potsdamer Platz.

Lio Fan wins the best dressed award as well as best actor for his work in Black Coal Thin Ice, which also took home the Golden Bear for best film. Fan cracks a smile during the winner’s press conference. His silver bear pokes into the frame at the left.

The Monuments Men brought a wave of Hollywood to Berlin. This crew came in singing and conga-lined out of there. Bill Murray, John Goodman, George Clooney, Jean Dujardin, Matt Damon. Most fun photo call ever.

The table in the press conference room is wiped down just before the winners come in.

That’s it for the kind of interesting shots from the festival which won’t get picked up for publication. A group of young photographers took part in the project Close Up! and got to roam around Berlinale half playing the game of a press photographer and half taking a step back to observe and view the festival in its entirety as a subject. These projects are excellent, artistic, and a lot of fun. If you are in Berlin, swing by C/O’s new digs at the Amerika Haus to see more interesting, refreshing perspectives on Berlinale.

Fuji X100 Firmware Update: Quicker Focusing, Less Quirks.

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I love my Fuji X100 for the same reasons that everyone else who loves theirs does. Leica-like, film-lookalike, and Strobist-friendly. I mean, I live in Berlin, where sexiness trumps all, and the camera fits right in. And like everyone, I also have done my fare share of complaining. This camera has change the photography market. Less than three years after it hit the markets, every other manufacturer is running to do something similar, and Fuji has built on its success with the X100s. Most importantly for me, though, is that Fuji is still supporting this camera, quietly releasing a firmware update last week.

Bourbon Barrels aging upstairs at the Kings County Distillery

Since I’ve had the camera for a while now I thought it was time for a brief retrospective. The camera is always in my bag, be it for a shoots or stroll to the supermarket, and it is the one I travel with.

Trees coing through the broken windows in Beelitz, Brandenburg

X100 Firmware Update v2.0
The firmware update to version 2.0 does the things we wanted it to, addressing some quirks. The focus is quicker. Way quicker. That was the biggest issue for those of use who bought the camera. We all knew we were getting an excellent built-in prime instead of the ability to interchange lenses which each cost more than this camera. But the focus, frankly, blew. It is way quicker now. I mean, way.

Headshots of Whole Health Source blogger Stephan Guyenet on my x100

Common Issues With the Fuji X100
In light of the new firmware, it’s time to review the settings on the camera again. the main issues were always focus, speed, and focusing speed. It holds its own now. Finally.

The way most people have set up the focus on their X100 is to set the AFL/AEL button – where my thumb always lands – to focus. Then you can leave your camera in MF mode and autofocus with the button. Easy peasy.

This workaround gets you everything you need. The focus is the same speed – or quicker in some situations as compared to the straight up AF. And you get MF override. It also allows you to keep shooting in macro mode using the optical view finder (OVF). This is dangerous because the parallax correction is just enormous. But it works.

The (infamous) Gehry designed Stata Center on MIT’s Campus

Startup time on the X100
The new firmware also makes the camera’s startup speed faster. This has been a weirdball from Fuji. The SD card you use – and how it is formatted – have huge effects on the camera. If you let an Apple device write to it, sometimes a hidden file will show up on the card which slows everything down. Somewhat of a fail. The issue has been getting better and better, and with a Lexar 400x card I’m not having troubles. The startup speed is now quicker, 0.2s according to Fuji. Whoopie.

I use the camera in quick start mode most of the time. It drains juice but gets your shots quicker. If I’m traveling and may not get to recharge so often I won’t do this, but for daily shooting – and press work – I’m way happier with this. Turn off any auto review, and you can shoot at a blazing 1.5ish fps.

The firmware update is absolutely worth the half hour it will take you to fiddle with the settings. Do it, especially if you rely on your X100 for as much as I do – street photography, strobist-style portraits in the sun, press work, even in the studio. Well done, Fuji.

A museum cafe in Vienna, from above

Photojournalism as Art, or something like that

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Every time I shoot a press event I come up with a new idea or two for photography, not for selling my shots but for art. Because the world of press, like the universe it is a part of, is nuts. And art is a great response to insanity.

Actress Jamila Saab getting shot on the Red Carpet

Monday’s idea is to photograph the caterers and service workers at a star-studded event. Like these actresses in their own right:

Pan Am flight attendants handing out candy in a martini glass

The First Steps Awards are for youngins in German film. It felt like the younger sibling of Berlinale, Germany’s main film festival, which I’ll be covering in January. First Steps has major sponsorship and A-list guests, even if the nominees and winners are all up and coming. That meant that by the end of the night, most people who got prizes couldn’t walk in their shoes anymore. Not that I could in those heels, but as a photographer I get to wear hiking boots, black jeans and a t-shirt no matter how fancy everyone else looks. Dems da rules.

Actress Lea Mornar, looking over her shoulder on the red carpet

The red carpet was a pain in the ass. Shooting there is not much fun. Lots of shouting and elbowing. Worse than usual.
But the Stage Theatre am Potsdamer Platz offered four flights of balcony with a gorgeous staircase leading to each landing. And by gorgeous, I mean ugly but with low white ceilings. You know what that means: studio everywhere. Here are some prize winners. Note the light mod all around them known to most people as a ceiling. This was one on-camera flash, well balanced and bounced. Nice and Strobist-y.

Anna Zohra Berrached and Cosima Maria Degler, direcotr and producer of No Fear Award winner "Zwei Mütter", Two Mothers

Anna Zohra Berrached and Cosima Maria Degler, director and producer of No Fear Award winner “Zwei Mütter”, Two Mothers

The crowd being younger meant that a lot of the nominees and winners were more willing to take thirty seconds during the party afterwards for a shot. Also, did I mention the major sponsorship? There was really good food there. Like currywurst (a Berlin speciality that defies description), Dunkin Donuts and kimchi-filled asian fusion rice things.

The Rice-Thing Guy

As waiters came around and I was waiting for a familiar face to stroll by for a shot, I realized that the caterers were not only the unsung backbone of an event like this – which they always are – but this time they were mostly dressed up into roles, too. So I treated them like the stars I was supposed to photograph and asked they would lend me their likeness for thirty seconds. Basically all agreed.

One of the bartenders, slightly less bored by posing for me than by her job.

And there you have it: today’s installation of art responding to photojournalism. There is nothing quite like fighting fire with fire.

The Strobist Award Ceremony: Ahzumjot

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This post is dedicated to David Hobby, better known in these internets as The Strobist.

Like many photographers, I have been following David for a while and learning from his creativity and wisdom. I consider his following his blog as essential to my education as the courses I’ve taken at college or at ICP.

Wearing my hat as a press photographer, I spent Sunday at the New Music Award in Berlin. The setting is Admiralpalast, a hundred someting year old theater on Friedrichstrasse that has lived many lives, and is a rare old building in this city of reinvention.

With nine acts each getting a fifteen minute slot to show off three songs in the competition, there was as much down time for rearranging the stage as there was live time. One of the photographers from DPA (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the big guys around here) used the downtime to edit shots and probably upload them already. Though it makes me a terrible photojournalist in this day and age, I wandered around the building looking for more shots instead of starting the uploads. Gasp.

Lucky me, I came across the first act, Ahzumjot, in the VIP area. He was more than happy to sit for me for a couple of minutes. Good that I asked him, great that he said yes, and even better that he had to chat someone else up first – giving me two or three minutes prep time.

This is the corner that I started in:

The Studio in Admiralpalast

Where you can see just how the light is falling. I am going to be shooting a few steps closer, right next to that table, and Ahzumjot is going to sit for me on the left end of that bench, where the reclining guy with gray hair is here. Backdrop is the courtyard of Admiralpalast, giving some gentle diffuse late summer northern European window light.

Here is that backdrop at (almost) exposure settings, 1/3 stop brighter than what I settled on, but close enough. Remember that Ahzumjot is going to be framed by the open window on the left, so it’s the background that we care about. And the window frame it gonna be lit up anyway.

The backdrop at (roughly) exposure settings: 1/200th f/4 ISO 320

What I managed was pure Strobist love. The ceiling was not low and the walls were not white, but it would have to do. I stood pretty far back for the sake of the flash and used a longer lens that I otherwise would have – I shot the winner at the 70mm of Nikon’s mega-zoom, though I would normally be on my 50mm for this kinda shot. The flash (LP160) was pointed up towards the meeting of the wall and the ceiling, half power, widest setting for most diffusion. I even had my go-to 1/4 CTO gel on it. And of course, I had about two minutes so set the shot up and thirty seconds with the sitter.

Here’s the result, a portrait of Ahzumjot in Berlin’s Admiralpalast:

Musician Ahzumjot during the New Music Award 2013, in Admiralpalast, Berlin

No touch-ups or fiddling needed, all I’ve done is cooled down the image a bit, which had auto-balanced for the outside world since I had forgotten to switch to flash WB.

So thanks, David. Here’s to you.