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Atlanta based editorial music photographer, Zack Arias. |
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Tue , August 10th, 2010
under Just Stuff
Oh boy. Here we go. The above image is a contact sheet from my days at photography school. It is has to be circa 1996-97. I recently opened up three 32 gallon totes filled to the brim with negs, prints, and contact sheets and this gem of a contact sheet was nestled in there. You can click the image above for a larger view if you so dare. Did I seriously photograph a musician holding his guitar while standing next to a brick wall? I sure did. Did I really try that multiple exposure? [Hanging my head in shame] On the same shoot I even hung a bed sheet up on that tree and used that as a background. I’ll save you from that visual pollution. My poor, poor, poor subject. I need to look him up and apologize for wasting his time. Take a look! He did an outfit change in the middle of that roll. I was so convinced we were getting good stuff that I had him come right back to where we were shooting with the first outfit. Note : I was really, really, really proud of these pictures back then. I felt it was my best portrait work at the time. I think I was in the fourth quarter at school. I’m so grateful to my teachers and mentors who tore me new a@@holes every time I showed any of these images. I liked them. Everyone else hated them. I couldn’t understand why people didn’t like them. My subject was really happy with them when I gave him some prints. Thank God for those people who spoke truth in my life or I’d still be shooting that crap. I moved on from there now I need to get beyond where I am today. Always growing. Always growing. Always. Aside from the bad light, the inconsistent exposures, that truly unfortunate multiple exposure shot, and the guitar+brick wall shots, can anyone else tell me another major mistake that was made with this roll of film? The first correct answer gets a OneLight DVD because I have to pay a penance for shooting these pictures. I’m looking for a specific answer. @Michael Sebastian & @Cary Norton – I imagine you fellas should know it. Cheers, 190 Responses to “Zack Arias :: Former Douchebag (mostly)”Leave a Reply |
Photographing a musician or band with instrument. Cited many times in your critique videos….
Haha I’m on the brink of graduating from school, and looking back at old work makes me cringe…I may have to make a similar blog post with my old stuff. It’s insane seeing the different a few years of practice can make.
Thanks for the constant inspiration.
Coty
Only shot 35 out of 36?
In answer to your question, is it light leak?
All in portrait orientation except for the double exposure?
You didn’t make him get a haircut first?
I vote for cutting off joints.
all shots are from almost the same angle with what looks like a wide angle lens.
both of above are usually not very flattering.
Nevermind…missed the lower left corner…
Chopped off fingers/hands/limbs at the joint?
I’d say as far as problems with the roll overall, you either had a light leak or didn’t put enough developer in the tank. The right side of each frame is over exposed. Almost like what the opposite would be if your using a flash and your shutter speed is too high.
It’s fun to look back at this old stuff eh? College photography class was a good time.
I’m no expert, and certainly haven’t been to school for it, but maybe one of your mistakes was only taking 3/4-ish images? no full body (well one, but you cut off his feet)… though I’d imagine the answer is far more above my head than that.
Good on ya to show this stuff, not afraid of where you come from to help you get to wherever you’re going.
I’m also going with ‘photographing a musician or band with an instrument’ as Dennis said. Even a few days ago you said you only used a guitar in the shot because it ‘created a moment’ which was not about the guitar, but the people interacting because of the guitar.
The only mistake I see is that you didn’t immediately put down your camera and let rock and roll be your priestess, Jack!
Seriously, the one thing I noticed that you missed that you always stress in portrait work is “light the eyes”.
I’ma gonna go with shooting from the same perspective (standing) for all of the shots.. No real shit exists except with the instrument closeups.
Reminds me of one of my early shoots of a friend who was a singer.. I cringe when I look back now.. I’ve gone from loving my work and people hating it to hating my work and people loving it.. I think that’s the way it should be..
One mistake that stood out to me was the face that you weren’t consistently using the camera in the same direction for vertical shots.. If you look at the contact sheet some shots are upside down..The photographer I used to assist always told me off for doing that..
D’OH! No real SHIFT, SHIFT I tell you… (sorry about the inadvertent curse..)
I like it
I just like seeing a good old fashion contact sheet. Missing a darkroom right now. All my old hangouts are remodeled into video editing rooms. Sad.
It appears (to me at least, althoug id could we completely wrong) that you used a fairly wide angle lens when shooting this guy, there are some photos where his head and in some his hand looks akwardly big, plus i feel they are a bit too tight.
It looks like the film was exposed to light before being developed.
Thanks for sharing
Something that sticks out to me is that there is no light in the guy’s eyes. They are like big black holes.
Or, that since you chose to shoot the instrument you made the mistake of chopping the guitar apart. We never get the full instrument and the images feel a little jagged.
Thanks for sharing your mistakes so the rest of us can try to avoid them.
If I had to guess, I’m gonna guess the eyes, they are pretty hard to see, no “eyes to the light” in these pics
Tree branch growing out of his head on frame 22?
you never moved your shooting angle or your subjects position. you shot him from the front and his face on for the entire time.
Could it be that the Kodak TX 5063 is rated 400 ISO?
I probably would have chose something between 50-100 for an outdoor, day shoot.
My guess is the intentional camera tilt. (…And the oblique angle to the brick pattern that makes the non-tilted shots look tilted) [I hope that doesn't count as two guesses.]
cropping the elbows and other jointed parts? A light leak on the bottom and/or right edge?
Thanks for sharing these from the past. I don’t see a strong connection with your subject that your current work has.
You didn’t light the eyes, and I dare say you did not light at all. I’ve got a file cabinet full of stuff like that. Ah, the memories!
Zack – I’d say no trace, or limited use of off-camera flash…
First of all, THANK YOU, AND THANK YOU for your blog and the way you are and teach things. I have watch you 3 days in creative live and I have learned more in those 3 days than in 3 years learning photography at the university here in Spain.
And now the possible errors:
You cutted the negatives 5 in a row instead of 6 in a row, that way you get one strip more, making it more difficult to put all the negatives together in one sheet of paper.
Also I think you didn´t get the developer well diluted and the developer paste in the negative borders creating little white strips. I also make the same mistake many years ago.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by clinedsgn, jonathan canlas. jonathan canlas said: i <3 @zarais http://tinyurl.com/23fxevp [...]
Those of you guessing light leaks or not enough developer are getting close. It isn’t light leaks but it did happen in development. I’m looking for the correct industry terms.
Cheers,
Zack
PS – The guesses about bad light, bad composition, tilts, etc are spot on as well but I’m looking for the development problem!
Well, beside some very obvious composition fails, I’d say that the “head in guitar” was pretty bad.
I’d say “the other mistake” is a lot of very awkward cropping. cutting off his arms, elbows, shoulder, head, forehead, feet, body…
it varies per shot but in general you’ve chop chop chopped him up.
Second “other (big) mistake” is “where is he looking?” I don’t think there’s a single shot where I see his eyes (looking at me/the camera. We all “know” that in a portrait if you nail the eyes everything else comes along for the ride, but you get the eyes, they lead you in, bring you in to the story.
From what I can see there are four more possible mistakes:
1) The Subject Brightness Range might be an issue – light top in some pictures and dark trousers. Might need to use a light or a reflector on the dark spots to fit it all into the dynamic range, although with black and white you get a lot more range than digital.
2) specular highlights from the guitar.
3) Could have used a reflector for fill light
4) Lighting is a bit inconsistent. Could have chosen one expose combo and stuck with it? Aperture seems to vary quite a bit. Not sure where the shallow DOF was intentional and where not.
That’s all I can think of right off the bat.
How about the fact that you didn’t finish the roll, or those last three images where so awesome that you sold the negatives to the record co.?
Is either that you did not varied your point of view respect to the subject (too tight) most of the time…or… you cut off his joints.
the film was pushed
One more option here – in development you pulled the film? a.k.a. you set the camera to one ASA and the film was rated for a different ASA and you developed it incorrectly when compensating?
inadequate tank filling?
contamination?
Its the eyes, or lack of them. If the eyes are the “window to the soul” he seems a little “souless”.
Screw developing terms. The 90s hair wins as the absolute worst mistake in all these pictures.
Uneven development due to improper winding of the film on the reel?
Uneven banding down the right side of the photos (where it is lighter)? Maybe you did not use enough developer?
I think Les got it right. Man, some of us really want that DVD.
Kinda looks like you didn’t agitate it enough…
Actually it appears there is banding on the left and right?
not enough fixer (or enough time in the fixer)?
Your comment about being grateful to your teachers is spot on. A good, honest mentor is priceless.
Not enough agitation. Of the film, not the subject.
not enough developer to fully cover the film in the tank.
It’s been a looong time since I’ve developed film, but it looks like the film may have been improperly loaded into the reel-the edges that are underdeveloped look like they might have been stuck together in the tank during development.
Improper agitation during development?
Ooooo. Some of you are really close… just in the wrong direction.
Cheers,
Zack
i’m going to guess you used old fixer…the white emulsion spots all over the film are what’s standing out to me, but i’m still fairly new to this development thing, so i could be way off base.
Poor agitation. Too much actually. I’ve got plenty of negs with the light strips on the side of the film because I was acting as though I was making a martini rather than developing film. Great post again. Humility, what a concept.
improperly agitated developer tank.
Surly wins! (thought someone on Twitter won but I checked the time stamps on each)
Over agitation. I had the hardest time learning how to properly time and execute agitation in the development phase of processing film. Over agitating the film created those lighter streaks near the sprocket holes on the edge of the film.
Cheers,
Zack
After looking at the contact sheet for the 3rd time, I think Ben and Karlo got it right. Not enough developer to cover the film properly resulting in the edges getting under developed.
too much developer in the tank.
Sweet! Thank you so much Zack.
Surly – Email your shipping address to dan @ usedfilm.com and we will get a DVD out to you!
Since @sethlowe was so close to winning as well we are sending him one too.
Cheers,
Zack
Zack – Great contest! Had a ton of fun trying to remember the ways of the past.. and darn, that was my next guess.. didn’t see the typical sprocket marks but it all makes sense.
Maybe you didn’t agitate the film enough while it was in the can? Maybe you forgot to squegee before you let the film dry? Thank god we don’t have to putz with that anymore! Thanks for posting this….it gives us all hope!
There is nothing quite like the smell of dark room chemicals – I miss college and 2am developing sessions.
@Zack so what else was in those containers!?
Underdeveloped.
text and edges are clear so no issue with development time. No sign of issues WRT stop. So not enough time in fixer FTW. Also, scratches might be an issue with not storing properly.
I think you just didn’t have enough fixer for your tank and totally lost that thin edge when you got your roll out of the tank.
Or, you were so excited about this roll that you opened the lid before you poured the fixer on the roll. And of course, the roll was still in the developer (or stop bath) and it wasn’t fully covered with it.
What about holding your camera wrong in portrait mode? Looks like you’re supporting the body with your right hand (wrong), and not supporting the lens with your left (correct).
I knew the answer! Curse you, lunch, for making me miss Zack’s tweet until now!
Answer to your question: Cropping off at the joints… anything bendy, like elbows, fingers, wrists….
BooYah!
)
If you feel better, Zack: Your 96′er-contact sheets probably look still better than mine…
Maybe sometime I will dare and compare…
ISO 400 for a daylight shoot was my guess but I see it’s already been posted. Good fun to see this!
Over agitation of the film in development
Wasn’t in the stop bath long enough.
No light in the eyes.
Glad you found a winner. I’s been ore than 40 years since I processed any film myself. The only thing I remember is sitting in a dark closet trying to thread the spool.
Zack, thanks for sharing what you have learned over the years. Some of us may never be “great” photographers but you sure help make us better photographers. Thanks again.
you shot nearly all of them veritically oriented.
probably already metioned, but the chance that is hasn’t been mentioned in 71 comments is highly unlikely
Something cut off in every shot maybe??
Either that or the colour leaked out somewhere along the line
No light source in the eyes!!!
“Former Douchebag (mostly)”? Really? Like we need to use “douchebag” to describe anything but what it is?
Zack, IMHO you’re way above this. Give yourself props for chops and lose the vulgar slang. You’re so respected and so influential by us photogs; rise above!
not shooting in raw mode!
Thanks for sharing your learning phase, and thanks for still being willing to learn. Its one of the great things about reading your post.
Light the Eyes
Zach,
though surly won, and it is after the fact, I still vote for developer might have been to warm, or you pushed your negs in the darkroom.
photo 101 was tooooo looong ago…
great lesson!
be well
laurence
No ‘chimping’ back then, huh? Nice throwback.
@MMS – Sorry if the term offends. I work a lot in the music industry and that’s a pretty standard term for any musician posing by a brick wall, train tracks, or in a cemetery.
see http://rockandrollconfidential.com/hall/index.php
Again, didn’t want to offend. Just usin’ the slang from the skreets!
Cheers,
Zack
So yeah, ZA peeps, I’m still in Douchebag status…And so many times I just want to succumb to the the swirling, balmy, “who are you kidding” mist. But like a morning ray of light cutting through that gray fog mist, I cannot imagine what life would be like if I were to give up and not pursue to bloody nubs this intense desire to quench the thirst of delivering photographic happiness to all that come before my lensic eyeball and the Hell-Raiser pain/joy of a compulsive pursuit of photographic learning and try-try-again striving for perfection. Oooh, but damn, it’s tiring at times…
Huhhh. Interesting about the agitation. This is a problem with film processing I’ve never had, and I really thought I’d had them all! Gah, hope I haven’t just jinxed myself.
Your 3rd’s framing was a bit off and you held your camera upsidedown to shoot on 2 of the shots. lol
Chris
haha! thanks for sharing! like the one with the ‘big negative space’ best ;o) reminds me of my first picture… (polaroid of a fire extinguisher) at the age of five =oD… just kidding
really zack, thanks for giving us some insight in your early life, looks like there is still hope for most of us =)
cheers!
TiM
To my eye, there’s a slight white vignette giving this good ol’ dreamy/shitty effect !
Am I right ?
Uh… Is there a term for junkyards? Or subways?
OK – I have to admit – I have a shoot of a blues musician in front of an old window with no glass on a brick wall. Can I use the “cuz’ he was carrying a dobro” defense?
i think, he should tune his guitar first.. ^_^
The mistake you made was that you didn’t try any worms-eye-view shots such as this:
http://www.rockandrollconfidential.com/hall/hall_detail.php?dd_keyid=118
Bad cropping…at the joints on a lot of them..
The way you’ve shot the same scene from several angles each time suggests you may not have known what photos you were planning on taking before you started shooting.
Light the eyes was my guess, although I see it is over. It makes me feel good to see your old contact sheets. You keep inspiring me, and letting us see how you look through your camera and not just the picks is incredibly helpful.
I was going to say there’s nothing wrong with them….if you learned from them….if you didn’t learn anything from them then that is definitely what is wrong with them.
I see the over agitation on the sides of the film strip now…
It’s so good to see someone that so many look up to sharing stuff like this. I haven’t been at this nearly as long as you, and still look back at my older stuff with a bit of an “ughhh” in my throat.
Thanks, Zack.
“In days of yore, bands had to pose in front of stone walls.”
“Thank God for those people who spoke truth in my life or I’d still be shooting that crap.” I love it!
Thank you for writing this post, Zack!
mmmm, would it be chopping fingers, joints, etc??
Thanks for the share. I feel your pain. It’s liberating though to admit that what’s awesome today may very well suck by tomorrow.
It actually sucks today, we just don’t know it yet.
June 13 creative live (winner)
Is anyone still waiting for there prize from creative live Like me =(
Im still waiting since july 13th
Im super sad.
David Ingersoll said they been waiting for a book that i won also. Im just wondering if Im the only one
Thanx for sharing all your stuff ZAck
I’m going to say that one of the mistakes you made was not taking aspect ratio into account when shooting these, in case they needed to be printed at 8×10, etc. I make this mistake sometimes when I am too in the moment and get in too close.
The problem is that you let him wear a vest!
Cutting off at joints!
Wide angle lens making the hands and guitar look bigger and more important than the subject?
“Did I seriously photograph a musician holding his guitar while standing next to a brick wall?” Love it. That got me thinking though. Is that a music industry thing only? Cuz we photographers can’t seem to get enough shots of ourselves lovingly embracing our Stanley Cup sized lens+camera combos. Mostly kidding. ;O)
Second strip from the right. Three frames in a different orientation than the rest. This used to bug the hell out of me when looking through a loop and having to turn the paper 180 degrees around over and over.
I do not see any catch lights in the eyes!
IMHO, the very big mistake is the total lack of context: wall of brick, fine…but where is it? US? Australia? China? maybe it’s an endless brick wall looping the whole universe? a little glimpse of a cityscape would have been really better.
OK, I’m not the first… but my answer is not lighting the eyes
Even before I started reading your text, I said to myself, “Brick Wall?!?!”.
You are a good man, Zack. Love your work (even if it did start out a little shaky)!
There isn’t a single catch light.
You always cut off the end of the guitar..his head.. or his body .. composition problems..
From my point of view, the downward angle in almost every shot… it rarely favours people… it’s just IMHO.
Looks like too much agitation during development caused blurred streaks on some of the negatives.
Yea, I know what major mistake is on that roll. You don’t have your “used film” logo on it.
As for shooting a guy with a Qey-tar…so what. We all have shot flowers and clouds and waves and pretty women white flowing dresses and maybe a baby or two. We all do it. Without it we don’t get to where we are today. It’s all good.
Don’t know if it is a mistake or not but my instructors used to chew me out for not rotating my camera the same way so some of the photos are upside down when you present the contact sheet to be viewed. They hated going through a stack of contact sheets and they had to flip the page to look at all of the frames.
Outside of the the above mentioned in your blog post, I see some angled images and some are cropped off at the joints. Some don’t have any light in the eyes. The hair doesn’t have any detail. Their are some weird images with extra negative space, but that’s not here nor there. Maybe the issue is using Kodak and not ilford.
ps. I’m usually not this picky. I just rip apart my own photos like this.
Hey Zack, thanks for posting some of your not-so-great photos from the past and giving newbies like myself hope that we may someday shoot fantastic photos.
Is it over agitation, or is it that this is just the mood I’m in right now?
Oh, I just noticed it’s all over…a day late and a dollar short once again…oh well.
I totally suck … I liked this set of images …….
Though douchey, this spread would make for dope cover art for a metal or rap album. Think “Ladies Man” in orange graph script overlaying the images…
DANG …can I buy the rights to these
?!
Hi Zach,
I am sorry to see that you don’t give yourself a bit more credit. I am also sorry to see that the majority of the comments just repeats what you say in your post.
Some of the images are good. The expression, the pose and the ease of the subject are more important than proper exposure (and you have that too).
So he does not have tattoos all over his body and he actually smiles instead of looking like a first degree murderer, so?
I like the one that has his face out of focus and his hand is in focus. I bet with some lightroom tricks this can become a realy good image
I think you have some really nice shots there.
Motti
nice looking back and reflecting… never would have guessed the problem in question since i never went through the film development work… good to know.
love learning from past mistakes… even if it tends to be very mollifying….
I am a newbie, but two things stuck out to me.
1) Needed a reflector from the bottom to fill in
2) You didn’t leave any room for cropping.
I hope this wins and I want to know why you don’t like the brick wall + guitar, other than it looks too busy.
I’m going to try not to echo what’s already been said here (no catch light, exposure, limbs being cut-off, perspective etc.), although those are the things that initially stood out to me. I’m going to say that the series of images above tell me nothing about this musician. It seems like he is just posing like he’s being asked to and that doesn’t make for interesting images. Basically, they’re not ‘natural’. That could be WAY off but it’s how I see it.
Either way, thanks for sharing this. I know I’ve loads to learn about this craft but looking back at images of mine from even a few months ago and thinking what I’d do differently if I was back there now is a great source of encouragement, even if I now the images to be s**t!
Hi Zack, these contact prints are cool. It’s good to look back to what we thought were great back then and glad that someone honest and brave enough to knock the senses out of our head to point us in the right direction.
Apart from the technical issues with these prints, I think what you lack most is to capture the essence of your subject in every possible way you can. Yes, you were only thinking of that one brick wall as a location. From my point of view, you were lazy to shoot. You we’re standing the whole time, and refused to lie down on your belly to shoot a low angle shot as you did with your fabulous shots now. The most you did was probably tilt the camera down while you were standing.
No, the Zack Arias I know is not lazy at all. He will crawl, roll and lie on the tarmac just to get the best shot that justifies his subject the essence of charater.
Therefore, I must say that your biggest mistake in this set was you we’re shooting ONLY from a standing view.
There you go. I hope I win the your OneLight DVD (please…).
Cheers!
I really like frame 23!
30-odd shots, one good frame? Most digital shooters would be happy with that ratio.
Excellent post. I only go back five or six years with my stuff, but shudder when I see most of it … even the bedsheet backdrops. OMG … and I thought I was a genius for thinking of such a cheap substitute for expensive drapes and such.
this is like wrangling cats. enjoying the posts.
Just the title of this post puts a smile on my face. The word Douchebag, especially when describing one self, is never used enough!
what the hell is growing out his head, look like a yankees logo..
-
I wish I had a teacher of photoeditor screaming when I make mistakses.
That triple exposure shot is bad ass, I like it.
Sorry Zack but most importantly these pictures lack ambition, edge, creativity, an artist who is pushing himself, and as CJ would say any “RAW STOPPING POWER.” Nothing like your current work.
Most of the shots cut off the head of the guitar.
Zack, I gotta ask you something…
Have you ever had a client(s) (okay, it’s not grammatical, but hey…) show up for a shoot, and you have to show ‘em Rock’n'Roll Confidential and the H o’ D, so that they’d let you do your job, so that they don’t look like douchebags?
Perhaps, not using wide aperture to place more of the focus on the subject or specific parts of the image?
Everything seemed in focus
Way too late to this party to answer but thanks for sharing (my guess was the eyes being too dark). Not only does it make the distinct “aroma” of the darkroom singe my sinuses after 30+ years (used to work for a small newspaper – reporter/photographer/go-for…you name it) but gives me hope about my recent return to photography and initial portrait work. I WILL improve with practice, practice, practice – and lots of learning from wonderful teachers like you. Thank you. BTW, feel free to send me your OneLight DVD any time you feel the need to share – it would have a fabulous home.
I think this is a trick question. These are from your latest work and you are going for a retro, shitty photographer-bad light-terrible composition-cliche kind of look for the album cover.
Inconsistent lighting: background light leaking to the foreground. No fill light for the eyes.
Poor choice of focal length. Too wide angled. There’s no scene compression for the closeup look you are looking for.
Great post. I didn’t look at anyone else’s answers, but I think it’s that you didn’t leave enough room around the images. You cropped in too close on all of them, and the comps on some of them were just off.
bad xomposition…no rule of thirds.
I’ve recently begun digging thru old school negatives as well. I didn’t read all 140+ comments so someone may have guessed already. You didn’t expose for the eyes. That was my common mistake anyway.
Zack, there’s no light in his eyes??? Is that the answer? Sorry i didn’t read the entire thread, bet I’m tooo late(: I’d love one of your one light dvd’s please please please:)
And of course:
I have so much respect for you for posting these iamges, I sometimes sit and look at my work and despair. It’s very reasurring to know that you and 10000′s of others photographers ‘sucked’ at some point in their careers.
With Respect,
Scott
Noted mistake:Composition.
I haven’t read all of the replies and am sure that someone else has said this; I am going to go with the 1:1 lighting ratio. Seems that the exposure values on your subject and background are the same and are shot fat; Creating flat images with no sculpturing, separation and/or pop. I was going to say something about the framing but considering this is a contact sheet and using a contact sheet for its intended purpose, I am going to stick with the lighting ratios.
Also, if you can’t find that musician, you should at least go back and shoot that brick wall again, the guitar distracted from it lol… Funny how we can go back and look at our old great shots and now see our own embarrassment’s. Greatest thing about photography is that we can always strive to master it, knowing that it can’t be done but a positive journey, of persistence, can be an amazing one!
Forgot and can’t edit my last post so, forgive the multiple reply’s, please.
Also wanted to mention the DOF issue, everything in focus made the brick wall shots a bit busy and supported the flat feel, created from the equal lighting exposure values.
This should cover the addendum’s, that my short memory requires, for now. lol
I am sorry but i didn’t get the brick wall problem. What is wrong photographing a musician next to a brick wall? You might not like the photos but you sounded like (at least i got it that way) it has to be avoided like plague. This might be dumb question but i don’t get it.
Here’s my take on it (with all my respect): you did beaten path, cliche stuff. I don’t see an effort to get something different and authentic. In my humble opinion, the point of a portrait is to convey the message (even a little hint) of who this guy really is. Is there any attitude to his music? Is it sad and beautiful? Is it dirty and punchy? Is he a lonley singer songwriter? Or maybe he plays for the loved one? In protest, perhaps? The problem with your shots (and that overpowers any technical problems) is that they do not tell a story, they make your subject look like the average non-interesting guy next door.
Again… with all your respect. Keep shining,
I’m proabably way off but…he wasn’t look in the camera in any of them? Or maybe he was I just didn’t see them close enough.
**looking
He is way too happy with that haircut.
Is it that you cut the guitar head out of every shot?
Dammit! Ben beat me to it. I was going to say that your depth of field is showing everything in focus which is very different from your current shooting style.
Other photographers always have the need to critique peoples work. At the time you mentioned you were proud of these shots. Its always a learning process and a FUN process. Who am I to say or talk about the mistakes here, maybe you wanted like that. Bottom line you improve/learn and we all do photography for creative expression.
For the brick wall, nothing wrong shooing a guitar and a brick wall. It really doesnt matter as long as you rock the location and own it! Different angles and pov a brickwall and guitar can work as long as you know how to find angles.
The musician holding a guitar and or combined with a brick wall is the most over done cliched shot in music photography. People make fun of that shot through out the photo AND music industry. It is to be avoided 99.9% of the time.
Cheers,
Zack
I like that people keep guessing, even though it has been answered! OVER AGITATION! White edges and Uber-contrast! I bet you had to slap a 0 filter on the polycontrast RC paper! (Unless you had 10 boxes of graded paper with all different tones and contrasts!) Ah! thems were the days, cranking up some tunes and printing all night…Sorry! I drifted!
Thanks for bringing back some crazy times!
Signed “Douching just ahead of you”
EVERYTHING was wrong with this roll but the answer I was looking for was “over agitating the film during development” We had 2 winners!
Cheers,
Zack
Zack
Still waiting anxiously for the “Tour of Your studio” and “how to use the” x-rite color checker” system as promised in Creative live class.
Debbi
I am waiting to meet zack in Vegas baby, I was going to guess you need to go 4 corner burn to darken edges. I use the Patterson 4 and turn not invert those SS spools are good. However I like the plastic reels in the Patterson, Fast to load. and when you turn the reel, you are hitting a bump making thr film mover vertical.
I don’t understand why everyone is so down these shots. Yes, they are technically pretty crap. But, think of it this way. Annie Liebovitz, for example, is one of the world’s most well known photographers (notice I didn’t say best), yet most of her work is pretty crap, especially her early stuff. Why is she, along with many, many other famous photographers, so well known? They took crappy pictures of famous people. If this guy holding the guitar turned out to be the lead guitar in a world famous band, you, Zack, would be world famous. All the crappiness of your photos would instead be explained away as creative expression – like all the Holga crap that is so popular nowadays. The perceived qualities of a photo, like all art, is in the eye of the beholder.
But yeah, they were pretty crap photos, Zack…
Oh, and to me, the top shot in the third strip from the left, and the middle shot in the furthest right strips aren’t so bad. They have some character. If you were shooting digital, you’d probably take 200 shots and pick out the top 10. Getting one or two usable in a single role ain’t that bad!
As Debbi said Zack would be good to see that studio tour
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I see a winner has been picked, but…
Nobody seems to notice what stood out to me, which is poor direction (on the photographer’s part) on where to put the hands. There are a lot of shots that would be okay shots if the subject didn’t have their hand in a position where it looked either awkward or like fingers had been cut off.
This is fine (sort of) when he’s actively playing the guitar, but in casual portraits like those in the middle of the third column from the left it’s really distracting. This goes beyond just poor cropping to bad direction within the frame.
Thanks for sharing. So you liked to make your negatives Cosino Royale style? That sutff is to be expected. I still make some the mistakes people listed, but tend to do them less and less. Maybe I needed to go to a special school to get my butt kicked.
Btw, some of them only look a little terrible, but a couple are so bad they are totally cool retro art. That guitar hole one is awesome! If you somehow figured out how to work in a wine glass that would have kicked a$$. I hope that one made the album cover.
Everything would have been overlooked, if only you had included a naked girl in the frame with him.
My answer is that the crops in camera were made too tight….
@Greg – Yep. The whole roll just plain sucks from beginning to end.
@Vic – Hahahaha! Nice comment.
Crotch shot on #28!
I agree with the cutting off the joints comments!
Every single image has a body part cut off…floating hands, heads, guitars etc…!
Always so hard on yourself Zack. If you never took these pictures and all the others that followed, you wouldn’t be where you are today. I end up letting bad work give me an excuse to stop. I can’t grow unless I press on. I am trying to always remember this.
Zack,
How’s it going on the road? I hope everything is going well and wanted to say thank you for your professional insight during your last One-Light workshop! You are a gifted man and I hope to walk in your shoes someday.
–Chris
Zack,
Hope all is well. Yo, your work is dope hands down. I was watching the youtube joint that you and Chase Jarvis did. DOPE!!!! Hopefully when youre not too busy you could critique my work.
-Walter
Great post, love to see how far photographers have come, it gives me hope
Shot with T-Max 400 but I prefer HP5+… from what I see there is many white spot and also many blurred portion of some images. Most of the time these 2 problems are respectively caused by too much shaking in the develloping process and also the misuse of water repellent product at the of the developping process.
Technical problems (and some aesthetic ones) for sure, but in any case, I kinda like the top three frames from the last column on the right, including the defects on the edge, etc. People are paying good money to oneOne software (and other companies) to get those efx intentionally!
IMHO those three shots have a style reminiscent of of Frank Ockenfels.
[...] det bliver meget meget nemt klichéagtigt med en guitarist op af en murstensvæg.. Selv Zack Arias rammer ved siden af en gang imellem! Billederne må gerne have lidt kant, og det synes jeg faktisk vi klarede ganske [...]
I know the contest is over but here is my take. The guitarist picked the wrong chord because it looks like he is giving you the finger in most of the shots. Maybe he didn’t like them as much as you thought!
Yikes! Is it so wrong for me to a like a frame or three?
no no no, the problem here is that you didn’t use the REAL Ralph Macchiato! (aka Karate Kid, dude from crossroads.. or whatever his surname was))