Since this is such a dramatic shift for not only Adobe, but for all of us users, I do have a lot of very pointed questions regarding Adobe's switch to a cloud service for their software, where users become subscribers as opposed to buying the program outright. Adobe's shift raises lots of other issues too, such as precise levels of privacy, potential ad clutter, the ability to control one's own images and so on; things that Adobe hasn't yet discussed in depth. I've noticed that during this announcement week, the regular Adobe experts are not really asking the hard questions, some users are a bit on the shrill side, and yet others are bored that anyone's taken the time to talk about it. I'm somewhere in the middle of the fray, just trying to figure things out.

I’ll take this issue apart piece by piece, and take a closer look at each component.

1.There is a perception that users may be saddled with non-stop payments to infinity; let’s take a calm look at this. This perpetual subscription agreement is perceived to be negative from many users, but in actuality, it may be a non-issue, or it may be true. Let’s take a closer look here without getting all excited about it. There has been a flood of people presenting their math formulas for what they’ll ultimately pay for the various aspects of this new Creative Cloud service. Adobe has assured us that the pricing is reasonable at $19.95 per month (Adobe, please correct me if I’m wrong) for Photoshop by itself, or $49.50 monthly for the entire suite.

Okay, I’ll do some math of my own and round out just the Photoshop subscription number (again, not the entire Adobe suite) to $20.00 per month, or $240.00 per year. Everyday people pay about $600.00 for the full version of Photoshop (on disc). This means that for the average user, it would take 2.5 years of subscribing to reach the $600.00 price mark, and after that, Adobe would be making way more money than they did in the past. For an example, if the average user would subscribe to Photoshop for ten years, the cost would be $2,400.00, which is an obvious dramatic jump for the price of using Photoshop.

Of course, Adobe has the right to increase their subscription fees at any time, so this is a minimum number and it could easily end up as way more than that. This means that Adobe could be more than doubling their fee for Photoshop for long-term users, even when you take past upgrade prices into consideration. On the other hand, if you only use Photoshop occasionally, it’s a fantastic deal. But for us who have already used Photoshop for decades, it’s clearly a dramatic price increase, and is an enormous fee increase for us pros. Wall street calls this subscription model an “annualized recurring revenue” into the transmeida world, where much of the financial action is unfolding. The financial verdict? Easy, Adobe reaps in increasing amounts of money as long-time users pay very notable increased fees as described above.

2. Potential Privacy Issues & targeted advertising. What, who would be the real product? Privacy: With the Adobe Creative Cloud (ACC), we users will be working with a desktop program as usual (not via a browser), but under the umbrella of  Adobe. It appears to be an impossibility that we’ll be working privately in our studios as before. I’m obviously making the assertion that we users will not have the same level of privacy that we had working with our own purchased disc program for the following reasons.

Subscribers will be working via an online connection directly to Adobe. Adobe explained that users will download the online version of Photoshop and will work with the standalone program. This cannot be entirely true, because the connection to Adobe is predicated on the monthly fees, so it is clear that there is a basic level of monitoring that occurs with the Cloud version. The million dollar question is “How much monitoring?” I’m sure that subscribers will have highly detailed statistical profiles produced by Adobe, but what other monitoring will be happening on a regular basis? I’d take it as a given that users will be giving up a significant measure of privacy using the Cloud, and of all the issues associated with the ACC, Adobe is being the most shy about specific answers to this topic. Maybe nobody’s asked them yet, so I will.

We have no idea whether Adobe will have the ability to view what you are working on at any given moment, so what’s the scoop Adobe, what is the precise level of monitoring you can do? As far as I know, subscribers can’t control the level of privacy they have, so this appears to be an issue of “no privacy” unless Adobe says otherwise.

You as the product? What if Adobe decides that they need to cash in on the advertising revolution that online companies like Google are reaping? Would Adobe jump the boat and go off on an advertising tangent now or in the future? Well, Adobe, what say you? Sorry to be sounding heavy handed about discussing online business models, but it’s common knowledge that Google receives the lion’s share of their revenue from advertisers who buy user profiles from Google. Advertisers then produce targeted ads for anyone who strays anywhere near Google online. With Google you don’t even have to sign a user agreement, anyone in their universe is fair game to become their product. This scenario is wide open for Adobe to use under this new Creative Cloud scenario.

If the above rings true it may mean that users of Adobe’s new Cloud service may be inundated by targeted ads like never before, and the floodgates may be poised and ready to be opened. If this advertising scenario comes to be a reality, it may mean that we ACC subscribers could become a primary revenue resource for advertisers, and ads targeted specifically at us may set a new record for ad clutter nearly everywhere we go online and not necessarily at the ACC site. I’m betting that Adobe may likely hold back on this at first, but a year later? Who the heck knows? What do you say Adobe? What are your short and long-term plans for using ACC subscribers as a source of income for advertisers? Are we ACC subscribers going to become the product like Google and Facebook’s business models?

3. Wifi Connection to make subscription work It’s obvious that one defines a Cloud server as being connected to the Internet in order for it to work. Adobe has made it clear that users will download a software version for their desktop. Just the same, there are times when I and other Photoshop users are working under extremely tight deadlines, and to have the software go dead in the midst of working is totally unacceptable. If there was ever a Cloud glitch, this could simply make the Adobe Creative Cloud go dead.

There is precedent for this, because major Clouds from just about all the Cloud servers out there (including Apple Computer) have already crashed many times. This is a major concern for me and thousands of other users. Adobe would have to install safeguards that would prevent this from happening. For Adobe a Cloud crash would be an inconvenience; for us users, it could mean the difference between completing a critical contract by a set deadline.

For us pros, the scenario is simple. If the software dies at a critical time, we could lose our critical sources of income, which means the mortgage doesn’t get paid and the kids go hungry. For amateurs it’s a non-issue, like losing their iTunes for the afternoon.

Adobe, you need to build in a foolproof safeguard for subscribers potentially losing access to our files and the program. This online connection is the weakest part of this entire scenario, and could be a deal-breaker for many of us. Not only that, but our own private servers could crash too, which would put us in double jeopardy. An accounting error could put us in triple jeopardy if our service was ever accidentally turned off due to an accounting error. The list of potential errors goes on and on, not to mention hackers who make a sport of breaking into all systems, including Cloud servers, or even our own Wifi connection. Google made a bad joke of this by just driving around neighborhoods, breaking into any Wifi connection they pleased, which leads us into the next issue.

4. There is no way to protect yourself against online hackers. The United States government recently stated that the only way to protect yourself against malicious online intruders is to disconnect your computer from the Internet and not import files from outside sources. Virtually every government agency in the world has been hacked into, not to mention corporations, businesses, organizations and individual people.

For the past two years, I have removed my “working computer” that does Photoshop work and printing from the Internet. It means that even if the world comes crashing down from malicious hacking, my own computer would keep on going and my professional work would remain unscathed. For everyone working with digital media as their primary source of income, I’d advise you to do the same thing and remove your revenue generating computer from the Internet completely. No email, no online browsing, no software updates, nothing. Zero. It’s the only way to protect your livelihood. I use my laptop for everything online and use my desktop computer solely for my digital imaging work.

This is a stark reality that the Adobe Creative Cloud pretends doesn’t exist. Adobe seems to be more interested in generating new sources of income than ensuring  that their own software works, and as a critic I find this to be not only irresponsible, but also flagrantly disconnected from the reality of the vulnerabilities of the Internet. It’s almost as if Adobe is living in a parallel universe where malicious hacking does not exist. Adobe, please come back to our universe and take a look around. It’s not a pretty sight.

Three times in the last few years, companies I’ve been doing business with have been hacked, and these companies have had to provide me with online protection via digital security companies. My bank account was hacked while I was in Germany and I couldn’t use my credit card to pay my hotel bill because my account was frozen. This is not unique to me by any means; if you do online business, chances are that your confidential information has already been compromised not once, but many, many times. We’re all in the same online boat here. Do I want to do my primary revenue generating operations completely online? Are you nuts? Hell no.

Other issues.

File access in the future. It appears that there are innumerable other hidden issues that could be perilous issues for both Adobe and subscribers. Such as the notion that Adobe may be able to lock your files from you if you ever drop your subscription. If Adobe has the ability to lock your files from you, this is a monumental issue that may lead to groundbreaking legal findings at the end of long and expensive litigation, regardless of what the subscriber agreement says. Subscribers should be able to open and use any files they made, period. Word on the street is that Adobe will prevent ex-subscribers from opening any files made on the Creative Cloud. If this is true, it falls into the gutter under the heading of “cheap money grubbing rats,” and Adobe should do the honorable thing and jettison this feature, because it’s wrong, plain and simple. What say you Adobe? Is this part of  the Creative Cloud user agreement? Please tell me that this was only a malicious rumor designed to make you look exceptionally bad, because you are way better than that.

Online archiving. I have been an archiving advocate for creative professionals for decades. The simple truth is that the only way you can safeguard your own work, your legacy, is to save your work on site, NOT on a cloud server. Clouds should be for things like iTunes collections, snapshots, or anything that is already in your own on site permanent archive. Clouds are places for temporary storage of anything you need for casual or convenient use. Clouds should be a place for temporary parking only, certainly not as a repository for your professional work. Many clouds have not only crashed, but some have also unexpectedly gone out of business. A couple of years ago, a major photography cloud went bankrupt and photographers lost millions of irreplaceable photographs. What was their recourse? Nothing. The photographs were simply gone. This was a tough lesson that I hope nobody else has to learn the hard way.

The current status quo. In the meantime, I’ve heard from a few satisfied ACC subscribers, all of whom only use Photoshop for fun or an occasional job here and there. I haven’t heard from any hard-core pro users yet. None of these “lightweight users” has had any issues with down time due to Internet problems yet, and they are very happy with the price. This is likely because the full-blown subscription service hasn’t really been launched in all it’s glory yet, and the ACC hasn’t felt the pressure of mass numbers of pros online yet. I’ve already witnessed indignation from Photoshop pros who are usually calm by nature, so I know this new subscription model is already a hot topic. Feelings of betrayal abound. I’m betting that there is likely going to be a spike on sales of the CS6 disc program as pros ponder the various tactical methods of jumping off the ACC boat before it even really launches, but we’ll see I guess. To be fair and accurate, I’m guessing that a lot of pros will give the ACC a spin to see what unfolds.

Keep an eye out for where the Adobe Cloud has their physical servers in place. Apple tried to keep theirs secret because they didn’t want subscribers or Wall Street to know about crashes or physical problems they encountered that dramatically affected its online performance for subscribers. Wall Street investors don’t like to read stuff like that, and server glitches often show up in their stock prices nearly instantly. You can bet that Adobe is acutely aware of this and will do everything in their power to keep any glitches under careful wraps, which means that they’ll be fighting an internal battle that has subscribers who want to know what the heck is happening with any glitches on one side, and the desire to keep Wall Street in the dark on the other side. Somewhere in the middle, hopefully ACC will be scrambling to keep their servers, the Internet, and Wifi everywhere running smoothly.

The appearance of this new ACC also means that Adobe now has a vested interest in making the Internet more secure, because as mentioned before, it’s the wild west out there where shootouts from hackers are running amok. Again, the reality everyone in the world is facing is that there is no protection from malicious intruders who wish to cause havoc, outside of disconnecting your computer from the Internet that is. My next question to Adobe is “What are you specifically doing to make the Internet safer? Can you list the things you are doing to make the Internet safe for your ACC and the world?” In my opinion, any initiatives have to be very broad and have to include external safeguards too, not just what is going on in their server facilities, because obviously, the Internet is global. It means that Adobe has to shift their priorities and allocate resources to help make the entire Internet more secure, not just their own connections, because their subscribers are out there exposed, not holed up in a secret secure location.

Am I going to become an Adobe Creative Cloud Subscriber? If I were an amateur, this whole debate is nothing more than an abstract idea for other people to argue about. I’d just pay my twenty bucks every now and then, and be done with it. It’s a non-issue for amateurs, because they don’t have a long-term financial interest with what promises to be unpredictable upward spiraling costs as a subscriber to the ACC. For me, I’m ensuring that I do indeed have a fully paid disc version of Photoshop CS6, and if I go over to the subscription service, it’ll only be out of curiosity, because of all the reasons explained above. I’m not sure how academia and large businesses will respond to this new model; I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

In the meantime, I sincerely hope that Adobe listens to independent critics too, and not only their “Yes guys,” or outside consultants who are more than likely reticent to be honest since they’re paid by Adobe.

*I’m both an artist and scholar who’s used Adobe Photoshop since 1992, set up the curriculum at various schools for digital photography starting in 1993, and have taught it to the present. That’s a lot of years, and miles of files with Adobe at the side as a provider of vital, innovative tools. Don’t get me wrong, I love Photoshop and have been not only teaching it, but advocating for its use for over twenty years. It remains the absolute top program for editing photographs, period. Nothing else comes close and I’ve lost count of the number of students who’ve learned digital photography from me. Not to mention my own large body of work that is exhibited at international museums, and so forth. These are high accolades for a digital photography editing program, and even though we’ve heard these testimonials before, it’s worth repeating.

Story Copyright Larry McNeil, 2013, All rights reserved. You must have the written permission of McNeil to use any of this material for anything.

It seems that the photography cultural landscape is changing more quickly than we can track it these days. Hopefully, this will be a collaborative blog entry by 'blad users. Please share your "Hasselblad V" user stories here. Email me one square photo (1000 x 1000 pixels @ 72dpi) and a 100 word caption. My own caption is at the bottom of this page, awaiting the snapshot to be made later today. Here is a Hassleblad 500/CM flagship camera in rainbow colors.

Hasselblad quit making the last of their ever-venerable medium format film cameras recently. In reality, this has become kind of a non-issue, because nearly everyone’s shooting mostly digital these days. Especially us pros, who were the main Hasselblad users. Even Hasselblad themselves have made the transition from film to digital photography, so what’s the big deal? Maybe you can help answer this question.

On the other hand, these Swedish ‘blads were like weapons of choice that we took on the creative battlefield, and we knew them inside and out, could field strip them blindfolded, or customize their compact modular design to fit our own needs. But most of all, they were reliable and we staked our livelihoods on their definitive high performance precision. With a Hasselblad, you simply did not miss shots. Year in and year out. The sharp Carl Zeiss lenses were what other cameras wished their lenses could emulate or be like when they grew up.

Many of these classic German Carl Zeiss lens designs have never been improved upon, even today. They got it right over 50 years ago, and the Zeiss lenses were such pure and clean lens designs that pretenders have been lining up for decades, trying to match them. Carl Zeiss remains the lens benchmark for all lenses, even in this digital age.

Your Story

I’d like to try and make this a collaborative piece, written by Hasselblad users. Share your Hasselblad story, and maybe even a photo of yourself with it. Don’t be shy, and again, please email me 100 words or less and a photo, and I’ll post it here. I’ll start out and put mine here first. I hope you’ll consider participating. Thanks.

Larry McNeil:

I was 22 years old when I became a regular Hasselblad shooter, and had just started making photographs that had substance, presence and strength. Sure, this came from me, but I was using a Hasselblad to make many of my photographs, so it's kind of like we were partners and it wasn't just a camera, it had spunk and spirit, and saw us through the day. Buying your first Hasselblad was a leap of faith that you were going to make it as a photographer, so it meant that you believed in yourself, and even if you crashed and burned, you'd still have a cool camera. Photo by T'naa Z. McNeil

Allison Corona:

I started using a Hasselblad for a project called "Spaces of Cultural Comfort" my junior year of college. I didn’t have my own but I was lucky to borrow one from the Art Department at school. I initially wanted to use it because I knew that my subject matter was very detailed and I wanted to get the sharpest images I could possible get. The Hasselblad was perfect and I'm glad I went with it instead of taking the easy way out (read: digital). In the end my photographs weren’t always tack sharp (user error) but I fell in love with the camera and the process nonetheless. Photo by Melissa Hartley.

Please email me your photo & story! 1000 x 1000 pixels/ Photo of yourself with ‘blad/ Color or B&W, 100 word caption.

Thank you.

________________

Story and Photo Copyright Larry McNeil, All Rights Reserved, 2013. All Photographs by everyone else on this page reserves the copyright for their own photograph.

All Hasselblad logos are Copyrighted by Hasselblad, Inc.

Electric Cars

In my opinion, automobile companies don’t make electric cars (Electric Vehicles, or EVs) affordable enough yet, and our governments don’t really do much to implement real change. The auto companies could subsidize the EVs until they become more common. I believe that Henry Ford used a subsidization strategy when selling his first autos because he wanted his own workers to be able to afford them. He wanted to crack the market wide open for adding automobiles to the world, and the rest was history.

I’ve learned that there is no polite way to discuss global climate change as a result of the CO2 emissions of millions of cars, power plants, jet planes, trucks, and so on. One essentially  has to just spit it out, sorry. You don’t need to hear that earful again, so in the meantime, I pedal my bike to most places in all kinds of weather. I’m going to be flying in lots of jets this year too, sorry planet, my apologies.

We have a “Junkie Paradox” here, because  we know buying gasoline is not good, but do it anyway. I filled up the gas tank yesterday for the car my son uses, so I’m a customer too. I have a suspicion that this will eventually solve itself and we won’t have to debate it. I can foresee EVs outselling gasoline powered cars in the near future, simply because it will cost too much to fill up a gas tank with gasoline. When the EVs become more affordable to the middle class, and gasoline becomes too expensive, the lateral shift may occur.

Nissan has an EV called a 'Leaf' that looks pretty good, but it's still priced at nearly $30,000.00 with many of the useful add-ons. They have a couple of cheaper ones too, but don't know if they'll be easy to use. Hey Nissan, maybe you should loan this critic one to evaluate? At first glance it looked like a regular compact car, useful for regular errands around town. There is also the 'SmartCar,' and to hear people talk about them, many say they're afraid that it'll get crushed by other cars in any collisions, but it seems to be priced right, starting at around $15,000.00. The other fear I hear from people is that electricity may be too expensive where they live for any EV, and they couldn't afford to plug it in every night, so they feel obligated to buy another gasoline car. I'd make a budget driven decision too. There are a couple other manufacturers too, just look up "electric car" in a search engine.

Spinning around the planet…

Back in 2008 I was curious as to what I’d say to kids born after 2031, which is a mere 18 years from now. I found myself wondering as to what they’d ask us about our peculiar driving habits, and why we emitted so much carbon dioxide. I’m sure many of them will simply ask, “You knew it was bad, right? Why did you keep doing it when you knew how irresponsible it was?” How can we give a decent response to a question like that? “Uh… yes. We knew it wasn’t all that good for the planet, and we did feel bad that we were messing things up. It wasn’t as if we were completely off our rockers. Cars were our only choice; you’d have had to have been there to really understand.”

I started being a bicycle commuter in February of 2008, and have been pedaling (spinning) for most of this time. I’d been thinking about it for a couple years, then finally made the leap because the above answer seemed a bit lame. Don’t get me wrong, I love cars and would drive around a 1959 Cadillac convertible if granted half a chance (preferably in teal, with tan Italian leather seats). On the other hand, a bicycle seemed like a good partial solution, or maybe even served as a measure of hopeful absolution or something. An electric car would be good too. If I had to buy a car now, it would definitely be an electric car. Definitely. And if you see someone cruising around in a ‘59 Cadillac, don’t worry, it’s not me, it’s my evil twin. You can tell, because he likes to drive real fast, but not me.

I kind of look like the neighborhood culprit with the shades, which may help with keeping drivers to pay attention to the road and not their danged cell phones. In actuality, these are some very cool prescription shades designed for bike riders. If you look closely you can see some small foam inserts behind the lenses, which keeps out wind and dust. My philosophy is that we earn things like the proper gear by riding our bikes instead of driving a car. This was early March and was still a bit chilly, but good. Let's spin, man.

Back in January we got a lot of snow and there was no way in heck I was going to ride my bike on roads where people didn't know how to drive on snow. So I drove a car for a couple months. I like riding my bike in the winter and it can be comfortable if you dress for it (Windproof & waterproof outer shell, layers of high performance jerseys, gloves that work, etc.). It means you can ride nearly year 'round in comfort if you dress for it, but can feel free to drive when the weather gets out of hand. After all, we're not fanatics, right?

By early February I could ride again and was looking for someone to make a photo of me with the bike, but ended up just using a tripod with a self-timer. It worked okay, but the subject was a bit impatient and wouldn't stand still. This is a five-year old bike that is rigged especially for bicycle commuting with fenders, lights, saddle bags, primo leather seat, tools, inner tube repair kit, etc. It's more like a little pickup truck than a speedster, but it's reliable and is sure as heck way cheaper than buying gas all the time. Besides, it's just plain cool.

Most of the time my commute is very idyllic with a bike trail most of the way. One of the cool benefits is that you save so much money on not having to fill up your gas tank all the time. It feels most excellent to be just riding right by the gas stations without having to fuel up. These are saddlebags for carrying stuff to and from work.

You don’t even have to be a bike freak or anything radical to be a bike commuter, just someone who knows how to ride a bike. Or do the electric car thing. Here’s to a healthier planet.

Links:

League of American Bicyclists – tips for commuting

Bicycling- Lots of links for commuting info

Commutebybike.com

BikeCommuters.com

Boise State University Bicycle Congress

Making the bike a logical choice…(NY Times International Edition)

Story and Photographs Copyright Larry McNeil, All Rights Reserved 2013

A couple years ago we had Ryoichi as a visiting artist here at Boise State University because Patrick Nagatani was busy somewhere off in the wilds of who knows where on the other side of the planet. Ryoichi was very engaging and it was great listening to his stories about excavating ancient vehicles around the world with Nagatani. Kathleen Stewart Howe wrote an interesting essay in the book “Desire For Magic” about their collaborations, and the essay was titled “Material Fragments of an Unknown History.”

I called Nagatani on the phone about Ryoichi’s presentation; it all went well, with only one minor glitch. One of our attendees left in indignation because he was expecting Nagatani to speak. In my opinion, Ryoichi was captivating too, with a sly wit.

Patrick Nagatani has been and remains an inspiring and extraordinary artist, humanitarian and mentor to so many artists and photographers over the decades. This is my humble blog entry to him on this beautiful Friday morning. I had the privilege to study with Nagatani (where he was a Professor of Photography) at the University of New Mexico in the College of Fine Arts where I earned my Master of Fine Arts degree in Photography.

I just received this beautifully stunning “Madam Hanakawa’s Court” lithograph in the mail from Ryoichi yesterday.

Patrick Nagatani's website page; this particular lithograph is under the heading of "Novellas."

Patrick Ryoichi Nagatani Website link

This spring has seen a flurry of trafficking in lithographs for me. A few out the door, and this very  stunning one in the door. It’s funny how this goes in phases, kind of like the moon. It’s all good; I guess we can call this the Season of the Lithograph. What makes this even more interesting is that on Monday I was advising a graduate student at another school about how various artists use language as a component of their art, and Ryoichi mailed me a Novella on the same day. Hmm.

Lithograph chop marks from Patrick Nagatani's print; I do believe I just "earned my chops."

Nagatani's "Desire For Magic" book. I don't know about you,but I've got a desire for magic too, and have been reading the text and examining the photos most carefully. I find myself naturally "reading between the lines," because I suspect that Ryoichi intended it this way, but I could be wrong.

At any rate, here’s to you Patrick; now I’m looking for a fitting frame for this beauty of a lithograph. Please tell Ryoichi thank you for that fine presentation too.

Story and Photos by Larry McNeil, All Rights Reserved 2013

Lots of fun things have been happening in the McNeil studio lately, including cool studio lighting setups, artist collaborations, the shipping of lithographs, and just plain old emails with fine coffee.

I really love the natural light and wide open feeling, even for doing the prep work for shipping art.

Lately I’ve been having traffic with my lithographs, which is very cool. They’re limited edition prints and are quite beautiful; I’m just getting ready to ship another one tomorrow.

There is a fireplace on the far end that was heavily used this winter when it was chilly outside. It was my favorite place to do emails all winter; very cozy with a hot mug of fine coffee. I got a banana tree for father’s day last year and it makes the place feel a little exotic, especially when there is snow outside the door.

Lighting setup for a recent photo shoot. This was just the basic start of a tabletop lighting setup. I ended up using a few reflectors to fine tune the shadow areas. I prefer strobes these days because they use way less energy than tungsten lighting.

Notice the green chromakey for the tabletop shot? I like this kind of setup because if I want, I just lift the object up and voilà, a chromakey background appears, just like magic. Sometimes white is better, because it reflects white values back into the subject and has a subtle open feeling with the lighting. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but lighting is one of the strengths in all of my work, starting way back when.

Our teenager T'naa has been my collaborator with this most recent project. He made most of the props, which turned out beautifully, very, very professionally done. Not only that, when I was still shooting in the early evening, he made us a gourmet dinner of broiled salmon while I was still shooting.

You know it’s been a most excellent session because everyone was too tired to really do much but eat and maybe have a quick beer. I left the lighting set up until I took a look at all the photos on the laptop, and only then could we break everything down and call it good. This was all shot with a Nikon D800, which is a nearly 40 megapixel DSLR. It’s an amazing camera for shooting in the studio because it has a mighty dynamic range, captures the most subtle details and the lenses are impeccably sharp. I’m impressed with it, to say the least. Okay, now on to the next phase of shooting.

Story and Photographs Copyright Larry McNeil, 2013 All Rights Reserved

I shot my first roll of film on January 29, 1965. How do I know this? Easy, I wrote the information in my innocent 9 year-old scratchy handwriting on the back of the photo. Has it really been that long ago? I still remember this so clearly, kind of like part of me will always be that little boy.

When I was nine, our grandmother Mary Brown Betts was raising some of my siblings and I, and one morning she handed me a little Brownie camera with a secret smile, and gently said, “Here, try this out.” After thanking her, I excitedly ran upstairs to try and figure out this mysterious little camera. This photo of our younger brother Brad is from my first roll of film.

This is from the first roll of film I ever shot; it was made with a very cool little Kodak Brownie Holiday camera. I can still remember carefully loading the 127 film into the camera, being mindful not to expose the film to daylight because it had a paper backing and if you weren't careful, the whole thing could just unroll and you'd be done for. I was earning $1.00 for sweeping, mopping and waxing the floors at "The Yacht Club" in Juneau, and I couldn't afford to buy much film. "Ben Lin," (the owner) fired me for accidentally spilling a whole can of floor wax, and my restaurant career was abruptly finished, but that's another story.

I was playing the role of a little director and knew just how I wanted this photo to look, because I was going to send it to our little sister Lorraine in Sitka. She had been bravely fighting leukemia for a number of years and she took another turn for the worse. She’d been going through some pretty lowdown lows for a long time and had to be flown to Sitka, where the regional hospital was, far, far away from us. I thought it would cheer her up to see a photo of our younger brother wearing a silly expression. The photo was enclosed in the next letter along with a little story of how I made him laugh. Brad was a good sport and laughed at my dumb jokes. I fired the shutter just as he was in the middle of a giggle, and I had him standing in her favorite play area next to the house.

It was pure chance, but I really like how Brad kind of fades into a fog at the bottom of the photo. It’s brought back to reality by the stark date mechanically printed into the bottom of the photo.

Without realizing it, the photo became a farewell to Lorraine because we never saw her again, and the note on the back of the photo to her kind of foretold as much. Cancer got the best of her and she died not long afterwards. I mention this only because it is a part of our story, and this photo is kind of a physical manifestation of what our family collectively experienced all those years ago. I can never explain the emotional aspect and won't even try.

This photo was meant to be about hope, and I love this photo because it made her laugh when things seemed hopeless. Even as young boy, this photo made me realize that life is very frightening, but we can share our love and maybe make this journey a little easier, maybe ease the pain a little. Maybe. I hope, still hope, even after all this.

When they eventually sent her belongings back to us from the hospital, this snapshot was carefully placed amongst her special things, in a little box and it was all dog-eared, worn and battered by then. As if perhaps a little girl kept it in her pocket for a long time.

Story and Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, All Rights Reserved, 2013

Being a northern guy, I’ve always loved winter. It makes me feel alive, kind of amped up a bit, like I just had some high octane espresso. I suspect that it is a holdover from being a kid, and snow involved fast sleds and fun instead of homework. My wife is a California girl and would rather be at the beach in the sun, but not me. Give me a couple of feet of fresh snow anytime. With hot coffee later.

Sometimes you can get away with something like this compact all weather camera, which was designed for being out in the elements. I spent the entire morning with this one outside my jacket and it kept right on performing normally in the cold. It's great for photos that don't need a high-powered DSLR.

At any rate, doing photography in the snow is fun too. I always try to encourage my students to make photos out in the snow, because you can make some pretty cool photos with that winter look. There is a method to it though; some easy, and some very serious if you’re spending the day outside, far above the arctic circle where polar bears walk the Earth.

Here are some steps to follow for successful snow photos (just follow my tracks in the snow):

• Dress so that you’ll be comfortable in the cold in your part of the country. No cold feet, hands or ears allowed. If you’re cold, you won’t want to be in the snow. Dress so that you can move around easily. I have a few pairs of gloves for various degrees of cold. Use a hat with ear warmers, and a bill to keep the snow and sun out of your eyes. Layer your clothes & use materials that won’t make you cold even if you get a little damp from exertion.

• If you’re only going to be out in the cold for a little while, you can put your camera inside your jacket to keep it warm. Sometimes when I go alpine skiing, I take my full sized Digital SLR with me and just keep it inside my jacket.

• Bring a soft, well worn cotton handkerchief to wipe your gear dry on a regular basis and a lens cloth to wipe your lens dry. Don’t blow on your lens or the vapor from your breath may freeze into ice crystals. Make sure you have a UV filter on your lens to protect it from ice crystals and moisture. If you’re in a blizzard, wipe the lens clean often.

• Winter generally also means low light, which could make for photos with a very distinct mood. This means using a tripod. I’ve been shooting winter shots for a long time and have a wooden tripod that I use especially for winter photos. Using a metal tripod is like a magnet for the cold and will make your hands cold even with gloves on. Wood is not cold to the touch, at least not like metal.

• Even point & shoot cameras need a tripod in low light, keep an open mind about doing what it takes to make good photos in the cold, including bringing a flash unit along. Sometimes I bring an entire lighting setup with a lighting umbrella and everything.

• If you’re going to be in extreme cold and will be doing a lot of photography all winter, you’ll likely need to winterize your camera and lenses for cold weather use. This is for you hardcore pros who shoot in extreme cold. It means taking your camera to a repair shop and having them remove the regular lubricants so that your lens will focus in the extreme cold. For an example, when I lived in Alaska I had regular photo jobs at Prudhoe Bay (far above the Arctic Circle) in December. I kept my film cameras outside all day and just let them freeze. I had external battery packs so that the electronics would still operate, and when I was finished at the end of the day, I’d put all the camera gear in a large trash bag, seal it  and let it come up to room temperature gradually. The plastic bag kept condensation out of the cameras so that in the morning when I’d go out again, the gear would be dry and ready to go again.

A wood tripod is perfect for the cold. As mentioned above, metal tripods are like a magnet for the cold and I've had my hands get numb from handling the metal tripods in the cold, which will make you miserable. Not only that, but wood tripods have a coolness factor of 9.5 on the richter scale. Even these compact point shoot cameras need tripods for good shots when the light is low. This Nikon is becoming one of my favorite point & shoot cameras because it has a most excellent zoom range.

External battery pack for my Contax G2 camera body. It is for extreme cold weather use; you just plug it into your camera and put the battery pack inside your toasty jacket and can shoot all day when even the polar bear's teeth are chattering.

This is from my ongoing project on global climate change. There was only about five minutes in the morning when the light hit the power lines just right, so that they jumped out from the background. I waited about 30 minutes for the light to hit it just right, and in the meantime, I shot the photo below just for fun.

It was right around 0º F for this morning shot, and I needed a tripod because the light was fairly dim and I was using a long lens. The colors were changing quickly and I really liked how the sun looked completely different from moment to moment. There was heavy frost in the air, which is what gave this a very diffused look.

What fun is photography if you don't have a friend along to share the fun? Mr. Spotty McNeil was in a deep meditative state here, totally at one with the snow. Ommm.

Don't forget the most excellent coffee when you come back inside. Have a seat next to the fireplace and plan your next foray in the snow with your cameras. Above all else, have fun getting cool photos.

Story and Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, All rights reserved.

While I was down in the vaults looking around for some 4×5 film stuff, I found this classic photograph that I made in 1975. Finding this photo made me smile, because it brought back so many pleasant and bittersweet memories. I was twenty years old and was learning studio photography at one of the best schools of photography on the West Coast, Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara.

McNeil 4x5 negative from 1975.

First of all, it was an assignment from our “Basic Photography Two (BA2)” class to shoot anything we wanted with a 4×5 camera. BA2 was kind of an inaccurate name, because it was far beyond basic photography and delved into the scientific aspects of light, film, chemicals, lens designs, darkroom printing, print finishing, how to use a 4×5 camera and all of its related gear, and on and on. All I really remember about the class experience was not getting much sleep for around six months, and nearly everyone always had bloodshot eyes from all-night work to complete the studies and assignments. At the end, we sure had a solid foundation for photography, and then some. I always thought that a proper badge of honor for BA2 would’ve been a pair of bloodshot eyes peering from behind a 4×5 camera.

The glasses photo was also a reshoot, because the first version had a distracting background that our instructor said made the scene lackluster and bland (he was right, as usual). I remember being very annoyed at the “C” that he gave me because I thought it was a very cool photograph, especially after putting a couple weeks of very hard work into it. Dang. This was a rude awakening of sorts, because I realized that part of what it takes to become a good photographer is the need to reshoot a photo if it’s not good enough.

Our instructor, Pete Cottle, would use a bold red Sharpie pen on our precious finely printed and matted prints to circle everything that amounted to junk. When I got my original print back, it looked like a red topographical map. To this day red Sharpies still make me kind of queasy, and I only use black ones.  I took his advice and reshot it, only with a black background and different lighting so that there were highlights only on the lenses and sides of the marble, giving it a low key feeling. Cottle was right on all counts, and his starkly forthright critique sure as heck motivated me redo the photograph almost from scratch; I kept the subject matter, but everything else changed. A couple other lessons I learned were that the background of a photograph is just as critical as the subject, and lighting has an emotive aspect that photography can interpret very well, and it’s good to be bold and try different looks with the lights.

I still really love its feel, and this one photograph kind of set the tone for a lot of my studio photographs, even now. Wherever you are Pete Cottle, thank you for being so tough, and oddly enough, you have my gratitude for that “C” from all those years ago because it taught me that mediocrity is something that we roll up our sleeves and work through to eliminate.

For you classic photography aficionados out there, the glasses & marble photo was shot with a studio 4x5 camera, Schneider lens, Sekonic Studio Deluxe meter, Kodak Super XX 4x5 film developed in plain old D-76 and printed onto Kodak number 2 contrast paper.

I’m sharing this because I just took my 4×5 Polaroid Type 55 film out of the fridge and will be doing some exposure tests with them in the next week. I have ten boxes that I bought on the same day it was discontinued, but that is another story. This is getting me in the right mind for working with large format film again.

Here I am a couple years later as an old man of 22 in my senior year at Brooks. By then I'd expanded my repertoire of photography to include Hasselblad shooting. Highway One, somewhere in Northern California, one of the best prescriptions for bouncing back from intense Brooks classes.

What I really love about photography is that I still like to pre-visualize many of my shots, but can also roll with the improvisation that happens along the way too, like the photo gods are sometimes amused enough to toss something cool my way. Every so often the photo gods shoot down lightning bolts too though, just to keep us honest I think… did you just hear rumbling in the clouds by any chance?

Story and Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, 2013 All Rights Reserved.

This blog entry is in answer to one of the most common questions people ask me. “How do I use my digital camera?” My most common answer only has two words. “With attitude.” This is about how to get up and running with a complex digital camera. Holy smokes, check out all those buttons, dials & readouts on your digital camera. It’s like learning to fly a plane via the instrument panel.

The good news is that the best way of operating a camera is to simply look in the viewfinder & use your creative energies to compose, and to use the decisive moment for firing the shutter. That part hasn’t changed with photography regardless of the century or year.

The most sophisticated part of any camera is still composition and when to fire the shutter. Everything else is mostly about just figuring out how to get a decent exposure.

I’ve found that nearly anyone can figure out even the most complex digital cameras, simply by taking it step by step. The main challenge is just trying to prevent it from feeling like you’re getting overwhelmed with it all. Most of the complex cameras out there have an “Easy Startup Guide” where you learn to make a photo with your intricate camera in just a few minutes. Many of these manuals can load right into your smartphone, and some even have video tutorials you can follow along with your own camera.

One of the truisms with complex digital cameras is that you often need to read a section a few times in order to really understand it, or better yet, follow the manual with camera in hand. The paper manual booklets fit right in your camera bag, so by all means, bring it along and use it on a regular basis until you understand that function.

There are various commonalities amongst all digital cameras, & some of them are highlighted here:

• Command dial- learn how to use this first, because it has most of the critical functions and it’s generally used in conjunction with another dial or readout.

• Metering Selector- basic stuff on how to meter your scene, regardless of tricky lighting. This part may be automated at first, but you should learn it’s finer details as you shoot more photos.

• Menu button- takes you into the camera’s more detailed functions that you can generally customize to fit your needs; it’s very much like software on a computer, only on a camera it’s called “Firmware.”

• OK button- is where you approve of various edits with both the photo and controls.

• Shutter release button- (my favorite) fires the shutter at the decisive moment. This is still the best function on the entire camera because it’s where you’re most connected to the creative process. Use this function the most often, and be fearless with it; don’t hold back.

• Aperture or shutter priority dial- is also one of the most basic features, because it allows you to customize how your photo is going to look via the aperture and shutter speed settings. Learn the nuances of the radically different looks you can get by prioritizing one of these functions over the other.

• Total auto setting- this allows you to just point & shoot your camera without having to manually set anything. This can be useful too, especially if you’re in a hurry or are caught off guard, or if you have a very straightforward photo with minimal tricky lighting. Sometimes you’re relegated to just Jpeg files in the auto setting, which can sometimes be a limitation.

A screen capture from my smartphone view. Many camera manufacturers have phone Apps where you can download nearly any manual you want, plus many have "How To" guides that are targeted towards any skill level. I put in the yellow highlights just so you can see that you can prioritize the parts you should learn first. Many Apps let you bookmark specific pages, which is better than highlighting them.

You should be able to use just about any highly complex digital camera within minutes, simply by knowing the main functions mentioned above. You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by all of the controls, can learn the basics fairly quickly, and tend to the details as you go along.

When I teach my digital photography courses, my student’s first order of business is to bring in the camera manual and cameras, and learn all of its operations. The “litmus test” is to have the ability to photograph a complex scene quickly and decisively with the precise look that you envision for the photograph, leaving very little to chance. It’s where you become a photographer and are able to keep your concentration on the creative side of things and not have to worry about the technical stuff.

If you’re starting from not knowing anything about photography, I always advise taking a photography class somewhere, because there is still no substitute for learning from a person with real-life experience, because they can troubleshoot whatever comes along. Not only that, but you still can’t get critical feedback about your photography from a book, computer or manual, you need to hear it from a seasoned pro. In the meantime, books, video tutorials and/or manuals will do just fine to get you started. Many of these are free online too, which is great. Have fun. And don’t forget the coffee.

Story and Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, 2013 All Rights Reserved.

Guess who started their sabbatical on December 21, 2012?

The big guy in the orange vest loading the plane is my crew chief, and if you need to get in touch with me, just text him.

I hardly ever  spend my creative time in a studio. I guess that maybe it means that the world is my studio, but that sounds kind of clichéd, so I’ll just say I need to get a lot of my source material out there in the real world where life is unfolding. On the other hand, there is a lot of production time spent on the images after they’re photographed. So the reality is, lots of time is spent at a computer editing images. Man, nothing glamorous about that, but it goes back to the idea of working in a darkroom, where a lot of the looks that you witnessed in the camera’s viewfinder need to be coaxed back to the surface. It’s like the photo gods decree that “No, you don’t get his photo unless you roll up your sleeves and put some sweat into it.” No complaints here, that sounds fair to me. You’re on, dudes.

Boise State University, my fine colleagues and external reviewer all have my sincere gratitude for recommending me for this sabbatical. They have the wisdom to know that sabbaticals are indeed a time of renewal for their faculty, where we leave teaching to do the critical research that informs our discipline and where we also share what we’ve learned along the way with the rest of the world.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for this plane full of camera and lighting gear. If you look closely, you’ll likely see a camera case that holds a big 4×5 camera, or even a photographer who’s traveling light with only one little bag, because he needs to move quickly and silently on a bicycle instead of a plane. If you follow the wafting aroma of fine coffee, you may also find something interesting.

Raven mug from Hulleah, Kona coffe from Minmyo. Now I'm really ready to blast off. Fasten your seatbelts.

Story and Photos Copyright Larry McNeil, 2012 All Rights Reserved