Where I work...

It's all fixed up now. I had to edit it in html mode (which is a pain) just to get it to work. And the text still isn't on the right side like it should be. All well...I know you all don't mind :)


Sorry, guys, something is screwed up with the positioning of the text with the pictures. It looks fine in the draft version, then turns itself on it's head when posting. I'm off to bed now, but will fix it tomorrow. If you want an easier, more legible read...wait till tomorrow. If you're so excited that Thomas has finally posted something new and you can't wait to find out what your favorite person is up to these days...then read on.



So, would you all like to see where I work?

Yeah, I thought so.

(aside: I'm listening to "Wishing you were Somehow here again" from Phantom of the Opera. Probably among my top 5 favorite songs of all time. I can only recommend it. If you're into good music, that is.)

Now that that (that's not a typo!) is out of the way, we'll get to some pictures. The photo studio I work at is in Alberthausen, 6 km north of Giebelstadt, and is located in a barn-like structure on the property of the boss (Rolf Nachbar; Nachbar Fotografie; www.nachbar.de)

Listening to "Bearing the Cross" from the Passion of the Christ. Another classic.

It's kind of hard to explain how it looks from the outside. Here is a picture:

Oh, listening to "Evenstar" from the Two Towers. Also a great song. Excellent singing. (often I do other things while writing posts. That would explain the apparent fast clip through my music library)



This is it. Rolf's house is on the left (you can only see the corner). The shed thing in the foreground is just for storage. The large building behind it (with the brown roof) is the studio. The buildings with the red roofs belong to the neighbours. The two cars visible on the right of the picture belong to the two employees who work for him. I ride with the guy who owns the red car (you can't really see it behind the silver one). On the extreme right in the background stands Jan's house, a good friend of mine.


Jan, not the house






This is the inner courtyard. One can see the large door that allows us to drive cars and big stuff into the studio. The two cars (and one more VW stationwagon) belong to Rolf. The Tourag is especially nice. It's practically identical to the Porsche Cayenne, except that it has a diesel engine. They're actually produced in the same factory. It's as expensive as a Cayenne as well.





Here's the inside. All the things hanging from the roof are on winches and rails, enabling them to be positioned anywhere. The big white thing is a huge white canvas which is useful for bouncing light off of or ensuring that an object only reflects a clean, white surface (which you'll see soon). The other hanging objects are big flash boxes.




A closer look at the tangle of wires and ropes on the ceiling. That blue thing in the bottom-right corner is a fan for all those pictures of models with their hair blowing in the wind...we haven't used it since I've been here.





Here (early Jan) we are photographing ice-cream scoops. That's right; all 28 of them (although just 5 at the time of this shot). Since the big shiny sphere of a scoop reflects literally everything around it, we had to surround it in as much white as possible. We brought the big sail way down, set up a styrofoam wall, and left a small gap for the camera to peek through




A view from inside the white tent. Here are the two employees (rather unflattering). The guy is the photoshop guru, "Master Pixel-pusher". He's got some skill. Seriously. You should see some of the stuff he can do. He's the guy I ride with to work. His favorite hobby is parasailing. All around a pretty sweet guy.




Another unflattering picture. This is Fränzi, photographer. This picture was taken through the camera hole in the styrofoam (we took a styrofoam and cut a hole in it; a gap in the wall was just too conspicuous). Work of this kind takes a lot of meticulous adjusting; seeing what is still reflecting in the spoon (and making correct adjustments), adjusting the position of the flash units, adjusting the power of the flash units, arranging the spoons...but with patience one can get some good results. Fränzi is a lot of fun. Has a good sense of humour. And good photographer, too.




Buckhard (yup, that's his name! It doesn't sound nearly as weird in German) previewing the shot. The camera is hooked up via Firewire to the laptop (and the corresponding monitor) on the desk, where we can better see what adjustments have to be made than on the camera's 1.5-inch screen.




The studio as it is currently set up. Last week we took pictures of a bunch of hub caps, and we're expecting some more, so the setup remains standing. The transition from the floor to the wall is curved, yielding a nice background with no visible edges (looks like it goes off into infinity, as you can see on the left). The camera being used here (in the center, on the huge tripod arm) is a medium-format camera with a digital back. 22 megapixels. For those of you who don't know, a
medium-format camera is a hybrid of a regular camera and a large-format camera. The big advantage of medium/large-format is that you have control of the focus plane. In a normal camera, the plane is vertical to the lens. If you focus on something close everything the same distance from the object in focus is also in focus, and the background is blurred. With a medium-format, you can tilt the focus plane, so that (for instance) everything in the foreground and background is sharp, but everything above or beneath (but the same distance from the lens) of the object in focus is blurred. It's a bit hard to explain. Research it if you're interested. Wikipedia is a good place.




A view of the shelf where we store all our flash units (soft flashes, spot flashes, focus heads...all ranging from 500 to 6000 W), generators, filters, weights, cables, backgrounds...
The flashes are powered via generators, which take normal 220 V power, store it, and boost the voltage to power the flash. Each flash shines at low power so you can see what you're doing, and then flashes when the shutter is released. It's pretty intense when you've got several flashes set up. If you're adjusting the object being photographed, and your colleague accidentally triggers the flashes, your eyes more or less get blown away.



And then it's alway a pain trying to find them...



And this is the upper floor, a hub of much activity. In the bottom-right corner you can see the stairs coming from the studio below. On the right are all the rolls of paper for the large-format Epson printer that you can see on the left. In the bottom-left corner you can see the corner of another Epson printer, which prints with some sort of special ink...

This picture is taken from the kitchenette in the corner, with a
microwave/toaster oven, dishes, sink, and the all important coffee machine (for my colleagues. I'm not addicted yet. It's a Jura machine, Dad. A very nice one). It enjoys regular use.




And a closer look at where we spend a lot of our day. Each of us as our own G5 Mac to work at, with a few extra computers lying around as well...

From right to left...

a big table where Rolf meets with clients, shows them big posters, etc.

Fränzi's workstation comes next, then Buckhard's workstation behind her computer, then my little corner beside him by the big shelf. On the left in the background is Rolf's spot, and the computer that you can see in the left foreground is Melanie's computer (she is studying photography in Würzburg and is doing her practicum here. She works 3 weeks out of 4 and gets paid something by Rolf for her work). Buckhard and Fränzi have these 23" proof LCD screens, which can display a much great color space than normal monitors and are really easy on the eyes. They sell for $5000 each. Rolf has two 23" Dell screens (he doesn't do much precision color adjusting himself, as he is usually on the phone with clients or emailing people). Melanie and I are stuck with 19" Lacie CRT screens from the last generation. But, they're still good. The best CRT's you could get before they became obsolete.




My workstation. Behind me is the archive shelf. Chocker-block full of data on DVDs. Approximately 10 to 15 terabytes (that's 15000-20000 gigabytes). I usually work off the G5 that you can see on the right, but it currently is screwed up. We're not quite sure why. Faulty RAM, bad hard drive? We're testing it at the moment. In this picture I was working off Rolf's (everything is Rolf's, really), laptop which has CS2 on it. The identical laptop on the left is my own (without CS2, unfortunately). Now I'm working from the other spare computer (a Mac Mini), as the laptop is continuously being used out in the field. The Mini is kinda frustrating to work on, as it doesn't support dual-screens and it is painfully slow for big files (like the 742.8 MB TIFF file I was working on today). But whatever. Gives you the chance to get up and make yourself a cup of coffee while it saves the file...wait, I don't drink coffee. Right. I forgot.


...listening to "Dies Irae" by Mozart...