The Redrock Micro DSLR Cinema rig for the Canon EOS 5D MKII

Canon just posted an interview that I did with them a few weeks ago on their site. In the interview I discuss how the “Reverie” video came to be, my experience with the 5D MKII during the shoot, as well as some upcoming projects and thoughts on where this is all headed.  I usually cringe when I see myself quoted in print - but this little interview turned out quite well, I almost sound like I know what I’m talking about!  You’ll see a video half way through the article that shows the 5D MKII mounted inside a Redrock Micro rig.   You can also view an alternate edit to the behind the scenes video edited by  Andre Costantini (who cut Reverie) for Canon’s site.

   A lot has happened in the past 6 months - most notably the economy (and on a more positive note, game changing technological advances such DSLRs that shoot 1080p video.)   My outlook for the print industry is now quite dire - in many ways this economic downturn may lead to an incredible series of layoffs and failures in the upcoming year that our industry has never seen before.  What I assumed would happen over the next 3-5 years - may happen in the next year or two - precipitated by this economic downturn that we’re experiencing.  (The stock market (INDU) in case you haven’t noticed -  is approaching its lowest level in more than a decade.) The purpose of this post is to make sure that all photographers are aware that 2009 may be an incredibly tough year for everyone - and for you to make sure that you prepare yourself for it.First of all, let me be clear:  I am not an economics major nor do I portend to be able to see the future.   The signs are so crystal clear however, that I feel obliged to share them here.    

Ironically, my business is currently experiencing the most incredible growth and excitement amidst all of this negativity - but it should be a sign to you that I am nonetheless choosing to be quite conservative.   Things have been so busy that I have literally not had a single day off in 7 weeks - and new opportunities seem to pop up almost daily.  (I’m sorry that I haven’t been more prolific with this blog as well - I have a lot of content on the way however)

 I just spent the last two weeks in the midwest (Leo Burnett, VSA Partners) as well as the west coast visiting Industrial Light and Magic (one of George Lucas’ complexes,) Dreamworks Animation, Apple, SmugMug, Disney with a few incredibly talented people at those organizations and a top Hollywood director/producer in Los Angeles.  By all means, I should be ecstatic.  And if the economic outlook were good - I’d be bouncing off the walls.   But truth be told, I’m just positive, but realistic given the economy’s outlook.

So why does this matter to you?  Well - I’m not going to try to predict what is going to happen to the stock market here.   I will tell you that while I’m not a market wiz - I’ve been quite lucky over the past few years and this was my best year in the stock market - of all years… (and no I wasn’t shorting.) I sold all of my tech stock on the day before the worst 4 day decline of the Nasdaq for the year (at the time!)- and this ensuing downturn.   What I will discuss, is what I’m seeing around me, and how that may possibly impact all of us.

First of all - newspapers and magazines are facing the absolute perfect storm - which is by definition a contradiction in terms - a perfect storm of course is a devastating one. The old world print media relies on advertising, and readers - and I went over that in the “Cloud is Falling” article.   The problem is that as we all know, both subscribers and advertisers are seeing a very very sharp decline.   This is why you’re seeing incredibly cut backs in budgets, and massive layoffs.   Publications are cutting the fat - and more often than not - into the bone - and guaranteeing their extinction long term.  

In fact one of the major magazines in the US (that must remain nameless) one that we all look up to and hold up on a pedestal - is in absolute panic.    I was told by that magazine’s top management that “we haven’t sold a single ad for next year!”  I responded incredulously:  ”Not a SINGLE ad?”  And he clarified - that sure some ads had been sold - but their major backers were the automobile Giants of Detroit - and that they had not bought a single ad for 2009.   As you know most of the large automakers in Detroit are on the verge of bankruptcy, begging for a federal bailout as I type…  

Therefore - I’m not surprised at all to see the massive layoffs, and magazines folding.   In fact there’s a site dedicated to the dead magazine of the week - MagazineDeathPool.

These days I don’t fight too much for higher day rates or huge production expenses when it comes to magazines - the writing is on the wall: they simply don’t have it and are trying to find a way to survive the storm.  A few weeks ago - I didn’t even bother asking a print client to charter a helicopter - I suggested we charter a small boat.  Believe it or not - they weren’t even able to afford that… these are the signs that things are dire.  And this was no small publication mind you…

Here’s what has me ultimately concerned, and this is the real sign of bad things:   companies are slowly (I’d say rapidly) completely clamping down on their advertising budgets.   And when companies stop spending money on ads, things get REAL bad, real quick for everyone.  The ad agencies suffer, the producers, assistants and commercial photographers suffer, and the newspapers suffer - all the way down to newspaper staff as there are no ads to run, and there is no money to pay salaries….  

One recent example: I’ve been working with one of the world’s top “talent”  (I’m being vague on purpose.)   He and I are going to do a project together, and all along our plan was for him to reach out to his numerous sponsors to pay for the project.   One by one, each advertisers has expressed great excitement, only to come back to tell this top “talent” that their HQ has told them that all advertising money has been frozen.   It’s one thing for them to turn me down - it says a lot for them to turn the “talent” down who is one of the hottest commodities out there.  

 This has me truly worried and I’m quite pessimistic to be honest.   I’ve met a lot of top advertising agencies, and production companies, and heard the same things:   their staffs are being cut (Disney cut 50% of their staff in one division, and Pixar 30% in another) and their budgets are being SLASHED.   They were all already being asked to do more with less - but now that’s being taken to a new level.  You’ll also see that a lot of the startups that rely on Venture Capital cash flow - are going belly up.   No one has “cash lying around” to invest in anything right now…

What this means for me is that although I haven’t had a day off in weeks, and that common sense would have me hiring 1-2 new people on my staff - I’m holding off.   My business has grown 30% or more year to year since I left my staff job at The New York Times - and is showing no sign of slowing down.   YET - I am preparing myself for a 50% cut in income next year (that of course if my worst case scenario - I’m hoping it will be more in the 15% - 30% range.)   Sure - that’s drastic.  But it should be a sign of how pessimistic I am - or in my opinion, I think that I’m just being realistic.   In fact I spoke with a top commercial photographer who makes over a million dollars a year - and he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see his income go down to between $100,000 - $200,000 in 2009.   I’m afraid that many studio managers and assistants will lose their jobs in the upcoming year.

So are we crazy?  I certainly hope so!  I hope I’m DEAD WRONG.   But my advice to you (the readers of this blog and fellow photographers) would be to save your money, not spend or expand too quickly right now, and make sure to treat your current customers like gold.   Don’t hesitate to negotiate with them (to their favor) during these times, because when they tell you their budgets have shrunk - they’re not making that up.  Be happy that they have any budget at all. Also - if you’re eyeing that $30K digital back - now is the time to rent it and bill that to your client… by no means should you be voluntarily entering in to debt right now.   If you’re a student - understand that I feel your pain:  I’ve seen a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who is unable to get a job right now… and if you’re in business school - well,  Wall Street isn’t going to hire anyone anytime soon - so it’s time to go move in with the folks for a year or so… or in some cases go back to school and pick up a Masters in another area as I’ve seen a few family friends do…

I’ll be publishing a LOT of updates on this blog in the upcoming two weeks.  Both on some of my recent trips - and also on some of the recent work I’ve been doing.   I’ll discuss some developments on the film project I had mention with SmugMug as well as projects that I’m currently working on or have just wrapped.  It’s been an incredibly busy few weeks, filled with great excitement and opportunity and wonderful creativity - so only positive news to come from hereon out.  

I do find it necessary to publish and share these thoughts for now.  Take it for what you will.  As I said: if I’m dead wrong - I’ll be very happy to eat crow and celebrate with each and every one of you.  It’s not just a question of “if” things will eventually turn around - just when.  My guess is not in the next 3-6 months - and that’s why I’m being careful.  Shelter yourself through this storm - and be in good position to spread your wings when the sky clears.

For years now, I’ve been waiting for someone to take full advantage of the web and to allow photographers to better connect with their audiences.  I’ve always found that traditional media rarely offer up a way for photographers to connect directly with their readers/viewers.   Photoshelter has just recently released a little widget that allows anyone to embed flash galleries in their (and other people’s) websites.   This tool allows photographers to easily share their images - and perhaps to generate some income.  In this case - you can simply view the photographs within the widget - and if you’d like, you can purchase a print as well.  

I think this has a tremendous potential - so much so, that I’m going to try to encourage you to embed this gallery into your personal sites (or publications!) by applying all of the profits from these print sales for the next 30 days to a student internship/scholarship…

Yep - all of the income (minus the cost of printing, labor, and shipping) will be put towards a student internship/scholarship that I set up.   I’ll determine how to select the student (and perhaps students depending on how popular this experiment becomes) and how the money will be dispersed etc.   I will work out all of these details at the end of the 30 days once I know how much we have raised and how we can maximize those $$$ to best benefit a student (or students)… Sounds fun no?  

One more benefit - there are a total of 88 images in this gallery - all but the first one are limited edition prints.   The first image in the gallery of an aerial of Times Square however - will be offered at a significant discount - often more than 10 times cheaper than the limited edition prints (see image below.)  

This print of Times Square - will be sold for up to 10 times cheaper than limited edition prints.

This is in an effort to drive the sale of this print - as many of you know, selling prints in these economic times is not easy - so this should help.  Each print (whether limited edition or not) is 100% archival and will be signed by me.  You can get a 16 X 20 of this image for only $75 - compared to $1,250 for a limited edition 16 X 20 print of one of the other photographs… this is pretty much the best bargain I’ve ever offered on my prints. I’m hoping the cheaper price will lead to more sales and benefit the student(s).

So why am I doing this?   Well I think this “embedded” gallery is a fantastic idea - and will allow photographers to hopefully find new business models to generate potential income in the future.    Most photographers today rely on agencies, print sales, stock sales, and a variety of publications to make a living… wouldn’t it be great if we harnessed the true power of the web to allow readers to in effect sponsor a photographer’s assignments?   Imagine paying a few cents a day or per picture to your favorite photographer… and allowing them (through a good volume of subscribers - each paying a very small amount) to chase their wildest creative dreams - sponsored by their viewers - not publications with limitations etc…

I DO think this is a VIABLE business model… so let’s give this a go.   As I said - all of the profits from the print sales over the next 30 days will go to a student (or students) minus the costs of producing and shipping the prints (For the skeptics out there: The total amount of money raised will be made public - and I will have Grover Sanschagrin of Photoshelter verify the amounts etc. so that they can confirm that the money does indeed end up in a student’s (or multiple students’ hands…) sound good?

So go ahead - and share the link below with as many people as you can - and embed the gallery within your sites.   While I will obviously benefit from having people see my images - any financial benefit for the next 30 days will benefit a lucky student or students!

Also - pls go ahead an link your embedded gallery in the comments below - and people can go visit your sites.  If you e-mail me the page you create with this embedded gallery - I will put a list of all of the sites that have done so on this post - send an e-mail to blog (at) vincentlaforet.com - and I’ll add your link to this post…

To embed this gallery in your blog/publication please paste the following code into your html document (or simply click on the bottom right arrow of the flash gallery and you can copy and paste the code directly from there):

<object width=”425″ height=”319″><param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /><param name=”movie” value=”http://pa.photoshelter.com/swf/Slideshow.swf?feedSRC=http%3A//pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000JKDd525.uHg%3Ffeed%3Drss%26ppg%3D200″ /><embed src=”http://pa.photoshelter.com/swf/Slideshow.swf?feedSRC=http%3A//pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000JKDd525.uHg%3Ffeed%3Drss%26ppg%3D200″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”425″ height=”319″></embed></object>

Here is a simple link to the gallery as well:  http://pa.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000JKDd525.uHg?&

Any way.  All is good.  Everyone is fine. (Broken skulls excluded.)

Things have been incredibly busy for me over the past few weeks - and the outlook for things has been awesome.  And just like that all could have come crashing down.

I’m being cryptic on purpose because I really don’t want to get into personal matters on a public forum.

The point of this post  is simply to remind me (and you) to always keep an eye on what is important in life: family, friends - and all else is far secondary - if even on the radar.   Be safe out there.  Always make a point to “seize the day,” but make more of a point to spend as much time with your loved ones - no matter how crazy busy you are.

Being busy is a voluntary thing.   So is spending time with family.  Make a point of doing the latter.  

Family and friends are all that matter in the end.  

Peace.

(No probing comments please on this post.)

Hats off to Allen and Photoshelter for making this move - I’m sure that he and everyone and that industry sees that DRR shutting its doors w/o notice is not good for anyone in that (or our) industry…  very smart PR move…

So move quickly… I wish you the best in throughput luck (may the data transfer gods be in your favor!  I hope you all can get most of your stuff off of those servers in time!)  It sure sounds like this is your very last chance to get anything off those servers..period (unless you know a judge…but I’m not going to get into that…)

PRESS RELEASE from Photoshelter:

PHOTOSHELTER CLARIFIES DIGITAL RAILROAD SITUATION WITH DIABLO MANAGEMENT GROUP:

COMPLETE DRR SITE SHUTDOWN PROBABLE AT 11:59PM PST ON OCTOBER 31

Photographers & agencies to get more time to save their work

New York, NY, October 30, 2008 – In an effort to bring some clarity to the Digital Railroad shutdown situation, PhotoShelter CEO Allen Murabayashi has engaged in multiple discussions with Diablo Management on behalf of the community of over 1,500 Digital Railroad customers. The outcome of these discussions is an understanding that more time will be provided for Digital Railroad customers to access their work. The official statement from PhotoShelter and Diablo Management reads:

“As part of the process of terminating the business operations of Digital Railroad, Diablo Management Group has informed PhotoShelter of their intent to shut down the DRR site as early as 11:59PM, PST, on Friday October 31. After this point, it is very likely that all the images located on the Digital Railroad servers could be permanently inaccessible. Given the strong possibility of this event, PhotoShelter, on its own initiative, is strongly suggesting that customers migrate their files from Digital Railroad immediately. Digital Railroad, at the present time, has no plans or resources to accomplish this task.”

Upon announcing the termination of operations on Tuesday, DRR stated it would provide only 24 hours of server access.  Across the industry, this tiny window of time was deemed unacceptable. Although the extension through October 31 is brief, it will provide more time to help photographers find backup options and transition their online presence.  This statement also represents the latest definitive information to be shared with impacted customers, directly from the group that is controlling DRR. Both parties stress that the situation is highly fluid and this deadline could be altered with little or no notice.

Since the announcement, PhotoShelter has welcomed DRR customers with a special 3-month free offer and ftp solution to help migrate their images. The offer can be found here: http://www.photoshelter.com/mkt/200810/drr.html. 

PhotoShelter management encourages all DRR photographers to use this time extension to access their images and ensure backup using any chosen method.  And, PhotoShelter calls on photographers industry wide to help contact peers travelling in the field who may not yet have heard the news.

About PhotoShelter Inc.

PhotoShelter is the online storefront and archive for thousands of serious photographers worldwide.  The PhotoShelter Personal Archive provides state-of-the-art tools for image storage and protection, searchable galleries, slideshows, and ecommerce capabilities for instant online sales of prints and licenses. Photographers can create a professional PhotoShelter website in seconds using simple templates, or customize PhotoShelter to power their existing website.  A true solution designed to make the business of photography easier to manage – The Personal Archive offers security, global accessibility, and advanced marketing tools so photographers can make their images work harder for them.  To join our community, visit www.photoshelter.com.

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Both are online photo storage sites where professional (and amateurs) store backup copies of their work online  - and in some cases originals. The idea is that having all of your work on your hard drives/RAID in one location is not the best backup strategy, storing them online on professional grade servers is a great idea - not to mention that both Photoshelter and Digital Rail Road (DRR) offer a variety of other services to sell your photos to others as well.

I know a lot of people who work for Digital Rail Road and have struck up good friendships with them - but at the risk of making enemies - I will say this:

Shutting down the DRR online storage site - and giving all of your customers less than 24 hours notice to retrieve their data - is ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLE.     Many companies (such as the VII Agency) have come to rely on DRR to run their businesses - and it’s outright irresponsible to expect them to be able to get all of their content off of your site with any notice shorter than one month - or at the very least a few days.   

Then you add the fact that everyone will then try to download their content simultaneously - and your bandwidth will dwindle instantly - and your pretty much ensure the digital apocalypse…few if any will be able to retrieve all of their images in time - before the servers are shut down.   This is utterly irresponsible of them - it’s completely reprehensible.  It’s something they should revisit immediately.

The fact that they start up their apology letter with “To our valued Members and Partners” is laughable - but not funny at all.

Remember - these are sites where people back up their life’s work - their “best of” - their “keepers.”   Imagine the pour soul who just had their hard drive fail today - but has been paying to store his/her images on DRR - only to find them all gone almost overnight.   Or an agency that has invested hundreds of hours in keywording and captioning thousands of images on the DRR site… only to see all of that work evaporate in a day.   This is not good for them, for the industry - for anyone.

Shameful.  

I’m not even a customer of theirs - and I’m infuriated.  In fact I’ve endorsed their main competitor for years * and if anything I should be gloating.   I’m a fellow photographer however - and I feel terrible for all of those affected.  I think that says a lot.

Here is what one poster on sportsshooter wrote:

“Very saddened by the closure of DRR. A few hours ago I received an e-mail announcing the closure of operations and immediately tried to migrate images to another site without success. All services of DRR are congested and saturated. Long queues of pictures waiting to move for syndication to other servers. Nothing react in time. It is shameful.

I live in Argentina, a country accustomed to bankruptcies and closures, but this is very serious.

How it is possible that DRR break? With so many good customers into their community making pays their membership on time? Who defends us from the scam?

In less than 24 hours I have to migrate nearly 10,000 pictures or resign itself to lose a lot of time to work.

There are some laws that protect us?”

There should be…

The very least the DRR execs could do - is pull out their personal paychecks - and pay to keep the servers online for another few days - or however long it takes for people to retrieve their data - you owe it to your clients  - and to the industry.

From now on - do your research - before you entrust a company with your life’s work - and all of the time you will put into keywording and uploading those files.  Look at the technology they are using and how their company is being run.   There is a reason my work is stored on the Photoshelter servers.  And I hope that doesn’t come off as a sales pitch.

* Note:  I have endorsed Photoshelter since its inception - and have at no time been remunerated in any way by them.  I did initially get a relatively small amount of space from them to store my images and test their service - but have since then paid for my storage and the fees like everyone else.  I backed them because of who was running the company (their character) the technology they chose over DRR, the way they ran their business - and because I knew the founders personally.  I think it’s important to state that here as I give the furthest thing from a glowing review of DRR.

I’ve been planning a photography workshop for a few months now - and have recently decided to include a section for photographers wishing to make the transition into video as well.   The full-day workshop will be held at the Apple Boston Market Center, in Boston MA on Sunday November 2nd, 2008.  

We will cover Apple’s Aperture software in depth - and I will share with you the workflow that I have adopted for both my commercial photography business - as well as the more deadline-driven editorial photography that I do out in the field.  

Basically, I will show you how I run my business and the tools that I use every day.  

I will show you how I manage my entire photography library within Aperture, as well as other tools from Apple and 3rd party software:  ranging from Apple Remote Desktop, to special features in Leopard (such as Automator) to a number of utilities, plugins (Viveza), and delivery methods (Transmit) that I use on a daily basis not only to produce and prepare my images, but also how I run the business side of things (OmniFocus, Kerio Mail Server.)  In short - I will share most of what I have learned over the past 3 years of running my own business (on the technology side) - after leaving my role as a staff photographer after close to a decade.  This will comprise 2/3 of the day-long workshop.

The last third of the workshop will focus on the transition to video/film.  I will bring the Canon 5D MKII  that I used in the making of “Reverie” along with hardware from RedrockMicro and will discuss my transition into video and some of the initial challenges that I faced.   This will NOT be a Final Cut Studio Tutorial however - we will look at some unique workflows especially adapted to the 5D MKII and output strategies via Compressor that will be relevant to all photographers/filmmakers interested in video/web/DVD delivery of the content they produce.  

We will also be discussing FCP Studio’s Color software - I have had the opportunity to spend some time with an incredibly talented colorist Alex Bickel (who has shown me how to “treat” the moving image - very much in the same way still photographers are used to working on their master prints. You can see some of his work by going to this page and selecting the Euro RSCG Jaguar link.)   We will discuss some of the hardware needs (such as reference monitors and video cards) needed by those who wish to perform professional level color grading - although again: this will not be an in depth color grading workshop by any means.

The idea of the second section (the last 1/3) is to INTRODUCE you to the concepts, tools and challenges of making the transition into video - a primer if you will.  Not an in depth look into any particular software or techniques.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

The seating is limited to 30 people and the cost of the workshop is $250.    

Attendees are required to bring an Apple laptop with a copy of Aperture and iLife ‘08 if they want to follow along with the tutorial.

If you are interested in attending the workshop please do the following:

Send an e-mail to workshops@vincentlaforet.com with:

You full name, e-mail (if different than the one your are sending from) and telephone number.  

We will then contact you with further information on the final steps for you to register and payment details.  

Optional: If you would like to include a link or two (no attachments please) to share with us your website/current work - those are of course welcome.  The idea there is simply for me to get a quick snapshot idea of the level of photographer / videographer that will be attending so that I can better fine tune the curriculum to your needs.

For Those of You Who Cannot Attend:

We are looking into ways of recording this workshop - and how we can best broadcast that content to you at a future date.  More to come on that at another time.  If you are interested in being notified of when this becomes available - please send an e-mail to:  workshops@vincentlaforet.com - with “NOTIFY ME” in the subject line.

Seminar location

The Apple Boston Market Center is conveniently located in Boston’s well know Prudential Center. If you traveling by car, train, plane, or subway the Prudential Center is easy to find with plenty of hotels that are with in walking distance of the Apple Market Center. For people arriving by car, the Center has plenty of parking available.

You should note that this workshop is not being sponsored by any of the above manufacturers in any way (other than Apple donating the workshop space) so the last thing you should expect is a product pitch - I will be showing you what I use on a daily basis - and discussing each piece of the puzzle in detail - and their strengths and limitations.

I’ve also gotten permission to put up audio of Platon’s speech at the workshop - which is easily one of the best I’ve heard in my years at the workshop - and likely the best speech I’ve ever heard from a “celebrity” photography - although that title diminishes what the man produces - it is just a small part of what Platon does.  I and others were incredibly impressed with his wit, his intelligence - and how approachable he was.   One of my only regrets was not getting time to spend with him at the bar one night - as I was walking past to go do some portfolio reviews, I caught a glimpse of him surrounded by a few students who were soaking his wisdom in.   I have to admit to being quite jealous of those students - I sure hope they didn’t take a single second of that time with him for granted.