The Digital Photo Guy

Tonido Server – A Free, Private Personal Cloud

By now, anyone who can fog a mirror has heard about the “cloud.” Every company wants you to use their “cloud” so they can mine your data and lock you into their services. Before getting ahead of ourselves, let’s first define “cloud” for the Rip Van Winkles and Sleeping Beauties who slept through the past few years. “Cloud” is nothing more than remote access to your files. Many websites allow visitors to download/upload files, images, PDFs and other digital assets. A personal cloud allows you to do the same for files on your personal PC/Mac/Linux box.

You may ask, “What’s the purpose?” Let’s say you’re away from home and need a file on your home PC. Who’s going to find that file and e-mail it to you? Also, today’s dSLR RAW files range from 20MB to 60MB, a bit hefty to email. Enter the “cloud.” Files stored in a “cloud” can be accessed by anyone with the appropriate URL, user name and password. If you need a file while on the road, you can access it. If needed, you can download a file to your laptop, make edits and upload to a shared folder for others to retrieve. This can be invaluable for clubs and volunteer organizations where files need to be shared.

Tonido Server, the FREE solution. There are many ready made solutions but they all charge to use their software. I don’t begrudge anyone making money but I like doing it myself. However, free is awfully hard to pass up. I assumed it was some neutered demo product that would be more hassle than it was worth but I was wrong. After installing Tonido on my big, clunky home PC, I could immediately access folders I had designated as SHARED from my sleek, lightweight HP Spectre X360 travel laptop.

Using Tonido, I can access and retrieve image files for my blog posts. On the road, I log into Tonido, find the files I want to include in a post and download it to my travel laptop. I make necessary edits, save photos as JPEG and then import into the post. I don’t have to carry around a 2TB external hard drive (EHD,) taking the chance it may be damaged by all jostling and flaky power sources.

Why Not Use a Free Cloud Provider?

As we all know, there ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Regardless of claims, I suspect all cloud service providers mine your data to gleen information for resale. I’m not saying these companies view your photos or read your manuscripts but they know enough about you to qualify as stalkers. Add to that most “cloud” services charge for storage space big enough to be useful. My active image files take up about 1TB (1,000,000,000,000 bytes.) Dropbox charges $16.58 per month ($198.96/year) for 1TB, the same as Google Drive and Apple iCloud. Microsoft OneDrive is the least expensive at $69.99 per year which includes Office 365 Personal but it’s limited to 1 PC and 1 tablet. Between us, my wife and I use 8 devices, oops! Adobe is more opaque charging $19.99/month for Adobe CC plus 1TB of storage. Since Adobe charges $9.99 for for their Photography Plan, that 1TB costs $10/month. In reality, Adobe CC is more about selling their photo editing products than providing storage.

If you need help setting up your Tonido Server, leave a comment here and I’ll try to help.

The Camera Loves Emily (contains nudity)

I met Emily last summer and was impressed with her intelligence, drive and “girl next door” good looks. I felt she had the qualities of an excellent model. Our first shoot was themed “Monsoon” where I wanted photos of Emily in a monsoonal rain, drenched from head to toe. As you can see, that idea was a bust. Our shoot was on a beautiful day with nary a cloud in sight. I did, however, get a chance to see Emily’s cute, adventurous nature mixed with her quick mind.

Last week, I invited Emily to participate in a nude shoot at Red Bench Photography Studio in Jerome, AZ which is owned by one of my favorite models, Zushka Biros. Being so new to the world of modeling, I was expecting her to be shy, tentative and/or nervous about posing nude. To my surprise, Emily jumped in with both feet and an enthusiastic, “I’m in!“

Emily turned out to be fearless in following directions as well as contributing her own ideas. And, the camera loves her. With new models, I’m lucky to get 5% good images; with Emily, I’ve identified over 50 good images and 15 or more great images. I’m still working on the rest so stay tuned for more of Emily in the near future.

All the photos were made with a Pentax K-1 and Pentax D FA 24-70/2.8 and processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic.

Spring Fling Photo Extravaganza 2018

Speaking of the near future, Emily will be one of the models at Red Bench Photography’s Spring Fling Photo Extravaganza Workshop on April 27-29 at the Jerome studio. I can’t emphasize enough the studio’s beautiful light and artistic ambiance. I’ll be leading several sections on bodyscapes. You’ll have the opportunity to book time with the models to practice what you learn. Check it out and register soon because space is limited and there’s a huge discount for the first registrants.

Can You Really Use One Billion Colors?

Some days, I get my exercise by jumping to conclusions, running off at the mouth and pushing the limits of my technical understanding. To wit, buying a wide gamut monitor that encompass 98% of Adobe RGB 1998 as opposed to a “conventional” monitor that typically displays ~95% of sRGB. I thought I understood the considerations needed to make a clear decision on the purchase of a wide gamut monitor. Oops!

About 99.99% of all monitors are “conventional” displays that can show approximately 16.7 million colors. They have 8-bits per channel. Eight bits is equal to 2⁸ (2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2) or 256 levels (colors.) Since there are three channels (RGB or red, green, blue,) multiplying 256 x 256 x 256 gets you 16,777,216 different combinations (colors.)

Wide gamut monitors, on the other hand, have 10-bits per channel or 1024 x 1024 x 1024. That means they display 1,073,741,824 (~1.07 billion) colors, 64 times more than conventional monitors. So, that must mean wide gamut monitors are 64 times better than conventional monitors, right? Well, it all depends.

https://youtu.be/_UOJcIDK7X8

During my 4 days at Stephen Johnson’s Fine Art Digital Printing Workshop, one thing that dazzled me were the wide gamut Eizo monitors in Stephen’s lab. I’d been thinking a wide gamut monitor might help me with some photos that had caused me consternation. For the rest of my summer road trip, I researched monitors and had pretty well decided to spring for an Eizo CS2420 24″ wide gamut monitor. Still, there were some doubts that I couldn’t completely stifle. When B&H raised its price by $45, that was enough to cause me to step back and delve further into the wide gamut question. (nb, B&H has now reduced the price from $861 to $719)

Buying a wide gamut monitor isn’t just a matter of ponying up the bucks, there’s more to consider. For most of my readers, there’s the matter of the software they’re using. I do 90% of my post processing in Lightroom 6 and, it just so happens, LR6 doesn’t support 10-bit color. In other words, I would have to revert to Adobe Photoshop (CS4 or newer) which are the only versions that support 10-bit color. I like Photoshop but not enough to totally revamp my workflow.

Keep in mind that many of the colors are simply finer shades between existing colors. Let’s say we have two shades of red in sRGB with numbers 254,0,0 and 255,0,0. In aRGB 1998, there are 64 additional shades of red between those two sRGB shades. This is useful in producing smoother transitions for prints but may not make a lot of difference for 0nline images.

Bottom line, wide gamut monitors can be useful and helpful in situations where you’re using compatible software to process photos that need more colors in the blue-green space. Obviously, some purists will say a wide gamut monitor is necessary in all cases but, for most photographers, a conventional monitor could be the best current compromise.

For those looking for specific recommendations, unless you’re sure you want and need wide gamut, buy a good IPS (in-plane switching) monitor in the 24″ to 26″ size as a second monitor, especially if you’re editing on a laptop. At a minimum, the monitor should have OSD controls for color temperature in Kelvin, custom RGB adjustments, gamma settings and digital inputs. At B&H, monitors fitting these requirements can be had for $300-$500. A low cost option is a Dell U2515H for $339. On the high end, an Eizo FlexScan EV2455 will set you back about $536 but should last forever. Lower-cost options are plentiful but require careful study of the specs to ensure they can be accurately calibrated. Also, if you don’t already own one, buy a good monitor calibration device such as an X-Rite Color Munki to ensure you get the best images out of the monitor.

Gwen, the Consummate Professional Model

The primary reason I decided to attend Kim Weston’s Nude Photography Workshop is because Gwen recommended it. I have high confidence in Gwen and the fact that she would be one of the models at the workshop sealed the deal for me. I’ve worked with Gwen several times and have always come away with great images. Unfortunately, Gwen was only available for one day of the workshop so we didn’t have a lot of time to work together.

I plan to work with Gwen in October at a shoot in Wonder Valley among abandoned homesteads. If you’d like to join us, the shared expenses will be $200 per photographer. I’m only inviting two people because I want to treat these abandoned homesteads with dignity. After all, they represent a stranger’s hopes, dreams and aspirations.

At the workshop, I photographed Gwen in Bodie House, a separate building that was once Edward Weston’s wife’s study. Bodie House is now a guest house that workshop attendees can rent to stay on-site throughout the workshop. Here are my final images from that session. As always, I used my “go-to” kit, a Canon 5D MkII and Canon 24-105/4L IS USM. All post-processing was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom v6.

I tried to incorporate the many ideas and techniques I learned in the workshop. Notice how I left the window panes open to allow the viewer’s eyes to “escape” the frame on one side but kept them on the opposite side to keep the focus on the subject? Also, did you see how I flagrantly violated “rules” such as not cropping arms, legs, hands, feet, fingers and other body parts that are not essential (in my mind) to the story in the photo? I still struggle to cut off/out parts of the body but, bottom line, I am, at least, aware of where and why I crop an image. To quote Kim Weston, “Every element has to be a conscious decision.”

What I Learned & Practiced

Whenever I attend a workshop, I have three goals and objectives in mind:

1. Learn three things I can immediately apply to a current project
2. Observe three things I can modify and apply to future projects
3. Note three things I may never use but should better understand

At Kim Weston’s Nude Photography Workshop I learned the following three things that I immediately applied to my photography.

1. Expand my horizons beyond the studio and black & white. Until now, with few exceptions, I had done all nude photography in a studio and all my final output was in B&W. At the workshop, I forced myself to make environmental photos in color. It was good to challenge myself.
2. Further disregard the “rules” of composition, e.g. rule of thirds, cutting off hands/feet/legs/arms/etc. I became acutely aware of using corners to “anchor” an image. Now, I actively seek partial window frames in corners or objets d’art anchoring/balancing the subject.
3. I am ruthless in applying Kim’s mantra, “Less is more.” I’ve gotten back into the habit of conducting a “border check” around the viewfinder before releasing the shutter. I try to keep windows, doors and walls “open” to allow smooth flow into and out of the image. I try to “guide” the viewers’ eyes.

With those principles in mind, here are some more photos from Kim Weston’s Nude Photography Workshop at Wildcat Hills, Carmel, CA. These are all of Dasha.

The first photo is a perfect example of “going with your gut” versus blindly following instructions. I had two versions of this image. The first positioned the edge of the plate in an unbroken arc across the right breast and this one where the lip bisected the right nipple. During the critique session, Kim said he preferred a clean arc as opposed to breaking the line. However, when I sent the images to Dasha, the model, she pointed out that, without the nipple, due to the angle, it appears that she doesn’t have a right breast. Below is the original version. As you can see, Dasha is absolutely correct.

For the 2nd image, Dasha again made a suggestion to crop a little tighter which greatly improved the photo. This is the value of working with a professional model who knows what makes her look good and how best to achieve that.

The 3rd and 4th photos are examples of Kim’s advice to use the corners to both anchor the image and, in this case, show where the light is coming from. This has really liberated my thinking as, in the past, I just saw corners as places for vignettes.

The 5th and 6th photos use Dasha’s hair to open up the frame and allow the viewer’s eyes to follow the lines up to her eye. The contrast of her blonde hair against the blonde wood table adds a dimensionality that would have been lost on a different colored table.

The last photo is an example of blatantly breaking the “rules.” I cut off Dasha’s fingers at the knuckles and her knee caps. All I wanted were the lines and angles formed by her arms and legs. I’m not perfectly happy with this photo but it’s close to the image I had in mind.

One thing the workshop has rekindled is an interest in medium format cameras. I’d like to get into MF but the prices are a bit intimidating. I’m trying my usual tact of telling Mary about the new top-of-the-line Hasselblad H6D-100C for $33,000 in hopes she’ll think $10,000 for the older H5D-40 is a bargain but I’m not holding my breath.

The next post will features photos of my favorite model, Gwen. I’ve worked with her several times in the past and she is always the consummate professional who can help a photographer make his/her vision come to life. I also have photos of Sara and Jenn, two other models from the workshop as well as Arya, a new model I recently worked with.

In October, I plan to photograph Gwen in Wonder Valley against the backdrop of abandoned homesteads. If you’d like to join us, the tentative cost for a 4 hour shoot is ~$200 for 1 photographer or $125 for 2. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll keep you updated.