Training/Testing
Workshop or Training posts
How to build a PC for work purposes #2
So, as in #1, the plan is to get a dedicated processing/editing machine.
What you get it entirely up to you, what your budget and OS preference is.
If you have technical person who looks after your machine(s) then it’s worth asking them how much it costs for a home-built machine Vs a pre-built one.Any IT person worth a salt will be able to put together a high-spec machine for a lot less than a shop bought one (including labour time)
For example, my current editing machine cost me £1000 to put together.It’s based on the latest Pentium processor (i7) which has 8 virtual CPU’s. It also has 12gb super fast RAM (1866), a 1Gb ATI graphics card (single) and SATA Hard drives (faster read/write to the memory). I run Windows XP64 on it, but that’s through personal preference and because Adobe’s 64 bit version of Photoshop isn’t available for Mac‘s.
To buy a PC of the same spec would have cost me easily £2000+ (and even more for a MAC PC)
Plus, because I installed the operating system myself, I left out all the programs that are unnecessary which makes the system faster, more robust and virtually impossible to be ‘hacked’.It’s important to use a 64bit Operating System if you have more than 3Gb of memory (including graphics cards) as 32 bit operating systems can only see 3Gb of memory. It also means that applications that are 64bit ‘ready’ can access all the memory available.
For example, my XP64 only takes 600Mb of the system memory, so I allow Photoshop 10Gb of the remaining memory to use as scratch space (working space for processing)
Which is plenty 🙂
With a 32 bit operating system (or program) it won’t see more than 3GbI trialled the 64 bit version of Windows 7 a few weeks ago and it was pretty quick and a huge improvement over Vista. Everything worked well including communication to my cameras (kinda important) and the connection to my Epson 9880. My performance score was 5.6 – the weakest link being my hard drive speed, so I put in an SSD (solid state disk) which brought my score up to 7.3 (7.8 being the max)
But in the end I decided to stick with XP over Windows 7 mainly because W7 requires a few more button clicks to perform regular tasks which is a step backwards in my eyes. Looks pretty and for a normal PC use it’d be fine, but for my work/editing machine I chose efficiency and function over looks.In the end the machine has to fit your needs for the work you do. the Operating system and specification of it are normally defined by use and budget, but it’s best not to skimp as if you get a machine that saves you 30 minutes a day waiting for it to process by doing it faster, then youve saved 2-3 hours a week and what’s that worth?
Fashion shots with Katie Green
I’m just back from attending a workshop today from fashion photographer Jon Grey which was hosted by the BIPP.
In the afternoon we had three basic lighting set-ups and pro model Katie Green with us. I tend not to lighting everything when doing beauty portraits and usually choose a shallower depth of field (f/2.8 to f/11 max). So this was a different experience for me photographing someone at f/20 with strobes at every angle.
Below are a couple of shots from the day.
The Bowens Gemini gear we were using was proving to be fairly problematic which is unusual for a brand leader.
Interestingly my favourite is the first image below in which when the main light failed to trigger, but the rear screen and reflectors did the job.
The end result was the emotive style I would choose to do when doing a fashion shot thather than nuking the subject….. unless it was a product shot ;o)Less is more and all that 😉
Katie is the face for Ultimo’s D-G Range and was a superstar.
She did her own makeup and was very professional from start to finish. She kept going even when the temperature soared with all the strobes firing all afternoon.
Her website and link to her agent is here: https://www.katiegreenofficial.com/British Institute of Professional Photography (BIPP) 2009 Conference
Anyone that knows me will tell you that I’m not a morning person.
In fact you usually have to be up early to catch me before I go to bed ;o)
The BIPP 2009 conference and semenars were held on the 7+8th September in the RAF Museum in Cosford. A fantastic venue, but fantastic enough to get up at 05:30 for?
Definately
So I dragged my butt out of bed and lobbed it in the general direction of the shower. 30 minutes later I’m checking emails and munching on some breakfast and swigging strong coffee. I consider throwing the coffee down my pants to wake me up as I’m still half asleep, but 5 minutes later it kicks in and and the brain ticks into life without me jumping around the room swearing randomly
While packing I decided to make a small picture diary of the day. I’d already planned to take some reference shots during the semenars, but I decided to take a broader account of the conference and make them into a small video (below)
Bags packed, camera ready and off I go
Day 1
The day started with registration and a welcome speech from the president and then we all went straight into the day’s courses.
My first session of the day was Hair and Fashion with Jack Eames who is based in London. This short session was mainly about model interaction and the use of props in your session. At the end of his session he was presented with an LBIPP qualification as he wasn’t going to be around for the main awards ceremony in the evening. Happy daysThe afternoon double session was ‘It’s only an Iron” with Jonathan Beer. He’s an amazingly talented product/still life photographer based in Manchester and he talked us through a basic product shot.
Jonathan says he has no photographic talent and that he’s 100% technician, but his understanding of texture, shape and attention to detail over a couple of hours was truly inspirational. He’s way more than a technicianBack to the cheap hotel booked from booking.com
Turned out to be a service station motel, but a welcome rest. Didn’t bother going to the evening BBQ and awards ceremony as it was a long drive this morning and I wanted to be alive for day 2. So I puttered around the bland hotel room and grabbed a couple of frames to add to the diary before heading to bedDay 2
Back to the Museum for the morning session with Steve Howdle on Professional Lighting. This tied in with Jack Eames’ session, but was all about the lighting where Jack’s was more the feel and mood of a shoot. Both had very different styles of working and was an interesting contrast.If anything Steve’s session was much more like Jonathan Beer’s as it was very technical (right down to 1/10th stops) except the model was the ‘product’
Steve’s model in the morning session was Ivory Flame and she appeared again for the afternoon session with Dave Hunt on the human form im fine-art images.Dave has worked with Ivory Flame quite a few times in the past and you may notice that there are no images of this session due to the content, but the bare(sic) lighting setups were as expected.
I have friends that’ve worked in this style of art, but I’ve never been present during those sessions and so it was interesting to see some “behind the scenes” of how Dave worked with Ivory Flame. Particularly when they role-played the differences in working with a professional model Vs a client coming to you for this style of image.
Then a long drive home, tired, but happy
At some point in your photography, you need a kick up the butt
I know which direction I want to move my photography and with that in mind I started looking for workshops that would broaden my experience in the disciplines that interest me.
Bert Stephani is a Commercial and portrait photographer based in Belgium and has become well known through his videos on Youtube and workshops where he openly shares his knowledge and experience. He also co-founded the LIME project with Pieter Van Impe, a Belgian Wedding Photographer, and the ethos of LIME is Learn, Inspire, Motivate, Experience.
Bert occasionally gives 2 and 5 day workshops in Belgium around his busy schedule, but I was unable to attend some earlier in the year due to some bookings, so I dropped him a mail about doing one in the UK later in the year. He said, “Sure, you arrange it and I’ll come over”
Fast forward 5 months and I’m standing in Heathrow Terminal 5 with my girlfriend on a cool Sunday evening holding a sheet of A4 scrawled with “The Varnisher” in black marker. Meanwhile a 6’6″ Belgian wanders out of Arrivals with a big grin and a 50mm f/1.4 mounted 5DMkII slung over his shoulder and shakes my hand with one of his big paws.
Bert is in the UK.
For 2 sunny hot days in early September, Bert guided us through one of his Location Lighting workshops “Seeing the Light”.
Day 1 was indoors where he covered the management of light within composition and talked us through the process of making images from editorial and advertising assignments which the group thought up for him.
We used the Richmond RACC Drama room as it was spacious enough for the group and had lots of props and clothing which we used in the assignments and for goofing about in the breaks.On day 2 we were running about Richmond by the towpaths, bridges and in the parks in groups of 3 with a couple of models and a make-up artist while Bert gave us assignments. Although the workshop ended at 18:00, Bert and a few of us headed into Canary Wharf for some food and then we did some night shots around the unique architecture that Canary Wharf provided.
Apart from being approached by Canary Wharf Security, where a copy of our permit sated his questions, the workshop seemed to go pretty much like clockwork. The people that signed up for the workshop were a relaxed and creative crowd and that helped to make the workshop a great success.
Wednesday came and a relaxed Bert headed back to Terminal 5 with some presents for his family
He landed, he LIME’d, he left.
Or as my girlfriend says, “Veni, vidi, visa ….. I came, I saw, I shopped”Our talented make-up artist was Emma Ridgers: www.fabulousyou.co.uk
Male Model – Nick Crispini: www.crispini.co.uk
Female Model – Prabha Shiyani: Prabha at Usana.comImages from the group are here: https://www.flickr.com/groups/1228981@N23/
Slideshow Below