dealing with vagaries

Okay, maybe the good people of Cape Town don’t have goblet-tippling Great Whites to keep an eye out for per se – but you can’t argue with the fact that South African wines and fearsome-toothed sea creatures both make their homes in the Western Cape of South Africa.  This coming June 2011 you’ll have the chance to get up close and personal with both of them in-between clicks of your camera’s shutter as you some capture some of the most unbelievable light in the world in one of the coolest towns in the Southern Hemisphere.   Join me and the great folks at Momenta Workshops as we work alongside Cape Town-based non-profits to create compelling documentary photo essays of the work these non-profits do and the people they serve.  These are life-changing workshops that give you a great chance to hone your photographic skills while making a difference in the lives of your subjects!

I taught with Momenta Workshops in Northern Uganda last year and had an amazing time with some incredible people!  Check out the work of some of these photographers we had a chance to be with in Northern Uganda, and let’s make some pictures a little further down south on the continent this June…

Whitney Curtis
Agaton Strom
Crystalline Randazzo
Fizzah Raza
Magda Rakita

P.S. Despite this post’s catchy (if mildly far-fetched title), this workshop is all about photography.  It’s all about intensely immersive and highly rewarding days.  We’ll provide the critiques, structure, and challenge for you to create a body of work that will make both you and your partner non-profits very proud.  Your photography will change.  You will change.

Screen grabs from the Hooghly River, Kolkata.  Early, early morning.

Frame grabs from the film we’re shooting in Kolkata, India.  As usual, click twice to enlarge…

I’ve been mostly filming moving images while here in Kolkata for the Kolkata Mercy Hospital, but felt like the village rooster needed a still frame all his own.  Click to enlarge…

How awesome is this baby?  So awesome he has a cell-y in his pocket and bluetooth in his ear.  Go baby bluetooth, go.

Shooting still images with the Canon 5d Mark II is pretty fantastic. Shooting moving pictures with the Mark II is basically an extension of that, and equally cool. The only difference is that you have to figure out several different workarounds to make the camera fully functional as a high-def piece of film equipment.

By itself the Mark II isn’t stable enough for hand-holding moving images. It’s too light with too few points of contact to make for steady shots. The folks at Zacuto make precision pieces of rigging equipment that allow you to mount all the necessary ancillary pieces of gear (sound recorders etc.) while giving you a stabilized rig perfect for verite shooting. I cut this piece below to show some clips from a recent project I directed in Turkey as well as how I’ve set up the Mark II for seamless capture of moving imagery.

But as always – don’t forget the tools are just a means for realizing your vision.

Thanks to Zacuto for their support of my work! Full gear list below…

Visual Recording:
Canon 5D Mark II (x 2)
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens
Canon 50mm f/1.2 lens
SanDisk Extreme CF cards

Audio Recording:
Tascam DR-100
-50db attenuated audio cable
SanDisk Extreme SD cards
Lectrosonics 100 wireless kits (x 2)
Schoeps CMIT5U shotgun
Sanken COS-11DBP Lav

Stabilizing Rig:
Zacuto Double Barrel rig
Z-Finder 3x magnification anti-fog viewfinder
Z-American V3 articulated arm
Miller 1643 Solo DV tripod

Post Processing:
2 x 1 TB Lacie Rugged Drives (1 mirrored drive)
MacBookPro
Final Cut Pro
Plural Eyes

If you find yourself lulling about Tuscany over the next few weeks looking for something to do, head over to FoFu Phot’art 2010 (The Fucecchio Foto Festival) in the beautiful Tuscan town of Fucecchio to see a print exhibition of my “China, Dreamt” work. The show will be up until November 7th.

More of China’s capital…

There are quiet moments of drift across every block of every city in every part of the world.  Distorted waves playing out across concrete sands.

Typing from the airport in Istanbul – about to trade kebabs for dumplings as I leave Turkey and fly direct to Beijing for another project there.  It’s been an intense time here in Turkey over the last couple of weeks – I’ve been shooting a film documentary.  Can’t share too many details now, but I’ve included some frame grabs from our project below.

Absolute thanks to everyone involved.