With Texas roots going back to the early 1800′s, it might be a bit difficult to quickly find other photographers with a bigger stake in the state. Now living in Austin, Jay B. Sauceda grew up in southeast Houston, and went to the University of Texas. He’s all about the Lone Star State, and loves having it in his viewfinders.

Studying political science, Sauceda took one photography class at UT. The professor was Dennis Darling, a photojournalist. Darling was able to bring Harry Benson to campus for a lecture. Benson discussed becoming close friends with John Lennon and what he witnessed in the Ambassador Hotel the night Robert Kennedy was assassinated. Intrigued by the prospect of witnessing and documenting critical events, Sauceda attention shifted. “I thought that was fascinating and it kind of sparked my interest in photography,” he recalls.

After graduating with a degree in political science, he remained in the capital. Initially engaged in political work, he quickly saw running campaigns wasn’t for him. He switched gears and started assisting for photographer Casey Dunn. He became friendly with a small cadre of photographers whom he claims have more technical training on different types of cameras. These friends helped guide Sauceda, and got him shooting medium format.

Initially interested in learning by seeing what others were doing on Flickr, Sauceda was guided by his friends. “There’s a lot of bad information out there on some of those Web sites,” he says. Talented friends like Dunn, Adam Vorhees and Matt Rainwaters “gave me a lot of good advice,” he recalls.

With his assisting days behind him, Sauceda’s paying jobs are primarily commercial work, with some additional editorial assignments. He keeps very active with personal work because he’s generally hired to shoot portraiture and environmental scenes. Always working with eyes open, Sauceda tends to be able to squeeze in personal work before or after a paying assignment is done.

With Austin being the music mecca it is, it’s no surprise many of Sauceda’s subjects are musicians of name. He met Doyle Bramhall II, and through him, guitar slinger Charlie Sexton and Stevie Ray Vaughn and Double Trouble’s drummer, the incredible Chris Layton. The three comprise the Arc Angels, a band which released their first album in 1992.

Although his portrait work is identifiably his, Sauceda’s product photography and food photography ranks among the best you’ve seen in any magazine. As opposed to working with portraiture subjects, Sauceda finds the technical challenges and tweaking he can do when photographing products as one of the main draws to that type of work. “With product photography, it’s just kind of crazy to me how much goes into it to make something look as good as it does. It’s fun, and I really love doing it. For me it’s kind of a change of pace. I like shooting people, but it’s also nice to just dim the lights in the studio, and work with product. You’re not really with dealing with anybody; you’re just working by yourself. You get to be a lot more meticulous than you do when you’re shooting people, for the most part.”

As a fifth generation Texan, the Lone Star State is never far from his heart or his work. Sauceda is currently working on a book of Texas furniture from 1850-1875 for the University of Texas. While traveling the state to document furniture, Sauceda began an unrelated series of photos on hand-painted building signage. Painted primarily on brickwalled buildings, these relics from past eras of advertising hawk everything from Big Red soda to Star Biscuits. Found on county roads and small state highways off the Interstate, Sauceda sees this project as a labor of love. “I really like Texas culture and Americana,” he says. “Finding a lot of these little brands and things like that on the sides of buildings has been kind of fun for me.”

In a stroke of good timing, Sauceda finds this type of work becoming popular now. When showing his book, these images draw many positive comments. “Most of the designers that I’m showing my work to end up being really interested in that series, mainly because it’s typographically pretty interesting to them from a design standpoint,” he says. “I like it because it’s general interest. Even if you’re not a designer it’s just interesting because you don’t really see that kind of hand painted work done anymore.”

The majority of photography Sauceda creates these days is done with his Mamiya 645ADF II. Half his current online portfolio was shot with a ZD Back, and the other half with a Phase One back. Sharing a studio with two other photographers, “Pretty much all our stuff at our studio is Mamiya-friendly,” he says. One exception is a friend who shoots a Canon 5D Mark II. “It’s kind of a running joke at the studio,” explains Sauceda. “When we shoot anything with the Mark II, we have to ask him, ‘Hey man, is this sharp for a Canon? Because it’s not sharp for a medium format or a large format lenses.’ We rag on him about shooting with 35mm stuff.”

Sauceda shoots his Mamiya with just two lenses, the 80mm and the 55-110mm zoom. He prefers the 80mm, which came with the system. “And it’s tack-sharp,” he adds quickly. “You always end up with these kit lenses that came with the camera, and this is the first kit lens I’ve ever been really impressed with. I shoot with that if I don’t need to do a lot of zooming, and then I shoot with the 55 to 110, but the 80 my workhorse. I shoot pretty much everything with it. Most the time, if I just want the camera to be a little smaller, and I know I don’t need a lot of range and focal length, I’ll shoot with that 80mm. I can focus a little bit closer with it. I’ve never even really needed any other lenses.”

Believing in shooting what feels most comfortable, Sauceda will be sticking with medium format. “I’ll get into little discussions with some of the guys here in Austin who shoot 35mm. They think I’m crazy for shooting medium format, and all that sort of stuff. They’re like, ‘Oh, how do you shoot with that?’ and ‘You don’t have a high enough ISO to shoot with this and that, blah, blah.’ To me, I just need a system that can mimic what it was like to shoot on film, because that’s how I learned. I don’t really need ISO 3200 or 6400. I don’t need a nightvision camera. I just try to keep my systems really simple. It just makes it easier. I’m not going to lose track of stuff. The less stuff I have, the less that can go wrong in my opinion. I’ve never been too much of a gear guy. I like the system I have, and I feel really comfortable with it. I’ll sell it to people if they’re asking me what the merits are on it. But, for me, I like my because it’s simple and it’s durable as heck.”

Sauceda also applies this minimalistic ethos to his lighting. “I try not to go too crazy with my light setup,” he explains. “If I’m doing something outside, I’m not the type of person that would want to overpower the sun. Because generally the sun already knows what it’s doing and it does a good enough job making everything look great. I’m just there to try to help make it look a little bit better. For outdoor work, it’s pretty simple: just fill with softboxes and that kind of thing, and scrims and stuff to cut light. For the most part, I just do a lot of clamshell lighting where I just do a key light and some fill. I work with one softbox, and I’ll generally just key everything up with one softbox—just kind of fill everything in with a huge umbrella. I’ve been going through a hard light phase recently where I’ve been shooting everything without light modifiers, and then just fill in the light with a softbox or something. I light people really hard because I like the shadows really, really gritty. Then I fill it in, so I don’t make everybody look really unflattering. I’m generally a little bit more reserved when it comes to lighting.”

Sharing gear with his studiomates Adam Voorhes and Casey Dunn is common for Sauceda. “We float equipment back and forth. The Profoto D1′s have been pretty incredible. I’ve used them on location a couple times. The assistant was super-psyched because he didn’t have to do anything because we had the little remote control for it. Being able to manually adjust the light settings and stuff like that was really nice, with me not having to move anywhere, and my assistant just having to set everything up.” The group also has a Sekonic light meter at the studio.

Sauceda sees himself pushing his commercial work as the future unfolds. He likes shooting lifestyle and environmental photography. Shooting people is where his passion rests. As far as location, he won’t be leaving Texas, or even Austin any time soon. “Obviously, New York is like the Mecca of photography,” he says. “There’s no lofty expectations Austin is overnight, going to become some sort of photographic hub. What we’ve been trying to do over the last few months—and really the last couple of years—is just show people in other cities that you don’t necessarily have to go to New York or Los Angeles to find that caliber of photography. We’ve been working to raise the caliber, and not just shoot everything, but just shoot some high level stuff to put Austin on the map as a creative hub. Don’t get me wrong, I like New York and I like L.A., but in my book Austin wins out against all of them.”

Brimming with Texas pride, this native points out the sheer economics of operating costs in Texas versus more traditional commercial photography centers in the United States. Even when location travel is factored in, the cost of Austin overhead is so much more reasonable than in other cities, it makes Sauceda and his fellow shooters competitive with other pros around the nation. “Plus, we like being able to go swim in May and hit the pool and that kind of stuff until November,” he says, laughing.

Jay B. Sauceda Photography
Jay B. Sauceda on Twitter
Jay B. Sauceda’s Studio

Written by Ron Egatz

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Posted by Ron Egatz on July 29th, 2010 :: Filed under 645,Mamiya
Tags :: Jay B. Sauceda

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The new Mamiya RZ33 is having the “drool-effect” on a lot of Mamiya RZ67 and RB67 owners. Now those camera bodies can be traded in for a credit of $1,000 towards the purchase of the RZ33. We dislike filling out forms just as much as you, so we figured we would go form-free with this offer. All you have to do is turn in your old camera body to your local dealer and you’re all set. This special offer is good until September 30, 2010. Limit one trade-in camera per RZ33 transaction.

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Posted by admin on July 28th, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya,RZ,Rebate
Tags :: RZ33

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The entire MAC Group and Mamiya family are sorry to hear of the passing of photographer Wes C. Skiles. With one of his stunning photos currently gracing the cover of National Geographic for a story on the blue holes of the Bahamas, his loss comes at an especially hard time.

Skiles, known for his lifelong diving affinity, grew up in Florida, where diving holes attract divers and photographers from around the world. A diver for 44 of his 52 years, Skiles frequently shot stills and motion footage for scientists and researchers racing to document the fragile biological balance of blue holes before rising sea levels change their chemistry forever.

Not only did Skiles return from dives with incredible images and/or video, he also did so under the dangerous conditions technical divers and cave divers subject themselves to. Frequently breathing nitrox, a delicate mixture of nitrogen and oxygen, cave diving is known for its high fatality rate, particularly among divers who eschew careful planning and redundant backup systems for their gear. Some images from his dives can be found here. DVDs of his underwater cinematography can be found here.

Skiles owned and operated Karst Productions, a production company specializing in underwater location shoots. He died on Wednesday, July 21, in a diving accident off the coast of West Palm Beach, Florida. As of this writing, no further details have been reported. Our good thoughts go out to the family, friends, and coworkers of this highly talented shooter.

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Posted by Ron Egatz on July 26th, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya
Tags :: Wes Skiles

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Wired ran a story about a 1954 Mamiya Speed Shot Special, otherwise known as the Mamiya Pistol Camera. With estimates running between 250-300 being made for police training purposes, one was sold at Christies in 1993 for $16,500. Wired published the story when one came up on eBay. The owner was asking $25,000, and no public record remains if the seller found a willing bidder at that price.

Bringing new meaning to the phrase “point and shoot,” these cameras are exceedingly rare, and actively sought by collectors. You never know what might come up at flea markets and garage sales, but if you can snag one of these at a reasonable price use extreme caution when even handling one in public before someone misinterprets your actions and alerts the police.

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Posted by mamiya on July 22nd, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya
Tags :: Mamiya Pistol Camera, Mamiya Speed Shot Special

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You may have noticed some changes around here… First off, we upgraded our WordPress to the latest and greatest, so performance should be awesome now. Secondly, we moved from blog.mamiya.com to blog.mamiya-usa.com. So, all of your wonderful links into the site should find their way to the right place, but if it doesn’t, please sue the search bar. Lastly, many of our posts have had a lot of Tweets, but switching domains erased TweetMeme’s counts for everything – so don’t get the wrong idea, keep Tweeting! Thanks so much for reading – we look forward to bringing you even more great blog posts.

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Posted by mamiya on July 1st, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya

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Bronx-born, California-raised, Ian Sitren has been around gyms his whole life. Moving to Southern California at the age of two, Sitren’s father took him often. After doing some weight lifting of his own when twelve years old, Sitren became inmpressed with the photography he found in bodybuilding magazines. As an adult working as a full-time photographer, he married his interests and carved out a spot for himself as a top bodybuilding shooter.

As his career progressed, Sitren won the confidence of many photo editors and commercial clients. Whereas he previously gave them what he thought they wanted, he now delivers what he thinks best, shooting to both express himself and complete the assignment to his exacting standards.

Regarding locations, Sitren shoots where the assignments lead him. Although the majority of his work is done in gyms and bodybuilding shows held in auditoriums, he shoots in more interesting locations when he can. “I will typically try to think up something more interesting and adventuresome than just shooting in the gym, which can get very tiresome,” he explains. “For the average person, going in and shooting in a gym would seem pretty exciting, but when you do it over and over and over again, there’s only so much you can do with it.”

Other clients such as Bodybuilding.com have given Sitren even more freedom. For that publication, he writes, shoots, and puts together the Iron Man Magazine BodySpace Physique of the Month column. With a half-million readers and site members, he chooses whom to feature and how to shoot them. He also writes a brief article on each body builder and how they transformed themselves. “It’s a huge amount of freedom,” he says. “I send them, typically, 12 to 24 photos from a shoot. They’ll run three to six.”

Originally a film shooter, Sitren was slow to embrace digital technology. “I was quite happy shooting film. Still am,” he says. “I still shoot quite a bit of film. It depends on the project. I don’t limit myself. When I think about a project, or when I’m doing a project, if I get up and I say, ‘Boy, in my mind’s eye I see that in medium format Tri-X,’ then it’s going to be in medium format Tri-X.”

“If I see the shot as really sharp, high-resolution digital, then it’s going to be really sharp, high-resolution digital. If I see that as: ‘Whoops, that’s due tomorrow,’ then it’s digital,” he laughs. “It also depends on budgets. Budgets aren’t the same as what they were just three years ago. I don’t quite have the latitude on some projects in shooting film now because it’s too expensive.”

Sitren was witness to an industry-wide trend as the Great Recession continued to drag on and deepen. Magazines cut back as their advertising fell away. Paper-based publications literally got thinner. Ad budgets got smaller. Manufacturers re-ran ads and repurposed photos. Some publications went from monthlies to quarterlies. Some ceased to exist. This survival strategy gave them large backlogs of materials for future issues. Photo assignments disappeared.

Adapting to these changing budgetary landscapes, Sitren adjusted what he was spending on shoots, and got more out of single shoots than he previously did. When shooting film, he was more judicious to get the maximum out of the expense of film and processing. “I’ve been through recessions before, but nothing like this,” he says.

Conversely, this has slowly brought about a pendulum-swing in the opposite direction. “The upside is typically in a recession, the bodybuilding and fitness world does very well,” he explains. “People who would otherwise be running out and spending money at the bar every night, and spending money doing this, that, and the other, all of a sudden internalize things and do things more important and better for themselves than they used to. They start going to the gym. They start paying attention to health. They start paying attention to things that they weren’t doing before. So, they’ll run out to the magazine stands, and they’ll buy a $6 magazine, whereas before they wouldn’t have even bothered. $6 for a magazine is actually fairly inexpensive entertainment. Your $30 gym membership, well, gosh, it’s a pretty big social network you can have very inexpensively.”

The economy isn’t the only thing changing for Sitren. He’s been experimenting with various Mamiya medium format digital gear. “I was probably the first person ever to be published with the Mamiya ZD Back,” he says of an assignment he did for Bodybuilding and Fitness World magazines. He also used it for a Palm Springs feature in Private Clubs, a large country club magazine, and a feature in Iron Man magazine. “I got a cover and a big feature in a couple trade magazines using the ZD Back, and that’s pretty much when it first came out. For the pricepoint, it was a pretty good buy.”

Sitren is also using the Mamiya DM33. “I was really impressed with it,” he says. “What amazed me especially was the dumbfounding color that came right out of the camera. The tremendous sharpness, the color, everything was so damn perfect, and part of it’s got to be the vast improvement of the D‑series lenses, as compared to the primary lenses I used on the 645AFD II. I was just astounded of what came into, and what came out of the camera. I had to do nothing to them. I had to do nothing, just no retouching. It was perfect.”

Feeling the medium format quality gives him an edge when presenting to his clients. “When I opened up those DM33 files, I about fell out of my chair,” he recalls. I was amazed. They were heads-up better than the Aptus 65 files, heads up better than the Phase P45 files. No question. I’ve shot a lot of stuff and the DM33 just blew me away. I was dumbfounded. I was pretty impressed with the Mamiya anyway with the prior lenses and everything, but this just blew me away.”

Additionally, Sitren shoots a Canon 5D, a Canon 1D, as well as the Mamiya 645AFD II.

Defying conventional wisdom, Sitren is able to achieve film-like qualities with medium format digital shooting. Of his outdoor session with Raechelle Chase he explains, “I did the ever popular high‑definition look to photos. The files out of the DM33 were so sharp and had such definition. The gravel in the ground was plainly visible. It was dumbfounding. But, at the opposite end of the spectrum, when I wanted to slow the shutter down and make it have that film, not-quite-in-focus-movement-look to it, it worked really well for that too. I like doing that. With the DM33, it was so easy to emulate a lot of types of shooting I used to do on film. Still do on film, actually.”

With his own photography, Sitren continues to attempt to stand out, even if his subject matter remains the same. “I try to do things differently. I try to make sure that my stuff does not look like the next thing in a magazine. One of the big tests for me was taking the camera into the gym. Even if you’re lighting it, you’ve got a whole different set of parameters you’re working within. I also have a tendency to shoot kind of odd lightings. I’ll put the light behind somebody, or I’ll flood them with light and give it that hazy look. The DM33 was much more responsive to really odd lighting than I had expected. I was able to focus without resorting to go to manual most of the time, which is a big time saver. Especially, when I shoot people in the gym, I actually make them work out. They’re not posing, for the most part.”

Sitren feels it’s critical his bodybuilding subjects are fully engaged. “I’m pushing them through a workout because I want it to look like they’re actually working out. I want the muscles to be flexed and to be working as they would in a workout. The only way to do that is to use real weight and real people doing real things. The camera needs to be fairly responsive to that. It has to be able to shoot fast enough, and preferably autofocus fast enough.”

When asked about his lighting, Sitren quickly says, “I exclusively use Profoto. Ninety‑nine percent of the time it’s an Acute 2400R. I’ll use one or two heads. I’ll use a strip softbox and a head, or maybe just a head, or sometimes two silver umbrellas. A couple of PocketWizards and my Sekonic L‑358 meter and I’m good to go.”

With his chosen gear, Sitren is able to quickly set-up and get the shots he’s looking for. “It’s easy,” he declares. “I can store everything in the trunk of my car. I have one assistant. He gets everything out of the car, has it all set up within 15 to 20 minutes.”

This summer Sitren will be wrapping up a photo book entitled Muscle Beach Today, spanning his work with bodybuilders. His blog on Bodybuilding.com has pulled in hundreds of thousands of viewers, and shows no sign of running out of content. Other areas he’s been experimenting with include flattening colors, desaturating, and changing overall color themes. Client response has been positive. “I like doing it,” he says. “It’s fun. It’s something you would have done in film. In film you burn and dodge and cross process and different things, but you gotta start out with really good files.”

Ian Sitren has found his niche. He and his lifework are textbook examples of utlilizing a deep personal interest to create art and earn a living from it. Whether you spend time in a gym, or not, and whether you can appreciate the staggering array of muscles bodybuilders strive for, Sitren’s work and the career he’s built are testaments to a photographer beating odds to become and stay successful, despite economic downturns, fluctuating public interest, and advancing technology. That’s an impressive display of strength and art.

Ian Sitren Photography

Ian Sitren blog

Written by Ron Egatzhttp://blog.mamiya-usa.com/wp-content/uploads/

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Posted by Ron Egatz on June 28th, 2010 :: Filed under 645
Tags :: Ian Sitren

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From growing up in the Ann Arbor-area of Michigan to shooting exotic locations throughout the southwestern United States, Jim Shoemaker is no stranger to reinventing himself and his destiny. After obtaining a degree in Graphic Design from Siena Heights University, he worked as a designer, riding out several recessions. In 2000′s dot-com collapse and recession, he moved to California to reboot his career.

Known primarily as a landscape photographer, Shoemaker explains his preferred subject matter by what interested him as a child. “I’ve been an outdoor person since I was a kid growing up in Michigan,” he recalls. “It’s not like there was a lot to do. We were in a rural area, and I spent a lot of time roaming around the woods. I always enjoyed being outdoors.” Inspired by Ansel Adams and other iconic landscape shooters, he was drawn to that type of photography. “Even before I was really into photography,” he says, “I would look at Adams’ work and there was just something so powerful about it, something that moved me, and I responded to, even though at the time I wasn’t making any connections I should be doing this myself.”

Primarily self-taught, Shoemaker developed his technique by doing, observing and learning. “Trial and error” is how he describes he obtained his technical ability. “I read a lot. I have quite a library of photography books. I read everything I can get my hands on and spend a lot of time researching online. I shoot both thirty-five millimeter and medium format. The best thing to do is just pack up the gear and head out into the field, shoot, come back, look at the results, go back and just keep repeating the process until I find what I’m looking for.”

What he had been looking for subject-wise turned out to be the desert. “When I was growing up in Michigan, I would see photographs of places throughout the southwest,” he remembers. “It was always fascinating to me but at the time I never even imagined I would see them let alone live out in these areas. There’s something about the desert I connect with. Maybe it’s that I’m living forty miles outside of Los Angeles and I deal with the traffic and crowds all the time. When I can escape to Death Valley, or I get out into the Sonoran Desert or something, it’s just the solitude. Maybe that’s what I was always looking for when I was in Michigan. Maybe it’s why I would head out into the woods and spend my days out there. I enjoyed being away. I guess it’s cathartic for me.”

In Shoemaker’s viewfinder, solitude is reflected as being a peaceful antidote to the crowds of Los Angeles. Rhyolite, Nevada and other ghost towns have proven to be fertile settings for this photographer’s accomplished and moving portraits. “I’ve always been fascinated with remote places, which is probably where I get my love of being in the deserts and mountains,” he says. “I like abandoned places—places that used to be such centers of activity, and now there’s just nothing there. There’s nobody living there. They’re just empty and forgotten. I don’t know exactly how I got an attraction to that, but there is definitely an interest in watching the process of things breaking down, I suppose. Among the things I’ve discovered over the years of shooting ghost towns are things breaking down gain more character to me than the things that are new and intact.”

Remote locations of former mining towns and camps are Shoemaker’s main focus in recent years. He points to Swansea, California off Interstate 395 in the Lone Pine area, with it’s one stagecoach stop building as a perfect example of a structure with heightened character. Shooting the remains since 2008, he’s documented a dramatic degradation of its condition. The small town of Garlock, California in the Red Rock Canyon area has also fallen before Shoemaker’s lens. With just a handful of buildings left, he’s charted the decay of Garlock, and is not aware of anyone restoring or even maintaining this small ghost town. Cerro Gordo had an owner/caretaker who passed away about a year ago, and the future of its remaining structures is in doubt. Bodie, California is faring better. Protected as a California State Park,  Bodie remains frozen in time by two caregivers who keep it in a state of “arrested decay.” They maintain and repair what is currently there, but do no improvements. Rhyolite, Nevada, mentioned earlier, is perhaps the most photographed of these ghost towns, with its iconic crumbling John S. Cook and Company Bank used in major Hollywood films since at least 1964, most recently in 2005′s The Island.

Rhyolite, although probably the most visited ghostown in the southwest, still holds a significant amount of allure for Shoemaker. “There’s something to the fact that at one point there was 8,000 people living there and within two or three years that population has decreased by a third, and then within ten years the place is empty. I can go back through archival photos online and see what this place looked like in its heyday and it’s really hard to make a connection to what I see now. There’s so little left, and it’s just amazing something that was so prominent and built to last…” he trails off. “It really draws me in that most of the towns following gold mines and gold fields were made out of wood. People built a simple wooden structure or simple stone structure or canvas structure, and when the gold ran out, they pulled up the stakes and were gone and the town went with it. But Rhyolite they built basically out of stone. They intended it to last but it didn’t.”

If Rhyolite holds the crown of ghost towns, the Cook Bank sits as its centerpiece jewel. “I’m fearful of the day when I drive into town and it’s not there,” Shoemaker says. “There’s a corner of that building that just has such great character, it gives character to the building, and I know it’s been slowly collapsing over the years. One day I am going to drive in and that corner is going to be gone. It’s going to have lost all of that great character that it had. I think, maybe, that’s why I photograph it every chance I get.” Shoemaker shoots Rhyolite at all times of the day and night. Daylight shots are challenging because of tourists milling about, which he doesn’t want to photograph.

When pressed for more about what draws him to photograph ghost towns of the southwest, Shoemaker is candid about the pull he feels. “It was this underlying feeling of needing to see this place for myself. I think that’s probably the thing I want to transmit through my own work: that I want people to look at it and say, ‘This is a place that I never really thought about before—maybe I didn’t even know about before—but I think I want to see this for myself.’”

In 2004 Shoemaker bought a Canon 10D and began shooting. Two years later he bought his first Mamiya, a 645AFD. He now shoots two of the same model. For backup, he uses a Leaf Aptus 17 digital back. A user of Photoshop since version 2.0, Shoemaker is no stranger to digital technology, and shoots no film.

Conversely, Shoemaker is careful about how much digital manipulation he executes in post-production. “When it comes to Photoshop, I try to limit it to the things that I would be doing in a wet darkroom if I was shooting film. Any education I have in photography came from reading books,” he says. Most of the books he’s read are by Ansel Adams. “If you’ve ever read any of his work, he is maniacal when it comes to getting it right in the camera. In his time, it was on film, but with a negative he wanted all the information he needed. That would give him the print he wanted, based on the vision he had when he looked at the scene. You get it in camera as close as you can to matching your vision.”

Shoemaker uses a Sekonic L-558 Dual Master spot meter to pick and choose the points in the subject he wants to read and meter for important tonal values. “That’s what I meter off of, and that’s how I judge the exposure,” he explains. “It’s both an incidental light meter and a spot meter, so it does a lot of work for me. And, of course, we’ve got the LCDs we can look at to check the histograms and see whether it’s in line with what I have in mind, exposure-wise. It’s like shooting with a Polaroid basically if I was doing film. I don’t want to spend so much time having to go back and readjust everything. I will shoot raw images in both formats. But, it’s just not that much fun to sit there and go through dozens and dozens of images and have to lower the values or raise the values or just make all kinds of global adjustments all over the thing when I could have done it in the camera in the first place.”

Heading out on photography excursions for three weeks at a time, Shoemaker knows what to bring and what not to bring. “I generally have my Canon 5D Mark II with me, and I’ll take my Mamiya 645, a spare Mamiya body, and sometimes I take a 20D backup body for my Canon. As far as lenses, I take a pretty limited selection for both formats. For my Mamiya I have a 35mm lens that I would probably consider my primary landscape lens, especially when I shoot with the least back because it has a crop factor. When I shoot film through it, it gives me a little more flexibility but I’ve got my 35mm. I’ve got a 55 to 110mm which is probably my next most used lens for the medium format. I’ve got a 105 to a 210mm which I don’t use a whole lot, but every now and then it comes in handy.”

Like his use of digital technology, Shoemaker is not stuck in ghost towns for his photographic subjects. The Bradbury Building and Chrysler Building are among the still-functional structures he’s photographed, not to mention meadows, natural rock arches and other settings which have fallen under the gaze of his cameras. “I have an interest in architecture,” he says. “That’s my problem: I have an interest in too many things. If I had to label myself, it would definitely be a landscape photographer, but there’s so many things that are interesting visually. There’s a lot of interesting things, and whatever catches my eye because of form, because of the texture, because of lighting, I think I’ll photograph it.”

The critical element for Shoemaker is feeling and instinct. “I don’t know that there’s a big difference in my mindset when I’m looking at a canyon, a landscape, a skyline, or architectural features, or rock formations,” he says. “I know what I have in mind. When I look at a subject, I kind of get a vision of what I’m looking for. And sometimes, whether it’s a landscape or a building, I can’t realize it on a camera. I just don’t find it on that particular day. It’s really frustrating, but that’s the way things go. Other times I know what I’m looking for. I find it, I frame it, I shoot it. It seems to be instinctual for me. It’s just a reaction to what I’m seeing.”

Jim Shoemaker Photography

Jim Shoemaker on Smugmug

Written by Ron Egatz

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Posted by Ron Egatz on June 16th, 2010 :: Filed under 645,Mamiya
Tags :: ghost town, Jim Shoemaker, landscape photography

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Just two days ago David Saffir published a review of the Mamiya DF Camera and Mamiya DM56 Digital Back. Attending a demo at SCV Center for Photography in Santa Clarita, California, Saffir got to spend a day with hands on the new models, shooting under a variety of circumstances.

A group of shooters experimented with a variety of lights on both still life set-ups and portraits. Saffir closes his review with the following quote. “This latest Mamiya incarnation has a new feeling of sophistication and polish that comes through every time I pick it up. It’s a shooter’s camera.” (italics his)

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Posted by Ron Egatz on May 25th, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya
Tags :: David Saffir, DF Camera, DM56

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It takes an admirable degree of intelligence, technical prowess, and attention to detail to keep a 362 foot nuclear submarine operating beneath the oceans of the world for months at a time. James Bland did just that aboard the USS Birmingham SSN-695 when he served his country in the elite “Silent Service” of the United States Navy. After two years becoming an engineer in the Nuclear Power Training program, Bland spent four years as a Weapons Officer on the Los Angeles-class fast attack submarine during the Cold War.

With the Naval Academy and military background of this Battle Creek, Michigan native, it’s no surprise Bland tries to get it right the first time. Although he will do minor tweaking in Photoshop and Lightroom, this photographer tries hard to get his images as close to perfect in-camera as possible. He applies a meticulous methodology to shooting which helps ensure his post-work is kept to a minimum.

After some time in the private sector in his post-Navy years, Bland found himself living in Hong Kong, where his wife was working. When not studying Chinese, he walked the streets with a Canon SD20, shooting images casually at 5 megapixels. One of his photos from this time won an American Airlines contest for a marketing campaign.

Back in the United States, Bland spent two years with a fine art photographer, both shooting film and helping run his business. After that, he stepped out on his own and has been shooting professionally ever since.

As a shooter in his own right, Bland is fearless, and will shoot almost any subject matter. Fearlessness is a quality which shouldn’t surprise anyone knowing this photographer has logged 175,000 miles of travel underwater. The areas where his photography truly excels are macro still life and product photography. His clean arrangements of merchandise showcase products in a way which are worthy of any large and glossy magazine ad or catalog. From his current location in Austin, Texas, he’s shot this type of work for creators of handmade jewelry, a glassblower, and a distillery.

Such clean, detailed, and exacting photography requires what Bland refers to as “my toolkit, not my collection. I use these things every day, and don’t have sentimental attachment to them.” By 2005, he’s owned a substantial amount of both medium and large format equipment. His medium format body is a Mamiya RZ67. Lenses for the RZ include a 65mm, a 110mm, a 140mm f/4.5 Macro, a 180mm lens, and a 250mm f/4.5 APO lens. He also uses the Polaroid Film Pack Holder.

It’s not a fluke Bland has so much invested in his Mamiya gear. “The quality was at a higher level than alternatives out there. Being an engineer who is equally right-brained, left-brained, I analyzed the cost-benefit of the quality of the images the RZ would produce,” he says. “There’s something about the images—the color depth, the 16-bit processing—right from the first images I created I knew there was a presence to those 53 megabyte files. The information is there and the wide dynamic range is outstanding.”

The massive amount of images compressed for the Web doesn’t deter Bland’s desire to shoot medium format. Images can always be reduced to small jpegs, but you can’t restore data and dynamic range once it’s been stripped out. “Not everything’s going to go on the Web,” he says. “Some day someone’s going to want that image in print. It’s really nice to be able to say to someone the native format out of the camera is a 16″x20″ image at 300ppi. It’s a nice system to work with.”

For 35mm film, he shoots a Canon EOS 1v. Bland’s large format needs are covered by a Zone VI Field Camera and a large set of accompanying lenses.

Bland uses PocketWizard Plus II units for his flashes. “They’ve changed my life,” he says. “The PC cords were terrible. Now I have no cords wrapped around my feet.”

Corporate portraiture is another area Bland very much enjoys shooting, and will most likely continue to pursue, in addition to his excellent product photography. A strong believer in sharing information and community outreach, he’s a member of ASMP, PPA, the Austin PPA, and a Founding Member of the Austin Center for Photography.

With his officer’s training, Bland prides himself on delivering what clients are promised and expect. With his engineering background, he regularly embraces new technology by reading on subjects exhaustively. With his love of learning, odds are we’ll be seeing new approaches and influences on Bland’s work. When your former job was making sure things run smoothly hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean, we can bet James Bland will have no trouble incorporating new gear and due diligence practices into his photography for his many satisfied customers.

James Bland Photography

James Bland Blog

James Bland on Twitter

Written by Ron Egatz

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Posted by Ron Egatz on May 24th, 2010 :: Filed under Mamiya,RZ
Tags :: James F. Bland

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As I negotiated with Mary Ellen Mark’s able staff to find a suitable time for our interview, I found myself in a place I rarely am: nervous. Feeling fortunate my calls were even being returned, I spent time reviewing photos from her long and prolific career: ones I knew well and loved, others new and just as moving. It didn’t seem quite like reality that I would be speaking with the photographic legend responsible for work I had admired for years. Fortunately, Ms. Mark’s legendary body of work is no indicator of the warm individual willing to reveal anything to do with her life and art I asked her.

There are no end to the accolades and citations documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark has won for her portraiture and photojournalism. Among many are three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, a Guggenheim Fellowship, three Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Awards, and the Cornell Capa Award by the International Center of Photography in 2001. Her work has appeared in LIFE, Look, The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

Originally hailing from the Philadelphia suburbs, Mary Ellen began her photographic oddessy shooting a Brownie at age nine. She stayed in the area, eventually attending the University of Pennsylvania to earn a BFA degree in Painting and Art History. Two years later she received a Master’s Degree in Photojournalism from the Annenberg School for Communication. She has travelled the world to photograph what interests her, and her interests have proved both wide and deep. A year after her Master’s, a Fulbright Scholarship took her to Turkey for a year of intense photography of everything she encountered. She also included Western European countries and didn’t return to the U.S. for two years.

When she came home in 1967, the world was changing. She moved to New York in time to document everything from anti-war protests to what most now regard as the common thread in her work: people on the edge. “I’m interested in people who have had it hard,” she says. “Life’s very different when you’re not living comfortably. I felt drawn to documenting the lives of people who live precariously on the edge.”

Her personal projects kept her busy with the displaced and dispossesed, but her commercial work as a still photographer for motion pictures made an important link for her and the career we’ve come to know her by. Shooting everything from Alice’s Restaurant to Fellini’s Satyricon, she eventually made her way to the Pacific Northwest to shoot stills on the set of Carnal Knowledge, and later, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The latter film, by Milos Forman, brought her to the now-famed Oregon State Mental Hospital. She returned three years later and documented the female patients there in the 1979 book Ward 81. The images are stark, haunting, and some, even hopeful of recovery. At this stage in her career, her unflinching view of the best of humanity under the hardest of circumstances had coalesced.

In 1978 she went to India, where she photographed Bombay’s Falkland Road prostitutes. Unlike Ward 81, the resulting photos from this trip are in color: deeply saturated and not as close up as many of the Oregon photos, showing the hard surroundings and way of life of the prostitutes. The rich colors of the walls and buildings is often overlayed with edginess of the human subjects and their lives, creating a hard to ignore juxatposition. These photos were the basis of Falkland Road: Prostitutes of Bombay, from Alfred A Knopf, 1981.

She returned to both black and white film and the United States for her next projects. Again in the Pacific Northwest, Mark documented the lives of Seattle’s street children. Her husband, Martin Bell, eventually made the film titled Streetwise, which, like his wife’s photographs, documented people on the edge—this time children working as prostitutes, panhandlers, and dealers. The most iconic of these photographs is one of Erin Blackwell, known on the street as Tiny. She is dressed in black for Halloween, albeit as a French prostitute. These photos eventually were collected in 1988′s Streetwise, from the University of Pennsylvania Press. “I’m still in touch with Tiny, and still photograph her from time to time,” reports Mark.

Mark’s next subject was the Damm family of Los Angeles, shot for LIFE magazine. The family of four were living in a car, and her black and white vision beneath the bright Southern California sun, is as emotional as ever.

While shooting people on the edge, from Indian street performers to down and out American rodeo hands, Mark has also documented celebrities for decades, from Ansel Adams to Robin Williams. These black and white portraits often seem to not only bring out what we expect of Mark’s subjects—the dignity of Coretta Scott King, the sexiness of Pamela Anderson—but something more vulnerable and human, such as a wise Norman Mailer with a pug in his lap which looks remarkably like him, or Woody Allen appearing completely at ease. Results like these are a testament to how Mark disarms politicians and Hollywood royalty alike. “It’s easy to photograph actors because they’re actors,” Mark says. “Someone like Jeff Bridges, whom I’ve known a long time, is willing to show you many sides of himself. Some can not want to show you those sides. It depends on the individual. Celebrities are used to being photographed, and it’s always harder to get people not used to that to open up. They’re more guarded.”

Primarily known as a documentary photographer, in addition to her celebrity portraits, Mark’s advertising work boasts clients such as Barnes and Noble, Coach Bags, Eileen Fisher, Heineken, Keds, and Nissan.

Although there is not much this living legend of photography hasn’t focused her lens on, one thing has remained consistent across her varied subject matter. “I love film,” she says.  “I shoot the Mamiya RZ, the 7, and the 645. I like the 645 for street work, but for studio work, I use the RZ. On the street I use a 50mm lens, which is too wide for in the studio. It’s too distorting, and I don’t like studio pictures where the subject is distorted. I actually hate them,” she says laughing. “You need to get up closer in the studio.”

Mark uses TRI-X film for her Mamiya cameras. “I can see the value of digital, but I can see the value of analog, too. I choose to continue working in film a lot. I love the beauty and depth of it, particularly in black and white.”

“I use some flash on my street photography, which surprises people,” Mark says. “Sometimes I use it as the key, sometimes I use it as the fill. It depends what the existing situation is: the existing light and the background. In bright sunlight, I would definitely use it as a strong fill. If the light is very dead and overcast, I might try to pump it up. It depends. I try to vary it each time and just feel how much of flash it needs as a fill. Sometimes I just use it the tiniest, tiniest bit. Sometimes I just really throw it in there. I feel what I think it needs for each situation.”

While there are clearly no set technical rules for Mark, she’s quick to use the tool she feels is best suited for each job. “I love medium format, but I also like 35mm. It’s different. If it works, it works. But there’s something about the amount of detail in the medium format I really love; the presence of it. Other times the 35mm format just works. You go by feel.”

“The things you choose to photograph are things which have become part of your life,” Mark explains. “The next book I’m doing is a book on proms. Prom is important to so many people. I still have my prom photo. It’s something I never forgot. My husband is working on a film about this. We went around the country researching it. I’m not using film on this project. It’s all Polaroid, with a big camera—20 x 24. It seemed to be the right medium for the project.” Due out from Abrams in 2011, the book has been five years in the making: four years of shooting, one of editing.

When not shooting or editing, Mark teaches at Woodstock, New York and Oaxaca, Mexico, among other locations. “The work my students do in Oaxaca is very inspiring to me. I’m very proud of them. It’s great work,” she says.

Near the end of our talk, I expressed some concern over my own art. “You just have to feel what’s right. Don’t think too hard. Feel.” That’s a truth all artists should be reminded of from time to time. Thank you, Ms. Marks, for that and more.

Mary Ellen Mark Photography

Written by Ron Egatz

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Posted by Ron Egatz on April 6th, 2010 :: Filed under 645,7,Mamiya,RZ
Tags :: Mary Ellen Mark

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