Looking for a photo

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

The AAW is looking for just the right photo for the cover of the up-coming 25th anniversary book. A decision has been made not to honor an individual with a turning photo; there’s just too many to choose from and the publication committee didn’t want to disappoint the un-chosen. The photo that we are looking for is a close-up of a gouge as it cuts a ribbon of wet wood which flies into space, preferably with a plain background. We’re looking for an interesting action shot, but we don’t want anything else identifiable – not the type of lathe, not the brand of chuck, and especially, not the turner. The honor of a photo credit is possible. If you are willing to share such a photo, please send a high quality jpeg (or tiff) file to Malcolm Tibbetts at malcolm@tahoeturner.com.

Thanks in advance,
Malcolm Tibbetts AAW Vice President

 

[john lucas]

Hopefully you will get some good photos. If I have time I'll try to set one up this weekend.

 

[Richard Baker]

Might also be fun to see a selection of the "un-chosen" photos if that were to become feasible.

 

[Joe Greiner]

Almost anything is feasible nowadays, and was previously, too. A little easier now of course.

How about the chosen one central, with some of the un-chosen in orbit(s) around it?

The graphics department could have a field day with the challenge - no pun intended.

 

[john lucas]

My good friend who started turning but has been a professional photographer all his life came over today so we could play with getting a cover photo. It was fun and we got some interesting results. I was going to try and shoot it myself but it's awfully hard to shoot and turn at the same time so I called Luc and asked him to help out.
It's much harder to "freeze" the shavings than we thought. Using studio flash units set at partial power to get a shorter burst still didn't freeze the shaving. I slowed the lathe down to 300 rpm and took larger cuts which helped show the shavings but still didn't freeze them. We got one shot we both really like that looks more like an explosion of shavings. I was turning box elder and it was producing a good shaving but along with that would be lots of tiny stuff. It was also making brocken shaving instead of one long one so there are 3 or 4" long shavings brocken off and in the air. it's a better looking photo than all the others that have longer shavings.
We're going to try again tomorrow with either some cherry or if I can find the house I rode my bicycle by the other day, some fresh maple. We had a good time trying and I'll end up with a nice box elder bowl.

 

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

My good friend who started turning but has been a professional photographer all his life came over today so we could play with getting a cover photo. It was fun and we got some interesting results. I was going to try and shoot it myself but it's awfully hard to shoot and turn at the same time so I called Luc and asked him to help out.
It's much harder to "freeze" the shavings than we thought. Using studio flash units set at partial power to get a shorter burst still didn't freeze the shaving. I slowed the lathe down to 300 rpm and took larger cuts which helped show the shavings but still didn't freeze them. We got one shot we both really like that looks more like an explosion of shavings. I was turning box elder and it was producing a good shaving but along with that would be lots of tiny stuff. It was also making brocken shaving instead of one long one so there are 3 or 4" long shavings brocken off and in the air. it's a better looking photo than all the others that have longer shavings.
We're going to try again tomorrow with either some cherry or if I can find the house I rode my bicycle by the other day, some fresh maple. We had a good time trying and I'll end up with a nice box elder bowl.

John, before sending out my plea, I also spent some time shooting photos (a segmenter turning green wood no less). I was doing it by myself, trying to time my ribbon burst with my camera's self-timer. As if that wasn't challenging enough, there's the focus and exposure, etc to worry about. And of course, there's the background that has to be non-distracting.

I applaud and thank you for your efforts. Can't wait to see your best. Good luck.

 

[john lucas]

Malcolm We had a ball trying to get some good shots. I'm going over to my friends house tonight to edit the second batch. Like you I was going try and shoot them myself but it didn't take long to figure out that it would be very difficult. We reduced a 14" bowl blank to the point that I had trouble saving it as a 1/8" thick bowl and yesterday we reduced a 12" diameter by 16" log down to 5" before we quit.
I have no idea if we have what you need but we had a good time, made a huge mess, and learned a lot about how shaving come off the tool.
Ideally I wanted a shot that looks like the AAW logo but couldn't get it using green wood. The wood just comes off the tool in a straight line until it gets 8 or 10" from the wood. We even tried using a fan to force the wood to curl. Using dry wood and taking a light shaving I was able to get a good curl but it's not as dramatic as the longer shavings from green wood.
Are you sure you didn't glue up some green wood. I'm sure glue and miter joints had to be in there somewhere if you were turning it.

 

[Jerry Rhoads]

This sounds like a good challenge.
I may have Diane (my wife) try to get some shots next weekend.

She got one a couple of years (and bowls) ago with me about knee high in shavings. But it has the lathe and me in it. No good

Jerry

 

[john lucas]

Here's a few tips if you want to try one of these photos. We had trouble freezing the shavings even with electronic flash set at a shorter duration. WE slowed the lathe down to 500 rpm so the shavings came off at a slower speed and had better curls but still had blur. This was due to 2 things. One was depth of field (even at f22) and the other was the speed of the shaving. I did a little math (not sure I'm correct because math isn't my thing) and even at an estimated flash duration of 1/4000 sec the shaving would still move .2". Doesn't sound like much but it doesn't take much to make a shaving blurry.
Now the tips. If you use a small automatic flash and use if very close, the flash duration can be as short as 1/50,000 sec. You need the flash very close to have enough power to give you any depth of field and still have this short duration. I use the flash fired remote with a slave unit so that it can be that close to the work. Ideally the flash should be off camera and to the side to create a more 3 dimensional look. On camera flash make the shaving look flat. Before I had Pro units I would use one flash off camera and then use the on camera flash as my fill light. Worked great and is very fast. I have often used this technique on location when my subject throws a curve into the shoot which was supposed to be a simple portrait and ends up being shots of some part of their experiment for their master thesis. I don't carry the big lights around all the time and have to make do with what I have on hand.
It's a magazine cover. Don't shoot it horizontal. Magazine covers are vertical. Leave space for the masthead. Look at the last few years of cover layout and see how the type and masthead appear. Then make your photo fill the empty spaces. Shoot lots but be brutal in your editing. Stand back from the computer and look at the image and imagine that you are walking past a magazine rack. Would that image capture your eye in the fraction of a second it takes to scan a rack of magazines. If not toss it and go for the better ones.
Shoot at maximum resolution and if you decide to do any manipulation in photo shop do it on a TIFF or Raw image. You want to give the editor the maximum amount of file information to do their editing. If you do the work as a JPG you will throw away massive amounts of info and degrade the image.
I would love to have the cover but my friend and I have had quite a few covers of magazines between us so If I can help in any way please write. You never know this might be your first.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Malcom, have you given any thought to what aspect ratio is needed (height to width) and for cover printing purposes, the desired pixels per inch? I suppose that I could measure a magazine cover and presume that you would need at least about 240 pixels per inch. Do you have any information about the halftone dpi used on the cover? Also, do you have your heart set on a gouge? I have close up skew images that I made last year with good shavings trails, but it doesn't rival what you might get when hogging out wet wood.

A suggestion for John Lucas and his photographer is to use a slow shutter speed and second curtain sync on the flash along with good ambient lighting. Just try to make sure that the ambient light is about the same color temperature as the flash or else use color filters over the flash -- otherwise, there will be no such thing as getting a good white balance on anything that is moving (the shavings).

I probably won't have time to shoot bowl gouge streamers if your schedule is fairly tight. Let me know what the need date is (other than yesterday).

 

[john lucas]

Bill been there done that but in this case I think we wanted as sharp an image as we could get. Dragging the shutter and using second curtain sync is really good for somethings would work for this but produce a shot that is pretty much the same except the slower shutter speed would make everything a blur. Since the shaving is coming off the tool in the same way the only thing that changes with second curtain sync is up above the tool where the shaving starts to curl. The flash would freeze it in a different position. Of course if you don't mind the gouge having some blur then the second curtain and slower speed would work.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Bill been there done that but in this case I think we wanted as sharp an image as we could get. Dragging the shutter and using second curtain sync is really good for somethings would work for this but produce a shot that is pretty much the same except the slower shutter speed would make everything a blur. Since the shaving is coming off the tool in the same way the only thing that changes with second curtain sync is up above the tool where the shaving starts to curl. The flash would freeze it in a different position. Of course if you don't mind the gouge having some blur then the second curtain and slower speed would work.

I forgot to mention the main reason that I like syncing the flash to the second curtain -- it results in the blur trail of the shavings following behind the shavings as opposed to using flash synced to the first curtain which will result in the shavings looking like they are "pushing" the light trail ahead of them. Of course if you are freezing everything with a high shutter speed and using studio floods rather than strobes, it doesn't matter. I have tried it various ways and I usually prefer the sense of motion when the shutter is a bit slower (however, I hate motion blur when photographing running water, so go figure). If you use a tripod, then there shouldn't be any discernible hand or tool motion once the rough turning has been finished. A shutter speed of 1/60 to 1/30 second results in nice motion blur of the turning and shavings without any other significant motion blur even at 100% crop.

One other thought, John is that when using a strobe even at slow shutter speeds is that motion is sufficiently frozen, but with the addition of a wispy light trail.

 

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

There's no specific deadline for the photo, but I know the production side of the project is anxious to make a selection. Regarding size ratios and dpi's, etc, I can only say that people should try for the highest quality that their equipment is capable. I've received some very good photos, but I think the "best one" is still out there. Unfortunately, some of the best action shots were negatively affected by distracting background.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Here is one more thing that I forgot to ask about, Malcolm. Do you want the image to be really close so that hands or fingers are not part of the picture? It occurred to me that it would be tough to not include at least part of a hand, but could be done. I wonder if the "hand model" would need to sign a release.