The price of forced overtime

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office

The picture is an old office cube of mine taken with an iPhone, and has nothing to do with the post, other than it is about the office. But not “The Office”. I am a part of a large group that has been told that working Saturdays for the next 2 months is mandatory. Many have been working overtime for several months already.

So, why do people ever need to work overtime? Pretty simple really: it is perceived that there is more work to get done before the delivery date than managers think can get done within normal working hours. What I started to wonder, is if this will really get more done. If you do simple math, adding 8 hours to everyone’s day sounds like it gives you more time to get more done. Sounds like it, but you take human emotion out of the equation.

We can all do more for short periods of time, especially if we see the value in it. We see value sometimes when we feel like it is our responsibility to contribute to the company, or when we feel a sense of loyalty to a product, or group that will use the product. Or, we can see value to us in particular when we are given something in trade. This can be extra income, time off, or something else that is seen as a reward, and that our time was valued.

When this sense of value is missing, it becomes a very different equation. It is also why contractors (like myself) are not as annoyed by mandatory work. We get paid by the hour usually. We get paid more for coming in. On the other hand, when a salaried employee is forced to come in, they need to feel a sense of value. When the employee only sees the employment as a job, or starts to feel like they are being asked too much, management no longer get the extra they are looking for.

People want to feel valued, and feel like the effort they are putting in is compensated accordingly. When someone feels like one side of the equation has been altered, they change the other side. Sometimes this is even done subconsciously. People may not rush into work. Take longer lunches. Go for a longer coffee break. When someone would normally work an extra 15-30 min at the end of work to finish something, now they no longer start something new 30 min to an hour before end of work. Maybe they decide to use the sick days when they have a cold that before they would have worked through. That extra day, it isn’t an 8 hour day. In late, out early, going off site for lunch…

Don’t forget the lasting issues. Contractors come and go. Some might go early… Employees can look for other work. It is expensive to lose business knowledge. The feeling of loss of trust and being undervalued are very difficult to get back. You can loose it in a single email. It can take months to get back, if it ever does…

So what do you do as a project manager and your project is behind. You need the employees to feel invested in the extra effort. And you need to ask. You may be surprised at the effort you get when you ask. Trust me, whether it is telling kids or adults they have to do something, or giving them a choice, choice wins out every time. The other issue, is that people have lives outside of work. Saturdays may not work for some people. What if they would work 48 hours a week spread out over the week? What if they could squeeze more into the day than they do right now? What if you and the employee could agree on the extra work that needed to be done, and then let the employee get it done on their own schedule? What if they are offered something out front whether that is some time off, or even movie tickets. What do you think the response will be?

Which takes more work out of management? A mass email, or an individual meeting with each employee to discuss the situation that you are in? Pretty obvious, but the bigger problems will come if you take the easy way out.

Free OnOne Lightroom Develop Presets

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I came across some free presets some time ago, but didn’t really give them a try until a couple of days ago. They are the free presets by On One Software, called WOW. These were developed for On One by Jack Davis. There are two sets of presets that come in one installer. One set gives you a bunch of color correction presets and one click tone and other color adjustments. The other set gives effects like Antique and special gradients. I kind of like them. One thing that is nice with how presets work in Lightroom, is that the Navigator gives a fast realtime preview of the effect before it is applied. The downside is that the preview is really small, and I end up trying presets and then “undo-ing” a lot.

The image above shows the ‘Antique’ preset. I toned down the exposure a bit. Added a vignette, and voila.

There are also some adjustment brush presets. Those are really neat. Some of the brushes that come with this set are for skin softening, and teeth whitening. They work pretty well I think. Much faster than doing it in Photoshop. For me, anyway. I found that the preset for lightening the irises was too much on the pictures I was testing with. No problem, you can play with the brush settings yourself and tweak the look after you have painted the brush. Even better, you can “scrub” the adjustment. If you are in the edit mode, hold your mouse over the pin, click, then drag right or left to adjust. This works like magic. Watch the sliders and they will all move in different amount proportional to what is there when you start. This works to push up and down the effect very nicely.

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The effect you see above is a brush. The Wow-Background Blowout brush. The brush does quite a good job around the hair and dress when the ‘auto mask’ brush is on. I think if I took more care it could have been even better, but with just a couple of minutes, it cleaned up the window shade background quite a bit. If you haven’t tried brush presets before, you should give them a try.

If you don’t know where the brush presets are… head over to the develop module, and select the brush tool. There is a label called ‘Effect:’ and beside it the effect drop down. There are a few that come with lightroom, but here is also where the Wow ones would show up.

Can an Andrew Bird concert teach us about Photography?

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I had the opportunity to attend an Andrew Bird concert last weekend. It was held at St.Marks Cathedral. That’s a fabulous venue for this kind of concert. It just wasn’t particularly my favorite kind of music. Now, don’t get me wrong, this guy is incredibly talented, and the church was full of people that completely loved him. I did like some of his music. But not all.

So, while I was listening, I found my self watching the lighting. I watched how they changed the colors, and went from dim lighting with hard focused spots, to lots of warm glowing amber light, depending on the mood he was trying to convey. I started to wonder if I did the same thing when I lit people. Do I do enough to light someone purposefully to convey a mood to the scene?

Andrew is all about layers. Lots of layers. He uses more audio layers than I have ever used photoshop layers. He starts off by playing a fairly short piece into a looped recorder. This loop replays it’s self, all the while recording the next layer. They keep stacking and stacking. His main instrument is a violin. I have never heard so many different sounds out of one instrument. It was fascinating. Picking, strumming, fingering, hitting with the bow, and of course, playing with the bow as you would expect. He is technically amazing.

So, I started to think… how well do I layer? With flashes. I was at a workshop with Joe McNally, and he did exactly the same thing. Started with one speedlight. Then added a softbox. Then added a trigrip. Then added a light bounced into the floor. Then another. How about more volume with another light behind the trigrip. Lastly, add a hair light. Layers. Always in control. Always adding something deliberately one at a time. Do you do that? Can you build an image one layer at a time?

One of the things that I had a hard time appreciating was toward the end of his songs. At some points, he lost me. Too many layers. They diluted the message. No longer were there discrete layers. Each new layer was no longer complementing the next, but starting to muddy the whole thing. So what would Joe do? Tear it all down and start over. It was one of the things that he talked about. When you get to the point where things are out of control, and you start throwing speedlights around because it doesn’t yet feel right, and more must be better…. just start over. Tear down, turn off, and start again.

I was amazed at how similar this artist was with a photographer. I had never thought in those terms before. If you get the chance, give Andrew a listen. You may learn something about photography.

Joe McNally Copied Me

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I have been really slow at getting over to look at Joe McNally’s web site recently. Just checked today. Just noticed that on Dec 2 he posted about a double exposure image here. I had posted about a double exposure image on Dec 1 here!

Only thing is, he shot his months before I even new that I could shoot a double exposure shot in my camera. So, not copying at all, but a funny co-incidence that we posted within a day. But I did do the same concept, so I am pleased that I was on to something. I did the same lighting, but not rotated quite so far, and with only one person. Joe did it with two. (He likes to one up you) The idea of using two different lights, one for each person was the same. The idea of the focus cursors was the same too, but more clear from Joe’s description I think.

The other neat thing from Joe’s shoot is the portable black background material. I figured it was shot in a studio, like mine, but then I saw the setup shot. I like it. I think I am going to check out getting, or making a frame like that. I have a couple of sheets I use for backgrounds, but can’t hang them on location very well. This would work well.

Portraits of Alex and Arianna

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We had some friends come over for dinner before they were headed off to see a play their daughter was in. Since the kids were dressed up, I decided to set up a light, and try to coax them into a picture. It went pretty well.

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It is always a challenge to get two kids together, in the same focal plane, with the same expression. Extra light would have helped this.

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I had just one SB900 through an umbrella camera left. I gelled it and shot at fluorescent to try to match the compact fluorescent bulbs in the light fixtures. They don’t quite match. It was a bit tricky to try to set the white balance in Lightroom.

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Anyway, sometime soon I want to get the whole family together for a portrait. I need to get more light, and get it balanced better with ambient. By the way, notice the much whiter background in the first two. That will be another post…

Holiday Book List

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It seems like everyone is putting out a holiday book list this year, so I thought I would be a sheep, and add my two cents. I also thought I would try to be the last one to get one out. So, not in any particular order, this is a selection of what I would recommend this year.

Visual Poetry – Chris Orwig : This is a great book to feed your creativity and spark your imagination. This is not so much a book on how to use your camera, but how to use your imagination and creativity to get the images you want.

Vision Mongers– David duChemin : Case studies with working photographers, and discussion on what it takes to make a living with a camera in a way that feeds your soul. Only read this book it you want to step up from a hobby to the big leagues.

The Hot Shoe Diaries: Big Light from Small Flashes– Joe McNally : Speedlight master shows some amazing photographs and discusses how he lit them wrapped in great stories. Very entertaining, and instructional at the same time.

Digital Photography Book v3 – Scott Kelby : This is a great series with technical tips, tricks and know how, for the the beginning to intermediate photographer. If¬† you don’t have any of the series, get all three. You won’t be lost starting with the 3rd, but they do get a bit more advanced as the books progress.

Lightroom 2 for Digital Photographers– Scott Kelby : If you have been on the fence about Lightroom, buy this book, get the demo and sit down at your computer. Using this book you will be a maser of and convert to Lightroom in no time. Don’t set there wondering why and how people use Lightroom. This book will make you understand it’s power, and become proficient in no time.

Understanding Exposure– Peterson : This is not a new book, but a classic all the same. If you haven’t read it yet, you should to get an understanding of how to use light and aperture to get the look you are looking for.

Hot Shots Flip Books – David Ziser : Great set of little flip books with photos, lighting diagrams, and tech info on how to get the same shot. These are not books in the traditional sense, but worth a flip through to get ideas and how to light them. Keep them in your camera bag for when you are stuck.

A Hands-on Guide to Creative Lighting (DVD) – Nikon (Joe McNally & Bob Krist) : Ok, not a book, but educational none the less. Takes you from how to set up your speedlights in remote, through adding lights one by one in a studio setup, to several location shoots with Joe both indoor and out. Good stuff.

The Craft & Vision Collection– David duChemin (eBooks) These eBooks are great self-contained “chapters” that focus on one specific element of photography. Well worth getting at $5 a piece. There are 5 of them right now.

Picture Donations

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Winter Jay Horizontal

I am donating an image to the Minnesota Lions Eye Bank for them to use on their holiday card this year. I let them look through quite a few of my images, and the blue jay above is what they selected. I am quite happy that they wanted to look through and use one of my images. The eye bank does a great service, and I am happy to donate an image for them to use.

Fishing Village

My friend Theresa is also going through a tough time right now, and medical expenses have been mounting. They are having a benefit (see the benefit link on this site) to raise money. I have donated the above image printed at 16×24 on 1.5″ standout, and a two hour portrait photo session. They are having an auction with several other items in it as well. I am very happy to donate these to her cause. Lots of us are really pulling for you Theresa! See you at the benefit.

Double Exposure

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Double Exposure

I was hanging out at Rich and Mary’s studio (that’s Rich above) and Kristen had an idea she wanted to try. She pulled out Joe McNally’s Hot Shoe Diaries and showed us the double exposure picture. She wanted to try to do something similar.

None of us had ever tried to do this with our cameras. With our Nikon cameras we went to the Shooting Menu and set Multiple Exposure: ON. Number of shots to 2, and left Auto gain on. Then I just pointed the camera and took a couple of shots.

Not quite there

Obviously that isn’t going to work. Kristen looks like a ghost, and the backgrounds from both pictures bleed together. We need a black background, and some light.

Seeing Double

There are two strobes in light boxes set up at 45 deg to me on either side. The background works, and we learned that I am going to have to move the camera a bit to get separation of the images.

There was one more step, but I don’t have a picture of it. If you notice my ears, they look really weird. Too much light. What we decided to do, was fire only one light at a time. Only the light where the subject was looking was fired. That way the light drops off, and you don’t see the ear.

I also didn’t use the center focus point on the camera. I placed a point to the left of center on his cheek when he faced camera left, then switched it for the next shot. Remember I also only fired the strobe when it faced Rich.

It was fun, give it a try.

Photowalk

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It has been a long time since I have just¬† been out for a photowalk either by myself or with some friends. Saturday I got to hang out with my “photo buds”, Rich, Mary, and Kristen. After a bite to eat, we stopped by their studio in Minneapolis’ north end, and did a little photo walk around the area. I was just looking for something interesting, and a bridge with some fun light patterns caught my eye.

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