So, You Wanna Be a Rock & Roll Star (long post)...

[another view]

I brought it up because you mentioned you looked at the LCD before telling the group that you got the shot. Taking a few extra seconds at that point to zoom in probably would not have broken things up too dramatically.

Steve, this mere amateur has to agree with this. I have seen just a little bit of what pro shooting is really like and know the two seconds that it takes to do this can seem like an eternity, but again it's all hindsight. You do have to get used to what blowing up an image on the little LCD looks like based on your in-camera sharpening settings. I left sharpening off so blown all the way up the images were still a little soft - but I knew what they should look like.

I wonder if the first shot could be sharp enough with some careful USM to make the guy on the left in focus, but if the lens was wide open I'm not surprised that she's out of the DOF. Of course if the subject is three people and only one is sharp, then you really haven't gained anything.

I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer, and do appreciate you sharing your story. It's always interesting to hear how the "real world" is! And that's pretty amazing that things turned out as well as they did. Great shots, and I agree with the "feel" arguement. Congrats on another successful project - and another cover!

[Asylum Steve]

Congrats on another successful project - and another cover!...

Thanks, Steve. Again, this is not an issue of whether one should check the focus while shooting or not. That depends. For me, it was all simply a matter of being lazy, and of course getting wrapped up with the people I was shooting at the time.

I almost always have a good idea of what my relative DoF should be based on my camera settings, and the fact that I shot these wide open alone should have been enough for me to double check to make sure.

But, really. If I'm shooting a scene f/8 at 1/125 in normal light, and I see things in foucs in the viewfinder, there is no way I'm going to take the time to check my focus on the LCD screen. Like I said, it depends...

To answer your question, there actually is one frame from the group that was sharp and in focus enough that I could have gotten away with in a color-seperation printed mag if they didn't run the shot too large. The halftone screening would have masked it just enough...

[another view]

But, really. If I'm shooting a scene f/8 at 1/125 in normal light, and I see things in foucs in the viewfinder, there is no way I'm going to take the time to check my focus on the LCD screen. Like I said, it depends...

Agree on that. Bottom line, you're a pro and you came back with the goods. Very interesting story in how that all came to be, but you did a great job!

Me, I'll keep shooting for the Rock & Roll Star!

[Greg McCary]

Wow Steve what a great story. I really enjoyed reading it. One of the differences between an amarteur and a pro is how they recover from a mistake. You make a nice recovery.
Greg

[racingpinarello]

Good story, and congrats on the cover. The story really shows that a little luck is so necessary in photography.

If anything, your day 2 photo has a better feel to it. She obviously is extremely beautiful and the day 2 photo captures it.

So luck hit you twice.... You were able to have a re-do, and then then that image allowed you to get a better shot(s) than the first day.

No re-shoot, no cover. Whewww... okay I said it.

I also agree with Sebastian, that a brief zoom-in on the lcd to make sure the image was in focus wouldn't of hurt the shoot. They have to do 5-10 takes in front of the movie camera anyways...

Anyhow...great story, congrats, and yes... you are a "rock-star".

Loren

[JSPhoto]

Or in this case a commercial photographer...

I read a poll somewhere once of the most stressful jobs in America. Right behind police officer and fire fighter was freelance photographer. I kid you not...

Now of course, I personally don't believe that my job should really be that high on the list, but despite the flaws of a poll like that, it should come as no surprise to anyone that trying to make a living as a freelance commercial photographer is indeed stressful.

Steven,
Nice job in the cover!

I can see any kind of freelance photographer being extremly stressful, commercial or otherwise. My weekend starting Friday through 2am Monday morning I worked 32 hours or something like that and put 300 miles on the Jeep. I guess the payoff was seeing three of my air show photos on the front page of todays paper and then opening it to the sports page and seeing one photo taking up almost a third of the page, rare for this paper to run a photo that large. All total they ran 13 photos from the weekend in todays issue and probably another 10 or so in the weekly's. But the entire weekend was stress filled once they postponed or stopped the football games Friday night due to lightning and that meant playing the games Saturday and completly disrupting my schedual... and making me miss the Blue Angels on Saturday
Oh well, the paycheck from this weekends already spent .....

JS