Toning

All images need to have a true black and a true white. If printing in a dark room, this is one of the first elements you will be searching for. All digital images require toning. A big reason for this is the digital photography does not have the tonal range of film. Until we have digital cameras with true 64mega pixels (Although, I’ve heard it said that megapixels are a lie. I don’t know. This is the quick guide.)

Basic toning then, is giving a true black and a true white. I start this process by increasing the brightness and the blacks in my Raw Processing stage, but when I look again, I never find what I have done sufficient. So I go into my curves. And increase the blacks and the whites. I tend to do far more with the blacks than the whites. The curves themselves tell you where to go.

See where the curve starts on the left hand side? That’s the beginning of the blacks. You have to move your tonal marker here. See where the curve ends. That’s where the whites end. Thus, to have a true black and a true white, you need to have the photo’s curve begin at the beginning of the whites, and end at the end of the whites. I do like to crush the blacks a bit – go a little further, to make the image even richer and counteract the washing out effect of the web. I also tend to pull down at the center point a little to give a bit more contrast as well.

Saturation

The web desaturates your images and videos. To counter this, it’s a good idea to boost the saturation of your images. Many of the best photographers do this regularly, and even to extreme. It’s a common contest related complaint that all the images are oversaturated. Those who win, however, tend to be oversaturated. I don’t know what to do with that. I’m noting it here but not worrying about it. Maybe it’s just the same as using Velvia. I say do what you think is right and don’t ever forget about your subject.

Regardless of the controversy, you, with your images and video on the web, will need saturation to even make things look right.

Images in Final Cut and the Web

Color profiles are incredibly important. You need to use the correct one for the color space in which you are going to be in, or you will lose all the beautiful adjustments you have made. When printing, nearly every paper type for each different printer has it’s own specific profile. That’s how important profiles are. There can be slight shifts in color and toning (very minor) when you make the transition, so if your image has only one destination, you should change the profile before making toning and saturation adjustments.

For Final Cut, you need to be in Apple RGB.

For the web, sRGB.

You can change the color profile by going to Edit > convert to Profile. Then you must select the appropriate profile.

You can also set the profile as you are Raw processing in Photoshop. The option is located at the bottom of the Raw dialogue box, where one is able to set the image size settings. Apple RGB is not an available choice here so you will have to convert later or investigate as to whether there is a way to add that to the options. (I’m guessing there is, but have never attempted).

Mac vs. PC

Mac’s have lighter screens than PC’s. This means your work will be lighter on a Mac than a PC. Thus, for a Mac, you’ll have to do more saturation and have more contrast (contrast is what you create with toning.) I would hazard to say the majority of people in this industry use Mac’s. The overwhelming majority of the users in the world, however, use PC’s. I’ve never seen anyone do cross platform testing with their videos or photos. I guess the question is, are you creating for the general public, or the multimedia/photographic community?

Another photo that I would like to share

The below was the first example I worked on. To be fair, the Canon 5d MKII, in good light, has incredible tone and saturation, especially coupled with a polarizing filter, which means this made a poor example to try to explain a fault of tone and saturation. I would still do all of the steps noted, but to a novice, it would be hard to understand why. This was taken on the now closed train route between Mendoza, Argentina and Los Andes, Chile. Nacho and I played a lot of pass the camera that day, so neither of us can say definitively who took it. It is undeniably beautiful.

Final Note – Expect More

There will be a part two to this post in the coming weeks. It will feature video color correcting screen shots from Final Cut, save for web and other instructional elements.

Here is a link to a very long discussion talking about tonal ranges with lots of graphs and charts comparing film to the now ancient 10D (my first camera.) It makes me feel guilty for crushing blacks, but Ansel Adams made huge prints for galleries and walls in homes, not the World Wide Web.

Wednesday, as Nacho was preparing to go, he asked me to accompany him. His flight was on Friday. He had been mulling it over, and came to the conclusion that he could produce a far better package with the help of someone else.

Working together, we were able to shoot twice as much. We were able to capture two different angles at the same time. At one point I was standing on a highway overpass waiting for a group of serious bikers to pass. It took 20 minutes to get there walking with gear from the parking lot. Nacho was able to meet the group of riders at the beginning, mount a camera and then return to the end of the path, to capture them finishing, while I was able to catch them passing from above. An impossible sequence to shoot alone.

We were able to alternate our approach. I could ask people to sign the release forms while Nacho prepared the camera for the video portraits. We see differently. We noticed things the other didn’t. We kept each other motivated and looking.

Point: two people working together creates a better package in a shorter time.

Another great example of this, of course, Powering a Nation video, but, particularly, Spilling Over, the profound, mini documentary about the emotional impact on the residents of Venice, Louisiana. There were no fewer than 4 videographers/photographer’s working on this.

In the scene where Kindra was sending her children to away for fear of toxins from the spill, Jessey Dearing was documenting the tearful experience of Kindra’s husband preparing the children to leave, while Lauren Frohne filmed an impassioned Kindra, making telephone calls and angrily urging her husband to send the children off. Obviously, this would have been impossible without 2 people.

It is unfortunate, then, that the typical model is to have only one person working at a time. It’s a decision largely made in the interest of cost, but it arguably creates a lesser project that requires a greater time investment. Further supporting the one person style, as pointed out by Chad Stevens, is the fact that many of the awards, a way by which journalists can get work, are specifically for single authors/creators.

One other note on the AARP project. Supported by AARP, we got a fun new mounted camera called a GoPro. Nacho bought the HD Hero Naked with the Handlebar Seatpost Mount. We mounted it every which way on the bikes and it produced some sharp, engaging footage.

This is the video that makes me curse the 24-hour news cycle. I understand the cycle. I understand the attention span. We want to know now what is happening, and once we’ve gathered sufficient information, we move onto another theme. I do it. I am incredibly and shamefully decisive with my attention span. I couldn’t tell you how much time I spent on the Haiti earthquake, which in terms of loss of life and, likely, destruction, was far graver. I don’t remember reading more then one story about the earthquake last year in China.

That said, that this video’s viewership will be appallingly low as here and on Nacho’s website are the only places it is published, this breaks my heart. The reason for this is that by the time the video was done and seen, nearly a week had passed since the earthquake. We shot it on Tuesday and Wednesday after the quake. It was an incredible turnaround. Nevertheless, the public’s appetite had been sated by the instant broadcast world.

Photojournalism, documentary photojournalism, visual journalism, is an incredibly invasive form of journalism. It requires absolute entrance into another’s life. If I don’t have something on tape or compact flash, it doesn’t exist. In general, I am surpassingly respectful of other people’s privacy. For me, the reason I am able and willing to intrude upon another’s life, so to speak, is that the topic matter is that important. Their story needs to be seen. People are willing to let us journalists into their lives, because the idea is that telling their story will help change the situation. In a situation like this, it may help bring aid. These people very much need aid. In not getting their story told, I feel I am betraying my part of the bargain.

But you are seeing it. That is a start. You will know that among the large cities that the earthquake brought low, too, there was a tiny seaside hamlet by the name of Perales that the ocean came and washed away. You will witness one man’s grief as he sees his destroyed house for the very first time. You will see the woman who fled from the waves without shoes. And you will meet the old man who calls his survival the greatest miracle of his life.

About the video, it was shot and edited by both Nacho and I, Eileen.

When communications fail it’s really hard to deliver your material to your contractors. Yes, digital media helps in capturing and editing material far faster than traditional media, but also consumes an enormous amount of power (laptop and camera batteries) and requires a steady data connection in order to transmit, which was non-existent at the time.

(Photos at the end of the post)

When communications fail it’s really hard to deliver your material to your contractors. Yes, digital media helps in capturing and editing material far faster than traditional media, but also consumes an enormous amount of power (laptop and camera batteries) and requires a steady data connection in order to transmit, which was non-existent at the time.

Power, if you need it, beg for it.
There’s always someone who’s been cautious enough to have a generator.

Just look for the only light on in town, head that way and explain them. Here’s why they will let you, probably no one has been able to send info or material to their editors, because no one in the rest of the country knows how that area is doing, and so getting that info ASAP could mean faster help to that town.

Power, saving battery life while editing
I love my Macbook Pro. It’s not the latest model, but the battery is supposed to last for 3 hours.  You probably know that’s not true, especially when editing video.

So, a few tips:
- Turn off your Wi-fi (if on, it looks for connection, wasting a lot of battery), dim the screen light, remove any peripherals you don’t need, turn off keyboard lights and make your fans go off when your computer really needs them (using Fan Control)

- When editing your interviews, turn off the video layer, just listen to it, since your shot is on a tripod, you don’t need that. When editing B-roll, don’t play it, just scroll through your material or hit on different spots of the timeline, you’ll get enough info to do the cuts.

- Rendering. It’s a bitch. Avoid any effects or multilayering to avoid it. If you have to render, turn off your screen to save some juice, same as when exporting. Just listen to your computer, you’ll hear your fans slow down when done exporting or rendering.

Photos (I love my Iphone, Part 1)
As I said before, having no cellphone coverage sucks. But here’s the thing. When coverage fails, sometimes data still works. Don’t know the reason, but sometimes it does. Also, looking for high spots, might give you a bit of coverage, enough to do the following:

- Ingest your photos in your computer, process them and save them in your pictures folder. Plug in your Iphone, open Itunes and turn off all syncing options BUT the picture folder. Sync it and you’ll have the photos in your phone, Itunes optimizes them and makes them 640X480. I know, small, but you know what? Files are really small and your editors will have those photos before anyone else.

Once done, select them all and email them. The minute you get some sort of reception, your files will be sent.  I spent almost 3 hours in Talca and surroundings looking for coverage until I got EDGE network at around 4am.

Remember that cellphones use radio waves so, a clear night and no interference can help those waves get further. I went to the same spot later that day and got nothing.

Be sure to have your Iphone configured to send BCC to your email, that way you’ll know if it arrived to its destination

Audio (I love my Iphone, Part 2)

I’m fully surprised. The iphone mic rules. Quality is superb even for getting ambient audio. Conduct your interviews, spell the subject names and that’s it. Just be sure to look at the timer, because the phone has a 2 minutes maximum per clip to be sent over cellphone. When done, email it or ingest to your computer, edit the material and follow the instructions for the photos and voilá. The minute you get coverage, your email will go on its way.

NOTE: Be sure to keep your phone in airplane mode when doing this, just turn it on when looking for coverage or in a point where you know there’s coverage.

Data

Graphics people need it. So gather as much as you can, streets, exact addresses, area affected, length of , for example, the earthquake, how far did the wave reached, how tall it was, etc. This would be enough for them in order to create a map. Google maps can be used to look for the addresses and find exact places.

Again, write an email with all of it, when you get coverage, it’ll be sent.

Free Wi-Fi

One night I was lucky enough someone had set up a free antenna. Ask the Police, Fire Station or Radios, even people in the street.

But remember, what once worked, doesn’t mean it will be there again.

Ethics

Please, please, please, follow the rules. Respect people above all. Believe me, they will cooperate, they want their story told. The faster and better it reaches the media, the more help they’ll receive because eyes will be on that community.

Toning Images: I got disgusted when coming back home and seeing over-toned photos, for example, bringing earth tones up and removing shadows and adding light. Really, your job is to report and submit ASAP in order to inform about the situation. Be fair with the people. It’s already dramatic to lose your belongings and sometimes lives of people you love, believe me, you don’t need to add “drama” to your photos.

Report accurately: You owe it to the people. Don’t over dramatize. Just heard in a video a reporter say that “the smell of death” was starting to be felt underneath the rubble in Talca downtown. I was there, in the exact same street where he did his report and no one died. In fact, no one died in several streets around. I’m not completely certain, but I’m almost sure no one did in Talca’s downtown.

So please, don’t exaggerate and report properly. Can you imagine having your family living in the area and watching a video that mentions that “you can smell decomposing flesh in the air”?

What the difficulties were and what the difficulties weren’t in this assignment surprised me. Shooting was easy. People saw us with cameras and they wanted to talk – they wanted what they were experiencing to be seen. Visuals were everywhere. The greatest challenge, and something I never thought of before were the logistics. The earthquake had knocked out all of the power. Gas stations weren’t operating or full of people trying to get fuel for vehicles and generators. How would we able to get back and forth? By Nacho’s calculations, we had exactly enough gas to get there and back in ideal conditions – but, what about traffic, detours, any extra driving? How would we be able to edit on a shared Macbook with at most an hour and a half of battery power? How would we be able to get our images back to the home offices? 100km north of Talca, not even our phones were working. We couldn’t even speak with the offices, let alone send huge video files.

Firstly, gas. The morning after the quake, every gas station in Santiago had lines of at least 10 cars. Luckily, Nacho had filled his car the day before. Nevertheless, the whole way to Talca, Nacho was calculating how many more miles we had on the current tank of gas and when we would absolutely have to stop to insure that we could get home. Any open gas station had long lines, but we could never be sure that there would be another open further down the road.

As well, traffic was very, very heavy. There were points where the bulk of the traffic was turning around and returning home. Each time, we had to ask ourselves whether we thought it would be possible to continue through or whether this barricade would prevent us completely from continuing. We continued.

As we neared Talca, there was a major rerouting through a small town named San Rafael. The Carabineros’ office had suffered major damage.  (Carabineros are essentially the police.) While the building still stood, much had fallen from it and the non-structural walls had collapsed. Outside, a group of men were talking. At Nacho’s urging, we stopped. We took video and photos of the place.

Nacho began to speak to the men. As it turned out, many of them were Carabineros, but their uniforms were buried beneath the rubble. We explained what we were doing, and they volunteered another individual in the group, a teacher at a local school, to accompany us with our work. It was 9pm at this time and the light was fading. We warned him that we would likely not sleep, but he was unfazed. “I didn’t sleep last night either,” he said, and he became an invaluable companion and friend for the rest of the time in Talca.

The first place he took us was a campamento of people from San Rafael. They’d moved their kitchen table into a field, and set up tents and a tarp. By this time, it was dark. I could shoot nothing with my video camera nor with the 7D. The only thing visible was the camp fire.

The second place he took us was the hospital. Here, there was light. We asked the doctor whether we could shoot in the patient area. His response was that under normal circumstances, there would be no chance. This, however, was a disaster, and people needed to see it. Thus, we were allowed in.

Finally, we went throughout the city, looking for damage. Again, I lacked sufficient light. The power was out throughout the town. The moon was full, and the eye was able to the see; the video sensors, alas, cannot. I shot some, using car lights or a small flash light, but still, it was frustrating. The jail had a working generator, and the lights were on there. Part of a major wall had fallen, and armed men were guarding it, trying to prevent the detainees from escaping as they did in Conception. (Roughly 216 are still missing from Conception’s jail.) It was there I got my most usable outside footage.

After this, Enrique mentioned that his friend had a generator. We were invited there to charge our batteries. It happened his friend also had a butcher shop, and a huge asado going. We were fed large pieces of meat until we could not eat a bit more, and then spent the evening in this courtyard, editing on their terrace, under a grape arbor as the aftershocks came every hour to half hour. (Aftershocks, another thing this Michigan girl knew nothing about. And, the only food we’d brought with us was a pack of cookies. If these people had not fed us, we would not have eaten.)

Nacho left with Enrique and his friend, and I was left to edit my hospital story at 3 am. They drove for a good hour and a half searching for a wireless signal. By chance, they found one, and Nacho managed to upload his photos from his iphone. They also filled up the gas tank. There are no lines at 3 am. I finished editing at 6.30 – two stories – the fastest I’ve ever done in my life.

At 7, we went with Enrique to refind the wireless signal but it had vanished. We went to the radio station. The director had a thumb internet drive. He agreed to let us use it for five minutes. It was the station’s only link to outside news. It took me 30 minutes to send an 8mb file and Nacho another 15 to resend 8 photos, as the iphone had compressed the images at 3 am, and the Times needed them bigger. Thus ends day 1. Day 2 is daylight shooting and finding out that the file I’d thought I’d sent had not gone.

My primary focus has been documentary storytelling.

I LOVE spending time with people I don’t know anything about and telling their stories.
It’s a great satisfaction to be able to get immersed in an unknown world and be accepted as one more in their lives while taking photos and video of their daily activities.

But sometimes, I find refreshing taking pictures of nature. I enjoy those times when you don’t have to be putting people on every frame you take.

While on vacations in the South of Chile (one of my favorite places in the world) I just grabbed my camera and starting pointing at things.

It’s just incredible how nature amazes me sometimes. We are slaves to light situations when shooting and try constantly to find the perfect light and sometimes, we don’t succeed.  But sometimes, light finds us and there’s nothing much to do than just grab your camera, point up and shoot.

What model is it – 5d, 7d or rebel? The video on all three should be super beautiful. Nacho has the 5d and shoots almost all his video with it. Because it uses a true camera lens, you have a depth of field that only the most very expensive cameras can do. I don’t know if normal video can even do it.  The above is a clip from Nacho’s contribution to Hold Out showing the depth of field.

That being said, taking video with it can be very difficult. Try to use a tripod. You should use manual focus (good rule for all video.) you may have to update the firmware so as to allow you to use manual and change the ISO instead of using auto exposure. You can use the auto but the results are far better manual. Whichever you do, do take a solid day to learn where the settings are and what they do. Here is a link to the firmware. It contains instructions for making the update.

Focusing: You’re going to be looking at the image on the display screen.  The best way to be absolutely focused is to zoom in 10X by pressing the magnify button next to your right thumb.  It’s the button on the very, very top right.  One press gives 5x.  Second press, 10X, Third press, back to normal.

Another issue is that the sound is not super. What is ideal is to plug a mic into the side – it takes a mini plug (with any camera, it’s better not to use in camera mic.)  Here is a soundtest of three popular microphones.  Nacho has the Rode VideoMic Directional Shotgun Mic w/ Mount.  The price is super reasonable, and I’ve used it with both the 5d and my Sony video camera, and it’s always given me super sound.  You have to be careful to turn it off.

Others, like Vince LaForet and Zach Wise claim you should record sound separately, with say, a Marantz.

Video format and editing. See how whatever program you will be using (Canon software (if it exists), iMovie, etc.) handles the files. Final Cut has some issues because it thinks the video is 30frames per second, not 29.97. Super goofy. It can cause some problems – mostly everything goes slow in editing but will work, with lots of time-eating rendering. MediaStorm has created a very thorough guide to making the footage usable for Final Cut. It is the proper way to do it, but takes a heap of time and memory.

Advice: use the camera. Don’t let any of this intimidate you. Watch a video or two of Nacho’s.  Roping the Wind is the best example, also Hold Out. See how he puts scenes together. Both were filmed all with Canon 5d.

If manual operations are too hard, switch to auto. Try to keep it under 3 minutes – people get bored fast. For the interview, have a list of questions. When you leave, the answers that stick in your mind are probably the ones you want.

If you are going to be handholding the camera, use a light lens. Heavy ones are super hard to hold steady.

Final Issue – video eats memory with the Canons. You need to have lots – I would say a minimum of 16gb if using the Rebel. According to Canon, 12 minutes of recording in HD takes 4gb of memory. Again, give it a go and see what happens. [Specific to the project proposed by my friend - If you start at his house with him getting ready, you can copy the card over on the way to the site. (Although you'll probably want some car imagery for transitions.)]

By the way, all of this was typed on my iphone.

Santiago’s Metro is expanding.  The government opened three new stations (conveniently, days before a tight presidential election) and announced about a week and a half ago that they would begin building an entirely new line, which will connect a heavily working class area of the city with a heavily middle and upper class section.

I was given the assignment of doing a story on someone whose life would change as a result of this new metro line.  As the transportation system exists now, those taking public transit take a twenty-minute bus ride to a metro station on an existing line, then taking that metro practically to the other end.  One can also take a bus, but the bus follows the same route.

Firstly, Nacho suggested to me that we add a clock to the experience that shows time ticking by.  And I agree that’s an awesome idea, and I decided to add a locator map too, that shows the progress.  I realize that what’s important is the comparison of time between the current route and the route that will be finished in 2014.  So with Jorge Cortés, subeditor of the infographic department at La Tercera, I decide to add another moving map and timer.  (Originally I had thought to do an overlay when the actual timer and map stopped.)

The question then becomes how it will look and what program to use.  I want that when someone moves the timeline on the scrubber, the map and clock will move correspondingly.  I talk with Vicky Martinez, (Infographics and Design at La Tercera) about how this should all be laid out.  It’s a lot of elements in a small space, with the true time and map needing to be clearly related to the video, but yet the two maps and clocks needing to be easily visually compared.  We look at the Quenching Las Vegas’ Thirst and Climbing Kilimanjaro.  Although Vicky has concerns about the quantity of information, I say that the video will not require alsolute attention. I intend to have an interview track, but I say that the video will be far more visual than anything and as the other elements are simple, one should easily be able to glance between them.

Initially, we talk of using Flash.  It is what most of their interactive graphics are made in. Myself, I don’t know flash programming well enough to know how one can link all of these elements.  If we use separate SWFs for different elements, then I am certain they can be coordinated to start simultaneously, but I’m not certain they will move unified all the time.  Putting the video as frames in a SWF would take forever to load, she warns. (this is the way I would know how to do it, but the infographics team is going is planning to put this together for me.)

The final rough mock-up by myself with Vicky's advice.

After some thinking pause time, she suggests After Effects.  After Effects is new to the newsroom.  Everyone I’ve encountered wants to know it, but I think only a couple have a grasp of it.  I have some experience with it.  I’ve done two projects with it (the second will be posted sometime this week.

“That should work, right,” she asks.

My mind begins to run possible scenarios.  “It should,” I say.  “I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t.  I’m almost positive it will.”

And the more I thought about it and the more I dove into the second After Effects project (a presentation for the UAndes Communications Department,) the more I am certain it will.

Plans laid.

Man it feels nice. Today I went with Eileen while she was on assignment for La Tercera, where she’s shooting some of the topics that the presidential candidates are focusing on.

This time it was “minusválidos” (disabled) and for that she’s following Francisca Mardones (36) who’s 17th in the world tennis ranking for handicapped people. It was amazing to see how good she was. She can probably kick my (and most people I know) butts playing tennis.

After watching the game a bit my fingers started itching and I had to grab the camera for a minute. This is my favorite shot. I just love the shadows and her arms position, kind of like a bird spreading its wings. Which is very symbolic because that was her attitude, no limits at all.

Stay tuned for Eileen’s story, it should be up soon!

photo by Eileen Mignoni

Man, it’s been only 3 months, but really long ones.

On one side, I’m really happy to see my family and friends in regular basis but on the other it’s been so hard to make people realize the importance of multimedia usage.

There’s definitely a need for multimedia producers and they (the media industry)know they want multimedia producers, but they don’t know exactly what they want
or don’t want to make an extra step to actually implement multimedia in their newspapers/organizations.

Either they think it’s too difficult or too expensive or just the fact that most media industries are completely immersed in their journalistic routines that their work has become a routine. So every time I present an idea or project I feel like Sisyphus.

We take our time to investigate our client and prepare a proposal that’s perfectly tailored to their needs, thinking carefully about what media types and delivery mechanism we’ll use to present the idea to their costumers and by the minute we get to the presentation, the client decides that it would be to difficult to implement.
What the Hell?! Everything we present is thought on the premise that they won’t want to spend more money, so all the tools we think of are free, 2.0 kind of stuff.

So that’s how it is, we roll a huge rock up a hill and by the minute we are ready to put in in top of it, the client pushes it down…

But it’s fine. We keep pushing and pushing, eventually it’ll stay in its place. We just gotta keep pushing harder and harder

Anyone want to lend a hand?