Sepia Toning. What it is and what it isn't.

Sepia print questions usually follow ones on black and white. So today I will add an entry to explain what they are and why are they done.

Sepia (pronounced "see-pee-a") toning of silver based black and white prints is done to increase the longevity of the image. It does this by stabilising the chemicals involved, replacing the more reactive ones with more stable ones. It tends to cast a strong brownish tinge to the image.

Some people like the brown tone, so there are a lot of people who "fake it" on digital images. This is very easy to do by importing a colour image into Photoshop and using the "convert to sepia" action. This yields a brown print on colour paper.

This is not a Sepia toned image.

Its marketing talk for "we will give you brown photos". They are poor imitations and are why I do not offer this (dis)service.

So what's the REAL process?

• Take a hand printed silver based black and white image
• Bleach it
• Soak it in the appropriate toning chemical
• Rinse and dry

Do we do them? Yes if need be but there is a better way...why stop there? Besides sepia it is possible to tone with other chemicals like Selenium and GOLD!

SELENIUM is popular and is used for fine art photography around the world. It enhances tonal range in the image. This is the toning medium we usually use.

Other possible metals for toning include GOLD and PLATINUM.

Black and White Photography what's available?

This post is prompted by a couple I met last night. As I was going through my albums with them they were both drawn to my black and whites.

It became readily apparent they had not seen anything quite like them. Whilst other photographers offer black and white photography these stood out.

Why?

There are two flavours of black and white photography. The first is very common, and is produced by removing the colour from an image and printing it on normal colour paper media. This is done at a lab, or by using ink jet prints.

The second type is by hand printing using a dark room. This is old school. The images look distinctive because they use a Silver print process. VERY few wedding photographers in the world posses the skill to provide this work today.

We are one of the few.

Web views of the images do not give them justice, so when you come to visit me, if you are interested in this type of work, please let me know.

Photobooks and Coffee Table Books/Albums. Clearing the mystery for you.

Just finished meeting another couple and the question of albums came up, with the same confused coffeetable book/photobook query coming up.

First a little of my back ground. Many years ago I was an offset printer, and when the world "computerized" was involved in the fledgling DTP industry. This required me to be on both sides of the offset print industry, both in NZ and in Hong Kong. AFAIK I was one of the first photographers in KL to offer them to couples back when they were relatively unknown, and have followed the industry with some interest.

Hopefully this blog entry will help me de-myth this whole thing for you.

What are they?
These books are similar to any store bought book you may have sitting on your book shelf. They may have either a hard or soft cover, but inside the pages are normal flexible print pages. Photos are printed on them using "dry ink" technology, and are said to be "near offset printing" quality. They sometimes referred to as print on demand books. Printing is done using a high end, commercial "photo print" quality LASER printer. Kodak, HP, Fuji and Konica Minolta all offer them.

Advantages:

• Cost per page is low.
• You can print all sorts of ideas eg. Placemats, coasters, books, playing cards, business cards
• No need to make expensive plates like you do with off set printing.
  
• Ability to print "one off" editions of books

Availability:

• MANY places do them. e.g. Apple stores, photocopy shops, online shops like Photobooks or Pixart etc.
• For photographers there are high end suppliers like Asuka

Quality:

Good, provided you do not place the same image, printed from a real photo printer next to it. To be really brutally honest: Off set printing is NOT the best method of printing photos. I have viewed some of the best locally and internationally printed "photobook" style albums and have yet to see one that "rocks my world".

Issues:

• Laser printers are notoriously difficult to calibrate to give accurate colours.
  
• Most operators do not use colour profiles eg sRGB, AdobeRGB, therefore you play russian roulette as to whether your colours will match your expectations.
  
• Quality control of paper and toner spillage can yield problem pages.
• Paper, even when "high end" is usually no where near the quality of Fuji or Kodaks photo papers.

When I meet couples I show them the same album printed on both media. The difference in contrast, saturation, and clarity is apparent immediately. For that reason, most of my couples opt for real photo paper prints, whether colour or black and white.

Let me know if you found this helpful.

Sony Digital Alpha 900

When the Digital Alpha 900 was released in KL late 2008 I was privileged to be asked in as a guest speaker for the event. I spent several weeks honing a presentation on wedding photography that I had no real chance to get through as there were many questions from the floor.

I hope to got through these questions and my presentation here over the next few weeks. For those that tune in, let me know I am not typing to thin air ;-)

As for the Alpha. I got my hands on it before the release. All I can say is, WOW! Many people were surprised by this camera. Sony had done a great job in keeping the lid on it, and many of us had "forgotten" Minolta's heritage in the camera industry.

The first real autofocus SLR was a Minolta. When introduced, their multi flash control system was years a head of anything from Canon or Nikon. The D7 DSLR was very appealing to me with its retro styling, manly control knobs and overall feel. Poor marketing and pricing policies relegated Minolta to an also ran until Sony took over the camera division.

Whilst unlikely to pull Canons and Nikons from the hands of the faithful, this new camera really blew people away. It out resolved the only other +20Mp camera on the market, for USD5,000 less! That's a lot of change to throw into Carl Zeiss lenses!

Canon users likely have Sony to thank for the pricing of the 5DMk2. Nikon users are just annoyed at Nikons D3x strategy....there is a dead duck camera. Likely the first dim wit move Nikon has made in the past 2 years.

Sony also made some good moves on its lens range, by dropping the pricing on a lot of them to match the competition. The room was a live with the buzz from this. Exciting times for Sony users!

If they ever want to sponsor me, I am open :-)

Lets get this party started....

Been putting this off for years. Mostly due to a very heavy work load but also due to there being little enough to say which hasn't been said before. But then again, I have been asked by various people to write my thoughts on photography, so here we go. The whistle blows and we kick off.

A bit about me. I'm from a beautiful country called New Zealand, but have spent half my life travelling the world. Mostly in Asia, and in fact Malaysia has been my place of residence for 16 years.

I have done MANY varied and interesting things in my time. Photography is one of them. I guess this blog will be mostly about that, since it is photography that has gained me a degree of notoriety in this country. I got into it accidentally, and before I knew it I was in high demand with 50-60 wedding shoots a year. It also enabled me to have the privilege of flying overseas on shoots.

While it sounds glamourous but the amount of work that goes into it is staggering. More on that in later posts.

I will go through some of my rambling thoughts on the subject of photography. Feel free to comment, ask questions and leave feedback. This is a journey after all.

So thats it...short and sweet for now.