Joe McNally picks on Canon @ PhotoPlus Expo - NYC

Last Friday I've attended Joe McNally's seminar at the PhotoPlus Expo here in NYC. The topic of the seminar was Location Photography & Lighting.

Half-way through the seminar, he began improvising by using a person from the audience as a model, and shot them on-stage in realtime, while the images were transferred onto the projectors for all to see.

One of the audience members raised his hand and asked whether he was transferring them via wi-fi. Joe promptly responded "It's a USB cable". "Why not use wireless?" asked the audience member again, to which Joe replied "It's a convention center, there are far too many frequencies in use. I wouldn't want to interfere with someone's signal. I used wireless here last year, and got into a small incident, because one of my images got transferred to the Canon booth, and showed up on all of their screens. The folks at Canon were shocked to see an image so sharp from corner-to-corner."

Clever, witty, on-the-spot.

What also interested me in the seminar is the shear amount of technical questions asked by the audience. Whilst Joe was on the stage, improvising with SB800s, and diffusing the light, bouncing it, etc. All that the audience seemed to be concerned with is "What ISO are you using?", "what white balance settings do you have?", or "what metering are you set to?". To all three of them, Joe seemed puzzled, and said "You know, I haven't even checked".

Most of the audience, it seems, seemed preoccupied with technicalities instead of paying attention to what he was doing - photography. Improvising, studying his light and how it sculpts the human face. But the audience couldn't seem to understand that there was more to Joe's pictures than just aperture and white balance.

Just thought I'd share my thoughts (and laughs).

That was one quick comment from Joe, gotta love it, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if it was completely true.

As to your comment regarding the questions he recieved, I wish I could say I was surprised. Go to a seminar by a guy like Joe and ask ISO questions, sheesh. I went to a much smaller show locally this weekend and attended a 1-hour talk on Workflow, same thing, many questions having nothing at all to do with the subject at hand. Some folks just want to hear themselves talk, i think.

Thanks for the morning chuckle.

--
Bill Dewey
http://www.deweydrive.com

gordonf238 said:

One of the audience members raised his hand and asked whether he was
transferring them via wi-fi. Joe promptly responded "It's a USB
cable". "Why not use wireless?" asked the audience member again, to
which Joe replied "It's a convention center, there are far too many
frequencies in use. I wouldn't want to interfere with someone's
signal. I used wireless here last year, and got into a small
incident, because one of my images got transferred to the Canon
booth, and showed up on all of their screens. The folks at Canon
were shocked to see an image so sharp from corner-to-corner."

Click to expand...

You know I always thought Canon being a consumer electronics company was far less insular than Nikon folks but after reading this I guess that's not the case.

gordonf238 wrote:
[snip]

gordonf238 said:

What also interested me in the seminar is the shear amount of
technical questions asked by the audience. Whilst Joe was on the
stage, improvising with SB800s, and diffusing the light, bouncing it,
etc. All that the audience seemed to be concerned with is "What ISO
are you using?", "what white balance settings do you have?", or "what
metering are you set to?". To all three of them, Joe seemed puzzled,
and said "You know, I haven't even checked".

Most of the audience, it seems, seemed preoccupied with
technicalities instead of paying attention to what he was doing -
photography. Improvising, studying his light and how it sculpts the
human face. But the audience couldn't seem to understand that there
was more to Joe's pictures than just aperture and white balance.

Click to expand...

That doesn't surprise me in the least. Check out any thread here when someone posts really nice pics. The same questions usually come up. Very few people ask about the light, or how the photographer worked with his subjects. It's usually, "what were your settings," or "what lens," or "can you post the EXIF?"

larsbc

Then again, if you read any of the camera reviews here on DPREVIEW, they're all about technicalities. Bayer interpolation, buffer size, FPS rate, etc. And rightfully so. Cameras are 100% technical in every respect. However, cameras are just tools, and no matter how good a camera, it's the eye behind it that really matters.

it's a pity that more people don't use these technicalities as an aid in helping them take good pictures, but instead let these technicalities be the governing factors in their photography. Instead of seeing light, structure, texture, perspective, most people think "what's the right WB for this shot?" Or "which one of my lenses would best capture it?" Etc.

It's a flawed approach to photography in my opinion, because photography is an art first, and a technical venture second.

Anyone who thinks EXIF data will help them take better pictures will remain a hopeful hobbyist for the rest of their life.

...can be said about a huge segment of DPReview forum members! Very little photography going on.

MK914 said:

...can be said about a huge segment of DPReview forum members! Very
little photography going on.

Click to expand...

True. At least there are some forums here more focused on photographic results. So it's not totally technical. But if people want to read and write about technical aspects, that's their choice. It probably won't make them better photographers, but why should you care?

Why do you care if he cares??



--
Peace,
Wayne

The world's a large place, with plenty of room for everybody.

http://www.waynesfotos.com

I would love to spend time with some of these great photographers just watching how they work. Most of all trying to work out how they 'see' their shots and how they find the light.

For me I think it would be wonderfull to be able to look out through their eyes for 5 minutes....

Last year at photoshopworld in Boston, I had the great pleasure of seeing a roundtable discussion on the state of the state in photography with Joe, John Paul Caponigro, Vincent Versace, Moose Peterson, the always phenomenal Jay Maisel and two others that I did not know. This was one of the most impressive presentations and discussions I have witnessed and no tech questions everyone was in stunned mode. each presenter produced a slide show and discussion on material that they were not known for. Eg. versace did travel and caponigro did "unmanipulated" shots.

But.... I did see James Natchwey earlier in the year present a moving display of his 3rd world work and the first question was "film or digital" his answer?
" it's about the image, not the camera".

dale
--
“I don’t know what young means, you’re alive or not” HCB

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heydale

Mr Steve said:

MK914 said:

...can be said about a huge segment of DPReview forum members! Very
little photography going on.

Click to expand...

True. At least there are some forums here more focused on
photographic results. So it's not totally technical. But if people
want to read and write about technical aspects, that's their choice.
It probably won't make them better photographers, but why should you
care?

Click to expand...

Conflating simple observation with "caring." Interesting take.

are ones where I have set up the lighting all nice, got the subject in position, started talking to them , getting them to relax, open up, then I scratch my head and realise my camera is still locked up in the safe. TBH once you have all the elements together for a photo, the actual camera, lens, sensor or even film does not account for all that much at all.

im glad some people still get it
this bothers me for years on this forum i observe mostly for that reason
there used to be many more pros on here in the beginning

today its all redundant repetitive technical nonsense questions at least to a large extent

what bothers me most when people ask about iso etc from others its allways these non real life comparisons

i like to hear from a real pro photographer who used this camera in lowlight at a job and was able to get good results posts a sample as a proof

you look at the proof is it pleasing to the eye will it work printed out and there you go

then id rather know about his insider tip about how he was able to use this technique to get this great shot or a great PP approach to enhancing the pic etc.

just my thoughts on the matter
now what was the ISO he used ?
--
Simonsays smile

That's pretty funny.

I cant agree more, Photography is about taking great pictures. Yet so many people get caught up in the technical aspects that they may miss a nice shot.

It is the same thing that happens in music, what strings did he use, what guitar or bass, instead of opening your heart and letting the music come through. In the words of the late great band, The Cure, just follow your eyes, follow your eyes. Jim

what kind of camera was he using?

...and what Lars wrote in his reply above.

gordonf238 said:

it's a pity that more people don't use these technicalities as an aid
in helping them take good pictures, but instead let these
technicalities be the governing factors in their photography.
Instead of seeing light, structure, texture, perspective, most people
think "what's the right WB for this shot?" Or "which one of my
lenses would best capture it?" Etc.

It's a flawed approach to photography in my opinion, because
photography is an art first, and a technical venture second.

Anyone who thinks EXIF data will help them take better pictures will
remain a hopeful hobbyist for the rest of their life.

Click to expand...

--
Cheers,

Alex
http://rundadar.smugmug.com

'...turtles are great speed enthusiasts, which is natural.'
J. Cortazar

...where you hve control over those elements... That isn't true for all of us.

--
Guy

My 'work' photos are at http://swarbrick.com/photos
The 'fun' stuff is at http://www.flickr.com/photos/swarbrick

Equipment in profile

Thank you very much for this!

It's the same here in Belgium where people are debating the quality of the d3/d300, ... without ever used/see one. When you post a pic, it's the same: "could you share the exif-info?"

I'm having my first exhibition with pictures of Costa Rica and Uganda. I'm getting fine comments but at a moment someone was amazed about my mountain gorilla pics and asked how the heck I did it. When I said "everything on automatic because I was afraid to do something wrong" he was in shock...

My personal opinion is that since the introduction of digital photography a lot of people are debating about technical stuff and not about the pictures. Reason? Maybe their lack of basic knowledge (aperture/shutter speed, iso). For what's worth: after all these years, I'm still struggling with this myself but at least I enjoy going out in nature and take those pics!

Rudy