I'm an advertising photographer based in Los Angeles, California. My mission is to create striking advertising photography, corporate photography and editorial photography of people for major advertising agencies, fortune 500 corporations and major magazines. I shoot photography and video assignments throughout California including Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego as well as the rest of the world. As a photo educator I am happy to share my unique vision and methods. I'm currently teaching classes at Santa Monica College in video production for professional photographers and photography students.
Posted: June 9th, 2010 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Agencyaccess, Apple, Beachtek, Education, Hoodman, K-tek, Litepanels, Manfrotto, Marshall Electronics, Panasonic, Rawworks, Redrock Micro, Sennheiser, SmartSound, Zeiss, video | Tags: Agencyaccess, Apple's Final Cut Studio, Beachtek, California advertising photographer, commercial photographers, Hoodman CF card, Lee White Photography, Manfrotto, marshall electronics HDMI monitors, Panasonic HMC-40, photography educator, Rawworks, Redrock Micro, Senniheiser, SmartSound, Zeiss lens | No Comments »
Secrets of Video Production for Photographers is coming to Charlotte on June 18 and 19. I’m looking forward to my first visit to what promises to be a charming city.
Friday night is going to be the APA evening presentation from 6:00pm to 9:00pm at Paradox Film & digital where I give a basic outline of the process of video production. I do this keeping in mind video is an additional component to a still production. I will discuss the techniques and tools needed to do video production. See http://charlotte.apanational.com for more details.
Saturday’s workshop is always fun and informative as I have more time to really get into video production. In the morning, we look at the basics from a different point of view and then build on those basics including when to call in a post house like Rawworks to help. In the early afternoon we do some lighting and camera techniques followed by a short commercial shoot with the latest equipment from Manfrotto, Panasonic, Ziess, Marshall Electronics, Redrock Micro, Beachtek, Sennhieser, K-Tek, Hoodman, and LaCie. I then take that video into Final Cut Studio, edit it and output it for various distribution methods. The day gives anyone interested in video production a good outline to follow in video productions. See www.tiny.cc/june18 for more details.
Video production is changing by the day and can be confusing to photographers just getting into motion. Having a working understanding of the overall picture, helps give the photographer getting into video production an understanding of how to judge what equipment and software to use.
Christopher Lozano www.tlsHollywood.com did this time lapse click (MOVIE) of the LA evening presentation.
Posted: May 26th, 2010 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Green | Tags: Apple's Final Cut Studio, California advertising photographer, Casio data projectors, Lee White Photography, photography educator | No Comments »
A word about the Secrets of Video Production for Photographers events and the data projectors I use to show my Powerpoint presentations and editing demonstrations. Some projectors were provided by the hosts, but I was lucky enough to have the compact Casio data projector XJ-S57 as a backup which on select occasions I had to call into service.
While Powerpoints don’t take a lot of processing, it takes quite a bit of processing power on the projectors part to show the Final Cut Studio editing demonstrations I do at a high resolution. The XJ-S57 handles my FCS demonstrations with ease.
The XJ-S57 is amazingly bright for its size and size is important when traveling. It is small enough to conveniently fit in with the rest of the precious camera equipment as carry on. It saved me several times when there were problems with the rented projectors at the venues.
Casio also has a new green XJ-A series of Eco-Friendly compact data projectors with a Solid-State light source. These new projectors use a mercury free laser-LED hybrid light source that is more ecologically friendly with better color. They are also more economical as the light source lasts much longer and for anyone who ever replaced a bulb in one of these projectors, they know it can easily cost $400 or more.
The new projectors also allow for quick startup/shutdown, which makes them easier to use than other projectors. Of course, they have maintained the slim design that makes them so convenient.
Posted: March 31st, 2010 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Apple, Education, Workflow, video | Tags: advertising photographer, Apple's Final Cut Studio, California advertising photographer, california photographers, commercial photographers, editorial photographer, Lee White, Lee White Photography, Los Angeles photographer, photography educator, Redrock Micro, Zeiss lens | No Comments »
Video production for photographers is coming to Chicago on April 16 and 17. I’m looking forward to the windy city right after visiting NAB in Las Vegas for a few days.
Friday night is going to be the APA evening presentation from 6:30pm to 9:00pm where I give a basic outline of the process of video production within a still production and the additional software and equipment needed. Richard Wiser of VMI Broadcast and Professional video said of the evening, “ I found the information accurate and interesting and your presentation top-notch.” See http://midwest.apanational.com for more details.
Saturday’s workshop is always fun and informative as I have more time to really get into video production. In the morning, we look at the basics from a different point of view and then build on those basics including about when to call in a post house like Rawworks to help. In the early afternoon we do some lighting and camera techniques followed by a short commercial shoot with the latest equipment from Manfrotto, Panasonic, Ziess, Marshall Electronics, Redrock Micro, Beachtek, Sennhieser, K-Tek, Hoodman, and LaCie. I then take that video into Final Cut Studio, edit it and output it for various distribution methods. The day gives anyone interested in video production a good outline to follow in their own productions. See www.tiny.cc/chiapr17 for more details.
Video production is changing by the day and can be confusing to photographers just getting into motion. Having a working understanding of the overall picture, helps give the photographer getting into video production a understanding of how to judge what equipment and software to use. Once the photographer is producing video, there are a number of ways to market their new skill set to current and potential clients.
Christopher Lozano www.tlsHollywood.com did this time lapse click (MOVIE) of the LA evening presentation.
Posted: March 3rd, 2010 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Apple, Education | Tags: advertising photographer, agency access, Apple's Final Cut Studio, California advertising photographer, K-tek, Lee White Photography, Los Angeles photographer, Manfrotto, photography educator, Rawworks, Redrock Micro, video production, Zeiss lens | No Comments »
©Lee White
The Secrets of Video Production for Photographers continues on to Seattle this week with two events at the Seattle Pacific University, 3307 3rd Ave W, Seattle, WA. After having a short break following three intense weeks giving presentations and workshops to hundreds of photographers in New York, Atlanta and Denver I’m ready to go again.
Plus I was not sitting back but rather collecting new equipment to test and show from Zeiss, RedrockMicro, K-tek, Sennhesier, Hoodman and talking with Rawworks about post-production. I also started instructing the first two weeks of my sixteen week college class in video production for photography students at Santa Monica College.
You will also see some new faces in my sponsors including Agency Access who I have used with great success to get my still and video work out to potential clients. Online is the way to best show your latest and greatest in video to potential clients and you need to keep updating them regularly.
If you are in the Seattle area I hope to see you at one of my events this week, please come up and introduce yourself. The next three series of events are happening in Seattle, Chicago and New Jersey.
For more information on my Seattle events and workshop see www.apanw.org or for just my Seattle workshop tiny.cc/seamar6.
Posted: January 31st, 2010 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Apple, Education, Workflow, video | Tags: Apple Computers, Apple's Final Cut Studio, commercial photographers, Lee White Photography, Los Angeles advertising photographer, photography educator, Redrock Micro, Sonicfire Pro, video, video production | No Comments »
My Saturday’s workshop was a fun and educational experience. In the morning, there were a few hours of chatting about video in general and the new skill set needed to estimate and shoot video along with stills. After a quick lunch provided by APA-LA, there was a simple combination photo/video lighting demonstration followed by a hands-on follow focus experience by each attendee.
I then set up a simple commercial spot production and shot clips to be edited into a commercial. Following the production, I delved into putting the clips together in Final Cut Studio to finish the commercial. First, I showed them how to transcode the HDSLR files into a more edit friendly format of ProRes422. You can skip this step with video clips from video cameras like the Panasonic. I brought the clips into Final Cut Pro to edit them into a sequence and did some color correction. I then showed a couple of output options.
Following all that, we had a chance to explore the Sonicfire Pro application and how it creates custom length royalty-free music.
I make sure every attendee to either my Thursday evening presentation or Saturday workshop gets a copy of the Sonicfire Pro application and five free multi-layered music tracks they can use commercially.
Posted: December 10th, 2009 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Apple, video | Tags: advertising photographer, California advertising photographer, california photographers, commercial photographers, Los Angeles advertising photographer, Los Angeles commercial photographer Lee White, Los Angeles photographer, photography educator | No Comments »
I hope you will all join me at the Advertising Photographers of America Los Angeles holiday event. You can hear about my up coming video production for photographers events coming in January.
The holidays are here and so is the end of the tax year. While you’re out getting gifts for everyone else, think about what you might like for a gift to yourself. With all the early mornings and late nights you spend happily toiling away at making images, you deserve to take advantage of whatever tax saving you can while getting the equipment and software that make your life easier. Of course, always check with your tax advisor before making purchases.
I want to remind you of the Apple Member Purchase Program available for APA members. Do any of us ever have enough computing power? The iPhone can be like an office in your pocket. I have fellow APA members that have their portfolios and videos on their iPhones to show anytime and anyplace, plus they can email images to potential clients in an instant.
Adbase has a load of services for your online marketing needs and is offering 25% until December 30th. Call to see how this fits in with the 15% APA members get as a membership benefit. Make sure you know what your needs are and how they can help you before signing up. Check out their website and don’t be afraid to call them to get answers to all your questions. The phone number is on the home page.
Zeiss is quickly developing a line of Canon ZE lenses with two new additions of the Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and 2/100. Both macro lenses render objects in close-up on a scale of 1:2. To enable such detail, these lenses include Carl Zeiss’s acclaimed “floating elements” design. This special lens alignment enables high optical performance across the entire focusing range, from 0.24 m to infinity as in the case of the 2/50 ZE lens. The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 and Makro-Planar T* 2/100 are currently available for F bayonet (ZF) and K bayonet (ZK) cameras. The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 is also available as a ZF.2 version. Both lens systems are optimized for analog and full-format digital SLR cameras.
The Makro-Planar T* 2/50 ZE will begin shipping in December 2009 and the Makro-Planar T* 2/100 ZE will be available in early 2010.
There are loads more local and national member benefits at the Los Angeles chapter website apa-la.com under the drop down menu MEMBERSHIP
Posted: November 30th, 2009 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Apple, Education, Lighting, Workflow, video | Tags: Apple's Final Cut Studio, Beachtek, digital video, Lee White, Lee White Photography, Los Angeles photographer, photographers learning video production, photography educator, post production, professional photographer, SmartSound, video editing, video production, videography by photographer, videography for photographers, Zeiss lens | No Comments »
In the last year, the idea of photographers producing video has exploded and photographers are now gearing up to take advantage of this interest. As advertisers and magazines turn to video on the web, cable and mobile devices to get out their message, there are more opportunities than ever for you to do video in tandem with your photography to capture new clients and sell video services to existing clients.
Producing video creates a fundamental change in your workflow, so you need new tools and techniques to take the step from photography to video. You need to learn what the new technologies mean to you from a photographer’s point of view. This is why Lee White has created two events to help guide you into video. The first is a two–hour evening event that will go over the steps you as a photographer need to know to create video productions. The second is a one-day workshop that will go in-depth about each step so you can start producing your own video.
The Thursday evening will include:
Companies showing the latest in video equipment and software for video suitable for photographers getting into video.
A raffle for a copy of Apple’s Final Cut Studio editing software
FREE SOFTWARE: SmartSound will give each attendee a free copy of their Sonicfire Pro 5 software along with free royalty-free music.
A presentation that covers:
- The photographer’s unique position for this new market
- The creative planning stage and new concepts photographers need to think about
- Pre-production considerations when planning a video shoot
- Understanding lighting, filming and sound techniques for video
- Post-production in the photographer’s studio
The Saturday workshop will include:
- How photographers can apply their present skills to video
- The importance of workflow including recording formats
- Estimating and planning combined photography and video productions
- Tools and techniques of video production
- Camera, lighting and grip equipment demonstrations
- Editing demonstrations
For more information on the workshop visit: Video Workshop
LEE WHITE is presently instructing two college classes on HD video production for photographers at Santa Monica College. One is an intensive six-week class for professionals and the other is a sixteen-week class for photography students at the college. Lee has been a professional advertising photographer for more than thirty years. While still a student at Art Center, College of Design, he shot images for movie posters for Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount. Shortly after starting his professional career, he became involved with photomatics for companies such as Mattel plus shooting on set and so began his career-long adventure with narrative imaging. Over a decade ago, Lee started shooting digital video for clients and has experienced video production on all levels from feature films to simple web content.
Los Angeles events:
Thursday, January 14 evening presentation
6pm-9pm
5th and Sunset Studios
12322 Exposition Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 900064
Saturday, January 16 workshop
10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Helms Daylight Studio
3221 Hutchin Ave #E,
Los Angeles, CA 90034
For more information on the workshop visit: Video Workshop
Denver events:
Thursday, January 28 evening presentation
6 pm – 9 pm
Saturday, January 30 workshop
10 am – 5 pm
Sponsored by:
Posted: October 7th, 2009 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Canon 7d, video | Tags: advertising photographer, California advertising photographer, California coast, california photographers, Canon 7d, first production Canon 7d model in US, hybrid video, Lee White, Los Angeles photographer, photography educator, video | No Comments »
Canon 7d the new DSLR with expanded video capabilities; I just received one of the first production Canon 7d cameras in the US. It probably comes as no surprise to most of my clients and professional friends, since I have been shooting tandem stills and video in my projects for a decade now, that I would be one of the first to get this camera. In fact if you look back a few blog entries, you will find I announce the 7d just a few hours after Canon officially announced it in Sweden in the middle of our night. Why Sweden? I have no idea. I like Sweden; I have shot in Sweden and found it a beautiful and welcoming country.
Since many of my projects include video as well as stills, a DSLR with good video capabilities was something I am very interested in. Yes, I shot with the Canon 5d MarkII and found it somewhat lacking in a few critical areas. Mainly it was restricted to the one HD format of 1080p (progressive) at a true 30FPS, which is a non-standard frame rate for anything. Plus the sound is not only automatic gain controlled but also recorded in 44,100 kHz, which is CD quality instead of 48,000 kHz, which is digital video quality.
The canon 7d has taken care of the format issues by giving us five HD formats – Full HD in1080p at 23.976, 1080p at 25 and 1080p at 29.97, HD in 720p at 59.94 and 50, all of which are standards for NTSC and PAL, see one of the images below. The audio is still automatic gain control but has been bumped up to a DV standard of 48,000 kHz in linear PCM. At this point, I should probably bring up the chip size which is the smaller 22.3 x 14.9 AFS-C which some might think is not the direction to be going in but I find it a positive move. This is near the same size as 35mm movie film and so the look is very similar. One of the problems I found shooting with the Mark II was the depth of field at times was so shallow that even trained actors would shift slightly and end up out of focus on close-ups. Remember the auto focus is virtually non-existent shooting video with these cameras; you need to manually pull focus if you are tracking focus.
The controls on the camera body have changed as well. The on and off switch has moved to just below the mode dial and there is just a lock switch where the on, off and lock used to be. I guess this prevents one from turning the camera off when trying to unlock the settings. There is now a dedicated liveview shooting button that also turns on and off the video recording. The print button has the added feature of being a one touch Raw-Jpeg button. Another completely new button is the Quick Menu button that gives you quick menu in the LCD to change shooting functions.
Canon 7d back showing video formats
Enough tech stuff; what about shooting with the 7d and the images? I was looking forward to trying one of the new Zeiss prime lenses out with the first outing with the 7d but no joy there. I ended up using my trusted Canon EF 24-105 mm f/4 lens but remember the smaller sensor creates a 1.6 magnification. A side note: you can do a decent job of zooming and short follow focus with this lens if you give yourself a bit room to start as the lens seems to jerk a little at the beginning. I wanted to test the contrast range with the 7d considering the 5d has been noted for crushing the blacks so I picked a friend’s gloss black and chrome classic Harley-Davidson (see the video test below) for a dramatic subject. The 7d does show a real time histogram with livepicture in the still mode, but there is no realtime histogram in the video mode. After shooting a bit of footage, I took a look at its histogram and there still appears to be some crushing of the blacks although the highlights seem to have very full gradations and there is good rendition through to the lower values. This is a very unsophiscated real world test but I’m not sure how valuable shooting color charts are either.
Classic Harley_Davidson on Canon 7d
The weekend brought almost 30MPH winds to the California coast preventing my doing the girl at the beach test I did with the 5d. However, it did bring some angry seas with interesting waves, so I tried the different formats to get an idea of the motion representations. I also braved the wind out on the break water to get some clips of the seagulls floating on the winds to get another motion test of the three NTSC HD formats (see sample clips below of coastline, wave and seagulls.)
The clips were converted for the web and so don’t fully represent the original footage which would be impossible to stream. Videos by www.leewhitephoto.com
New Canon 7d camera used by Los Angeles photographer Lee White to shoot video along California coast.
1080p @ 30FPS
1080p @ 24 FPS
720p @ 60FPS
1080p @ 30 FPS
1080p @ 30 FPS
1080p @ 24 FPS
720p @ 60 FPS
Posted: August 31st, 2009 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Canon, Education, video | Tags: 5d Mark II, advertising photographer, CA, California, California advertising photographer, california photographers, Canon, Canon 5d, college class in video, college instructor, commercial photographers, dramatic lighting, editorial photographer, Lee White, location photographer, Los Angeles, Los Angeles advertising photographer, narrative, people photography, photography, photography educator, portrait, Redrock Micro, video | No Comments »
As a professional advertising photographer in Los Angeles, video production was a craft that has been around me daily. I photographed the print side of commercials and shot specials on set working closely with the crew. Then almost a decade ago, I saw the desirability of shooting video to extend my creative range and supply clients with more creative services along with my photography. I first shot in standard definition and now shoot in high definition with incredible tools such as the very cinematic Canon 5d Mark II. As the internet was starting to become fast enough to play clips and cable had a growing need for material, my clients have increasingly asked for video shot with my “photographer’s eye”.
I have taken my skills in lighting, composition and mise-en-scene and applied them to the continuous narrative that is video. I first sought out video editors to learn what was needed to join clips together to tell a flowing story. If you know where you want to end up, it is much easier to get there. As I learned editing, it allowed me to understand what needs to be shot and how it needs to edit together. From there it has been practice, shooting for clients and watching the trends in films, commercials and on the web. It has come to a point where I teach a college course for professional photographers who want to learn video.
I’m using a Canon 5d Mark II on a rig by Redrock Mirco. Photo by the well known retoucher Dennis Dunbar.
Lee White using Canon 5d in video mode with Redrock Micro gear.
Posted: April 19th, 2009 | Author: Lee White | Filed under: Canon, Education | Tags: advertising photographer, CA, California, california photographers, canon G9, commercial photographers, editorial photographer, Lee White, Los Angeles photographer, people photographer, photography educator, Santa Barbara City College, Ventura College, video interview | No Comments »
Advertising, editorial, and corporate photography is the main stay of my Los Angeles advertising photography studio’s work. Since many of my assignments as a corporate and magazine photographer include a video interview, it was natural I would be asked to help out at Ventura College and Santa Barbara City College during video projects. Being involved with photography education, I always feel privileged to assist other educators.
ESL teacher Kari Tudman presenting at CATESOL conference
Los Angeles advertising photographer Lee White presenting at CATESOL conference.
The
CATESOL presentation was given by the well-known ESL teacher, Kari Tudman who used producing a video in class as a classroom community building project. During the class project, I assisted Kari and the students with technical advice and a second camera when needed. Kari and the students did the bulk of the work themselves and a good job at that. The two videos turned out very funny and the students really enjoyed working together. I then did a slight reedit, grading and sweetening of the projects at my Los Angeles photography studio to prepare the two videos for presentation in a large conference room. I also helped out at the presentation to make sure there were no technical problems and answer a few questions.
Photography hints: With over fifteen years of experience in photography education, I find I have benefited as much as I have contributed to any class. Take the opportunity to share your knowledge and give to your community.
Hoodman USA