Ian Curcio

I've been looking at photography like music lately. I've heard musicians say they can hear the sound in their heads but they're not satisfied until they can get that same sound to come out of the speakers. Well I feel the same way about lighting a photograph. There are times I can see the light in my head and I'm not satisfied until I can see that same light in my prints. As photographers we need to learn to "feel" our light, much in the same way a musician "feels" their music.

No doubt we need to have our technical skills down. A musician doesn't just pick up a guitar or sit down at a piano and start producing timeless music without an understanding of the chords or notes, without knowing what A, B, C, D, E, F and G means. A photographer isn't going to pick up a camera and start creating mind-blowing images using flashes without an understanding of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, flash power and flash-to-subject-distance.

And in the same way musicians forget about all those technical aspects of music when they're grooving along and feeling the music, photographers need to be able to put all the technical aspects aside when shooting and groove along as they're feeling their light. You don't think Jimmy Page or Elton John knows each note by name as they are hitting them do you? They feel those notes, they feel what is coming next, they aren't always thinking about it. It's true that not all great musicians can read music and I don't think it's necessary for all great photographers to be able to spit out math equations all day long either. We need to learn our tools and then we need to feel with them.

I understand that can be easier said than done. I cannot tell you how many times I've been trying to find my groove when lighting something and I just keep failing at it miserably. It's during those times I start to doubt myself as a photographer. I think I suck and I have no business trying to put my name out into the industry's wave of professional photographers. But the truth is that not even the best musician can walk into the studio and complete a Grammy-award-winning album in one take. Hours are spent trying to perfect those sounds, tweaking those rifts, changing this and changing that and lighting anything in photography whether it's a person, building, plate of food, whatever, is exactly the same. It takes time, practice, trial and error and in the very end, even the most perfectly-technical lit picture isn't going to resonate with your viewers at all if you aren’t feeling your light.

Disclaimer: I shot the above photograph of Radiohead’s frontman Thom Yorke at Bonnaroo in 2006 and did not light it. Those are stage lights and I was one of about 50 photographers stepping on each other for the first three songs.

Posted by Ian at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

What do you do when you have an assignment in Chattanooga on energy and the Tennessee Valley Authority's 800-megawatts of electricity-generating-capacity expansion? You light it. I drove by the power grid the evening I arrived in town and figured out the sun was going to come up behind the grid in the morning. I don't always have time to location scout before shooting but when I do I try and take advantage of it. I decided to get up early and use the sun to silhouette the grid. I was trying to get an image that showed a massive amount of power. My thinking was that by lighting the rocks using a blue gel it would create a feeling of electricity and energy.

Here’s how it looked on the page:

Here’s a link to the virtual magazine: Southeast Resource

Posted by Ian at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've been working on an off-camera lighting workshop geared towards subject-and-location-driven lighting, which simply means working with what you have. I took artist Bailie out with me and we scouted a few locations. You can find interesting and cool places to photograph people just about anywhere. This location is not much more than an abandoned warehouse off of a four-lane highway in small town USA. It's bent and broken, grown over and spray painted. Most people would have driven right past it and not given it a second look. But when you start pulling lights out you can turn almost nothing at all into something worth looking at in a matter of minutes. This shot took about 15 minutes start to finish.

The white balance is set to Cloudy and it’s a basic two light set-up using Nikon Speedlights. The main light is set to quarter power with a grid spot, it's four feet above the subjects face and the light stand itself is about three feet away from him.

The second light, the back light, is set to full power with two CTO gels on it and simply stuck in the back of the sliding-metal door. I did have to flag it with a Tupperware top to keep the spill under control on his face. I wanted the separation but not a flood of orange light on his face.

It's all trail and error for the most part. I started with the ambient light. It's about 3 stops under, flat and kind of gray in the open shade. Once I was happy with the ambient light I worked on the back light. One CTO gel wasn't strong enough so I added a second gel. When the light on the inside of the sliding door was rich enough and the exposure was correct I added the subject and placed the main light. While working on the main light I noticed a good bit of the back light spilling over onto his face so I went back and added the gobo. A few more test shots while moving the main light up and down until I was able to control the shadow under his chin and I was ready to shoot. I came down off the dock after about 20 or so shots and started shooting through the overgrown weeds and trees coming out of the parking lot.

Posted by Ian at 09:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I travel the country I have a deep interest in photographing structures. Sometimes these are iconic structures and I’m photographing them for a magazine, which is a bonus because I'm getting paid. Sometimes I'm on vacation and I'm dragging my family around waiting for the perfect light, that's how these images were made.

The idea is to get something different than the mass images that are already out there. The Brooklyn Bridge has been around since 1883, it connects Brooklyn to Manhattan and has been photographed from every direction by almost every photographer living in or visiting the area. What could I do that was different? I knew before heading to NYC that I would only be there for one day. I was visiting family in Philadelphia for the New Year and only had a small window of opportunity. The first thing I did in my research was check the weather. I needed sunshine or at least a sunset, no clouds. We picked our day visiting the city based on this factor. I knew I wanted something with no people and saturated color. I also knew I wanted to get close, for me the skyline was not important, I wanted to focus on the bridge itself.

Here are the two shots I came home with. Shot with a Canon G10 in 4 degree weather.

Posted by Ian at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I show people images that I've made with my iPhone, I'm always asked, "what apps are you using?" Today I thought that I would share five that are in my heavy rotation. Each of these apps hold their own, but sometimes I find that I’ll run an image through three or more before posting it online or even printing it.

Photogene was the very first photo app I bought for my iPhone. Short of having a clone tool, it's very much like having Photoshop on your phone. My favorite features include crop, straighten/rotation, sharpen, levels, contrast, exposure, color balance and saturation, but it has many more. For the power behind this app, it was easy to lay down $2.99 for it.





The second photo app that found its way onto my iPhone was CameraBag. With filters like Helga, Colorcross, Lolo, 1974, 1962, Magazine and Instant, this app is a must if you like toy cameras and/or a fun vintage feel. It’s fast and simple to use and a great introduction into processing with iPhone apps. I recommend that if you only get one photo app, you spend the $1.99 on this one.





I was using Photogene and Camerbag on a regular basis when I was turned on to Photo fx. Photo fx has way too many features to go over in this review but it was the Center Spot and Grain filters that sold me on it. However you'll find plenty of other uses for this app. It must have at least 100 filters packed into it, ranging everywhere from black and white filters to old photo filters, filters that change the lens perspective to filters that change, night vision, fog, color graduations, the list just goes on and on. You can even upgrade this app for more filters and options. It’s another $2.99 app but I couldn’t imagine not having it.





TiltShift Generator is shortchanged in my opinion; a fantastic app that seems to be overlooked all the time. Its prime function for me is using it very much like a tilt-shift lens, being creative with selective focus. But it also has a powerful vignette filter and a great color filter allowing you control over saturation, brightness and contrast. For $0.99 you really can't afford not to have this tool in your iPhone Photo Bag.





Last on my list and used almost every time I process an image, is Best Camera. Find the app here and its community Web site here. This app has several stackable filters that can turn the worst of images into something you want to share with the world. It’s a romantic app with filter names like Jewel, Paris, Slate and Candy, it also allows you to add vignette, crops and borders. While I highly recommend this app and will easily call it one of my favorites, I must admit that I wish it allowed a little more user control on some of its features. Another $2.99 app that I don't think I could live without.

Find me chatting for 6:40 mintues about iPhone Photos here.

Follow my daily iPhone Photos - here

Posted by Ian at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was asked a few weeks ago if I would present in a series called Talk20 for Hub-Bub at the Showroom in Spartanburg SC. Talk20 is basically talking for six minutes and 40 seconds about a creative topic. You get 20 slides and 20 seconds to talk about each slide. I choose to yap about the iPhone as a suitable camera in the professional photographer's bag. It seemed appropriate; I've been shooting them like crazy lately. I'm not too sure about the video guy's steady-hand skills, it's a little shaky but it gets better about the 1:30 point or so.

Posted by Ian at 11:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)