Benson Photo's Blog

New Jersey State Taxation Building

Today, Tax Day, April 15 found me in the capital of New Jersey, Trenton, photographing an office building. As coincidence would have it, the state Taxation Building was nearby.

Down the street at the New Jersey State House, tea party protesters gathered to protest taxes.

I don’t know anyone who loves taxes, but as Ben Franklin said, “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”

Tea Party Protesters in Trenton, NJ

Protest at New Jersey State House.

Protest at New Jersey State House

The Penn Law Journal, an alumni magazine, wanted a cover shot featuring six graduates from the class of 2009. The group photograph was shot for the cover of the magazine. The article on these students also featured a photograph of each of them with their families. The families were only available on graduation and both the group shot and the photos with the families had to be shot on the same day.

Cover of Fall 2009 Issue of Penn Law Journal

The day of Commencement we were under a time constraint and in a crowded public space where we had to create the high production value group portrait. The group photo was scouted with the art director and planned prior to the event. The art director helped select and approve the best view that would show six people in black gowns in the ornate setting of the Academy of Music, where the graduation ceremony is held. Because there was an event before the Law School graduation, our time to set up and shoot was limited.

Coordinating with each of the students and their families, we set times and locations to meet them.

Taking into account everyone’s schedules and also allowing time for each setting, locations were chosen at the Law School and near the Academy of Music.

The settings switch from indoor to outdoor and because they were shot during different times of the day, a range of visual variety was possible.

It is worth noting that the Law Journal’s piece succeeds in being a testament to the diversity of students that the school attracts. Each of the family groups is so different. While at different stages of their life’s journey, all of these graduates are commencing their careers at the same time.

To read more about these students see the online version of the Fall 2009 issue of Penn Law Alumni Journal.

Observant visitors might notice that there have been a few minor changes to the blog’s layout, and that the blog has also gained a search feature (see right sidebar).

Blogger’s recent announcement that it would stop supporting publishing blogs via ftp forced us to scramble to re-set up the blog using WordPress. The happy news is that this change adds more functionality (the blog is now fully searchable), and we are no longer at the mercy of our blog service pulling the proverbial rug from under our proverbial feet.

All direct links to blog entries should be the same as they were before the change, so bookmarks and external links should not be broken. As with all changes there might be some minor things that we will be continuing to tweak over the coming weeks, please let us know if anything seems odd or is broken.

It is always helpful to have the final use of a photograph in mind during the planning stages and during a shoot. For instance if images are destined to only be used on the web, simple compositions shot in landscape format often work better.

For a much larger size like a billboard some of the same considerations, like simplicity, are relevant. In addition, quality and resolution are important factors in producing a photograph for a billboard. Format and orientation are often prescribed by an existing layout. Billboards are large budget projects and the client will typically already have approved the final design by the time we get involved in the project.

For an on-going campaign we have photographed some of Saint Joseph’s University’s successful alumni. This billboard campaign, created by Articus Ltd. , features tight portraits of notable alumni.

Named as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2009, Sister Mary Scullion is cofounder of Project H.O.M.E.. Project H.O.M.E. describes itself as a program that “empowers people to break the cycle of homelessness, address the structural causes of poverty, and attain their fullest potential as members of society.”

The most recent billboard shows Dr. Ray Washington, class of 1991. For Dr. Washington, playing for St. Joseph’s demanding basketball team and simultaneously pursuing a pre-med major, made medical school easier by comparison.

Webdesigner Depot is toasting Photoshop on it’s 20th anniversary with a wonderful trip down memory lane that traces each of the many versions leading up to the current CS4.

Greg can fondly remember version 2.0 that came on a floppy disk and ran on a Mac with an 80MB hard drive.

For me the journey starts in 1998 with Photoshop 5 and 5.5 which was released just a year later and included the new “Save for Web” feature. This all coincided with my first year at Drexel University.

I had never owned my own computer until that time and Drexel’s policy required all students to have one of their own. I jumped in headfirst and stumbled through many clumsy attempts at webdesign, inescapably leading to Photoshop, image slices, and the “Save for Web” function.

“Save for Web” was also part of ImageReady, a companion program to Photoshop that has since been absorbed by Photoshop itself. At that time it never would have occurred to me that my new passions would eventually lead me back to my childhood love of photography.

One fun thing that Webdesigner Depot does not cover is that each of the more recent version of Photoshop have shipped with the “About” screen Adobe used in-house during the development of that version. This easter egg can be seen if you hold Command+Option+Shift while clicking on “About Photoshop” in the menu (substitute Control for Command on a Windows machine). My favorite was always Venus in Furs from Photoshop 6. A short history of these hidden splash screens can be found here. The current version, Photoshop CS4, has the above Stonehenge hidden screen.

While reading news about Google Books proposed copyright settlement, I decided to check out Google Books. On their home page are covers of various books and magazines including the tabloid, Weekly World News. That prompted me to recall a Weekly World News headline from the past, “Actual Photo of Jesus Found”. Searching Google Books with the phrase, “actual photo of Jesus Weekly World News”, bingo I found it.

The article claims that a photograph of Jesus had been found that was taken by a primitive Roman “camera obscura.”

Since it is established that the first known photograph was taken in 1826 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, it is a pure hoax to report that a photograph exists from Roman times. However the tabloid Weekly World News has never let facts stand in the way of a good story.

Just to see if Google Books could find high-minded material as well as low brow tabloid material, I searched for Eisenstein’s Special Theory of Relativity and found the 1921 English translation of his work.

While writers and publishers debate the pros and cons of Google capturing and distributing their content, for the end user, Google Books provides a treasure trove of low and high culture to rummage through.

Community Room. DeKalb Apartments, East Norriton, PA.

Sharing costs can make photographing your projects more affordable. The community room pictured above belongs to an apartment complex that we photographed for the builder, the architect, and Scully Company, the property owner.

DeKalb Apartments, East Norriton, PA.

The typical costs of hiring a photographer for a project include the creative fee, assistant, travel costs, post-production costs, and the license to use those photographs for a specific use and a specific time period. Most often when a the project is a building or site there are multiple parties involved and all those entities may be interested in documentation of the work that they have done. All costs except for the licensing can be split.

Community Room. DeKalb Apartments, East Norriton, PA.

These shared projects provide a great value to our clients as it allows some of the cost to be divided between them.

DeKalb Apartments, East Norriton, PA.

Even on a smaller budget, it is possible to have beautiful, high impact, professional photographs if two or more parties are interested in sharing the costs.

Sample Unit. DeKalb Apartments, East Norriton, PA.

Originally part of a convent, this space was renovated to create a library for Princeton Academy. Photographing this library for our client, E. Allen Reeves was a challenge because it is a large space that is rarely empty. We were able to shoot during a lull in scheduled activities.

Fall is upon us. Leaves are changing colors and dropping to the ground. While wandering the narrow streets of Center City Philadelphia near 11th and Spruce Streets, I shot these autumn ginkgo trees. Ginkgos are one of my favorite trees.

They are descended from very ancient trees and are one of the oldest types of deciduous trees. Their simple fan-like leaves have a simpler vein pattern than oaks or maples. Resistant to pollution, disease and insects, they thrive in urban environments. More information can be found at Wikipedia.

The above living room was photographed for Automatic Empire, a real estate developer that specializes in creating high-end residential spaces in Northern Liberties, Philadelphia.

Greg worked directly with the client to style the spaces to match their aesthetic.

Earlier this year we photographed another Automatic Empire project and showcased the kitchen and the innovative metallic exterior.