At Vista Point, we filmed scenes of Li Jing as Qiu Jin practicing Tai Chi and reading by a tree, mirroring those we shot in April with Melissa as Young Qiu Jin. The following day, we were at Berkeley’s Tilden Park for the Chinese Women’s Army. We had 34 extras for the army scene, all dressed in black kung fu uniforms. Led by Li Jing, the troops were drilled in wushu basics and taught female empowerment.

We got some great footage and some wonderful photographs, which you can see below. Thanks go out to Eric, JP, Edna and Erik, and Petrice for organizing and helping out with the shoot. Finally, big shout out to the members of the Chinese Women’s Army. You all did a fantastic job, and we couldn’t have pulled it off without you!

Click the link below to see photos from the shoot!

• Li Jing practices Tai Chi at Vista Point.
• Li Jing practices Tai Chi at Vista Point.
• Li Jing practices Tai Chi at Vista Point.
• Li Jing at Vista Point
• Reading a book at Vista Point
• Li Jing is Qiu Jin in Autumn Gem
• Li Jing
• Training the Chinese Women’s Army
• The Chinese Women’s Army practices basics
• Li Jing leads the troops
• One, two, one two!
• On their own
• The Chinese Women’s Army
• The Chinese Women’s Army
• Li Jing demonstrates her considerable skills to the Chinese Women’s Army.
• Li Jing demonstrates her considerable skills to the Chinese Women’s Army.
• Group photo
• Li Jing as Qiu Jin
• Li Jing as Qiu Jin
• Qiu Jin and the Fan Woman
• Qiu Jin dressed as a man
• Our picnic and film shoot location at Tilden Park!

The Photo Review: How to prepare, organize and survive: Five Days at Fotofest

The popularity of Photo Review Sessions has risen over the past few years, but all follow a common format and schedule. Photographers are given a 20 minute meeting slot with a reviewer and making the best use of those 20 minutes can be a challenge. Mark Jaremko attended Fotofest in Houston back in March, where he participated in 24 reviews over four days. There were many things that he learned in Houston that he wished he knew before getting on the plane; this presentation is a summary of that experience and lessons learned.
 
Mark will cover:

• Different Photo Review venues, both locally and in the US.
• Who should and who should not attend these reviews, the different styles of photograph that reviewers are most interested in.
• What’s involved with preparing, your portfolio, presentation and other collateral that you should bring.
• How to structure your 20 minute review slot, having clear goals for the review, deciding what body of work to show, making sure you don’t run out of time. The kind of feedback that you can expect.
• The kinds of follow-up you should be prepared for after the event.

Portable Flash Photography

Gary Cruz, a weekend photographer, moved to San Francisco in 1999 during the dot com days as a webmaster, but his passion was always with videography and photography. While the computer industry payed the bills, he continued to explore photography. It wasn’t until he got his first digital SLR, the Canon 10D, when he first started taking his photography more seriously.

Comfortable with both natural and artificial light, he has been striving to take his photos to the next level with strobes (both studio and portable) and is happy to share his tips and techniques. He will cover the following topics:

• Intro - Studio lights at home, 580ex for location
• Examples - Select photos from fashion, dance, events, and portraits
• Gear - What is in the lighting bag (580ex, PW, stands, modifiers, etc.)
• ST-E2 vs Pocket Wizards
• Editing workflow - Aperture / Photoshop workflow
• Tips / Links

If you want to check out more of Gary’s photos, visit his photoblog at www.garycruz.com or his photography site at www.amazestudios.com

SmugMug Monthly Assignment: PLAY

Play for fun or play for keeps. The winner will get a free 1-year Pro account subscription on SmugMug for having the best photo of the group!

Only new photographs taken from the previous meeting date to the next meeting date will be accepted.

Location

Cordura Hall 100
210 Panama Street
Stanford, CA 94309

Cordura Hall is on the corner of Campus Drive and Panama Street. Park in the lot across the street. Cordura 100 is next to the courtyard between Ventura Hall and Cordura Hall.

A photo of Melissa, who’s playing the role of a young Qiu Jin. Click on the photo above to see the other posters we’ve made for the documentary.

See more photos after the fold.

We are currently looking for supporting actors and extras for various scenes to be filmed in the Bay Area during weekends in May and/or June. If you or someone you know fits into one of these categories and would like to be an extra, send us an email at info(at)qiu-jin.com

1. Asian men (able to pass for Chinese) with shaved heads, 20’s - 30’s yrs. old. Both non-speaking and Mandarin-speaking roles. We will need about 7-10 people to play soldiers and scholars.

   Filming dates: May 10-11, 17-18 (Note: Extras do not need to be present for all days, most likely 1-2 days, 3-4 hours each day.)
   Location: Santa Clara and San Jose

2. Asian men (able to pass for Chinese) with short or slicked back hair, 20’s - 30’s yrs. old. We will need about 10 people to play students.

   Filming dates: May 10-11, 9:00 am - 12:00 pm.
   Location: Hakone Gardens, Saratoga

3. Asian women (able to pass for Chinese), teens - 30’s yrs. old with knowledge of wushu basics. All levels welcome, from beginner to advanced. We will need about 40 people to play soldiers training in the Women’s Army.

   Filming date: Sunday, May 4, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
   Location: Tilden Park, Berkeley

4. Asian men with shaved heads, 40’s-60’s yrs. old.

   Filming dates: May 10-11, 17-18 (Note: Extras do not need to be present for all days, most likely 1-2 days, 3-4 hours each day.)
   Location: Santa Clara and San Jose

5. Asian women, 40’s-60’s yrs. old.

   Filming dates: May 10-11, 17-18 (Note: Extras do not need to be present for all days, most likely 1-2 days, 3-4 hours each day.)
   Location: Santa Clara and San Jose

Extras will be provided meals and a free copy of the DVD when completed!

I’ve been getting better about my electronic purchases these days. In the past, however, I’ve made some questionable decisions. The other day, I dropped off a box full of e-waste to the Goodwill trailer in the Valley Fair parking lot. Yes, the same parking lot where my hubcaps were stolen from my car a month ago.

Some of the items in the e-waste grab box included a RIM BlackBerry 957, a Nokia 8860, a Sony Ericsson t68i with a busted LCD screen, a USB 1.0 hub, a drained UPS, a wireless router with a fried chip, broken mice, and even a Ricochet SE wireless modem! Gadgets and accessories that once cost hundreds of dollars are now practically worthless. Such is the price of technological progress!

What pieces of technology have you recently retired? What’s the oldest gadget you’ve got still running? I am still using my 11-year old Newton eMate 300 as an alarm clock!

• All of the e-waste that I donated to Goodwill. What once cost hundreds of dollars now is nearly worthless.
• Broken mice, slow hubs, drained batteries. Some things don’t last forever.
• My e-waste all packed up and ready to go.
• I donate a bunch of e-waste to the Goodwill truck in the Valley Fair parking lot.

Albums by NayaCo

Naya Yacko will present her company, NayaCo, which produces professionally designed albums for professional photographers.

NayaCo has the heart of a photographer, mind of a technologist and creativity of an innovator. That’s how we started — a team of three. The photographer was frustrated with album companies and their complex price lists, unreliable quality and poor service. She couldn’t run her business that way and wondered how they could. With the help of the technologist and product innovator, NayaCo was founded in 2002. This small team rapidly grew and revolutionized the expectations of photographers with simple and easy personal service. They introduced a family of vibrant products and services that enable photographers to expand sales to clients and build lasting relationships.

Naya will cover the following topics in her talk:

• Introduction: Our Motivation and Philosophy
• Products and Services: Flush Mount Albums, Custom Design Services, Creative Photo Products
• Marketing Strategies: Positioning and Up-selling Products to Clients, Photography Package Tips
• Hands-on Product Demo

Aperture 2.1

Apple recently released version 2.1 of its professional photo management tool. I’ll cover what’s new in this release, how it compares with the previous version of Aperture, and its performance on hardware from a Quad PowerMac G5 to a MacBook Pro to a Mac Pro.

China

During my presentation on Aperture 2.1, I will be displaying photos from my recent trip to China, where I was photographing and filming scenes for an upcoming documentary film. I will also cover various equipment and transportation topics, including

• Traveling with a Pelican 1510 Carry-On Case
• Hiring a driver
• To bring or not to bring a backup camera?
• Limiting your lens choices
• Backing up

Monthly Assignment: Fool, Full, and Fuel, and Fool

This month’s contest is no April Fool’s. The winner will get a free 1-year Pro account subscription on SmugMug for having the best photo of the group! Only new photographs taken from the previous meeting date to the next meeting date will be accepted.

Today, I tested the performance of the MacBook Pro hooked up to my Apple 30-inch Cinema Display. One reason why I chose the Pro over the regular MacBook or the Air was that it could drive a 30-inch display (2560×1600 resolution). The laptop features a Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT with 256MB of RAM; the newer Penryn-powered MacBook Pros have the same video chipset except with 512MB of video RAM. As you would expect, more video RAM typically equals better performance, especially with applications that make use of Mac OS X’s Core Image.

As I’ve known for two-years and counting, Aperture is one of the most GPU-intensive apps I’ve come across. My Quad G5’s beefy 7800GTX 512MB video card — an after-market upgrade that I purchased following my supreme disappointment with the stock 6600 card — has greatly increased the speed of Aperture’s editing adjustments. There’s only a slight delay when changing white balance, exposure, vibrancy and contrast during full-screen edits. Certain adjustments like levels and especially highlights and shadows are a little jerky, but the speed is acceptable.

With Aperture maximized or in full-screen mode, the MacBook Pro starts to struggle when only a few adjustments (WB and Exposure) have been turned on. Don’t even think about using highlights and shadows at fullscreen! Reducing Aperture to its minimum window size results in excellent performance with every default adjustment turned on (WP, Exposure, Enhance, Levels, Highlights and Shadows, and Color).

At fullscreen on a 30-inch display, four megapixel images are being displayed and manipulated in real-time by Core Image! A 24-inch Cinema Display would force the GPU to deal with a 2.25 megapixel image. At its minimum window size, Aperture only has to deal with images that are roughly 825×550, less than half a megapixel.

Having a big view of the image is great; that’s why I bought the 30-inch display in the first place. Performance is also very important, so you can be sure that the window size is getting reduced when I’m editing images on the MacBook Pro.

A great source for Aperture speed tips can be found on Steve Weller’s Bagelturf website. The list was originally compiled for Aperture 1.5, but most of them are still valid with Aperture 2.1.

I’ve been using Aperture since version 1.0. When the application was released in 2005, all images had to reside within the Aperture Library. This did not prevent me from using the product, but it was deal-breaker in terms of switching to Aperture completely from iView Media Pro. Version 1.5 was released a year later, and it allowed users to store the master images by reference. This was great for me, since I could now import all of my images by reference and keep the annotations synced with iView using Annoture.

When Aperture 2.0 was released a few months ago, I decided to make a permanent switch to using Aperture as my primary photo organization tool. For

Projects can now contain 100,000 images, which is great since I was running into the 10,000 image limit in 1.5.6. Image editing plug-in support in version 2.1 means Noise Ninja from Picture Code is coming soon to Aperture.

My goal is to have my entire image collection — work and personal — contained in a single Aperture Library. I know other people who use multiple libraries, but I wanted a single one so I can easily share photos via iLife and sync to my iPhone.

This post is my odyssey to Aperture’s Promise Land. Does it exist? If so, will I get there? Read on to find out the issues I have to overcome along the way!

Storage

Up until a year ago, I was storing all of my RAW photos on a 1TB RAID 5 (650GB available) Infrant ReadyNAS. Before I purchased the Infrant in 2005, I had run out of space on my primary photo volume, a 250GB FireWire drive, and was using a spare 80GB external disk to store my recent images. Last year, I ran out of space on the Infrant, and the overflow images were being stored on a 750GB hard drive. As I wrote in 2005, and as I write today:

This was not a good solution because (1) the data wasn’t being backed up and (2) I didn’t like the idea of my photos residing on multiple hard drives, and (3) I’ve already had one hard drive crash in the last year. Since my data is priceless, I was eager to find a better solution.

First, I copied all of my RAW images from the Infrant to a new 750GB hard drive. I made the mistake, however, of naming the hard drive Photos instead of photos, which was the Infrant’s volume name. This caused Aperture to lose track of all referenced files. I could have simply changed the name of the hard drive to photos, but the anal-retentive in me decided to reconnect all referenced images to the new Photos drive. I’ll be the first to say that reconnecting over 100,000 photos can take a long time.

Double Masters

Next, because I have been using Aperture since version 1.0, I had a number of projects with managed photos. This meant the Aperture Library contained the RAW files. Remember, however, I also had these same images imported by reference in the Aperture Library. As a result, I had duplicate photos:

• Managed Photos (A) with adjustments, ratings, and metadata
• Reference Photos (B) with no adjustments, ratings, nor metadata

Obviously I had painstakingly added adjustments, ratings, and metadata to all of the managed files, and I didn’t want to lose them. After consulting with Steve Weller, I did the following:

1. Exported the managed projects (A). I chose to consolidate the masters photos in the exported projects. I did this to create a backup in case I screwed up anything.
2. Relocated the masters photos in the managed projects (A).
3. Moved the relocated master photos to the trash. This caused Aperture to lose the reference to the master files.
4. Located and deleted the exact same master versions in my referenced projects (B). Obviously, I did not check move referenced files to the trash.
5. Reconnected the dereferenced photos from (A) to the files referenced by (B)

If that sounds complicated, it’s because it was! The end result, however, is that I have one master version pointing to one file, not two master versions pointing to the same file — or worse, two identical files.

Now my Aperture Library has over 120,000 referenced images and 177 managed files. Fortunately, most of those managed files exist in one project, which is much more manageable than thousands of managed files spread across twenty projects! My Aperture Library is still large at 74GB, but it’s not the 105GB behemoth that it once was.

Backups and Vaults

Up until now, I haven’t used Aperture Vaults to back up the library. I first tried copying the library to another hard drive, but 50GB into the copy, Finder popped up with an error saying it had encountered a problem writing one of the files in the Library. Ugh!

As I’m writing this post, Aperture is creating a brand-new vault on a separate external hard drive. It’s a tad over 50% done, and I really hope that there isn’t a problem with the remaining 40%. It would be a real bummer if I can’t back up my Library! Sadly, I’ve read of several problems getting Vaults to update properly.

If all goes well, in the morning, I plan to restore my library from the vault. Then, I will again attempt to copy the library to an external hard drive. My ideal backup scenario is twofold: automated backups via SuperDuper!, Carbon Copy Cloner, or RsyncX and periodic Aperture Vault updates.

Update: The Vault update failed, but at least there was a descriptive error message:

Looks like a corrupted thumbnail to me. I wasn’t able to delete the file using the Finder (it crashed), but was able to remove the file through Terminal. After doing that, the Vault update completely successfully, and the Vault refresh icon changed from red to black. Now, I will try copying the Aperture Library to the hard drive with the Finder.

Update #2: The Finder copy completed successfully.

If only I knew what things are in development at Apple, it would save me a lot of time writing duplicate products!