It is my pleasure! It is a GREAT article. I loved it and have read it several times.

Just half an hour ago I was doing some search to read up on some cast from this fatanastic movie (by Denys Arcand)I watched few days ago. The Quebec made movie is called “L’Âge des ténèbres” where Rufus Wainwright (ta da!) has a role of a ‘prince charmant’. So I read some of his biography and then…..I looked at the RSS feed from your blog and was confused. What in the name of….whoever….my Google searches do on Benjamin Kanarek’s blog???? How is it possible?

Well, it is good to know that my mind also travels to places where some other great minds travel too sometimes. There is a hope then, that I might become ‘un photographer extraordinaire” one day as well (ha ha).

I really like reading your blog. Definitely because it is not wrapped in a phony business and mostly because it can be………errrr…..very random. Just like this one. Always a surprise.

Cheers
Voitek

Some parts of asia have this tradition, to do this, they write wishes on the “hot air ballon” and let them fly into the sky.

Damn, it makes me miss Paris!

Ofourse!

Just a thought……seriously….can I be the Artistic Director? Wait (weight!), screw AD, I could be the Spoke’s Model!

peace…..

What exactly is your intention working face to face with the model with a wide angle? Do you feel that getting inside her personal space creates greater intimacy or intimidation? I tend to give the model more personal space by using an 85mm and shooting f/5.6 – f/11. This allows me to get visually closer and convey intimacy inside her personal space without physically violating that space. Your thoughts?

I did a product shot last year at 22mm f11, normally I’d have used a 90mm TS-E. Client is happy and it looks good on a full page ad. What more could you ask for?

I tend to use the Canon 35mm F2 on a 5D. The 35mm F2 is a bit soft wide open, but from F5.6 it gets into it’s own.

I also like using the 85mm on a FF body, but yes, it does mean less fruitful communication with the model (especially when the iPod is blasting in the background to get the mood right).

I wouldn’t go wider than 35mm though as you would get that wide-angle look, especially if you were shooting down onto the model or upwards from floor level.

Regards
Heinz

thanks for the insight

30mm wide angle would definitely produce interesting results, but.. used for fashion? Do you have any of those posted somewhere? I’m curious to see the result.

“50-mm lens on a Canon Digital Rebel would have an effective focal length of 80-mm lens…”

… when you put a 50mm FF on a crop sensor DSLR you get the same image as you would on a FF (it has the same perspective distortions, same DOF), but it is just cropped from the FF, and usually this (dof, perspercive distortions) has to be taken into account when doing portraits.

What F-stop do you use?
do you keep to the lens’ sweet-spot?
or how do you decide on your DOF?

Indeed, it was a very long day of shooting with pre-production sessions before (direction, research, casting…. )

Whatever… I love it.

Shoot more film!

Heinz

“Educated readers with money in their wallets will support these new enterprises.

So calm down, Benjamin Kanarek. Your Harper’s China “Fly Me to the Moon” work is fantastic. If it makes you feel any better, we had what we thought was an excellent, not-self-serving but supporting another blogger comment edited out on Friday by the same website.

Admittedly, I was very surprised, not known for having my premium-quality, expensive ideas censored. LOL

My takeaway was that the blog in question has no interest in any kind of genuine thought in the comments. If I can’t get a thought published, than I’ll just write up the discussion on Anne of Carversville and feature the other blogger’s post here.

What began as a small comment with another point of view on two models, supported by a superb Richard Avedon editorial on Touch Puppet, will now become a major essay to get my point across.

Not wishing to give up any of our own editorial control, we’re not about to criticize another blogger. We all make our own decisions and readers — as well as the intellectual and financial quality of those readers —  will carry the day.

Anne”

I expressed my opinion, which I designate as my RIGHT!!!…I suggest that YOU get over it and get ready for a major backlash in the industry as we are seeing in the music and film business. Copying and pasting is just that and holds as much credibility as a fake “Mona Lisa”…It has it’s place of course, but reminds me of that very funny vignette..

Journalist: what do you do?
Blogger: I am famous
Journalist: famous for what?
Blogger: famous for being WELL KNOWN…

Interesting that no one speaks to the “Quality of Material” as an issue. That is what we should be addressing here.

Places like the “scannerist” blogs can be useful if they accomplish their mission of reporting what is going on in the hard copy fashion press. However, when it deals with censoring an editorial with no solid argumentation, then it becomes a critique via omission. It then takes them into the realm of journalism which they claim they are not.

Regarding, Mona Lisa. Well, each time you have seen it there has been royalty fee reverted back to the Louvre. (any usage of the Mona Lisa is highly policed and paid for via copyright licensing, even for editorial usage)…

What might happen in the near future is what occurred in the music industry. Websites like YouTube are now places where you can only post original material or use their royalty free library data base.

We shall see…

I have been over myself for a long, long time…Perhaps thou doth protestith too much.

Thank You

What do you presume the mission of these blogs should be? Do you deny them their own agency?

It’s solid work, let it speak for itself. If you’re working for HB to begin with, you have no real need to bother with bloggers.

What I would like to see on your blog is more articles by you and your peers about fashion photography and technique, lighting, etc. More importantly since im sure a lot of your readers do not work in the fashion industry it would be nice for you to talk more about your vision and how you approach each shoot. I have only been shooting a few years but find it difficult dealing with inexperienced subjects that I might be shooting. It might be a teenage girl who has never had a photo session. Im quite sure with all your years of experience you could probably talk a while on the subject of shooting people and how to deal with them to get the best shoot possible.

I love behind the scenes videos of your shoots. I would like to see more of these if possible. I would also like to see you maybe take some of your previous shoots (one at a time) and dissect them and tell us how you did it and what was the story you were trying to tell and what you liked and did not like about it.

I fashion photography forum might be nice if there were enough fashion photographers that would join in.

Another great feature would be where you maybe have a live fashion shoot where you take questions from facebook and twitter or via some chat system where the viewer could type in the questions they had while you shoot and talk us through what you are doing and showing us your process.

Any of these suggestions would be great to see on your blog but im sure you will come up with something equally as good. I am looking forward to seeing the changes.

Sincerely,
Ken

To find the making of videos you do a search on the BK blog in the header or you can check the thumbnail video and making of video, you will find quite a few of them. As for Facebook, YouTube, Twitter accounts, go on the home page, right under the header you have a section “FIND ME ON” with a whole bunch of icons to follow us from other sources.

Thanks for your e-mail. As per your comments, I do actually have a Facebook account with my name, I have several video’s on my blog that many people have found instructive and interesting.
In fact I have been systematically doing Making of Videos for the past few months, but cannot post them until the actual images are published, which is usually a few months after the actual shooting.

Thanks again
Ben

One question remains… I can only imagine that the planning phase takes up 80% of the time of the overall shoot. Does the job pay well enough in the end to make all the time spent planning it, worth it?

It seems from your post that you could easily spend two weeks to a month planning a shoot and then shoot it in 2 days. The pay cheque at the end of the day must be quite substantial to cover your time and expenses for a month!

Sorry for the personal question but I am thinking of making fashion my day job one day and want to know the reality of it rather than the dream.

All the best
Heinz

Good music, but it would have been *far* more interesting to hear your directions and other sounds.

Unique abilitiy to keep up with contemporary trends. Fresh both musically and artistically.

Just fresh.

Thank you very much Frank

With Sincere best Wishes,

Michael.

Thanks
Ben

Go on, Ben, you can leave the family business in her hands!

Hello Benjamin,

I really love your blog, but that’s the first time i post.

I took an hour doing nothing else than listening to this. What fantastic advices you give to Regen.

Your advices are not only good for fashion photography, it is just the way it goes in almost everything.

Thank you to share that with everybody (not only the winner).

Michael / Paris.

Ben

It was a real pleasure to assist you with audrey and to see how you work.

Thank you !

I wrote the song and Barbara Nicoli sang it.

Check out my fashion jewelry blog at http://rockinthatbling.com/2010/06/08/pernille-moeller-for-vogue-brazil-june-2010/

My dream is to someday shoot with you with a professional team like that!
But I guess I luckey to have the chans to meet with you and have a cup of coffee with you when ever I come to Paris ;-D

Your the KING – stunning work!

Love
Tuvalie

I’ll be curious to see the reaction. It should stir up noise from all sides – the best possible thing!!
Kristi

thanks!

Congress follows Robert’s Rules of Order, not because they’re a bunch of antiquated stuffed shirts, but because it provides a formula for how to vehemently disagree with somebody today in a manner that allows you to cooperate with him tomorrow.

I also worked as an actor/director in theatre for a lot of years; it’s a collaborative art form, and its pecking order varies–I’m directing you in this show; you may be directing me tomorrow. Asserting power needlessly when I have it is likely to bite me in the ass later when I don’t.

Every major institution, particularly if it involves the generation of money, is based on a management hierarchy that gets smaller in numbers at the top in inverse proportion to the amount of influence wielded by the few who occupy the big offices. And it’s pretty hard to predict today who that’s going to be tomorrow, so smart ladder climbers know that getting in a snit with a peer has little present upside and huge potential downside down the road.

Heck, even a functional family understands that it’s best to hold your tongue when you’re angry because otherwise the words that come out get sandblasted into the memories of the people you care about and can sit there for years, gunny-sacked away for ammunition in a future disagreement.

The irony is that your advice is only partially and very selectively true. Your stylist was a bitch who, in spite of her rotten attitude, now works for a company you’d like to do business with. Apparently your outburst didn’t help you, but hers apparently had no adverse affect on her career. The fashion world is full of annoying divas, both photographers and models, who can’t accommodate all of the requests they get for high-end work. Annie Leibowitz is a notorious walking disaster in her personal life, and her inability to manage her business affairs in a professional manner has her infamously in trouble with bankruptcy courts, but I just saw her starring as “famous photographer Annie Leibowitz” in a Hewlett-Packard commercial yesterday. Any one of us who follows fashion photography could name a dozen lesser-known photographers with equal or greater talent who would be far less drama (and $1000s less expense) to work with than someone with this much baggage who always runs her productions massively over budget, but I’m assuming her reputation–both the good and the bad–isn’t affecting her bookings any.

Take your pick of examples from the corporate world who have proven to be fabulously incompetent but who continue to shuffle from company to company, precisely because–not in spite of the fact that–it’s a small universe at the top, and people who hire important people like to work with known commodities. You may have failed in your last stop–as Carly Fiorina did spectacularly at HP–but the fact that HP was willing to hire you as CEO in the first place is all the resume you need to move to the next job. I hear she’s running for Congress now. Go figure.

The bottom line is that notoriety and historical achievement often trump talent, disposition, and manners when the good jobs–the ones people’s reputations depend on–are handed out. Following the common-sense networking rules of work-place decorum that you just handed out probably won’t ever HARM the average guy’s opportunities for advancement, but if your talent has gotten you a big enough name, bad behavior probably won’t hurt you either. John McCain’s reputation as a shoot-from-the-hip independent thinker didn’t exactly endear him to the rank-and-file Republican flock, but once he finally secured the nomination, EVERYBODY wanted to stand next to him for the photo op.

Yes, unkind words can come back to haunt you. Unless they don’t.

In general as low as 1 select per clothing change to around 5.

An old adage…”Live and Learn…”

did the same screw up while working as an assistant to a big photographer. was extremely rude to a stylist who is now the fashion editor of a big magazine i so wanna work with…been nearly 5 years…tch tch. learnt. the hard way.

anyways, thx ever so much for your fantastic blog have a superb day.

Harper’s China is based in China for their market, but like all internationally recognized magazines, they cover the collections in Paris, Milan, New York, Shanghai, Madrid, Tokyo etc. They will frequently shoot in those cities and use the teams available there.

This post was mentioned on Twitter by benjaminkanarek: Check this out: The Politics of Fashion Photography Part 5 http://is.gd/bxnGK...

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