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Old 07-03-2014, 11:06 AM   #11
OrangeCrush
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Join Date: May 2012
Location: Farmington Hills, MI & La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Posts: 4,525
Quote:
Originally Posted by S-tier Adam View Post
wow, you've got an amazing story there. I feel like most great artists probably come to that crossroads at some point. I kind of did the same thing, except there weren't really any difficult decisions involved...however I might be forced into a difficult decision here pretty soon. I'm gonna be interviewing for a great job that I don't really want, but my dad really wants me to get. Either way I'd be letting people down. If I take the job, by all means I can still work on my art as it's just a teaching job. Right now, I'm content though. I live in the guest house at a mansion, and I'm also the caretaker. I take care of the place and of an elderly woman living there. This also allows me ample time to work in my studio which is on the premises as well. You would love the mansion...there's actually a darkroom in the basement. Unfortunately I know nothing about film, so I couldn't use it.

At the end of the day, I want to be a professional artist, and I don't care what other people say.

The feline rescue sounds amazing. I'm gonna have to look into that. You know what we should probably move this to a PM because it's turning into a chat room lol.

Back to something actually on topic, what the heck are gels? I'm so not familiar with those.
Yeah, I guess I never thought about it before, but your probably right in regards to artists coming to that crossroads at one point or another. Just remember its your life and your the one that ultimately has to wind up living it. The reason I wound up choosing engineering in college had a lot to do with my father and ultimately I came to the realization that I was making BIG life choices based on what other people wanted, or wanted for me, and not based on what I wanted to do myself. Once I really came to that realization, I knew the right choice for myself was at least taking a chance at becoming a photographer. I often think about what my life would be like right now had I not changed majors. I would probably be a very unhappy person inside. Again, whatever you do just make sure your doing it for the right reasons.

Anyways, gels are colored sheets of thin gel/plastic that are used to change the color of the light. Here is a picture of some gels:



You wind up buying an accessory called a gel frame, here is a picture of Lowels gel frame:



The gel frame has 4 clips, one on each corner and you wind up clipping in the sheets of gel and then attaching the gel frame to the light itself. There are literally thousands of different colors you can buy. Some are very specific color temperatures used to change daylight to tungsten or tungsten to daylight or fluorescent to daylight, etc. and others are just misc colors that photographers can use to add a particular color to a picture. Of course, you can use gels on any light source including flashes. Here is a picture of a flash outfitted with a blue gel:



Then you have diffusion gels, reflective gels, etc.Here are 2 pictures of diffusion gel:



Here is a picture of a silver reflective gel and a gold reflective gel:



That little book in the picture with the reflective gel is called a gel swatch. You can buy them for like 3-5 bucks. They basically are small sample sizes of hundreds of different gels contained in a small book. They have larger ones that are like 3-4" x 3-4". Those are great if you want to use gels on flashes for digital cameras as the samples are big enough to actually use so your basically getting 100+ usuable gels just a few bucks.

The options in regards to gels is nothing short of mind boggling. They can be purchased in small individual sheets or large rolls. I have roughly 50 rolls and an entire large print file cabinet that is full of different gels. They are one of the best tools available to photographers.

Kodak used to make something called Wratten gels, which were 3"x3" or 4"x4" gels that were used on the lens of a camera. Large format photographers usually used Wrattens while 35mm SLR photographers tended to go with circular glass filters that you could screw right into the lens.

Here is a picture of a kodak Wratten gel.



I used to use an 85B wratten gel on all of my exterior shots as I preferred shooting tungsten film outdoors. it opened up the shadow area's better than daylight film. Unfortunately, nobody produces 4x5 tungsten film anymore.

If you have access to a darkroom, you should seriously consider learning how to shoot with film. Film is the only way to shoot in my book. I still shoot film 95% of the time. In fact, the only time I shoot digital is when a client specifically asks for it or when I go to family gatherings as everyone in the family expects me to take pictures and I hate spending days in the darkroom developing family outing pictures, lol.

The best part about the digital boom is you can pick up film based equipment for dirt cheap, especially darkroom equipment. I picked up an 8x10 motorized enlarger a couple years back for just $1,500 and it came with 4 Schnieder lenses and every accessory in the book. 10 years ago, that same enlarger would have cost me $15,000 to $20,000. Its amazing how cheap film based equipment has become, but we are now starting to see a movement back to film, something I fully expected would happen eventually. For me, its as much about the process itself as it is the final picture and I just love working in the darkroom. Photoshop just cant even begin to compare.

The way I see it, and I am sure there are many out there who disagree, anyone can pick up a digital camera, shoot some pictures and transfer them into a program like Photoshop to edit, but shooting film and printing in a darkroom....well, that is a true artisan process, one that takes years to learn and a lifetime to master. I am definitely a film photographer and I just can't see that ever changing.

I highly recommend playing around with it when you get some time, especially if you already have a darkroom at your disposal.
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