Photography On Campus

So, today I will attempt to answer a question from my business plan:

Is it legal to photograph on Stanford campus without a permit?

Much of my business plan is built around the use of Stanford campus for location photography. Well, it turns out I was a little naive in my assumptions that Stanford would be an open studio for me, but all hope is not lost. For those of you who don't live near Stanford, this entry is still quite relevant because it relates to photography in any privately held area, especially university campuses.

The first place I looked was the Office of University Communications, which is responsible for coordinating interactions with the outside world, either disseminating Stanford information out into the world (like press releases and news) and controlling the outside world's intrusion into the university (controlling Stanford's image, websites, photography and videography of campus). For photography, all commercial photography must request permission to use the campus. Most of the relevant information is in the list of photography policies.

After looking at that page, I contacted the Communications Office to ask about whether I'd be likely to get permission and if blanket permission for a restricted set of activities would be possible. What ensued was e-mail tennis for much of the morning where it seemed like the woman I was chatting with was trying to evade my question. I know now that I had misread an important part of the policies but she was patient enough to get the message through. At one point I told her anything she said would be off the record, so I won't reproduce any of the conversation here.


What I will do is highlight the important statements on the Photography request policy page:

• Exploitation of the Stanford name is prohibited. In other words, advertising that I specialize in photography on Stanford campus is a no-no and can get me sued. I can request permission to do so, but I doubt I'd get it. I'm better off advertising location photography in the Palo Alto area, and then if people ask, tell them that Stanford might be an option. There goes SUPhoto as my company name! No biggy. Really, this doesn't impact me much, except my blogspot name, stanfordphoto.blogspot.com. I'm going to look into changing the blog address without disrupting my (meager) traffic.
  
• Videotaping, filming, commercial photography or professional wedding photography is prohibited without permission. Permission is rarely granted. This was what I missed my first, second, and third times reading through the page. Pretty much shuts down all hope of using Stanford for my commercial portrait shoots. Except...
• Wedding photography is prohibited except for couples being married at Memorial Church or those with a Stanford connection, including alumni, students, faculty and staff. Ahh... An opening. If my clients are Stanford students or alumni, I might have a chance of getting permission because of the connection. Maybe not on a super-regular basis, but if I prove that I'm not out to make a lot of money or hurt the Stanford name, it will be allowed.
  
• Requests for filming or photography must be made in writing at least five working days before proposed shooting. In other words, I need to request permission before every shoot. In writing. Not something I'll want to do a lot.
• Non news-related requests must include the following information: ... Proof of adequate insurance coverage and indemnity. This is a whole new can of worms I need to add to my business plan. Not just for shoots on campus, but anywhere I shoot, if I do it for money, I need to have insurance for my equipment and in case anyone gets harmed. For Stanford, I expect the indemnity is to prevent Stanford from getting sued. This might be as simple as a clause on the contract removing any responsibility from Stanford (or me) if an injury occurs.

So, overall, it is not legal to shoot without a permit, unless I am not taking payment for my services. So doing my TFCD shoots on campus is perfectly within reason (as long as I don't make a nuisance of myself). But if I want to take paying customers, I should get insurance and get permission from the communications office before I take any pictures.

Overall, I need to adjust my business plan to focus less on Stanford and more on me as a photographer.

In the bigger picture, there are two take-home messages:

1. On location photography is a hassle, especially since you need to worry about permission and insurance. That's why people pay extra for it.
2. Running a photography business is less about the photography, and more about everything else. I've been hearing this for a while, but until I started wading into the realities of pricing, ordering prints, marketing, and permissions, it never really hit home.

This just in! While I was writing this entry, I was also corresponding with the communications office (again). Apparently I 'wore her down', and she has given me the OK to do paying shoots on Stanford campus as long as they are Stanford affiliates. If I start doing a lot of volume, then I'll need to contact the communications office and renogiate (mostly for insurance reasons).

That's good news and allows me to tap into my main market (of poor grad students), at least initially.


[Photo courtesy of my wife. Used with permission.]

For the Birds

Long ago in a land far away (upstate New York), I was interested in birds. I had received a bird guide for Christmas (or was it my birthday?) and spent many an hour in the woods, identifying birds. I even took a few photos of birds, including one shot of a bird on a telephone wire. Of course, since I was on the ground, and my little 110 camera had only a wide angle fixed lens, I took a picture of a dot on a line in a featureless overcast sky.

Well, at least I knew it was a bird...

I've since lost interest in birds, mostly. I've also forgotten pretty much anything I had learned. But lately I've had my interest rekindled, at least in part due to the wide variety of interesting birds around Stanford. Stanford residents see hawks, herons, and hummingbirds daily. I'm not kidding, I've been seeing the hawks pretty much every day (as the little birds, their meals, chase them around) and the great blue heron has been hanging out a lot lately, eating gophers. Hummingbirds constantly visit, but I've yet to catch one of them on silicon. Soon though, soon...

The Canon 70-200mm F/4 has contributed to this revival -- finally a lens good enough to get some good telephoto shots. It is a really sharp lens, astonishingly sharp. Take the following shot of a hawk... flying overhead... with no sharpening, just RAW conversion:


Did I mention that that is a 100% crop, with no sharpening?

Which brings me to the primary weakness of the 70-200 when it comes to shots of birds: it is not nearly long enough. The opening image was a crop from the full frame shot at right. As you can see, 200mm (320mm with the Rebel XT's 1.6x crop factor) isn't enough magnification to get close enough to small birds. It works well for larger birds (like herons and hawks, if they are near the ground) but nothing smaller.

Quality long lenses cost big money though, so it is unlikely I'll get a birding lens soon. $600 is probably the minimum you'll pay for anything semi-decent that is 400mm or longer.

I borrowed a book on bird photography from the library which has also helped rekindle my interest. Yesterday, while at work listening to KZSU (I need something to drown out my lab-mate when he digs into his crunchy nuts) I heard a public service announcement about birds. I didn't catch all the details, but a quick search found the Birds of Stanford site, a repository of species seen around Stanford. Very informative, and now I have a resource when I see a bird I can't identify (which is most of them).

The site seems to be somewhat abandoned, but I found out a little more info. There's a Stanford Magazine article by Don Kennedy which references the site. There's a set of galleries which includes a small gallery of photos. One of the photos features a great blue heron, and happens to be by one of my neighbors, Carlos Rodriguez-Lluesma. In fact, when I got my heron pictures, I was outside of his home. His son used to be in my son's class! Small world, huh?

No offense to Carlos, but my photo is technically better (his was taken five years ago, so considering digital camera technology, that isn't at all surprising). Since there is a photograph submission form on the site, I figured I'd submit one of my heron images and see what happens. I don't expect much, since the site looks like it hasn't been touched in a few years, but I figured it was worth a try.

I'll keep you posted if I get any interesting bird shots or hear back from whoever is managing Birds of Stanford.

Welcome To 'Please Excuse Me..."

This is the new 'starting' page for this blog -- read on to learn about who I am and what this blog is about.

Executive summary:
This blog is aimed at financially-impaired amateur photographers shooting using digital SLRs. I focus on:

• Acquiring useful hardware on a budget
• Combining acquired equipment with cheap do-it-yourself solutions
• Technique (including the lessons I've learned)
• My personal progression as a photographer
  

About Me:
I am a graduate student studying Computer Science (focusing on robotics) at Stanford University. I am a husband, father of two, an SAT tutor/teacher with Revolution Prep, and an amateur photographer. My overall goal is to become a better photographer and eventually get to a point where I can make a little money on the side from photography if I choose to.

My main photographic interests are nature and people, especially macro photography and portrait photography. But I like to try a little bit of everything.

Oh, and I shoot Canon. But this blog is far from Canon-centric.

About This Blog (and some history):
Back in January, I started this a photo-a-day blog named Stanford Photo-A-Day. The primary goals were to get me to shoot more often and publish pictures, both of which happened. What I didn't foresee was my life getting more busy from my second job and eventually posts degenerated into a picture with a sentence or two saying something like "this is a tree". So, after almost three months, I abandoned posting a photo each day.

The nice thing about the PAD experiment was I really did take a lot of pictures and there was (is?) a definite progression as my skills in taking the pictures and processing them got better. For that reason, I am leaving the archives up, but don't be surprised to see similar pictures on successive days as I was scraping the picture barrel.

Since I started, I realized that there really is a niche on the web for information on cheap entry-level camera gear. Most informational photography sites on the web are from professionals, so they really have no need for a $100 lens. Yet, if you try to get into this hobby on a budget, you'll probably only have $1,000 to spend (if you are lucky) and you'll need to fill your equipment needs with $100 lenses and used e-bay accessories. To make my selections I've often had to spend hours searching in Google, old forum posts, and cobbling the information I need together from a number of sources before I send $30 out for the item I want.

I think putting a lot of that information in one place could be really useful for some new photographers with limited funds. That is my goal.

I must admit the biggest influence for the retasking of this blog has been David Hobby's Strobist. Until I saw Strobist, I didn't realize how a simple blog structure could be such a great resource for a novice (many blogs are... well... scattered). But, rather than being quite as focused as Strobist, I'm going to let other parts of my photography leak into the blog (and some parts of my life). I'd like to continue to document my learning curve and the lessons I've learned along the way.

For now, the name of the blog is Please Excuse Me While I Clean My Lens, but I actually don't like it very much. Over the next few weeks I'm going to figure out a better name that fits the subject of the blog a bit better. For historical reasons, I've left the url as http://stanfordphoto.blogspot.com but I may change that in the future as well (please don't sue me stanfordphoto.com!).

Navigating this Blog
Borrowing from Mr. Hobby, I'm going to bend the usual blog conventions and edit previous posts to reflect up to date information when necessary (such as this post).

The best place to start is the site navigation links at the upper right of the page. It includes links to each of the series of posts, including Articles (essays using my photographs to illustrate), Quick Tips (simple ideas that have helped me make better pictures), Reviews (both hardware and software that I use), and the Anatomy of a Photo series (where I break down the process that went into a given photo).

At the right I've also provided links to the sites which I have found most useful or visit every day.

Finally, feel free to look through the archives... if you dare!

[Useless disclaimer thingy: The opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and don't reflect opinions, policies, or anything related to Stanford, Revolution Prep, or my wife. If I say something stupid, blame me, not them. Oh, and I don't hold any trademarks of anything on this page. But I do hold the copyrights on my original pictures on this blog.]


Update: If you are still interested, the next post you should read is the brief overview of 2007. It includes handy links to all of my most popular tabs and is an easy way to hone in on your interests.

Also, I'd love to get feedback on what you like and don't like about the site and the 2007 in Review: Sound Off! post is a great place to do it. Thanks!

Article: Tussock Moths

[I've decided to take groups of images, glue them together with some words, and label them Articles. Amazingly new concept, I know. This is the first]

Last year Stanford had a huge infestation of caterpillars and it appears to be starting again. The little suckers hang down from the trees by threads and ambush unsuspecting cyclists. So, what should I do? Take pictures!

This post has actually been over two weeks in the making -- mostly because I'm lazy and plenty of procrastination when into typing it up. But I learned some things.

The building where I work is one of their favorite cocooning places. They've been fattening themselves up and now are starting to trek to the wall near my office in large numbers to begin metamorphosis. This will continue for a few more weeks until the wall is covered with furry cocoons, and then a few weeks later I expect the friendly guy with the power washer to come through.


Oddly enough, the infestation around my office is one of the worst across Stanford campus. My family and I took a long (it was epic!) 2 hour walk around campus drive and, while the caterpillars are everywhere, there are many spots with the same kind of trees as those next to my lab yet not nearly as many caterpillars.

According to the literature, the most common caterpillar is the larvae of the Western Tussock moth. All of my pictures below are of Western Tussock moths. Technically you aren't supposed to handle them because they can give you a rash, but obviously I did handle them, and I'm fine (so far).


They really do have a presence about them. The inch-long furry army rappels down from trees while the gentle patter of, err... something... maybe caterpillar excrement... surrounds you like a light rain. Speaking of the trees, I believe they prefer live oak (but I'm no arborologist), which also have the unpleasant side-effect of making me sneeze.

A lot.

Really, lots of Kleenex have been harmed lately.

Anyway...


A week ago I caught a caterpillar (or three), and in the spirit of aiding caterpillar travel, relocated it to another tree near the cactus garden that was easier to photograph. I figured out a few things:

1. They are hard to photograph.
2. They are interested in white shiny objects (who isn't?). He kept looking in the direction of anything white I had near him -- I expect this is how they know to climb trees.
   
3. They like to eat whatever type tree or bush I put him on.

I'm honestly not super-pleased with these photos, but they get the point across.

I still have a lot to learn about macro photography. For instance, maybe I should get a cheap Nikon 50mm off EBay for reversing. Then I could easily control the aperture, and I've heard rumors that the old Nikon lenses reverse better than Canons.


On the bright side, DPC has an insect challenge coming up, so I think I know who I will be photographing.

Cactus Garden

It is a little-known fact that there is a cactus garden on Stanford campus (hidden near the mausoleum). Yet, the cactus garden is one of the more interesting spots -- my next few images will be from the garden.

Fountain Abstract

Haven't shot too much lately, but this one (and the next one) are from a few snaps of one of the many Stanford fountains. Just a bit of cropping, digital 'enhancement', and I post them.

Women's Lacrosse...

This was taken before I was told to move from behind the goal (probably something about getting nailed in the head with a hard yellow rubber ball).

Archery

Here's a photo of the Stanford archery club -- yes, it is overexposed, but I like the way it turned out.

Another view near the dish...

Stanford Postcard

I really like this view of Stanford from the dish. Dare I say, it might even make a pretty good postcard.

Not to say that it couldn't be better, but I'm quite happy with what I captured and the angle. When I took it, I didn't realize that I had a shot of Hoover Tower, the new stadium right behind that, and the bay behind that including the Dumbarton Bridge. Even though it was a somewhat hazy day, that actually helps distinguish the distances. I was using a very long focal length (I believe it is over 300mm for 35mm equivalent).

Golden Arches

While walking up to White Plaza I snapped this picture because of the interesting way the sunlight was shining on the second arch.

Wheelie

Without warning, this guy came through White Plaza riding a wheelie. Yes, literally, he came around the corner (probably started out by Tressider) and rode a wheelie through the plaza. I got a few pictures the first time (I got lucky that I was facing the right way) but waited around since it looked like he might go through again. And sure enough, he did, and this was the best picture from the string I took.

Pretty incredible since he probably rode a wheelie, through a decent amount of foot traffic, for 200 yards or more. Not that out of the ordinary though -- a lot of teenagers (and college students) come to Stanford to practice skateboard and bike tricks. At least once a week there are guys outside of Gates doing jumps off of the 3-foot concrete blocks. I've also seen skaters attempting to jump down a six-foot rise of stairs and bicyclists hopping up on to the 1.5 foot blocks. Often, these guys have a friend with a video camera or photo gear to get a record of a trick if they actually land it.

Girl Scout

The girl scouts had a table set up in front of the bookstore selling cookies. This girl in particular was walking around shouting "Girl Scout cookies for sale! You know you want some!"

I didn't quite get the shot I wanted, but I also didn't want to make it obvious that I was photographing her. This one turned out nicely though.

Working in White Plaza

I took a walk around White Plaza last night and took a few pictures. When I arrived at the fountain, this woman was talking loudly on her cell phone but she eventually switched to some work on her laptop.

Gay Liberation Part II

You may have noticed that pictures of people are pretty conspicuously absent from these entries. Part of that is for practical reasons: my wife doesn't want pictures of her or the kids posted on the internet (and I don't want to post my friends or their kids either without permission, for similar reasons). The other part of it is that I'm pretty shy about approaching strangers.

That is one advantage of sculptures -- you can experiment with shots that invade personal space without making anyone uncomfortable. I took a number of shots of Gay Liberation and got really close to the sculpture from many angles with my 50 mm lens. I'm hoping to get my nerve up and approach some strangers in the near future for portraits, but for now, sculpture is a good exercise.

Another thing I'd like to point out about the image above: the photo was of the woman on the left (in the overall image, see previous entry). This was her "good side", from almost every other angle I found her decidedly unattractive (I think the casting deformed her face somewhat).

And yes, I'm actually assessing the beauty of a face in a bronze statue.

Gay Liberation

Gay Liberation, 1980

by George Segal, USA, 1924-2000
Painted Bronze

One nice thing about Stanford is the wide range of art put in random places. Such as this sculpture near the west side of the main quad. When I originally saw it a few years ago (riding by on my bike) I assumed it was a student project made out of paper mache.


I revisited it about a week ago around dusk (and took these photos). It turns out it is actually painted bronze.

And only just now, as I posted these pictures, did I realize how the title related to the sculpture.

Stone River

This is Stone River a sculpture outside of the Cantor Arts Center.

Serra Mall in Early Evening

Hoover Tower At Dusk

The Dish (part II)

I interrupt your regularly scheduled flower and insect pictures for another picture of the dish.

This was taken with the 50mm f1.8 prime -- I can't really quantify it, but it really out performs the 17-35mm Tamron. Definitely something in the sharpness and color.

The funny thing about the cows on the other side of the fence: there's a gate (open) and no fence leading up to the dish. So, theoretically, if a cow could cross a metal bridge made of bars, they could walk the dish with us. Or, say, if a cow went nuts, some poor hiker could get mauled.