Picture Stories by Stephen Alvarez

Chattanooga A.M.

In Chattanooga this morning loading in for more portraits...

Stephen Alvarez

Phone Friday, Erik Lesser NYT shooter and über assistant in Atlanta

I had the great fortune this week to be able to snag Erik Lesser as my assistant in Atlanta. I met Erik years ago in the back woods of Tennessee when he was covering Harold Ford Jr's run for the Senate. He's a great photographer and also is president of the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar.
It was great to spend a couple days with him.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Phone Friday, camera equipment for a corporate portrait

Most of the load in for this weeks corporate portraits. Have a great weekend. Thank god for the hand truck. It is a life saver.

Stephen Alvarez

For Phone Friday: Mobile Photo Gallery

I feel like I am making some sort of confession here: Yes I am a professional photographer, yes I use hipstamatic on my iphone...

In the past I've talked the importance of a photographer having a visual diary, a place to record daily images that are just about what you are thinking and how you are feeling. That's what I've been using the camera phone / hipstamatic combination for the last couple of months and I have put some of the pictures up as a gallery on my archive (here). 

I've chosen hipstamatic because I like the set it and forget it aspect. In that it reminds me of shooting with a Dianna camera, one setting, what you get is what you get. Instagram (which I often use to upload) makes me look at the phone too much. With a visual diary I want to be looking at the world around me, not at the back of my phone.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Phone Friday: St Petersburg

Ok so I missed Friday, busy finishing the Saint Petersburg panorama last night. After 6 months on this project I think I'm done now.

Stephen Alvarez

Phone Friday: so what did I take?

So what did I end up carrying in the Grand Canyon? Well I sucked it up and carried both the Iphone and the 5D MK II with a 16-35mm lens (I left my long pants, and extra shirt behind to save on weight). But the what I carried probably isn't as important as the why I carried it. On this trip I wasn't working, I did not go to the Grand Canyon to make great photographs of it, I went to see the place and to spend time walking with my 74 year old father on his birthday. And while I shot a lot of pictures on the Iphone (they are here) I wanted to make sure that I had some images from the trip that were high quality, that I would be able to print large and look back on in 20 years and remember being there, with him. Yes the Iphone would have worked, but somehow I felt I should take something better than it. So the picture below, while not an important picture in the world of photography, will certainly stand the test of time for me. Glad I carried the extra weight, and happy birthday Dad.

Now for anyone who had to hike near me while I wore the same shirt 4 days in a row I apologise.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Phone Friday: office in the palm of my hand

Today's Phone Friday is less about camera phones and more about the nuts and bolts of running a business. Years ago I used to have someone physically in my office all the time. They would answer the phone while I was away, return phone calls, check the fax machine, fedex pictures to clients. 

That person has largely been replace by a cell phone. The answering the phone part is easy to understand, no one has used a fax machine in years but what about getting photos to clients?

Well with PhotoDeck and any phone that displays html (I use an Iphone but Androids work just fine) I can run my entire archive. I can receive payments, authorize downloads, respond to image requests all from the phone. There is no special app needed, just an html browser and time to get things done.

Time is the big issue since there is very little of it when I am on the road, but it is great to know that if I have to I can run the whole show from my phone. Of course, I still miss my office manager...

Have a great weekend.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Phone Friday: LG 3D telephone

Earlier this month LG asked me to shoot some pictures with their new 3D cell phone. They said the phone shot and displayed 3 dimensional photos and video without needing glasses to get the 3D effect. I admit to being somewhat skeptical about how it would all work.

Any doubts that I had were erased when I turned the thing on. I have no clue about the technology behind the 3D display, but it works. The screen looks like it has real depth. I found myself trying to stick my finger into photographs. Sadly I can't show you any because they are in .jps format and display only on 3D devices. You'll have to take my word for it being very very cool.

The 3D is very easy to use. It seems to work best with subjects between one and 10 feet away. Beyond that the 3D effect really doesn't pop.

As a phone it is great too. Very fast processors, Android operating system (do you know that most mobile data is handled by Android?) 4G speed, wifi, bluetooth, yada, yada, yada...

Am I going to replace my Iphone with it? Hmm, I am not sure, without Hipstmatic and Instagram for Android probably not. But by the time my contract with ATT is up they should be available and I will sure think about it.

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN

Phone Friday: see how things change

Here's a thought for you. Cell phone cameras are completely changing publishing. It started in 2005 when the best pictures of the London metro bombings were from people's camera phones not from professional journalists. 6 years later things have moves even farther along. Professional journalists are now using their cell phones in addition to and in some cases instead of traditional cameras.

You can now shoot and publish straight from the phone. Always at the publishing forefront, DAH is instagraming the hurricane from the outer banks.


The ability to instantly publish is revolutionary. Maybe as revolutionary as the printing press. During the Iranian Green Revolution the government felt so threatened by cell phone publishing that they shut down the country's cell phones for weeks on end. That is how close the Iranian youth, armed with their phones, were to overthrowing their government.

Just a thought for Friday. Headed to Athens Monday...

Stephen Alvarez
Budapest

Phone Friday: different iPhone apps

I've been playing with different iphone camera apps this week. There are a bunch out there and I have to say my favorite is Hipstamatic. 

Hipstamatic I love for its simplicity. You shoot a picture with your settings already made and don't think about it again. No doodling with the phone trying to turn my picture into something. It doesn't offer nearly the control or options of Instagram or Magic Hour (magic hour even lets me make my own filters) but when I am shooting photos -even with a phone- I like to concentrate on what is going on around me not on doing post process on the back of the phone.

Instagram and Magic Hour do let me take pictures with the normal camera and edit them later. That is cool, but it gets away from the what you see is what you get aesthetic that I like so much with Hipstamatic. 

Stephen Alvarez

Sewanee, TN