Photography Mentors - kickstarting the project again

[Overread]

Well after someone contacted me and reminded me of its existance I thought it might be an idea to give this project another go - a rekindeling of a project that has somewhat suffered over the last year or so - what with many photographers leaving the site for one reason or another. Here are the details of the previous/current setup

The previous talk about the setup

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/photographic-discussions/123688-mentoring-system-suggestion.html

The current mentors list

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/beyond-basics/125099-official-mentors-bio-list.html#post1258497



So the simple question is, is there any interest in starting this again and giving it more life? I am sure there are many willing to be students but what the project needs more than that is dedicated and skilled photographers willing to be the mentors - willing to dedicate some more time and effort in helping a few others develop their skills?

 

[NateWagner]

I'd be interested in helping out one way or another.

 

[eric-holmes]

I'm looking into being a student.

 

[SpeedTrap]

I would offer what I can.

 

[bazooka]

I love the idea of having a personal mentor. "Pick me! Pick me!"

 

[Iron Flatline]

I tentatively throw my hat in the ring as a potential mentor. I really enjoy being part of this community, and have learned a lot here. I would like a chance to give back.

Having said that I'm wary, and don't want to waste time - that of someone I might work with, or mine. Overread, I will drill down on what info there is re. the Mentor program. I would ask that anyone I work with has been an active member, and obviously open-minded.

I would volunteer working with someone pursuing photography of people in a controlled environment... that means no landscapes and architecture, but also no "street" photography. I shoot models in studios and on location. There is a lot of technical info and I'm not really a "strobist" but I can help figure all of that out. For me it is more about the creative process, as well as the interaction and the various moving parts. I'm not really a gear head, I'm more into the final image.

...and being fabulous!

 

[The_Traveler]

I tentatively throw my hat in the ring as a potential mentor. I really enjoy being part of this community, and have learned a lot here. I would like a chance to give back.

Having said that I'm wary, and don't want to waste time - that of someone I might work with, or mine. Overread, I will drill down on what info there is re. the Mentor program. I would ask that anyone I work with has been an active member, and obviously open-minded.

I would volunteer working with someone pursuing photography of people in a controlled environment... that means no landscapes and architecture, but also no "street" photography. I shoot models in studios and on location. There is a lot of technical info and I'm not really a "strobist" but I can help figure all of that out. For me it is more about the creative process, as well as the interaction and the various moving parts. I'm not really a gear head, I'm more into the final image.

...and being fabulous!

Me, too. except I would work with someone who wants to do street photography. I am completely disinterested in studio or family shots.

Lew

 

[Iron Flatline]

Groovy, we cover each other.

...and for those who don't know me, when I say I don't want to mentor "street" or landscapes, let me be clear and say that I like them, and have nothing against them... it's just not what I'm shooting right now.

 

[SoonerBJJ]

I would be interested in being mentored.

 

[The_Traveler]

Perhaps the simplest way for those who want to be mentored is to look at the pictures posted by the willing mentors and approach the potential mentor with a PM.


Lew

 

[Overread]

That is how its worked in the past - that or they contacted me and I directed them onto the Bio list.

Great to have two more up for mentoring! Hopefully we can get a few more active mentors onto the list - I've also sent pms around to check that those currently on the list are still active. Some have not appeared on site for some time though those that have left (far as I know) did continue to mentor their students after going quiet on the forums.
Certainly its also in the students best interests to present a good case for the mentors to accept them.

The Traveler and Iron Flatline if you send me a Bio like hte others on the list I'll add them in as well.

Remember to contain info such as:
What you shoot
What you are able/willing to help/advise on
What you are looking for in a potential student
Examples and links to your works
Any formal education/jobs that you have attended/held along with a general background into your photographic life

edit
Also something I forgot to mention earlier was that an idea of what equipment you have experience of as well is important. This is not about Canon vs Nikon but giving an idea of what you are most familar with and can offer help one. Don't forget to include other things like if its film or digital experience as well as darkroom stuff.


Also the list above is not all the final list - do consult the links in my first post in this thread for a more complete discussion from before as well as examples of the current mentor Bios.

 

[Cass]

I'd be interested in being a student.

 

[astrostu]

Even though I sent you a PM last night to your request, I'll post here and say I'm still in, for astrophotography stuff.

 

[Overread]

Even though I sent you a PM last night to your request, I'll post here and say I'm still in, for astrophotography stuff.

Ahh sorry I checked it last night just before I headed to bed and forgot to reply this morning! Good to still have you in the project

 

[astrostu]

I guess to quote from the original thread, for my "bio," with a little updating would be ...

Background:

I've been interested in astronomy longer than I've been interested in photography. I started to get into photography with my dad's old film Nikon SLR but I never really took it too far. My first astrophotos were through a 4.5" Meade Newtonian reflector with the film camera hooked up to the telescope (so basically a nice big lens). I used it to photograph the moon and to photograph a lunar eclipse back in the mid-1990s. Even then, I was anal enough to keep notes on exposure settings. I got back into photography in Summer 2002 when I bought a Canon P&S S30. I still have that li'l camera and I've taken probably 10s of thousands of photos with it. At that point, I was going into my sophomore year of college and had already declared my major in astronomy. I continued to photograph as a hobby and I really pushed the limits of the S30 with attempts to do astrophotography. I also started to learn how to make "pretty pictures" with astronomical CCD images taken through world-class telescopes. This got a big boon when I was at Kitt Peak, observing during a summer internship, at the same time a woman who works on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) images was currently observing. She spent a few hours with me one night and taught me all her Photoshop tricks for how she transforms HST data into the pretty pictures that are released to the media.

Since then, I've used her techniques, developed a few of my own, and written two guides to astrophotography (one general and one for the moon and lunar eclipses). I upgraded to my Canon 350D in August 2005 and have used it to take A LOT of astrophotos, and I upgraded again in late 2009 to a Canon 7D. I've also used professional-level detectors on professional telescopes and know how to process that data (as well as other types of data, including radio, and spectral); I've also written software programs to properly process the data from astronomical CCDs and from a regular camera. I have also gotten my B.S. in astronomy (Spring 2005), M.S. in astrophysics/geophysics (Spring 2008), and am a doctoral candidate working on my Ph.D. in geophysics through an astrophysics program. Somehow I still manage to take photographs.


Gear List, Personal:

Canon S30
Canon Digital Rebel XT (350D)
Canon 7D
Canon 35 mm f/1.4L
Canon 24-70 mm f/2.8L
Canon 70-200 mm f/2.8L
Canon 430EX Speedlight
Canon 580EX II Speedlight
Gitzo 2541 6x Carbon Fiber Tripod
Gitzo GH1780QR Ball Head
Manfroto 8080RC4 3-Way Pan/Tilt Head
AstroTrac TT320X Clock-Drive

Dinky Li'l Tripod
Canon 18-55 mm f/3.5-4.5
Quantaray 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.4 with "macro"
Quantaray 600-1000 mm f/9.6-16
Various filters, including a solar filter

Gear List, Have Access To:

4060 mm f/12 Cassegrain telescope
6860 mm f/16 Cassegrain telescope
2000 mm f/10 Cassegrain telescope with SBIG tri-color CCD camera attached
Polar-aligned tracking mount and ability to piggy-back on the telescopes


Photo Website: Stuart's Photography & Astrophotography


What I Can Offer:

I can mainly offer specialized help with astrophotography. How to photograph the moon, star trails, meteor showers, wide-field constellations, deep-sky objects (requires specialized equipment), etc. I can also teach you how to process your images, though my techniques MAY require you to purchase extra software ... though if you have Photoshop CS3 you can do pretty much everything I suggest. Photoshop CS2 can do almost everything.

My help will be geared almost entirely towards astrophotography, but many of the techniques can be used in general photography, too. I can also help teach you the basic physics of what's going on and why things are done a certain way. Like why there's noise in your images. Or why taking a 10-minute photograph is NOT the same as taking 2 5-minute photographs and adding them together. Or why the best location for taking astrophotos is on top of a mountain (no, it's not because you're closer to the object).

One of my goals will be to get you to think about photographs as just that - 3-D graphs of photons, or light. Think about them in a digital sense - each pixel contains an intensity of recorded light of a certain color. Once you start to think of it like that, processing techniques for astrophotography start to make a lot more sense.

If you're really interested, I can get into the process of combining tri-filtered images, color-combining and colorizing them, and adjusting them with Levels and Curves. I can also get into the "real" way to process astronomical images, including how to correct for camera noise and uneven illumination through the lens (like vignetting).

If, on the other hand, you're looking for something relatively simple, like how to get a photograph of the moon without it looking like a giant ball of white, then I can also help you, though that may consist of initially sending you an excerpt of a guide that I have written on the subject (since the question gets asked A LOT).


What I Probably Can't Offer:

If you're using film, you're out of luck in terms of any kind of processing that I can teach you.

If you have a non-DSLR camera, I can help you with some astrophotography, but you need to realize ahead of time that there honestly is not much you can do without a DSLR. Lunar photography, star trails, and meteor showers are about it.

How to operate your camera.


Requirements:

An open mind. To be perfectly honest, I have trouble working with people who have a mental block against certain things like math. You don't need to know calculus, but if algebra scares you and you're not willing to get past that, then I am not the right person for you to work with. Astrophotography requires knowing some basic math. That said, I have successfully taught people as young as high schoolers how to do this, so again, you don't need a doctorate in theoretical nor applied mathematics, just be willing to learn.


Number of Students:

One at a time for the moment.