Smashbox Cosmetics model search

Smashbox Cosmetics is searching for the hottest up-and-coming model, MUA, and photographer in the fashion & beauty industries. Entrants must be 18 years of age or older at the time of entry and live within the United States. www.smashbox.com/thefaceofsmashbox

Wisconsin Fashion Week photos and pictures

I've started the massive project of going through runway photos from last night's fashion shows. I ended up shooting over 2,500 images and I'm not nearly through them all. Here's a web gallery with a few shots that caught my eye so far www.th-photo.net/WFW. There are still a ton of images for me to edit and I'll be delivering those to Kristi and Adam within the week. We will all come up with a system so that models, designers and stylists can get copies of the photos.

Clothing photos in Madison Magazine, June edition

I have a three-page spread in Madison Magazine this month. All the clothing and accessories were shot on white early this month at their studio. They did an excellent job with layout and I'm really stoked about how everything looks in print. Produced by: Shayna Miller Art director: Tim Burton.

Popular Photography and American Photo Magazines Sold

According to sources at Photo District News American Photo and Popular Photography have been put on the auction block and were likely acquired by media company Bonnier Corp. I noticed something brewing at American Photo a few weeks ago when their website disappeared from the metaverse. Regardless of whether the story is true or not, I hope the two long-standing photo magazines continue their tradition of high-quality publishing.

Fashion & lingerie photo shoot with Leah

I've worked with Leah in the past and you'll also see her at many runway shows in the area. She has a great attitude about shooting and she's very photogenic. Photographed on location in Madison with Derek O'brien and Ken Udell assisting.

The megapixel race is over!

I'd like to write a little bit about compact cameras and the optimum sensor resolution in digital cameras (point and shoot and DSLR). To save you, the weblog reader precious time, my quick answer is 8 mp for compacts and 16 mp for DSLRs. I've come up with this crackpot theory using two major factors. 1) The amount of resolution (megapixels) the average and above average photographer needs to print at the largest size they will ever possibly use. 2) The maximum amount of pixels camera manufacturers are able to employ on a sensor while maintaining low image noise at high ISOs.


Groovie Mann at The Annex, 2007. Camera: Fuji FinePix F30, 800 ISO, 1/60 sec. f/2.8, focal length 8mm, on camera flash.

My compact camera is the sought after Fujifilm F30. It's a very durable little pocket camera with a 6.3 megapixel Super CCD sensor and excellent image results in low-light situations up to 800 ISO. It gets great results because Fuji used a large sensor (by point and shoot standards) and did not try to cram too many pixels into the chip design. The end result is a very publishable image, taken under less than ideal light conditions like a restaurant or nightclub.
Jodi at the Cardinal Bar, 2008. Camera: Fuji FinePix F30, 800 ISO, 1/60 sec. f/2.8, focal length 8mm, on camera flash.

Newer compacts are now using dual image stabilization (awesome) and obviously have more features and better performance in general. However, from what I've seen, the 12 and 14 megapixel sensors found on today's pocket cameras do not produce clean images at high ISOs! Seriously, if your camera cannot produce a clean image at 800 ISO or higher, the sensor is shit in my eyes. The only reason manufacturers keep bumping up resolution is because higher megapixel numbers sell more cameras.

Take a look at the image noise test results for a high-end camera like the ultra-sexy Leica M8 and I think you'll find that 1250 ISO does not generate a clean enough image to publish under normal circumstances. Therein lies our problem, current generation sensors (on compact cameras) simply do not perform well-enough to crank out 10 or 14 megapixels of resolution. My solution is for manufactures to cap the resolution on compacts to 8 megapixels-plenty to run a full-page photo in a magazine or newspaper and 30x the resolution needed to post an image on facebook or whatever.

Fortunately for us, the sensors in DSLRs are larger and do far better in low light situations. My Canon 5D is 12.8 megapixels. It's really a great, great camera body but... obviously DSLR bodies gotten more advanced. The 5D MKII is 21 megapixels. Very impressive in marketing materials for Canon, but is that much resolution really needed? In short the answer is no. Read: with careful post-production, billboards have been shot with 6+ megapixel cameras. My next camera body will likely be a 5D MKII, but I will be doing much of my professional work shooting at a reduced resolution of 10 mp SRAW simply because the full-res. 21 mp files will tie up too many resources. From the continuous shooting frame speed, to CF card space, to hard drive space, and time spent editing in post-production, it's just far more data than one needs for anything other than a 6 foot or greater fine art print. That's my rant, Timothy Hughes signing off.

Free digital zine. UCE Magazine: fashion, design, culture

I stumbled on the new issue of UCE Magazine while making my daily rounds of the interweb's deepest, darkest corners and I must say-this one truly impressed me. The format is clean like a magazine, yet is interactive like a good web 2.0 interface should be. Definitely worth checking out and free.

Wisconsin Fashion Week schedule posted

Wisconsin Fashion Week has posted the schedule of May events on their website. I'm looking forward to attending during the week and taking lots of great photos. Look for some of them here!