Nobody heard from Jack...

the conclusion of several major undertakings

2008-07-21T22:03:00.000-07:00

I think it is important to have diverse interests. I do a lot more than just taking pictures.

Over this past weekend, July 18-20, roughly 3,000 computer hackers converged on the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan for The Last HOPE conference. The event happens once every two years and represents an unusual subculture's version of a family reunion.

When I say "hacker" I mean it in the way Stephen Levy meant it when he wrote "Hackers: Heroes of The Computer Revolution" in 1984. In the "2600" hacker community are some of the most talented, intelligent, and creative people I have ever met. I get fairly frustrated with the negative image of hackers perpetuated by the mainstream media.

I only attended four of the 100+ presentations at this conference because I was fairly busy being one of two projects coordinators working around the clock for four days. In fact, for three of the four talks I did get to attend, I was giving the presentation.

Most of my time was occupied by three specific projects: The Attendee Meta-Data Project, Radio Statler!, and something called The NOC NOC.

The Attendee Meta-Data Project, for which I served as Project Manager, has gotten quite a bit of press attention. Hack-A-Day, Boing Boing, CNET, and many other tech news outlets have taken notice. Using a web survey, my team collected information on many of the conference's participants, and we gave 1400 RFID tracking devices to attendees and recorded their movements in relation to the conference schedule. In the process, we collected a very interesting combined database which will be released in the near future for study and experimentation by the global hacker community. During the conference the attendees saw a bit of what we were doing displayed on plasma screens and on a special web site set up for the event. To the corporate technology world what we did will probably seem rather insignificant, but in reality there was a monumental task accomplished, and an invaluable resource for future research was created. I cannot express how much effort my team put into getting this project to function in the last four months from a weird little idea I'd had kicking around in my head since January of 2007. I wouldn't have considered myself an installation artist before this project.

Radio Statler! (the exclamation point is part of the name) was an Internet radio station set up specially for the conference. I served as the station/project manager and an occasional producer on the project, but mostly the station was run by the Chief Engineer, who goes by the hacker handle Nikgod, and our Programming Coordinator, journalism student Bill "Arca" Peters, who stepped in at the last minute when another team member got stuck working on another continent. These guys, along with a host of other contributors, did a truly fantastic job under conditions from which anyone in commercial radio would likely go insane. While Bill Peters did the good journalism on his "All Hacks Considered" format, I worked on a couple of more eccentric programs during the conference, including the as-far-from-NPR-as-you-can-get "Welding Hour" call-in show, which involved more than a handful of members of the infamous Phone Losers of America (PLA) group, including Murd0c, Enamon, Gonzo, and Johnny X(mas).

The NOC NOC, along with a diagram for a much larger normal NOC, was an idea born from the previous conference, HOPE Number Six. NOC is IT industry shorthand for Network Operations Center. At the sixth conference the NOC was incredibly cramped, and the network itself inaccessible to people who wanted to share their computer systems. I had the idea for the NOC NOC while trying to work on a security turret camera and noticing the difficulties faced by attendees who wanted to share videos from other conferences and a group with an Asterisk telecommunications system. NOC NOC means Not Our Concern Network Operations Center. It was a large steel equipment cage enclosing a network switch and power strips with a formidable padlock. The stainless steel German ABUS Diskus 20/70 padlock was graciously provided by Deviant, an expert lock picker from TOOOL, so the chance of someone picking the lock before being noticed by security was negligible. I and Nick Amento, a senior network engineer at Harvard University and member of the network team, had keys to unlock the cage to get servers in and out. Not as many people as I had hoped took advantage of the service at this conference, but now we have the cage and people know it will be available, so I think at The Next HOPE people will bring more servers to plug in.

HOPE was an incredible experience, yet again. Now, I get back to fashion photography for a while with not so many distractions.

women tests

2008-07-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the new faces I have shot for Women recently.

Toma Barkova

Julia Oliv

and the amazing...
Paula Bertolini!!!

Did I mention the fantastic Paula Bertolini is amazing?!

supreme tests

2008-07-04T22:20:00.001-07:00

I've been busy and not updated here lately. Here are some recent test shots with models from Supreme.

Joice Monback

Kate Herrod

Natalia Schueroff

Sarah Bledsoe

Thaysse Ricci

Zuzana Straska

thinking about arts and crafts

2008-07-04T20:53:00.000-07:00

Decoration is a craft. Art is an anti-science. The pinnacle height of achievement in a craft is the perfect modification of a material into a vision. The pinnacle height of achievement in an art is the perfect modification of a vision into a metaphor. Some things can be both. Art cannot exist without craft. Craft cannot exist without art. Yet there is a vast difference from the goals of artists and craftspeople. Craft has a finite goal, the production of something tangible. Art has an infinite goal, the induction of something intangible. Craft relaxes. Art excites.

Hackers to Track Visitors at Conference

2008-05-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

I've been working as project manager with a group of crazy computer hackers to create an RFID-based interactive art game for a conference in New York coming up in July. We just got a press release out from the conference organizers.

click to read

I have a Wikipedia entry?

2008-03-24T01:01:00.000-07:00

Not much there yet, but I guess it's a start.

Charles "Ched" Beckwith

Ched's First Photo Book - $60

2008-03-24T00:54:00.000-07:00

I have been working as a fashion photographer for several years, and I have amassed a small but vital collection of images. I would like to make a book displaying a selection of these images. Each contribution of $60 toward this effort will entitle the contributor to receive one signed copy of the finished book.

- Ched

contribute here: fundable.com

"Three Wishes" poster

2008-03-05T11:31:00.001-08:00

This is the poster for a play I'm directing.

view large

"Three Wishes" Press Release

2008-03-04T07:35:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Representative: Michael Martinez
212-712-7362

Director Charles Beckwith helms "Three Wishes" in Curan Repertory's Notes Festival

Fashion photographer and filmmaker turns to directing for the stage with an amuse-bouche-style introduction.

New York, NY – (March 3, 2008) Charles Beckwith directs "Three Wishes," part of The Curan Repertory Company's Notes From The Underground Festival. The tight one-act written by Robert Caisley will be performed along with other selections March 11, 12, 14, and 15 at the Payan Theater at Roy Arias Theatre Center. The play features actors Shawthel Stephenson, Hugo Salazar, Jr, and Robert Keiley. In "Three Wishes," a young writer strung out to wit's end is cursed with strange visitors in the middle of the night. Showtimes are at 8pm, tickets: $15, call (212) 479-0821

Charles Beckwith (www.charlesbeckwith.com) is a commercial artist with experience across radio, television, dramatic feature filmmaking, documentary filmmaking, fashion photography, and fiction writing. His documentaries have featured a wide variety of subjects, including everything from womens' surfing on the East Coast (East Coast Wahine Surf Championships), following multinational corporations into India (Re:Solve Mumbai), to a film about the lifespan of a film festival (Cucalorus at 10). In 2001-2002 Charles produced a popular college comedy/variety television series called Uncommon Variety on UNC Wilmington Television, for which he wrote and directed over half the comedy sketches in the series. "I Like Fog," his first solo gallery show, featured two dozen photographs which hung at Plan B in the East Village for several months in 2006. Film and photography clients include Herman Miller, Harvard University, UNC Wilmington, The Brand Experience Lab, Microsoft, Richard Saul Wurman, Urban Outfitters, The Design Management Institute, EUE/ScreenGems Studios, F!ND Magazine, Talent In Motion Magazine, Go NYC Magazine, 11211 Magazine, Fashion Wire Press, Supreme Model Management, Women Model Management, and One Model Management, among others. Charles has a BFA in Creative Writing and is in the process of completing an MFA. He currently works as an editorial photographer in the fashion industry and is producing a new photography-focused talk radio series called Light and Gravity. He has enjoyed working on "Three Wishes" and hopes to continue directing for the stage with more ambitious projects in the future.

Press reservations or interview inquiries with Charles Beckwith: Please call Michael Martinez , 212-712-7362.

The Notes From The Underground Festival is the annual festival devoted to original one-act plays. The festival showcases new short works by emerging writers and directors. For more information please go to: www.curan.org

The Plays:

Boston by Charles Evered

Dog and Human by Ellen Kouisto

famous - small "f" by Robert Mattson

The Greatest in the Whole Wide World by David Kosh
MEL ( and God) by Ted Williams

Sleep Baby Sleep by Scott Saffer
and

Three Wishes by Robert Caisley

Location:
The Payan Theater
at Roy Arias Theatre Center
300 West 43rd St. Suite 506
between 8th and 9th Ave.
phone: 212-957-8358

Subway: A,C,E to 42nd St-Port Authority

how to charge for commercial photography

2008-02-14T12:10:00.000-08:00

A lot of newer photographers seem at a loss as to how to charge for their services. I know I was. This is an attempt to explain professional billing and licensing practices for photography. It is not a comprehensive explanation, and there are many resources available online that go into much greater detail.

Creative Fee + License Fees + Production Costs = estimate

To pay you a small amount of money and ask for full unrestricted use of your images for all time is unreasonable and unacceptable.

To expect you to have a set rate for a production with as many variable costs as a photo shoot is unreasonable and unacceptable.

You charge them your creative fee, a low license fee for specific things in a limited amount of time, and your production costs.

Your creative fee when you start out should be slightly higher than your CODB (cost of doing business). Google that to find a CODB calculator and figure out your own exact number.

Your creative fee is also an estimate based on how long you think the shoot will take. If they drag their feet and you shoot for 14 hours instead of 6, make sure you've put overtime options into the estimate. This is why most pros never use the term "day rate" anymore.

The key to making money in photography is the license fees.

Go look at the pricing for stock agency images to get some numbers.

Say the group you're going to be working for is just starting out and can't pay much, so you charge them your costs plus a low license for the first year, but for each additional year you ramp it up. Make them come back to you to get permission to use the images next year. Make them pay to reuse images, and upon renewal they have to select the usage licenses they want, so if they want to put a picture on a bus that's a separate charge from the license to print fliers and put them on cars at a supermarket. Make the license fee slightly cheaper than what they'll be charged for another shoot, so they're more likely to want to simply renew the license than have you do an updated set on the same subject. That way you're making money for a shoot you already did and can continue to rack up more gigs. Plus, if they don't renew the license, as long as your creative fees and production cost charges covered your cost of doing business, who cares, you've moved on to other work, and continuing this policy with all your clients means eventually you'll make more from licensing your images than from creating new ones.

Your license fee for the first year should attempt to cover all the uses the client thinks they might want. You show them a breakdown of many possible uses and make them choose what ways they really think for which they'll use it. Again, see stock agency sites for more info on how to break it down.

So, they buy the licenses they think they need. For example, a small startup surf magazine might want to print it in the magazine once, be able to make posters, and be licensed to use the image on their web site. Make them sign an agreement that outlines those limitations and the term of the license. One year is usually good. Also make them credit you and note your copyright any time the image is printed. If they later want to print an image on a t-shirt, they owe you more money. If they want to make postcards, they owe you more money. If they want to make a slide and project it on the building outside a concert, they owe you more money. They will have seen the breakdown during the estimation process, so it should be clear that they did not pay for license to utilize your images in that way.

Before you start shooting, get the signatures.

Before you hire any crew or rent or buy any supplies, get a deposit for 50% of the total estimate.

Do not be afraid to estimate $15 per person on the shoot to buy lunch.

It's your art, and you have the only say in what happens to it.

It's your business and you need to say "no, this is how professional photographers bill for services" when someone is trying to take advantage of you.

Note: This post refers mostly to advertising work. Editorial is handled differently than work for commercial clients. Often you do editorials more for publicity than direct financial gain. Editorial means your ideas make it on the page though. If it is called "editorial" and someone is telling you how to shoot, it isn't much of an editorial for you, and that isn't a very good promotion of your work, so you should probably charge regular rates unless the exposure offered is really really good. As with all things, negotiate your way to harmony.

radio show going forward

2008-01-31T06:51:00.000-08:00

I haven't wanted to post much about the new radio show I'm producing, but I wanted to give an update of some sort here. I can't say where the show will be aired yet, or who the first few guests will be, because we're still working out syndication and some other things, but hopefully I can post that information soon. I'm almost afraid to jinx it, things seem to be going so well on this project. Cross your fingers!

The show is going to be called Light and Gravity. It is about photography and cinematography, but more generally about images and applied creativity. The "light" part of the title is pretty obviously relevant for photo and cinema, light is how you record images. The word "gravity" refers not to the Newtonian force, but to the importance of images as communication. We will be talking a lot about artist intent, editorial images, and viewer perception. In other words, it will be some pretty deep stuff.

Sandy Ramirez is going to co-host with me, and has been a big help in working to line up master photographers to interview. Currently looking for a cinematographer to join the on-air team.

The first few episodes should be done and ready for air in late February.

For each weekly one hour show we will have a main guest to interview live on the air, along with discussion of news from the photography, film, and creative arts worlds, and usually a pre-recorded feature or two. I'm up in the air about doing call-ins. We may take questions live from the forum on modelmayhem.com.

Ohrinthel is a fashion Yoda

2008-01-30T21:28:00.000-08:00

edit: videos removed at source, broken links deleted from this post

Three Wishes

2008-01-29T13:47:00.001-08:00

I'm going to be directing a one act play called "Three Wishes" to be performed during the Curan Reperatory Company's Notes from The Underground Festival in March. More details to follow.

Jackie's blog from Iraq

2008-01-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

My friend Jackie is a defense contractor in Iraq, and she has been blogging about her activities from there. She has two videos up so far, feels a lot more real than the coverage from CNN etc.

Check it out here: http://www.defiantcompliance.com/

a short update

2008-01-08T23:58:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I posted here. With the holidays and a nasty cold finally over it's time to get back to work. What have I been up to?

I have a few test shoots scheduled for this week and next. One particularly interesting new girl at Supreme I'm really looking forward to working with.

I'm working on outlines for two screenplays. One is the StarFortress story about the polar bear that I have been working on since I was 18 which never seems to reach a satisfactory ending. The other is my take off on the Voltron cartoon series. I heard there is a live-action film in the works out in Hollywood, but the rumor web sites I've skimmed seem to indicate that the feature being developed is more or less Voltron in name and basic premise only, and not an expansion of the story already existent like what I am working on. These are both long term projects that I scratch on every once in a while when I have the inclination. I hope I finish both of them at some point and can send them out to studios, but at the moment they're largely just writing exercises.

I'm also kicking around an idea about producing a radio show that would deal with photography and cinematography. Sort of a guest of the week thing with leaders in cinema and commercial photography talking about how they think about their art and what is going on in that world. I don't really want to do a podcast, but it seems like that is the way to get these things launched lately. I'd much rather just make a pilot and send that out to syndicates like musicians send out demos to record labels. I have thought of the perfect name for it, but I'll hold off on making that public for the moment.

I'm having fun playing with a Pentax Optio A30 point and shoot digital camera that I picked up back in December. It's 10 megapixels and records decent video clips. Not perfect in low light conditions, but what digital camera is really.

I also picked up a second Hensel beauty dish when I got the new camera, but I haven't used it yet. I don't use Hensel lights, but the dishes fit my AlienBees kit lights well enough. No such luck on the ProFoto line.

My credentials were confirmed yesterday for the February 1-8 Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week here in New York, so I'll be in the pit at the end of the runway again. You can see some of my Spring and Fall 2007 runway and backstage images in the runway image gallery on my website.

more new faces

2007-11-09T22:02:00.000-08:00

Eden at Red

Emily Fox at Supreme

Iris at Supreme

Johanna at Red

Karin at One

art and science are the same?

2007-11-03T08:15:00.000-07:00

All art, like science, is hypothesis. There is an innate desire in humans to understand the world around them. Art is one attempt at an answer. Just as science seeks to find explanations through observation and experimentation, so does art.

It could be argued that science is an art. It could also be argued that art is a science. Whatever they are, they both involve testing ideas and looking for answers. They both involve curiosity.

Science is an art, in that creative leaps of faith are required to hypothesize. Science is nothing if not creative problem solving and a way of working to understand the universe.

Art is a science, in that when one is creating, one applies rules to carry out an experiment which might produce a result. In the process of the creation of a work, one tests these rules. Each choice is a rule. Are you going to use light blue for the sky? That's a choice, a rule. You or someone else can later try another color and compare the results. Each work of art one starts is an experiment testing some hypothesis. The outcome is always uncertain. There are always unplanned results in complex rule systems. When the work is complete, both the final product and the memory of the process add to our knowledge of how things work.

Science and art are both linked at fundamental levels.

What are people carrying around?

2007-08-30T17:52:00.001-07:00

Interesting blog article with a lot of photos of what people carry around with them in their satchels and backpacks and purses every day.

converting a Mercedes into a cottage?

2007-08-29T16:25:00.000-07:00

"Quaint my ride."

testing @ Women

2007-08-24T06:18:00.000-07:00

ANASTASIYA @ Women

ISABEL @ Women

LUIZE @ Women

more testing @ Supreme

2007-08-24T06:13:00.000-07:00

MARINA @ Supreme

LERA @ Supreme

model test - Inna

2007-08-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

NY Fashion Week is fast approaching, and I know this because of all the new models in town. Yesterday I shot a test with an amazing new model, Inna, from Supreme Model Management. I did the wardrobe styling myself (with a little help from Jimmy at Trash and Vaudville on St. Mark's Place). Hair and makeup were handled by the very talented Ana Sicat.

INNA @ Supreme

This one was shot with my Pentax K10D and a 35mm lens:

I also did a couple Polaroids with my late 1960's-era Polaroid 440 camera on nifty Fuji 100 ISO black and white pack film.

Karl Lagerfeld Profile

2007-08-10T11:33:00.001-07:00

ARTICLE

This article on Karl Lagerfeld was in the March 19Th issue of The New Yorker, and though it is quite long I really enjoyed the reading. It's good to know that the people at the top of the fashion food chain are crazy-seeming artists just like me. I especially liked the part describing the work environment in his home and the descriptions of his diversity of interests.

Image analysis to reveal modifications...

2007-08-03T21:33:00.000-07:00

A really interesting piece from Wired Magazine: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/researchers-ana.html

"High Fashion Photography" ???

2007-07-28T19:06:00.000-07:00

This question was posted to an online forum:

"What makes High fashion photography?"

My Answer:

The difference I think you're reaching for is catalog vs. editorial style. In catalog photography you shoot the entire collection. In an editorial style you try to sum up the entire collection in a short series of images.

In real editorial fashion photography, at a purist level, you look at what is now and what is past and you create a very selective visual essay. It doesn't always work that way. Most magazines want their advertisers' products represented in the editorials, so what you see in Vogue etc. is not normally true editorials because the editors are influenced by a need to keep their employers happy.

"High fashion" is a bad translation of the French "Haute Couture," which is a very specific kind of clothing, and actually translates to "high sewing." Haute Couture is the very highest level of fashion in terms of craft and quality workmanship. They don't sell it at Macy's. They barely sell it at Bergdorf Goodman. It's one of a kind pieces, usually made for a specific person. It is actually a legal distinction and only a small group of fashion design companies are allowed to call their work "Haute Couture."