by Neil Coleman

Preserving, promoting, and presenting photography has been my profession, as well as my passion, for the past fifteen years in Austin. I've owned and operated a gallery dedicated to photography and I've been personally involved in over 100 exhibits around town. When I was approached to write for Austin Downtown Arts, I jumped on the opportunity to write about photography. To cover a wide range of topics, such as techniques, styles, exhibits, interviews, and ideas with photographers and gallery owners around Austin. I'm hoping to make this an interesting and informative addition to the magazine and would welcome any input.

In March of this year I featured the photographic artwork of Daniel J. Schaefer. His exhibit, entitled "Open Mine," contained large, filtered and diffused color prints. Portraits of musicians taken at open mike nights around some of the clubs in Austin. What made his images so strong and unique is one of the techniques he used that is referred to as "Rear Curtain Sync" (RCS).

RCS is a method for capturing ambient light while at the same time keeping a subject in focus. Ambient light is the light that comes from the sun (and in some instances artificial light). To properly expose for ambient light we have shutter speeds and apertures on our cameras. They each have a separate yet combined roll to play in proper exposure. The shutter speeds are described in terms of time. The shutter speed also determines how long the film sees the subject. If the subject is not moving, the length of time the shutter is open and the film sees the subject does not matter. But if the subject is moving, long shutter speeds can result in out of focus subjects because movement is seen by the film.

The aperture effects how much light strikes the film. The aperture is a large hole normally at the rear of the lens through which light must travel to reach the film. It has blades that can be closed down, making the hole smaller, or opened up, making the hole larger. The larger the hole, the more light that can strike the film (F-stops).

When Daniel shoots his photos at open mike nights, his flash fires the moment the first shutter blade starts closing the shutter after the ambient exposure is made. The important thing about RCS is that the flash comes at the end of the ambient exposure. Daniel says "this is especially important if you are trying to incorporate motion into your concept. If the flash occurs at the beginning of the exposure the trail will be in front of the subject. This is great if the subject is skating backwards. Unfortunately, in most cases, the trail looks backwards. I rarely attempt motion shots when I use RCS." It is also interesting to note that none of Daniel's photos are double exposures.

There are other aspects to be considered when using RCS, such as capturing the ambient light while at the same time keeping your subject in focus. According to Daniel there are three things to consider in using RCS effectively and they are: "use a wide angle lends, keep your subject still (more or less), and use a darker background then your subject. Generally speaking, if you keep the ambient exposure between 3 and 15 seconds and use a wide angle lens (like 20 to 35) you will get the best results. However, the longer you leave the shutter open, the more possibility you create for interesting effects in the background. For example the portrait I did of Rusty Weir at Gino's Restaurant is a 24 second exposure. If you look carefully you can see that there are indeed people seated at the tables, but on first inspection it looks as if the restaurant is empty. Also the tablecloth assumes a soft, fully saturated appearance."

What makes RCS an exciting and fun way to shoot pictures is that it is a method of getting images in very dark places. It also creates an "impressionistic" feel, with much of the background fuzzy and subjects looking blurred from the movement. Daniel also feels that specular highlights are important. He says, "part of that makes the picture interesting is the wobble of the specular highlights. This can be achieved by hand-holding the camera. It may sound incongruous but the motion of the camera at an extended shutter speed creates a diffused background against which a sharp subject becomes more profound."

Daniel is still shooting photos at open mike nights (using the RCS method) as an on going project. He also is an accomplished musician (conjunto), with three CDs to his name and can often be heard playing his bajo sexto at Gino's and other open mike venues around town.

If you are interested in RCS or viewing Daniel's work you can contact me at Pro-Jex Gallery, (512) 472-7707. My gallery is in the Guadalupe Arts Building (1705 Guadalupe St.) along with Austin Downtown Arts magazine. Also if you have any ideas or suggestions for my column please contact me at the gallery. I hope to bring you more interesting articles on photography around Austin in the publications to come.