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Steve's Digital Darkroom

Here is the article that appeared in "PC Photo" magazine in January 2000 that described how I produced my photography at that time:

Archiving The Action

Boston Celtics photographer Steve Lipofsky is taking full advantage of new technologies to manage and preserve his massive collection of images
By Mark Edward Harris

You may not have the huge collection of photographs that Steve Lipofsky has amassed, but you can learn a lot from him about how to organize and safeguard your images. Lipofsky's career as the Boston Celtics photographer has given him rare access, and he has taken full advantage of it. To organize, preserve and distribute his photos, Lipofsky has employed a computer, scanner and a CD-ReWritable drive.

Lipofsky primarily uses traditional photography equipment to shoot from courtside. He edits the photos and chooses the best images, then scans and saves them to a CD.

As we move into the next millennium, Boston Celtics photographer Steve Lipofsky is implementing a digital full-court press, incorporating all aspects of the state-of-the-art technology into his photography business. While he most often records the initial image using traditional film and camera, Lipofsky passes the image from scanner to computer to a Hewlett-Packard CD-Rewritable and scores big points with his clients.

Since starting with the Celtics during the 1981-82 season, Lipofsky has amassed a huge library of images. Keeping track of that inventory is challenging. In the digital age, Lipofsky has come to rely on new technology to sort, track and archive the images. His home office includes a Pentium 3, a 450 MHz PC with an 18 GB hard drive, a flatbed scanner, a Polaroid SprintScan 35 Plus slide scanner, an HP CD-Writer Plus and an HP InkJet 2500 printer.

PCPhoto: What's your motivation for turning 18 years' worth of transparencies into digital imagery?

Steve Lipofsky: To become more efficient. I'm my own stock agency, so I have a lot of images constantly going in and out. I keep track of them by using a Polaroid flatbed scanner with a transparency adapter on it. When a customer requests images, for instance, Sports Illustrated, I'll put them into a slide page with a code on top and gang-scan them, then save it as a JPEG file in that company's name.
When a customer gives me a laundry list of images--they'll say, "Larry Bird," "Magic Johnson"--I need to send them a wide selection of original images, even though they're going to end up picking only a few. That's why I'm going completely digital with my cataloging as well. The client can look at the images, pick what they want, then give me the serial numbers, so I only have to send them those images. This way, I still have the image here, digitally stored, which I can quickly retrieve and show to another client. I'm refining my system to catalog and bar code my slides using a program called Photo Agent. Now, as I shoot each game, I'm picking out the best slides, scanning them, giving them a serial number and printing out bar codes for them. Then, as they go out and come in, I can use the bar code wand and keep track of my inventory. I'm also in the process of making a catalog to show what's on each individual CD.

PCPhoto: Are you using the scanner and CD-RW to archive your images for posterity?

Lipofsky: Original images can get lost. I have a few images that I hope will turn up some day, but for now they exist only as scans. Fortunately, these were saved at a higher resolution. I have a 2700 dpi scanner--a Polaroid SprintScan 35 Plus--which is more than good enough for 8x10 prints. Also, in terms of safety, no matter what kind of computer you've got, they can all go up in smoke. It's a cliché, but everybody says you should back up--it's the first thing you hear when you start working with computers--but most people don't do it. I've had enough disasters that I've learned the hard way that you have to back up your vital data. And now there's no excuse not to because CDs are so inexpensive, so easy to burn and so permanent, it seems to be the very best way to go, not only for archiving my photographs but my business records as well. My Quicken, my customer base and any of my irreplaceable data get burned onto a CD. If it's something vital, I'll put it on more than one CD. With the rewritable CDs, it's even better, since I can constantly update them. And in terms of space, a CD-ROM is fantastic since each one is equivalent to 450 floppies. I have 40 or 50 CDs with thousands of images, which I store in racks near my computer.

PCPhoto: Do you often print your images?

Lipofsky: I print my photos digitally. I don't have a darkroom anymore. One of the great things about doing images digitally is that with the ones that are really tricky and require a lot of dodging and burning, once you've done all of the image manipulation and saved them, that's it. All you ever have to do from that point on is double-click on that image and send it to the printer; it's perfect every time.
I have a Kodak dye-sublimation printer and an HP 2500. The HP goes up to 13x19, so it will print a nice 11x14 image. It's an inkjet printer. The Celtics got a new practice facility and needed a lot of images for the walls, and they needed them in a hurry. I had the images already saved on CDs, so I just sent them off to my HP printer using their photo paper, and now they're hanging up on the walls.

PCPhoto: Which digital camera do you work with?

Lipofsky: I had been renting the DCS5, but now I'm using the Nikon Coolpix 950, which is less than $1,000. It's a 2-megapixel camera and works great.

PCPhoto: What's your basic setup to initially create the images at a game?

Lipofsky: I have a system of six 2400-watt-second Speedotron packs with one head each. They're in the rafters at the corners and at the middle of the court at the Fleet Center where the Celtics play. I'm linked into them with a hardwire that comes out near where I sit, which is on the floor under the basket. At any given game, the most you'll ever have is four photographers strobing with their own sets of packs; the rest of the photographers have to work with available light.

The downside of using strobes is that you can't motor; you have to wait three and a half seconds for the recycle. The advantage is that when I plug into these lights, I'm able to use Kodak E100SW film at f/4. I also have a remote camera opposite me, and I use the Kodak E200 for that since I won't be there to focus it and I can use the extra stop for depth of field.

The remote is attached to the basket stanchion by a Bogen Magic Arm bracket. It's an articulated arm that lets me position the camera any way I want to and locks into place. The camera's about five and a half, six feet up the basket and placed vertically with a 50mm lens on it. I make sure that I've got the rim and a little bit above that in the frame. You can call it a dunk cam--it's good for tight action under the basket. I've got that plugged into the strobe lights as well and use a radio remote with a trigger.
Ordinarily, I'm sitting courtside with three Nikons--an F4, F100 and N90. One has an 85mm lens, one has a 180mm, and then I've got a 400mm f/2.8. When the action is close to me, I use the 85mm; when a guy is at the foul line or bringing the ball over the half-court line, I'll use the 180mm. When the action is across court, I'll use the 400mm. While I'm using the 400mm, I also have a little trigger taped to the camera so that if I decide that the shot is going to be better if I take it from the remote than from my 400mm, I press the button.

PCPhoto: Are you on staff or working freelance with the Celtics?

Lipofsky: Freelance. All these years, it's been a handshake arrangement. The NBA has taken over the team photography for all but about three teams. They now own the copyrights on almost all photographs of NBA players. With the Celtics, while I retain the copyright on my photographs, I provide them with everything they need; they have complete access to all my images.

The Celtics really are a unique team--there's no other team that has the history that the Celtics have. No matter how the fortunes rise and fall from season to season, I think they're still the most special team in the NBA. It would make sense that they would have their own independent photographer who would just be answerable to them.

With the Celtics, the people who do the publications and the advertising need to have a huge inventory of stuff in front of them to use quickly, at least for layout purposes. I have all the images here on file; it's not practical for me to give them all of them. If they have 1000 of my originals, then I don't have them here for other clients. So, by using the CDs, I can give the Celtics a catalog of what I've got at high enough resolution that they can use them for layouts; then they just call me when they need specific originals.
For my own publicity, I burn images into CDs with the HP CD-Writer Plus and create demo catalogs of my work, then send them off to a prospective client. I remember when CD writing first started, the machines were thousands of dollars and the CDs themselves were expensive. You thought about it every time you went to buy one. Now you buy a whole slew of them and for not much more than the cost of postage, you've got a customized promo out there.

Steve Lipofsky's new book, Bird: Portrait Of A Competitor, is now available. To see more of Lipofsky’s basketball photographs - browse this website!

(Click Here for more information about the book: "Bird: Portrait of a Competitor")

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