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From Jam Sessions to Photography Sessions

Former rockabilly musician switches gears to the fine arts with Tamron's 90mm, 28-300mmm and 17-35mm Di lenses.
© Laurin Rinder © Laurin Rinder © Laurin Rinder © Laurin Rinder © Laurin Rinder
SP AF90mm F/2.8, SP AF17-35mm F/2.8-4 & AF28-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di Lenses
by Jennifer Gidman Zumpano

You need to constantly make changes, or you'll die.
That's the undercurrent behind the work of photographer Laurin Rinder, who has parlayed a Renaissance-man lifestyle into his photographic style. Before his passage into the world of fine-art imagery, he was a musician for 35 years, playing on some of the most well-known rockabilly songs from the '50s and '60s, as well as producing and composing for hit TV shows, films, and albums. "If you listen to those oldies-but-goodies radio stations, I probably played on most of those songs," he says.
But while he nurtured his musical soul all those years, his passion for photography (jumpstarted when his dad gave him a Leica camera as a kid) never died. He opened up a studio in Laguna Beach, CA, started shooting, and hasn't stopped since.
Rinder's online gallery (www.rinderart.com) showcases his eclectic photographic style, dabbling in everything from lofty architectural, landscape, and "atmospheric" imagery (think Death Valley at sunset, or twilight cloud cover over Beverly Hills) to corporate, travel, sports, and nature photography. And it's his Tamron triumvirate of Di lenses (the 90mm, 17-35mm, and 28-300mm) that's helped him achieve his signature artistry. "I've been using Tamron equipment for about 40 years – that's a long time!" he exclaims.
Rinder's a progressive revolutionary with an old-school heart. While he shoots digital these days ("I have the first two Nikon Dxs in the LA area scheduled to come my way"), he also believes that the artist's eye will dictate the resulting imagery more than any bells-and-whistles gear ever could. "Nothing else matters – it's all about your eye," he explains. "When I used to teach, my first class would have 20 kids, and by the next week I'd have it down to 10 kids. I was really tough. The first day's assignment would be to go buy a camera but not spend more than $5 for it, and then shoot five rolls of film, but without going any farther than one block from their house. That'll separate them out right away."
These types of assignments would separate the men from the boys, according to Rinder. "In my little room here with my computer, I can look around and can see 20 pictures," he says. "You would have been blown away by three or four of the kids who came back -- they bought some little Kodak Brownie box camera for $3 at a pawn shop and put some film in it; you could tell immediately who had the eye. You've got to take a lot of pictures, write down everything you do, and analyze what you're doing and how you can make it better. There are only three or four things that you really have to know—we're not talking about major government secrets! You learn those three or four things, which should take you three or four weeks, and then go shoot. Go shoot your brains out."

Lens Variety: The Spice of Life
For portraits and macro montages, Rinder relies on his Tamron SP AF90mm f/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 lens, often referred to as the "portrait macro." The 90mm's minimum focusing distance of 11.4 inches and true 1:1 magnification allows Rinder to get his lifesize close-ups. "I would even call the 90mm a 'micro' lens, because of that 1:1 ratio when I want to get really close," he says.
Rinder pulls out the 90mm for a variety of subjects, including this in-studio spider shot, meticulously lit with softboxes and strobes. "I'll use the lens for insects, and also as my go-to portrait lens, when I want to shoot celebrities, children, old men and women – people that interest me," he says. "With its 1.5 crop factor, the 90mm effectively turns into 135mm."
When wide angle is his mandate, Rinder likes to use the Tamron SP AF17-35mm f/2.8-4 Di LD Aspherical (IF) lens for perfect panoramic results. "For a long time before I got the 17-35, I was shooting with a 12-24," he says. "That's a nice lens, but it was too wide for me. Being an artist, my eye didn't see that range. My eye gravitates to 22mm, 24mm from my old days of shooting 35mm film."
Rinder utilizes panoramic stitching to fuse together his lofty landscape shots, and the 17-35 helps him achieve the individual elements. "If I stand in front of the Grand Canyon, there's no lens made that can capture exactly what you're going to see," he says. "I also do a lot of corporate events where I have to shoot the stage, and some of them are 150 feet wide -- I can never back up that far. So I'll use the 17-35, and use panoramic stitching. I'll take three or four shots on a tripod with a panoramic head on it so everything stays perfectly even."
This technique served him well on a recent trip to Arizona's Glen Canyon Dam, situated south of Lake Powell. "This shot [shown above] shows the runoff from the dam that goes down into the Colorado River," he says. "If I turned the camera just to the right, you'd see this gigantic, beautiful space-age dam that holds back Lake Powell. I shot this with the 17-35 early in the morning. The 17-35's resolution is amazing. When you blow the image up real big, it's very sharp."
But it's the AF28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) Macro lens that Rinder considers his gear bag staple. "Having tried at least 500 lenses in my life, the 28-300 is more of a go-to lens than any other I've ever used," he says. "It's extremely versatile. The macro capabilities of this lens are just phenomenal."
One application Rinder taps into with the 28-300 is to capture the intricacies of eye-catching flora—but from a different perspective. "I do extreme close-ups of the inside of flower stamens, instead of just taking your standard amateur flower shot," he says. "That's what this lens is for. I go way, way down inside and just blow it up even more to where it doesn't even look like a flower. When you get way down inside of a flower, beyond what you normally see with your eye, it's very feminine. It's very sexual, very Georgia O'Keeffe.
Rinder searches for the optimum setting before he starts shooting. "There's a sweet spot for every lens, where you can achieve perfect sharpness – for this particular flower, with this lens, I found that sweet spot at 150mm," he says. "I used a tripod (you should always use a tripod when you're shooting flowers, no matter what your shutter speed is) and strobe."
The 28-300 also comes in handy when Rinder needs to indulge his entomological inclinations. "I shoot a lot of bugs, a lot of stock," he explains. "I'm a real-world photographer. I don't do test charts, I don't care about lens aberrations, and barrel distortions. I just want my pictures to look good, since I've got to shoot a lot."
For a studio session with one such engaging insect, Rinder set up his studio strobe and shot the lone grasshopper with the 28-300 at 150mm. "Does the 28-300 always work? Yes," he says. "Is it crystal clear? Yes. Is it tack-sharp? Absolutely!"
For more information and spec sheets go to www.tamron-usa.com/lenses/prod/90mm.asp, www.tamron-usa.com/lenses/prod/17_35mm.asp & www.tamron-usa.com/lenses/prod/28300_di.asp.
For more information about Laurin Rinder go to www.rinderart.com

Tip Box

Before Sunrise
In autumn of 2003, California was ravaged by major wildfires that burned nearly 750,000 acres, destroying nearly 3,700 homes. As the infernos raged across the Golden State's terrain, Laurin Rinder garnered a new perspective on a daily event: the sunrise. "I walked out one morning around 6am, and because of all the smoke in the air from the fires, the sky was majorly red," he recalls. "The smoke alters the light and makes it look otherworldly, as if you're on Mars. It was like that for about a week." Rinder took "about 4,000 shots" through the trees that week to capture this natural phenomenon. To achieve the silhouette effect in this image, Rinder used his 28-300mm lens at 100mm. "It's real simple to get silhouettes like this – just expose for the sky and everything else will go dark," he says. "And always use a tripod." Not to mention keeping an eye open for outdoor anomalies….