Hello all -
I’m hoping to learn more about how photographers typically go about securing corporate sponsorships (equipment mfgs, trade associations etc.)
I have some opportunities developing in 2010 that I think will be good situations for sponsor involvement from companies operating in the photo/imaging/printing industries.
Any thoughts, advice or referrals would be greatly appreciated!
During the past year I’ve undertaken a number of large-scale projects related to my photography and teaching. Much of the work is new to me; I’m on unfamiliar ground a lot of the time and have often struggled with the various processes involved.
As a result, I’ve intermittently been feeling overwhelmed, stressed-out, anxious… whatever label you give it, feeling like this sucks. I sometimes wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew, and begin to doubt my ability to succeed in reaching my goals.
Fortunately, thanks to my very strong support system of friends and family (and some great books), I’ve been able to repeatedly bring myself back down to earth and into a calmer state of mind, which in turn allows me to refocus, get back on track and keep working effectively on my projects.
Sometimes, when I can’t sleep at night, I find my mind running endlessly over my to-do lists – which seem to be ever-growing! When this happens, one of the new habits I’ve developed to counter it is to let my mind work over the following list I created to ease my anxiety. I figure if I’m going to obsess on something, it should be more like zen meditation, and I’ve found this has a very calming effect. In fact, sometimes it’s helped me get a good night’s sleep when nothing else worked! Read more…
I will be attending all three days of Photoshop World in Las Vegas, including spending some time in my publisher’s (Wiley and Sons) booth on the trade show floor. Also looking forward to attending a number of training seminars. Hope to see you there!
There is a lot of information floating around about how to be successful [in business] as a photographer. Whether you are just starting photography as a hobby or shooting every day for clients, you need to adopt some basic practices to secure yourself and your work against catastrophe. Here is some info about protecting your most valuable assets:
1. Equipment Insurance
You’ve absolutely gotta have your gear covered. Ask your insurance agent or check out Hill & Usher.
2. File Backups
After every work session, synchronize two or three hard drives so you have mirror copies of all your files. If you don’t use RAID (I don’t), there are software utilities that make this easy; On Mac I use ChronoSync; on Windows I use RoboCopy. Read more…
Last night I made a Lightroom presentation to one of the more established photo clubs in the Denver area. It was a blast! Great turnout, lots of good questions and interaction and we all had a good time exploring the advantages of Lightroom in a digital photography workflow.
I brought all the remaining copies of my book that I had; unfortunately several people didn’t get one… I ran out. (You can get them on Amazon.com)
Dick York founded Denver Digital Photo Club 6 years ago – a long time in terms of digital photography – and of clubs. They’ve been holding a monthly meeting every month all these years, and it showed… lots’ of camaraderie.
My thanks to Dick and the club members for a warm welcome and a nice evening. Cheers!
Don’t drop your camera in water. Ever.
As you may know, I recently took a month-long trip to New Zealand, specifically to photograph all over both islands. As some of you also know, on just the fifth day I had a horrendous accident while shooting Matai Falls.
I’m OK, my camera is not. Let me give a little background… Read more…
OK, so maybe it’s a bit trite at this point. But I’m watching Jerry MacGuire and I think there are still some good bits of wisdom there.
In a phone conversation with my buddy Monte Trumbull , we were talking about how to reveal one’s own "voice" in a photograph. How to make a personal statement; how to produce photographs that speak for you.
I believe that making truly expressive photographs requires conscious thought combined with a personal, innate reaction to the subject. In other words, finding a way to respond to what’s happening, and distill the essence of that reaction within a rectangle. This is not easy but is essential to produce an expressive photograph – no matter what the subject.
Try this: when looking through the viewfinder, identify your instinctual, emotional connection with the subject. Be clear about what you like and what you don’t like, and be clear about why. The more you can identify with your photographs, the better they will become.
From Jerry MacGuire: "If this [points to heart] is empty, this [points to head] doesn’t matter".
Respond to your subject with your heart and let the rest flow.
After a month-long trip to New Zealand, shooting sunrise to sunset and beyond, Monte Trumbull and I came up with a short list of a few things we’d like to see in the next full version release of Lightroom (in no particular order).
- Point curves
- Point curves!
- Point curves!!
- Info overlays in Survey view
- Info overlays: add white balance temperature and tint values
- During an Import, undo should not affect any operations related to the Import.
- Individual histograms in Survey and Compare
- Mini-histograms on Library thumbnails
- More control over vignetting – Photoshop blend modes?
- Thumbnail size should be source-specific
- Renaming folders – hangs on Windows, especially when the folder is the current source
- When doing Select All > Save Metadata to Files, very often throws an error (1 photo failed) etc. and LR hangs during this time
- After successful Import completes, instead of ending up in Previous Import source, end up in the Folder.
- Stacks made in folders should carry over to Collections
- Allow photos to be a member of multiple stacks
- User settings (nameplate, panel widths, preferences and settings etc.) should not be specific to a catalog; they should be global to the computer user account
- Add a Keyword List to the Import screen
- Add Import Presets (not just reverting whatever setting were in last import)
- Better batch Importing
- Be able to apply different filenames, folders, keywords all at once
- Import Sets/Import Collections etc. to separate sets of images captured on a single card
Last week my buddy Monte Trumbull and I returned from our month-long photo journey through New Zealand. We had a great time, covered 5,500 miles, and I came home with around 4,400 new images. While on the road I did as much editing as I could so most of the selects have already been identified. Now onto processing…
I am considering doing a book of the trip, probably on Blurb. Monte and I will also release a comprehensive Trip Report as soon as possible. Stay tuned!
Last week I finally got around to submitting for copyright a large portion of my photographic body of work. I regret that it took me so long to do it! But with the new eCO system the copyright office has set up, I’m glad I didn’t have to go through it the old-school way (with paper and mail).
The process was simple; here’s what I did:
1. In Lightroom, identify all the images I wanted to copyright. I made sure that all photos that I’ve put on the web were included, plus some other recent work that nobody has seen yet. I made a collection to hold these selected photos. Read more…
I believe that taking control over the creative process as well as the technology is very helpful when learning to create better photographs. It’s ironic… once you’ve got everything under control, you can really let loose creatively. The results can be profound.
If you think about the work as its own entity and evaluate it as objectively as possible you will learn from your previous work and your future work will be better for it. Learn to separate yourself from the photograph. Learn more from mistakes than successes.
One way to do this: Do a critique of your image. Take a couple of minutes and write about a photograph. Describe it, as if you were telling someone on the phone about it. Include as much technical information as possible. Describe the photographics. Describe the feelings the photograph conveys to you. Describe what you like and what you don’t like about the image.
For example, the photograph of the windows below, by Cari de la Cruz:
5 windows with white frames on the side of a blue wooden-sided building
In the closest widow is a reflection of a distant shore with buildings and palm trees
Photographics:
Overall well-balanced, center of interest is well-positioned
Strong converging lines
Picture space divided equally into 3 large triangles
Smaller triangles and trapezoids/distorted squares throughout
Low key image, overall low contrast
One small bright area of high contrast
Soothing blue tones
Nice, calm mood… but geometric boxes like this can create sense of being closed-in, claustrophobia etc.
The long vertical rectangles at frame right and left create a stable, almost “locked in” kind of feeling
The scene in the reflection creates an oasis, a glimmer of hope… the “light at the end of the tunnel”. This comes across as the main subject and theme of the photograph.
Read more…
The past couple of evenings I’ve really enjoyed drinking great wine and chatting with George Jardine, Lightroom Evangelist at Adobe, and Seth Resnick, renowned photographer and imaging instructor, whose D-65 workshop came to Denver. Their hospitality was boundless, and Seth and his wife Jamie ran a fantastic 4-day workshop. Thanks to all of you!
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