Essentials
As a photographer, there is a lot of expensive equipment that you do not need to own – Strobe kits cost anywhere from 1,000.00 to 5,000.00, and since you probably won’t need strobes all the time you can easily rent them for about 100.00 for a day. Isn’t it expensive enough just to own a quality digital camera, a few lenses and other picture-taking essentials? As a professional, you cannot skip out on quality equipment that you will be using every day – I recently learned this the hard way. I own 2 Nikons, 4 quality lenses, a light meter, an off-camera flash and a backdrop kit – things I use every day.
Something else I didn’t think of, for whatever reason, was what I look at my photos on. I own a 13″ MacBook and have been doing work on it for about a year and a half now – I thought that everyone had to squint at the screen while working on RAW conversions. Boy was I wrong. Due to some recent financial circumstances I was able to purchase the new 21.5″ iMac.
I almost fell off my chair when I opened Adobe Camera Raw. I was actually able to see my layers – not have them minimized! With the wide-screen format, I was able to edit 2 photos side-by-side – a near impossible feat on my MacBook.
The images looked so crisp and clear, and I was able to sit back comfortably on my chair and work on photos.
Now I want you to know that while I use a Mac, this is NOT an advertisement for Apple – I guess I just had to learn that you need a monitor setup of a decent size to be able to edit photos to your best ability and a 13″ laptop just does not cut it.
Since you already own your own camera and lenses, a computer is just as important in this digital age. Save your pennies and buy something with at least a 17″ screen – you won’t regret it.
Organizing for a living
This week I called over a dozen designer clothing stores in preparation for a project I’m working on. I’ve had to arrange for equipment, assistants and a studio, and I’m in the process of getting it catered. I’ve been working on this for almost 3 weeks now, all for a project that will only take about a half a day to shoot.
Over time, I have come to learn that your workload as a photographer comes out to about 75% organization/problem-solving and 25% actual photography/image-making. It takes a lot of work to pull off a successful shoot, and all of this work will show in your images. It will pay off too, clients like it when they don’t have to worry about anything, and when they see that you pulled off a photo-shoot on location with 5 models 2 assistants and wardrobe stylist, they will be impressed, needless to say. You are a professional problem solver who also just so happens to be great at taking pictures. Don’t even get me started on making a bid on a project. That’s an organizational nightmare to say the least, and is a topic for another day.
So for starters, you should organize yourself. Find out how much a makeup artist in your area will cost, or what you have to do to get permission to shoot at that great location. It’s better to know now in advance then having to scramble around while your client waits for an answer.It will give you peace of mind, and it will give your clients confidence that they hired the right person for the job.
Pressed for time
So this week, I’ve had 3 studio shoots, 1 event shoot, post-production on all 4 shoots, 2 articles to write, (one for Saddle Stitch, one for the ol’ blog) all while trying to have some semblance of a life.
Working for yourself, as most photographers do, can take up a lot more time than some people think. They imagine that you spend a few hours on a set with glamorous models during the day and spend the evening with cocktails, but they are leaving out the book keeping, post-processing and client contact that goes along with that morning shoot.
Many times I will work on a shoot or several for 7 days a week – no time off. I eat, sleep and breathe photography. And I love it.
If this is you, you're in the right field.
Sure, you have to make time for your friends or family or significant other. But there are times when you are on a roll, weather it’s your flow of steady work or a firestorm of creativity – those are the times when you have to – need to – work as a photographer. You will push out your best work, because you’re feelin’ it and it feels good.
Photography is all about love, you have to love it for when you have those busy weeks. And like most jobs, the more you love it the better you will be at it. If you love it enough, you may never have to work a day in your career.
How to start a Photoblog
So you have a few photoblogs that you regularly visit (Hopefully Some Photographer is one of them) for a variety of reasons. Maybe one has a great “Photo of the week” post or maybe another one is a great news source. You say to yourself “I take pictures! I write! I can do this too!” Running a photoblog can be a lot of fun, but it can also be a lot of work. If you start to gather a following, there’s more pressure to write and you’d be surprised how easy it is to get writer’s block. So before you jump in and starting snapping pics and writing tutorials here are a few things to consider.
Who
What kind of audience do you want to appeal to? Beginners? Enthusiasts? Pros? It’s important to carve out your niche but to do so carefully – you don’t want to get in over your head. Most of the people that write blogs are pros, enthusiasts or beginners themselves and you can tell by what they write. This can also be reflected in the title of your blog. Take A Photo Editor for example – the titles says it all. Lou Lesko is allowed to use his own name as a title, because he’s well known enough in the industry. One day maybe you can name your blog after yourself too!
What
What sort of photoblog will you be doing? Whats the theme? The idea? Are you going to do daily posts like a 365 photos project? Are you going to post other people’s work as a way of showing the world great artists? Are you going to focus on industry news? Write tutorials? Or will it be all about you? Find out what would suite you best and stick with it. A combination of these themes can make your blog versatile and appeal to a wider audience, but it’s more difficult to keep up.
Where
There are a myriad of blog hosting services and websites you can use to set up your blog. You can buy your own domain name and have it that much more professional – or you can start out with a free service and see where it all goes. Most blog services have a free program that allows you to do all of the basics post-dating your posts, themes and looks for your blog, etc. Then they usually offer a premium service as well that allows more customization or storage space.
There’s a lot of things to consider when joing a blog service. Besides everything I mentioned above, you want a good community of bloggers, and bloggers who stick with it. WordPress is definitely the most popular blogging service, and you will find thousands of bloggers blogging about everything you can imagine. It might make your site a bit difficult to find, but if you tag and categorize properly you shouldn’t have a problem.
While I don’t believe that Blogger’s community is as dedicated as WordPress’, It is quite user-friendly and there are lots of ways to customize, even without a premium service. It’s affiliated with google, so you go straight to a search directory without any steps or registrations.
Make sure that whatever service you use has a lot of storage space for photos. Most places have at least 1 gig of storage, but you’d be surprised at how fast you can fill that up. You can always host your images through a different service like Flickr or Photobucket.
Flickr is easily the largest photo-sharing community and is aimed at photographers.
Photobucket is designed for mass photo-storage and sharing
When
So you have the theme, the host and the pictures – how often should you update? The answer is as much as you want – within reason. If your new at this and not sure what you want out of it yet, Once a week is a good place to start. Unless you’re doing a photo-a-day type blog, you won’t need to post every day – this gets tiresome for some readers. I would say even 3 times a week is a bit excessive. Twice a week is nice and comfortable, if you have a lot to write about. Spread out your posts don’t update two days in a row, get a schedule going so your readers know when to come back. And be consistent, don’t post 3 times in one week and then one time again a month later. No one will take you seriously.
Why
You’re probably doing this for one of the following reasons: (1) You have an opinion to share. (2) You have a lot of photos to share. (3) You have the inside scoop of the industry. (4) You like photo gear.
All of these reasons are fine – if you’re passionate about it, you will write well about it. A lot of up and coming professionals (like myself) get a blog to show potential clients that they can do more besides photography, and that they are diverse. Understand why you are writing and have a goal. When you reach that goal, make another one.
Etc.
Proper spelling and grammar is important. Readers will not take u srsly if u pst lik ths. Have a minimum/maximum wordcount. No one like s a rambler, but you should not have 50 word posts. I have a minimum of 250 words and a max of 1000. Use social networking like Facebook and Twitter or LinkedIn and Friendfeed to tie into your blog or advertise it. Don’t be excessive – nobody likes spam. Services like BlogExplosion work ok to get traffic initially – but if you want quality traffic you should stick with forums and websites for photographers to promote it on. Engage your readers – have polls and ask questions to encourage participation – it will stick in their minds and they will come back. Have links, lots of links. Links to other blogs, websites, etc.
So there you have it, the foundations to starting a photoblog. Have fun and experiment. Take risks – I am dangerously close to my word limit – and be consistent. Good luck and happy photoblogging!
Image Manipulation – The future of commercial photography
With digital photography becoming more accessible every day, it’s more important than ever to keep up on the latest technologies and techniques – it’s more competitive than ever.
And once again, it seems that the field that has the biggest niche for work and the smallest for actual talent is the world of computers – or image retouching and manipulation.
Images are the property of Michal Horevaj
Images like these are made up of over 100 photographs, all painstakingly tweaked to fit together with the overall idea. These people do not take photographs – they create them. They are professionals, working hundreds of hours on a single image. The images are used for magazines, calenders, greeting cards and just about every thing you can think of. And these retouchers are paid very well because a lot of photographers are great photographers – but they rarely have the time or skill to do complete image overhauls like the ones you see above.
I attended a talk by Kate Chase, a image retoucher-agent and she spoke of how digital imaging is changing. She and many others in her industry believe that it is more important now than ever to have a degree in your field and have complete understanding of post production. It will give you leg up on your competitors – people who still shoot with film, I’m looking at you.
So if you think that you suck at photoshop, you better brush up or it’s going to be a long cold winter for you.
Working Pro-Bono
So in the last few weeks that I have been in New Zealand I have been working with a musician named Darija Andzakovic for free – usually receiving nothing but gratitude or an occasional box of chocolate. Darija is a classically trained double-bassist who gigs around Auckland and gives lectures. She’s good friends with my girlfriend and she asked me to help her out with a poster which she already had the photos for.
The photographer she worked with initially had taken/gathered a number of photos and all I had to do was assemble them in photoshop and add text. She was very pleased with the results, and asked if I would photograph the event as well. With the time I spent working on the poster and the photos I took of the event, I could have been sitting on a nicely-paid job for some extra cash while I was on vacation.
Although monetary compensation was discussed, I decided to go for the chocolates. Why you ask? Darija has connections here that would take me quite some time to get myself. She has many friends in the creative industry as well as the music industry, and it’s always nice that when her peers check out her photos she will say “Rob Schultze took those photos.” Plus, I really like chocolate.
And then there’s the fact that I’m only here with a visitors visa, and they are quite strict about things like that.
Lou Lesko wrote an article that inspired this one, and I wanted to give my two-cents on the subject. I really like New Zealand, and so does my girlfriend. It’s always nice to have connections and word-of-mouth going around in a place that you may consider doing more work, if everything works out.
Concert Photography 101
I’ve shot easily more than 150 bands in my time as a working photographer including local acts and bigger names and record labels.
It’s a fun field to get into, you get to see shows for free, get to meet the band, and usually get free drink tickets. Bands are very difficult to shoot, usually the venues they play are poorly lit, shows are crowded, and the band moves around a lot. So how can you successfully shoot a band and get awesome photos of the guitarist smashing his instrument on stage? Why, by reading this tutorial of course.
Getting in
Some people will go to all sorts of ridiculous trouble to sneak their cameras into shows – stuffing it in jackets, down pants, etc.
Thing is, it’s fairly easy to get a photo pass. You can contact either the band or the record label and ask if they need photo coverage for the show, send them a link to your portfolio and wait for a response. It may not be as exciting as sneaking past security with a 200mm lens in your pants, but you’ll get into the show for free if you get the pass.
Gear
Pack light. You should only need about 4-5 things. Your camera should be able to shoot well in low light or have noise reduction software built in. At a typical venue you will need to shoot at about 1000 – 1600 ISO and you will still be shooting at a shutter speed between 1/30 and 1/125, if you’re lucky. If you think you will have room for a tripod, bring it – but at a small venue or club I wouldn’t even bother. This is where it’s important to have good lenses. I bring a 50mm 1.4, a 19-35mm 3.5 and a 70-300mm 3.5/4.8 – the faster your lenses, the better. And of course, bring the usual – extra battery, extra memory cards, etc. Before you pack up your flash unit ALWAYS ASK IF YOU CAN USE ONE. I cannot stress this enough. You could interrupt and ruin the whole show by using a high-powered flash if the band doesn’t know about it. And trust me, you do not want to be on the bad side of a crowd who’s paid to see their most favorite band EVER while you are carrying $5000.00 worth of gear.
Shooting without flash
When faced with the possibility of shooting in low light with no flash unit and no tripod, some may panic. They jack up their ISO and send the band black and white photos to hide the noise from shooting at 2500 ISO and call it a day.
Now, this is ok in some practices but for me the colors and lights at a venue or club really set the mood of a show – many bigger bands have their own light set ups, so it would make sense to capture that in all it’s glory, am I right?
Instead of relying on a tripod or high ISO I would just focus on learning to have a steady hand. This can be difficult when you’re in a crowd, so find yourself a nice spot either right at the stage or against a wall or support beam and prop yourself against it. Frame your shot, tuck your elbows into your rib cage, take a deep breath and when you breath out slowly compress the shutter button. If you have a high frames-per-second option, use it.
Focusing in the kind of flashy-glitzy lighting that live shows are known for can be tricky. It’s really up to what you trust more – your auto focus, or yourself. Either way, know how far away from the stage you are and how your focusing works so you can make quick adjustments.
Shooting with flash
If your shooting with any flash at all, be it on camera or off you will need to make the photos interesting. I have a bit of an unorthodox method myself. I use my on camera flash – blasphemous, I know – in combination with long exposures.
The flash freezes my subject, and the longer exposure (usually no more 1 second) will give me glorious light trails from anything reflective, which results in a high energy shot full of motion and color.
It will also allow you to shoot at a much lower ISO and smaller aperture, and if you focus correctly it will be nice and crisp too.
General Tips
Use your lenses. Come in with your 50mm and get some medium shots, use the wide-angle and shoot from above or below or other extreme angles, and use your telephoto for close-ups. If the band is letting you shoot on stage, be respectful and do not interrupt their show by stepping in front of them while the lead-guitarist does a face-melting solo. Be mindful of the crowd, and don’t shove your way around. And since you’re there already, why not get a shot of the adoring fans?
Common Sense
Before you shoot any kind of live show – especially if it’s a metal or punk show – get your gear insured. It costs what, 200.00 a year? If it’s that cheap, how can you afford to not insure yourself? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had gear broken, beer spilled upon it, or had it get stolen outright. Don’t take the risk.
Home-Studios: are they worth it?
When you start getting regular work, many of questions will come to mind particularly if you do a lot of studio work.
You may have been renting a studio or using a friends for some time now, but now that the work keeps on coming, you begin to wonder if it’s worth it have your very own. Here’s a few pointers.
Personally, I have an 8×10 backdrop stand with a black seamless, a white seamless and a gray seamless. That, along with a set of 3 hot-lights gives me all of flexibility for what I need to do.
About 75.00
The backdrop stands are about 50-75.00, my seamless is just the paper kind so about 20.00 per roll, and the hot-lights are around 10-20.00 each.
I can shoot still-life/product on this, as well as do portrait sittings for an overall cost of about 200.00 for the entire setup, which will pay for itself in about 1-2 jobs.
If I need to freeze movement and do something more dramatic, I can rent strobes. A strobe kit costs around 1000.00 for a 2 light setup with a power-pack, but you can rent one for about 125.00 a day. When you take into account how often you will use it, you can figure out if it’s worth it to buy your own.
If I’m shooting something a little more high-end, like something for an ad or a magazine, I’ll rent a studio. It’s just more professional to have an art director or client wait around in a studio than sit on your living room couch, and models will be much more comfortable in that setting as well.
Overall, I say have the bare essentials at your house (Backdrops, seamless, hot-lights) to do the basics with. You can always rent to do the jobs with a higher profile, and a higher budget.
Cameraphones: The future of Photojournalism?
Cellphones are everywhere these days. From senior citizens to five-year-old toddlers, I would say that you would be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t own a cellphone. And now, cellphones can do just as much as laptops – and in the case of the iPhone’s Subway Station finder, they can do more:
So the ability to take photos and capture video is no sweat and while it’s still not the primary use of cellphones, the quality of the cameras are increasing.The iPhone has a 2 megapixel sensor, LG’s KC780 has an 8 megapixel sensor, and Samsung recently released a 12 megapixel camera phone in europe.
More megapixels does not mean better pictures – you and I both know that. But how long will it be before camera phones have the same abilities as a DSLRs? There are already a number if incidences where the local news stations have shown videos or photos captured by a camera phone. More and more, the industry seems to be turning to “Citizen journalists” as a means to get on the “inside.”
I think that we’re a ways off from camera phones taking over the DSLR market. But the reality is it’s out there, everyone and their mother has a cellphone, and it’s evolving fast.
Four photographers that influenced me
I have had an interesting career thus far – I did a lot of odd-jobs back in Green Bay Wisconsin, journalism, product photography and portraiture, and then later made a dent in the art scene there. I have shot many different subjects in a variety of styles.
What follows is a list of photographers who not only influenced my style, but my business practices and attitude as well.
Robert Stivers (www.robertstivers.com)
Seeing how my roots were sort of in Fine Art, when I found Robert Stivers’ “Photographs” at a used bookstore I was both enchanted and horrified at the same time. His use of normal subject matter on plain backgrounds was nothing new – it was his process’ results that made him stand out so much to me. He would Video-tape dancers with a super-8 camera and upon viewing the footage on a monitor, he would photograph them. What became of this process were these ghostly blurred images in which the subject matter would bleed together, in a sort of human symbiosis – and it was gorgeous.
His other book, “Listening to Cement” took his work out of the studio and to the streets where he did the same process with Architecture and street scenes.
His creative process and approach to such typical subject matter had a huge influence on me.
Lou Lesko (www.loulesko.com)
A photographer who has had much success in the world of fashion and advertising, he came to my school to speak on the business in my second semester at the Academy of art. Being the curious person I am, I asked a lot of questions and made a lot of comments throughout his talk, which apparently garnered some respect from him, as he gave me a copy of his book. I have read it 3 times since. More than anything what made an impact on me was his attitude. Here was a guy who had been very successful in his career, and with the continuing changes in the industry he not only rolled with the punches, but he evolved. He was at one time (and still occasionally is) a starving artist looking to make ends meet, and he is not afraid to admit it. He also writes a number of columns for photography magazines and he has developed the BlinkBid software. A few months after his talk, I contacted him to see what he thought of my work. I expected an e-mail that said “This is good, that sucks,” etc etc, but what I got was a call from his assistant who scheduled a phone appointment for the following day. Not only did we review my website for a good 20 minutes – he actually remembered who I was.
Diversity, a positive outlook, and the ability to evolve – No wonder he’s so successful.
Annie Leibovitz (Wikipedia Bio – It was all I could find)
Another diverse photographer, she may seem like a typical influence to have, there are a thousand photographers out there who are just as talented etc, but what I appreciate in her is her overall vision of things. It’s so strong and such a trademark, that you can tell at a glance that a photograph was done by Annie Leibovitz. That is some serious branding, right in her images.
I also rarely see a photographer with as much ambition as her – her work goes from very simplistic to outrageously stylish scenes such as her Alice in Wonderland work. If you pick up her book “At work” you can see the diversity of the work she has done, and how it has all seemingly climaxed at where she is today with her work in Vanity fair – It’s a perfect match for her style.
Autumn De Wilde (www.autumndewilde.com)
Nearly single-handedly got me interested in photographing people and environmental portraits. Her photos of people are so incredibly natural, she clearly takes time to get know her subjects before she even has the camera around. A relatively unknown photographer, she makes her living doing album artwork for indie bands. Of course, her making this list is helped by the fact that she photographed my favorite musician – Elliott Smith – in the later years of his life.
Even her other work, her work that doesn’t involve people at all has an amazing charm to it. She has an affinity for recognizing color and designs that are interesting to the human eye.
I know this doesn’t seem like a very long list, but each of the photographers that I mention I have delved deeply into their work. I can name most of the photos by Robert Stivers and which book they appeared in. I can recite all of the bands that Autumn De Wilde has done album artwork for. And I’m always looking for more, but in the last several years no other photographers have captivated me in quite the same way that these four did.
The photos in this post are property of their respective artists.
Social Networking and YOU.
Networking.
In the last few weeks between school, searching for work, and setting up this blog I noticed something. I spend a lot of time on my computer. This isn’t to say that I’m not productive during my day, I do a lot of things for personal enrichment such as reading, looking at art, socializing… But today, all of these activities can be done online. I’m trying to make it all work to my advantage. I use twitter and Facebook for both pleasure and networking, and it seems like something that used to be done so formally – meet-ups and gatherings – have been made so much more casual by the internet.
Now, I’m not knocking these services at all. I have had much success from cruising the likes of Craig’s List and LinkedIn, it just seems so different now. Promo mailers seems to be quickly becoming a thing of the past, and photographers have to find new ways to get themselves noticed. A website with your portfolio doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. For those dewy-eyed newborn photographers; get into social networking. Use it all, twitter, friendfeed, facebook… it can only help you in this new age of electronic marketing. And while I had a difficult time getting myself to use twitter – I have now discovered that a lot of my favorite artists and magazines and companies are on it, giving me a new way to keep up with the industry.
I encourage you to surf message boards, start a blog, anything to get your name out there. The internet gives anyone the opportunity to become known, and as a photographer in this fast-paced, super competitive world, you should take advantage of it. Because if no one knows who you are, how will you ever get work?
