exposure: blasted

In the past couple of years I’m noticing an interesting trend to blow any decent exposure. It seems to be very popular (and not quite well executed) among new photographers. It’s become sort of fashionable – a cool shot is a severely overexposed one. No, I’m not talking about a well done high-key image. I’m talking about wedding portraits, commercial shots, etc., etc.

The proper exposure of a photograph is closely tied to its content and message. Action shots are more likely to look good with a bit of extra light but a static shot is likely to make the viewer confused. Simply overexposing to fix a mistake on the photographer’s part isn’t the right approach… Just as making an image monochrome/sepia toned isn’t.

When a technique or a certain look is introduced into a photograph for no apparent (or supportive) reason it quickly gets old and boring. A bit like HDR – it was a showoff thing the first 5minutes…. and only for the first 45 layers.

Keep those tones visible. Keep the white – white but with texture. I delight in being able to actually see the texture of the model’s skin. It may seem old-school and dated at first, but good lighting lasts much longer in the viewer’s memory than a blast of white throughout nearly the entire frame.

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the engagement shoot – a prep for the wedding

Often an engagement shoot is offered as a separate package by photographers. It is a separate event (well, kind of) and sometimes it’s also far in time from the wedding day itself. Yet, for the times when the engagement isn’t happening too far in advance of the wedding or the couple simply didn’t manage to capture the moment in a special way, offering an engagement shoot as part of one’s wedding package can be a great win-win situation.

As a photographer one will benefit from the engagement shoot as part of the wedding package because it bumps up the value of the package itself while at the same time offers a less stressful environment to engage with the couple in a photographic relationship – to see how they behave before the camera, to get more comfortable communicating with them, to get a better understanding of their taste for pictures… even to see how self-conscious they are.

For the customer – the couple, it’s a good practice run before the wedding and a good number of professional portraits (which many couples lack) at a small increase of the total price.

Lastly, such an “engagement” shoot doesn’t necessarily need to be called that to be a part of a wedding package. An extra short 1-2hrs photo shoot before the wedding will be warmly welcomed by most couples. Give it a shot and see how it will benefit you!

Below are some samples from a recent engagement/pre-wedding shoot I did with a great young couple.

Click the link below to see the rest of the images.

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check the batteries!

Yes, I’m sure you’ve also thought to yourself “It’ll never happen to me.” So did I. And I generally made sure it won’t, except today when I didn’t make sure it won’t and it did happen to me.

Mental note: always check the batteries. All of them.

Luckily, I was shooting for myself and will be able to have another go at the photos I didn’t take, but it was extremely annoying nevertheless. If you’ve had it happen to you – you already know what I mean.

Mental note #2: batteries lose charge over time, even if left unused. That’s what got me today, and my Elinchrom Skyport receivers in particular… Which I hadn’t used in a long while and figured they’ll still have enough juice. The tricky bit with them is also that they usually last so long – I always forget when I charged them last.

Anyway, lesson learned – don’t presume a battery is full unless it really is.

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thinkpad w701 – basic review

I’ve been using the ThinkPad W701 laptop desktop replacement and figured I’ve gathered enough information and experience with it to write a basic review for any photographers out there looking for a powerful mobile workstation.

My W701 (the one pictured) is the model with a single LED screen and no digitizer (the built-in Wacom tablet). I have an external Wacom Intuos4 M and a second flat screen, so these options were not of interest for me. My configuration came with 4GB of memory, Intel’s i7 Q720 @ 1.6GHz processor, NVIDIA’s 1GB FX2800M video controller, and two hard drives. Immediately after purchase, I upgraded the RAM to 16GB – this was the cheapest way to go.

As I alluded to in the beginning – this is not a laptop. I wouldn’t even quite call it a “mobile” computer… Unless you go by the weight standards of some years ago. It’s also massive in size. Coming from a 15″ ThinkPad R60 the size did surprise me at first, but I never bought this to be a “carry around” machine. It’s the ideal desktop replacement, especially for people like me who travel seasonally and need to bring the work along.

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A little housekeeping

At last, the time had come for some housekeeping. As a result, both my photo portfolio section, as well as the blog have received some new bits and pieces and old things were reviewed and updated.

If some sections of the site look funky or the images don’t seem to be the correct ones – hit the good old F5 button or force-refresh your browser another way to get the latest version properly.

The general idea of the update was to outline my portfolio better into four sections: wedding, commercial, portrait and still-life. I’ve also added a “recent” section which will be updated most often to represent the latest of my work – ought to be an interesting place to check out every now and then.

In addition, I’ve finally managed to put together a simple pricing scheme and put that online. In the near future release documents and sample contracts will follow. This is to provide anyone interested with some basic information about my photography services. While it’s mainly a guideline I trust it will be useful.

Finally, some social networking buttons. I’ve limited myself to the bookmarking by Digg, and the three main social networks – twitter, Google’s (new) +1 and of course, facebook. The buttons on the side bookmark the blog’s homepage. For working with a particular post – use the buttons available at the bottom of that post (these have been there for a while).

Last but not least, the photo portfolio content has been updated a bit. For the near future I’ll try to keep the main galleries as they are now. The long term plan is to update the entire portfolio every two years so that it’s more relevant to potential customers or fellow photographers.

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ten free things – family session one

Back in November 2010 I announced an inspiration exercise – ten free photo sessions of various types, delivered absolutely for free. More on the topic you can read in the original post here.

The first family portrait session already took place, so I thought I’d share some of the results. Enjoy!

There’s more – use the link below to see all ten images.

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the usual fashion

You’ve done it. I’ve done it. As a matter of fact – we keep doing it all the time… Striving to do something unusual, something new, revolutionary, etc., etc.

Photographers do it so much nowadays that it seems to me the value of the usual in a photograph is becoming like a limited series exotic vehicle – there’s only that much of it out there (that most people of this day and age don’t get to see it). Ironically, this is exactly how the value of the purposefully avoided (usual) grows so much that at a certain point, given a certain realization – it makes it desired. Of course, one could get all philosophical and say that by that time the usual is no longer usual… But I’m not targeting such arguments.

Granted, the continuous attempts to do something new are healthy for the creative part of a photographer. It helps one grow and growth is good. But who said that one can’t utilize the usual to expand creativity?

We sometimes get so caught up in trying new things that getting back to the normal, real situations, light, expressions, angles and postures can be very healthy. As a matter of fact, I would argue that while the fashionable effects tend to wear out quickly in the mind of the observer, the good old usual in a photograph – the stuff which surrounds us daily doesn’t.

How does that translate into a photograph? I don’t know, to be honest. I think I’m yet to discover that myself. What I do know is that almost every photographer out there has sat down and looked with amazement at a pure, raw image of the normal.

The usual is honest. It’s quickly recognizable and doesn’t take much to memorize because most of us have been there, have experienced it, have seen it… From that angle, under these lighting conditions.

I’m setting it as a challenge for myself – photograph the usual. Whether it will get back in fashion for me – time will tell, but I sure am excited (funny enough – it’s all new and different for me).

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(after the break) explore

Spring’s out! Inspiration is out there waiting for you as new things come to be. Perhaps you know the area around where you live very well… or like me – not. Either way, there’s plenty to explore and if you find a fun way to do it it will make you much more productive too.

I’ve just recently re-discovered cycling and together with some gadgets made it one of the most inspiring moment of my day. I’ll keep it very simple. Here’s what I do:

• Get on the bicycle and start the GPS tracking on my phone
• Get lost way out there (think 2hrs of cycling at high pace)
• Soak in what I see in the environment
• When I’m done I look myself up on the map, go back home and look at my GPS track

Now, there’s plenty of other ways to do what I’ve described – pick whatever works best for you. The main point for me is to do something relaxing (well, mentally at least) and find new places, things, people around you. You don’t necessarily have to note everything down, but I’m sure if you go on an exploration trip a couple of times this month you’ll have found yourself a dozen of new shooting environments, things you hadn’t yet noticed about the culture around you and who knows, maybe even a new hobby.

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take a break

Coming back from a long (and very unexpected) break in photographing and blogging (sorry about that!) I sit and think about the consequences of it. Of this and all the other similar breaks I’ve had ever since I started taking photography seriously. It seems to me that breaks aren’t as bad as one might think (especially the workaholics out there). As long as they’re somewhat controlled, of course.

In the past years one thing has always come alongside of breaks – a leap in creativity. It’s odd, as most photographers (me including) say that creativity best develops while working. This is true. However, my creativity often jumps off the scale after a lengthy holiday. Or a pause from shooting for a month.

It’s a bit as if I’ve spent all the time of the break filling up with fresh angles and ideas. I never stop observing the world around me and I guess when I don’t output my impressions graphically after some time I’ve got a whole lot to work with. At least that’s the way I explain my creative leaps.

Unfortunately, a lengthy break does come at a price. Especially if you rely on this particular work to cover your living expenses. The question, I suppose is how much will the creative leap compensate for the time off… So far I’ve been pleasantly surprised. What’s your experience?

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two numbers

Microstock is much about numbers. So much, actually, that while looking for the top secret number to success (whether or not there is one) we can easily miss the simple guides along the way.

While analyzing my 2010 statistics and looking at the goals I’ve set for myself for 2011 I decided to not do what I’ve done so far… ie. fall for the overly complex equations. I wanted to focus on the plain, simple and solid data which was easily available. So I did.

I asked two key questions along the way:

1. How do you outpace the growth of the agency?
2. How do you evaluate the success of your portfolio?

So, first things – first. How in the world do you outpace the growth of a 10+ million image bank, where tens of thousands of people regularly upload new content? Quite simply – you don’t. What you CAN do, however, is outpace its growth in relation to where you stand. Or outpace the others like you, individually.

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