Editorial

Recently, during a period of extreme self-examination (this is pretty much that time of year -- is it not?), I set about tackling the age-old question... why ain't I famous yet? Why am I not in every gallery, museum and private photography collection -- when I so obviously deserve to be?

So I set about examining this age-old mystery, dissecting every possible raison de jour. Boundless talent -- check; unrivaled originality -- check; sheer, unbridled charisma -- check, check and check! Stumped as I was, this time I pushed forward -- this time, there would be no rest or retreat until I broke through the bonds that would unleash me from my ill-begotten anonymity...

…And we’re back! After a much-needed summer hiatus, it’s that time of the year again when my comrades in the SNL Film Unit all reconvene on the 17th floor of 30 Rockefeller Plaza for another season of filmmaking speed-drills.

While the popularity of some creative photography techniques rises and falls, there are some photo tricks that continue to stand the test of time. Here, we’ve hand-picked 6 classic pictures that you should know how to make – and explain how to do just that.

More than a few articles have been written on the detrimental effects of working for free in the photo industry. Unsurprisingly, the same issue has raged on for years in the writing community. But I didn’t expect to see the issue percolate in my Facebook feed in relation to the circus industry.

A few weeks ago, we shared what 7 top photographers said they wished they had learned in school. Unsurprisingly, many mentioned a desire to have learned more about business and marketing. But beyond the selection of course subject, there is a more fundamental aspect of learning in the 21st century that should be addressed.

Recently, I attended a lecture by Dr. Yong Zhao, a renown researcher in education, who has espoused many progressive ideas about the education system and how it is failing us. His thoughts made me reconsider the role of school for photographers and other creatives. Here’s what you really should be learning in photo school.

Hello Potential Client,

Regarding your last email in which you said:

“... if they (your client) saw the $700/ $1400 a day fee for the photographer they would dismiss the project immediately... (most of my client’s people make between $25 and $45 an hour)... Showing $100/hr was also a job-killer as you can imagine”.

Well sure thing. I see where you’re coming from... Let’s rewrite the quote to show the actual number of hours I will work on this job, instead of only those spent with my face in a camera. Maybe that will help.

I’ll admit, there is a lot to learn if you’re hoping to start selling art in galleries. How do you approach a gallery, and then if you do finally get a meeting, what do you say? What are they even looking for? When they ask to see your portfolio, what does that even look like? Do you price your work or does the gallery price your work? How much commission is the normal amount for a gallery to take?

And on and on and on and on…

Well, I’m going to try and answer all of those questions and more, all in a single post. Wish me luck.

In an age where digital photography is ubiquitous, and post processing allows everyman to bump saturation levels and create hyper-real images, black and white photography seems like a curious anachronism.

Color film went mainstream in the 1930s with the introduction of Kodachrome, but black and white has stubbornly persisted not only in newspapers, but also as an expressive outlet for many photographers who choose to shoot photojournalism, weddings, portraits and more by converting color digital files to black and white.

Warning: This will be a longer and more in-depth post. But in the age of paid-for reviews, I felt frustrated by the lack of perspective on the "what camera should I buy" and "why mirrorless, really?" discussions that I see online.

So I wanted to give an authentic point of view about why I switched from a professional Canon bag to a mirrorless system. I hope that it helps others think through their choice when they decide to adopt one system or another.

These days a lot of people seem to be offering advice in the area of becoming a full time professional photographer. Some of those folks, like Greg Heisler, Jay Meisel, Gail Mooney and others, have long careers and great inspirational advice for those who are beginning the journey.

Others, whose names I won’t mention, and hosts of FB, G+, and Flickr shooters want you to know that the life sucks, the cameras suck, the business sucks, and the whole idea of being a professional photographer is a total pile of crap – and it sucks, of course.

Count me among those in the first group, with some cautious understanding of where those in the negative group are coming from.

In August, I undertook an exciting personal project, an attempt to create underwater fine art images of a beautiful swimmer arcing alongside enormous whale sharks. After a busy year of shooting, I’ve had a welling desire to create imagery that speaks to my deepest soul; and to forge a large-format print for my house.

Now that we've released the photos, I wanted to share more details about how I captured the images.

This is a story about a spur of the moment idea that evolved into something beyond my original intent. It started this time last year when my good friend, Puck, threw an additional wedding ceremony and party here in the States for those of us who were unable to make it to Edinburgh, Scotland for her main event. Puck and I had agreed that I’d be shooting wedding portraits for her as my gift.

Today David Lama is one of the most successful professional climbers in Europe. But at age 19, his climbing career almost ended before it even began.

As photographers, writers, illustrators, actors, musicians... As creatives, we create the world that we exist in, we create the world that the rest of the world sees.

This is a gift, it is our gift and it is the soul of the saying that we “are gifted.” While many are brought up to view doctors and lawyers as having greater intellectual prowess, the truth of the matter is that it takes a VERY strong mind to visualize and then create our art.

But what happens when that mind turns against us?

Gear does not make the photographer, allow me to state that for the record before we dive in here. A talented artist can make an image with whatever falls into their palm, but for those of us who have the luxury of choice, be it the pocket sized Ricoh dangling from Moriyama’s wrist, or Crewdson’s cherrywood 8×10, a powerful image is about the framing of a moment, the machine it is seen through when chosen properly, serves to simplify and streamline the process.

Dear Mr. Kim,

I read a blog post of yours titled "Advice to Aspiring Full Time Photographers" reposted on PetaPixel.

It’s filled with lots of exciting tidbits like:

“I think being a full-time photographer is overrated.”

In an effort to prove to myself, my family, and my friends that I am not nuts to lug 6+ pounds of medium format camera gear up the mountainside I conducted my own tests over the last few weeks.

Sure one could set up a Resolution Target but that would not be a “real world” test, no sweat and sore muscles.

The best camera in street photography is the most expensive one.

If I gave myself advice in street photography if I started all over again I would tell myself, “Eric, buy yourself the most expensive camera out there for street photography. You are a newbie and not very good at shooting street photography. You are nervous. You don’t know any technical settings. You are afraid. You aren’t inspired. You don’t have any good work. Buying a really expensive camera will make you great.”

A recent Facebook posting alerted me to this Flickr page, where in 2004 a woman named Lyza Danger uploaded a photograph (shown above) of a local supermarket (a Fred Meyer in Portland).

After posting to Flickr, Danger opened up the image rights to Creative Commons, leading to widespread circulation. The image has been copied and reused many times online, sometimes with permission and sometimes without, often in articles about overconsumption and the food industry. Since 2004 it has received 94,000 page views and hundreds of comments.

Having worked on many bridal shoots as a model and involved in several real weddings before, I’ve picked up some things that I hope might help a few others. If you’re part of the wedding industry then please feel free to share this tongue in cheek guide with your clients, whilst understanding that although it’s a bit brazen, it might actually be what they need to know!

While the CaNikon war is the usual debate in the photography world, they are by no means the only two camera manufacturers out there. With the rise of the mirrorless market and improvements to the sensors packed inside, a number of photographers are starting to make the jump to companies like Sony and Fuji, even for their more serious work.

Oh dear. That was a bit awkward. Sitting on the floor at my nephew’s birthday party, trying to capture pass-the-parcel photos that weren’t anything other than wadges of wrapping paper thrust towards me in a multi-coloured de-forested haze, I encountered a fairly recently married and really rather belligerent woman who wanted to berate me for the fees charged by photographers.

In particular, she was infuriated that her wedding photographer wouldn’t just hand over a DVD of all the original images from her big day and couldn’t understand why they needed to be edited and why she couldn’t have them straight away. Yes, oh dear.

Here’s a little inspiration and my answer to why we stay out late in the cold and the dark.

I was recently reminded of my first really successful attempt to photograph the Milky Way. I remember making that photo very clearly. Or rather, I remember not wanting to make it at all.

Recently I gave a short 2-hour presentation on street photography at one of the photography clubs at UC Berkeley. It was great being surrounded by students again– with all of the energy, enthusiasm, and passion that college kids have.

Some of the students asked me how I went from college to surviving off photography full-time as a living. I gave some of my personal experiences -- and I had the realization: perhaps this was information that may be useful to other college students (who want to make photography their living), or anyone out there with a day-job who wants to make photography their living.

All too often, people ask me to put my camera down and join the party. I get that stink eye on many occasions when I plop myself in the corner of a campsite, drag my cooler within reaching distance, and point my camera towards the night sky. Friends wouldn’t notice at first, but then start to realize that they were missing someone around the fire ring. “Where did Nick go?” I could hear people snarkily asking, like I was off doing something more interesting than they were.

There are a few ways to deliver images to your clients: on a DVD, on a flash-drive, or through a custom online gallery. The first two ways are the most interesting to me, since they let you creatively wrap up the contents with your logo, add custom-made photo albums, “thank you” cards and a lot of other nice things that will leave a positive impression with the client. This shows that you care about your clients as well as your reputation.

If you’re looking for a good way to deliver your photos to the clients, in today’s showcase I bring together 20 fantastic packaging and presentation ideas for you.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you will have noticed that the internet is a-flood with time-lapses and hyper-lapses made using Instagram’s new (inventively named) Hyperlapse.

High-end video camera manufacturers are continuing to engineer innovative products that may one day change the way photographers take photographs, particularly in portrait, fashion and glamour circles.

It’s a challenging and tough sell, and not without a few obvious problems.

This monster, pictured here next to a Minox, yields 6 x 17 centimeter slides or negatives on 120 film, 4 images on a roll which you can blow up to insane dimensions.

It all started in my photo club, where someone showed 1 meter big prints from Scotland. These landscapes were so incredibly detailed and rich they totally overwhelmed me, they hit me like lightning. They were taken with a Linhof 6×17 panoramic camera.

I get an email or text about once a month asking me if I think Canon, Nikon, or some other photo manufacturer will ever make something like a 25-300mm f/2.8 zoom lens. I’m usually gentle with those people, because I realize that a lot of people truly believe that if they want something badly enough, someone could make it for them. Occasionally, someone exhibits the Dunning-Kruger Effect and tells me that they know it’s a plot on the part of the manufacturer’s to make us buy multiple lenses instead of just one that could do everything.

I had another one of those emails a few days ago, so I thought it might be interesting to show everyone what a 25-300mm f/2.8 would (approximately) look like.

I have seen absolutely beautiful things happen in the photo industry. I’ve seen strangers become best friends, I’ve seen grand ideas being brought to life, and I’ve seen photographers grow from beginners to mentors. I’ve seen so many things that make me proud to be a part of such an amazing community.

Ansel Adams is one of the most famous landscape photographers known around the world. He is best known for countless, perfectly balanced black and white images of the Yosemite Valley, Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and many more iconic national parks and landscapes throughout America. He set the standard of landscape photography presented as fine art to this very day.

The other day I created a Google+ album of photos from our holiday in France. Google’s AutoAwesome algorithms applied some nice Instagram-like filters to some of them, and sent me emails to let me have a look at the results. But there was one AutoAwesome that I found peculiar. It was this one, labeled with the word “Smile!” in the corner, surrounded by little sparkle symbols.

It’s a nice picture, a sweet moment with my wife, taken by my father-in-law, in a Normandy bistro. There’s only one problem with it. This moment never happened.

While browsing through my image search results on PIXSY (a new service that finds and invoices image theft for you), I was surprised to see my picture for sale on Etsy (above). My immediate reaction:

What an ugly mousepad. I’d never print my photo like this.
The seller seems to be stealing thousands of photos. How could Etsy let this happen?
Who had the nerve to think they could do this?

So my picture was the party and I wasn’t invited. I decided to see what I could do to notify the seller and contact Etsy about the problem.

Dear New Photographer,

I’m writing this post because I was up late last night on a Facebook forum, reading close to 200 comments about new photographers and what slime they are to the industry. How they’re stripping photography of its “art” and destroying any decent business practices. I read every comment, feeling more and more sick to my stomach the further I scrolled down the page.

It’s a simple question. Why am I taking pictures? What’s so special about photography compared to other visual art forms?

I’m not writing this to give you an answer, but I’m sharing why I love what photography does for me and why I think it’s such a great hobby to integrate into my life, which also resulted to me starting a photography blog site.

A portrait session that results in the death of the subject should be called a failure.

As reported by the Salt Lake Tribune, a group of photographers and onlookers experienced precisely that level of catastrophic botchery last week in Grand Teton National Park when crowding too close to a moose (not a good idea).

The moose, already agitated by the presence of a nearby bull moose, was scared by the approaching park-visitors and bolted before stumbling over a picnic table and landing on a fire grate. With its hoof caught in the grate, the half-ton animal collapsed and broke its leg so badly that park rangers were forced to put it down.

The title kind of says it all, so why don't we just jump right in? Here are the ten types of people you'll find in a new photographers Facebook group.

We spend a lot of time over at Lensrentals getting dust out of lenses. Dust doesn’t affect an image, except in very rare circumstances, but people want their rental lenses to look nice and clean inside and out, and our inspectors check the inside of every lens with spotlights and send any dusty ones over to the repair department.

This week, I had the chance to do my first-ever real photoshoot with an iPhone. Granted, I’ve shot tens of thousands of photos with my iPhone over the years and did a whole project in Haiti with my iPhone 4S… but I’ve never done a commercial portrait photoshoot, using an iPhone only.

When it comes to the quantity of lights that one needs, opinions are often heavily polarized and a hotly contested debate often rages. There are those that are staunch supporters of one light while others claim that a handful of lights are needed before anything meaningful can be done. Ultimately neither group is right as there is no definable minimum or maximum number of lights that one should use.

People often tell me that they find it difficult to take good portrait photos when they travel. Approaching strangers and asking to photograph them, usually with a language barrier, can be a daunting prospect. And how do you take a portrait that is creative and meaningful rather than just a simple snapshot of the person? I have developed approaches and techniques over the years to help become confident as a travel portrait photographer.

It’s not uncommon for photographers to want to use their chosen profession as a vehicle to do good. There are a number of photography based charities out there and all in all, they’re in it for the right reasons.

Speaking of the right reasons, if you’re a parent, you will really appreciate Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep (NILMDTS). It’s an organization that provides the free gift of professional portraiture to parents who are dealing with the loss of a baby.

The word "rooftopping" first appeared in a book called "Access All Areas" in 2005 by author Jeff Chapman. In this book Jeff refers to this activity as an offshoot of urban exploration. It's been called skywalking, roofing, and most recently New York Magazine called the people who do this "outlaw Instagrammers.”

Call it what you will, people have been going on roofs for decades (and probably even longer) for their own reasons, from Dan Goodwin's stunts to Philippe Petit's rope walk across the World Trade Center towers. Exploring rooftops is nothing new.

These days, it seems that if you want to get a nice sharp lens, you have to spend $1000 on a piece of L glass. Aside from the nifty fifty’s of the world, there are very few lenses that deliver quality results at a low price. But if you look harder, there are actually a few old lenses that still offer amazing quality for extremely low price. How is that possible? Well, it is. Keep reading to learn how.

So it has been an amazing run. I owe a lot to my 'rooftopping' adventures. I've sold prints, had gallery shows, been on TV, in magazines, on the front page of the Toronto Star, and most importantly the rest of my work got more attention as a by-product of it. People really seemed interested - they liked these types of images and the attention was nice. It is hard to turn away the likes and faves. It was addicting to an insecure photographer just starting a new career in photography. Rooftopping was my security blanket.

Last Spring, Lorde Tweeted the photo above and wrote, "i find this curious - two photos from today, one edited so my skin is perfect and one real. remember flaws are ok :-)"

It is admirable, and perhaps even courageous, that Lorde broadcasted this to the masses. There is a lot of debate on the ethics of Photoshopping models and celebrities. A lot of people feel that it pushes unrealistic expectations of beauty in society and sets people up to feel insecure about having imperfections that even the rich and famous share with them.

I totally sympathize with this point of view, but there is another side to the argument that is easily lost on people who aren't in creative and media fields. There are commercial and artistic forces at work that will never relent and, unless there is a major aesthetic shift in the industry, Photoshopping blemishes is here to stay.

I had the honor of getting to judge a recent international wedding photography contest for Fearless Photographers, a great organization I’ve been a part of for the last few years. Fearless contests run several times a year and typically receive thousands (if not tens of thousands) of entries from around the world. There is no quota to meet for Fearless judges, so if an image is awesome, it gets an award. The judging is incredibly selective, and seems to get more selective with each round.

Part of understanding is the ability to admit when one is wrong. Here and now I need to admit that I was wrong.

Among the new features of the newly announced Fujifilm X100T is something they call the "Classic Chrome" film setting. Technically this is not a debut, having already been announced on the X30 earlier this summer.

But I think it's a sleeper feature, and will prove to be one of the growing list of reasons Fuji users tend to connect so strongly with their cameras.