Photography Blog

Brad Walters asked:




Although none of us can predict the future, it is beginning to look as if 2009 is going to be the roughest economic year in recent memory for most industries.  The wedding industry, and more specifically, the wedding photography industry is no different. In fact, some would argue that our industry has been especially hard-hit by these bad economic times.  From the view from my work station, It seems to me that our industry has been hit by two troubles.  The economy has no doubt been a major factor in the slow-down of our industry, but I also believe that we have hit an apex in the flooding of the market with the “start-up” photographer.  These two reasons together I believe, will prove to create a truly challenging market environment in the coming year.

We could sit here and discuss the reasons that caused the economy to tank, while pointing fingers at greedy lenders and irresponsible borrowers in the housing market, but that will not help us figure out how we are going to keep our doors open this year.  What we do need to have a firm grip on, is that our industry, and the services and products we provide to our beloved clients are indeed luxuries and as we all know luxuries are the first thing to go out the stained-glass window when hard times come.

I myself have had numerous brides inquire about my services this year.  However, getting them to sign contracts is like pulling teeth.  Photographers all over the country are experiencing a bottleneck of clients who inquire, but have a hard time letting go of even the retainer fees for fear of what the economy will do next.  We as Americans are fearful of what the future holds economically, and are in a “wait and see” mode with regard to feeling comfortable about spending our expendable cash.  The problem is that a “wait and see” approach is the antithesis of what an economy that depends on the transfer of cash to grease the wheels of commerce, needs.   However, if this were not a big enough crisis for your studio to overcome, I believe we are also seeing another major obstacle to the success of a professional photography studio.  The massive influx of the aspiring photographer into the industry caused by the digital revolution.

We are indeed head-long into the digital revolution where every third person you meet is an aspiring photographer.  I do not have to tell you why we are seeing so many start-up photographers everywhere we look.  The digital revolution has created an environment where the average person can create a portfolio of acceptable images that they can then throw onto a free website template.  Truth be told, the camera took those photos, while the upstart photographer simple pointed the camera in the correct direction. They then show this website full of images that their digital camera took to their friend’s coworker’s daughter, who herself is struggling financially during these hard times.  She tells herself that this is a door that was opened for her to save some money, and she accepts the offer the photographer has made to shoot her wedding for next-to-nothing, or many times nothing at all in order to build up a portfolio of wedding images.   The quality of these images is disappointingly predictable. Neither the aspiring photographer nor the bride truly realize that photography is a mixture of art and science, requiring years of training and experience to do well. 

On average, I get 3-4 emails per month from aspiring photographers who are introducing themselves and offering their services free of charge in order to gain experience.   Many times, the emails I receive from these aspiring photographers are not even addressed to me.  I can only assume that they are copying and pasting the body of these emails into multiple emails and just sending them off in hopes that an established photographer will take them under their wings and show them the ropes.  However fewer and fewer established photographers are willing to show their potential competition any sort of attention these days.  They are worried more and more about their own business and its profitability in ’09, and less and less about being nice to people who are not paying them for their services.

We are beginning to see price reductions at studios all over the country.  What strikes me as odd however, is that we are also hearing loud cries from photographers that these reductions in prices are “terrible for the industry” and that we’re “betraying our colleagues”, and “Unity” and “stand your ground” and so one and so forth.   I can’t for the life of me understand why we as photographers think that our luxury based industry is immune to price reductions in tough economic times.  Do we not notice the price tags for everything we see being slashed?   Why would our services be any different?  If you consider the possibility that this is the bottom of an economic cycle, and that cost bubbles correct themselves during these cycles, you can see how it’s a realistic scenario to find yourself being the one without a chair when the music stops, if you have not adjusted your pricing to an affordable amount.    You could be setting yourself up to be known as the highest priced photographer in town.  I don’t mean to be snide, but I hope you have the quality portfolio and the affluent client base to support that reputation.  Are your clients from last year still able to afford you this year?  If not, a slice of humble might actually taste good if it brings you some work.

               

Tom Jackson asked:


Copyright (c) 2008 Tom Jackson

Have your friends have told you how good your photography is? Are the prints you create appreciated by friends and family? Have they have suggested that you start your own wedding photography studio? If so, you may be asking what is your next step? Well, with a little help, you can get started in your very own business.

Wedding photography can provide you with an excellent income, either full or part time. Wedding photography has been the catalyst for many of the top professional photographers. Doing it for yourself of course, means that you get to keep all the money. But, please note that as the photographer, you will often be required to act as the wedding coordinator as well, as these days, most brides cannot afford one. And if there is no wedding coordinator, then it is usually the wedding photographer who will make sure everyone is where they should be most of the time. The downloadable course is designed to help you in all aspects of the days event. As the wedding photographer, you need to make sure that the bride and groom follow your directions. Make them aware that it is in their interest to follow your directions because they want a whole lot of great looking photos for their album.

As you prepare for an event, you need to make sure that all your equipment is ready, and that you have everything you need for the days event. If possible, be sure to have a series of back-ups, a spare camera body, a spare lens and a spare flash in case any of your prime units fails. You should always be prepared so that you never haver to come up to the bride during a wedding and try to explain that you equipment just broke and you cannot take any photos. Again, a death sentence. Your back-up units do not need to be identical to your prime units, but they should be at least close to the same specs. The camera needs to be able to take images at the same resolution as your prime camera, otherwise there will be a noticeable difference in quality of the final prints. The flash unit can be a smaller unit with a slightly lower light output, but if it happens, then this unit will have to do quite a bit of work, so be careful. Make sure that the spare flash is fully charged before taking photos. I have seen a number of photographers get excited about taking some pictures at an event, and they will often just fire away, taking picture after picture, not realizing that the flash is not fully charged for each picture, and so, most of the resulting images will have serious problems, that may not be able to be recovered on the computer. So, make sure that you have good back-up equipment.

Let me ask you, are you ready to take the next step? If you love photography and working with people, the let me ask you if you are ready to start your own wedding photography business? Then you will find that the wedding photography course is designed to get you off to a great start. Everything is in this course, including all the forms you will need. Business forms are provided for you as a computer file that you can edit and personalize to give them your very own identity. This alone will help you and your business look very professional and save you a lot of time and money, so you can get bookings and start making some money with your very own wedding photography business.

Spencer Wood asked:




To understand the history of the image and in particular, the photographic image, one has to consider the ancient civilizations.  Egyptian paintings and works of art are well documented but it wasn’t until the rise of the Roman Empire that the portrait flourished.  Roman portraits primarily took the form of a sculpture and it was particularly fashionable to depict an unflattering representation of the subject.  Our seemingly modern fascination with perfection can be traced back to France during the middle ages when the trend shifted to producing painted portraits that favoured an idealized symbol of what the person looked like.

Due to the enormous cost, commissioning a painted or sculptured portrait was an act reserved only for royalty and the very highest within society.  To meet the high demand for inexpensive portraiture saw the invention of the daguerreotype during the middle of the 19th century that employed numerous physical and chemical discoveries of the era.  This was essentially an early type of photograph in which the image is exposed directly onto a photosensitive plate.  Further refinement of the design and processes as well as advancements in photographic glass plates reduced the cost and a large number of photographic studios in major cities around the world began to offer photographic services to the masses.  

Development of the photographic film towards the end of the 19th century replaced photographic plates.  Photography and the professional photographer were no longer confined to the studio.  A great many advances in the technology led to the appearance of the modern 35mm and compact film cameras used today.  The costs were further reduced to the point where cameras became disposable as early as the mid eighties.  The inclusion of a variety of cameras in the basket of 650 goods used to calculate the Retail Price Index for almost two decades is testament to the popularity of photography.  The 35mm camera was only recently removed in 2006 when it was replaced with the digital camera.

Digital cameras first became commercially available in the very early nineties and saw the replacement of film with a photon sensitive chip and rewriteable memory cards.   There are many advantages when comparing digital against film.   One such advantage is that the physical size of a camera can be reduced such that it can be incorporated into a mobile phone.   Despite initially being very expensive, digital overtook film in developed countries in 2002 and the technology is now cheap enough to allow for disposable digital cameras.   Photography as a profession, as a hobby and part of popular culture has become even more accessible thanks to the digital technology to the point that the percentage of the UK population owning a digital camera or camera phone has risen to 90% according to a recent survey.  

Shipment volumes of digital cameras have been rising year on year and totalling 7.5 million units in 2007.  Total digital camera sales hit 50 million in 2003, rising to 114 million in 2007 and forecasts don’t predict slowdown due to market saturation any time before 2010.

The digital revolution has made the transition of getting an image from the camera lens to the computer screen a trivial exercise.  Retouching encompasses everything from modest enhancement to restoration and recovery of an otherwise objectionable or unusable image. Photographic retouching is often considered to be a modern concept due to recent advances in computer performance and software capability besides the relatively recent introduction of the digital camera itself.  However, this is far from the truth.  

Photo manipulation is as old as photography itself.  Joseph Stalin regularly made use of photo retouching techniques for propaganda purposes as early as the 1920s.  Before computers, photo manipulation was achieved by retouching with ink, paint, double exposure and piecing photos or negatives together in the darkroom.

“Photoshopping” is slang for the digital editing of photographs; the term originating from Adobe Photoshop, the image editor most commonly used by professionals for this purpose.   The 1980s saw the advent of digital retouching.  Before digital cameras became widely obtainable, the most common way of getting a print onto a computer was via a scanner.  The processing power needed to manipulate large images has up until recently been beyond the reach of most.  Purchasing expensive custom hardware from leading manufactures of the time, Silicon Graphics and Apple Macintosh was unavoidable.

The number of households in the UK owning a personal computer capable of image retouching is around 65%.  This combined with the extremely large portion of the population owning equipment capable of taking digital photos; one would imagine that a sizable number of individuals would be retouching their own photographs to meet their ever increasing desires for flawlessness.

Retouching software is varied in functionality and the cost of some of the less capable packages is inexpensive when compared to the price of computer and camera equipment.   Becoming proficient in retouching however is not just a one off purchase.  A great deal of patience and commitment to acquiring the necessary skills is required.  Furthermore, an artistic flare is more often than not an advantage.  The act of retouching is also a time consuming affair.  A recent study has shown that lifestyles are changing.  Working and commuting hours are increasing and social calendars are becoming crowded.  To compensate for this, a culture of contracting out tasks that are either time consuming, requiring effort or are considered tedious is increasingly becoming the norm.  For instance, it is not uncommon for tired office workers to pay to have their shirts ironed and hand car washing businesses in public car parks are thriving.  A recent study showed that 48% of homes in Britain employ an average of three outside helpers at a cost of £20 billion; undertaking a range of tasks from dog walking to personal shopping.

Photographs, on a personal level, can become treasured items.  In addition to documenting events and special occasions they capture moments in time of friends and loved ones.   Weddings, holidays, graduations and children growing up are popular photographic opportunities that are often unrepeatable in nature.  Making the most of the available photographs is favourable.  Photographs also have more pragmatic uses as it makes good business sense to showcase products and services to potential customers in the most attractive way.  Allowing all types of images to look their finest through retouching is both appealing and beneficial.

Advances in computer and networking technology have led to the inevitable rise and subsequent dominance of the Internet.  The number of households having access to the World Wide Web via high speed broadband connections in the UK is around 55%.  $259 billion of online sales including travel occurred in 2007 in the US; an 18% increase from the previous year14.  It is advantageous for businesses and services such as traditional high street retailers, banks, restaurants, tourist attractions, estate agents and hotels to secure and maintain an online presence and in turn, the demand for high quality images looks set to increase.

Images are required for a wide selection of applications.  Besides the recent emergence of the online paradigm as highlighted above, demand for traditional photography services remains strong such as wedding, portraiture, sports and journalism to name but a few.  Meeting this demand for imagery is now easier than ever thanks to the profusion of photographic equipment.  Photographs of an exceptional standard that satisfy our need for perfection however are reserved only for big business and those with deep pockets.  All photographs, whether or not they were taken professionally, can benefit from some degree of retouching; a term which covers all forms of manipulation and enhancement.  It is not uncommon for magazine cover photographs, despite having been taken by notable professional photographers using the very best equipment, to undergo hours of post production work to produce the perfect image.

To achieve faultless images, a number of companies and individuals currently offer specialist retouching services to the big industry players, often on a contract basis.  It is also becoming commonplace for photographers to invest in the tools required to manipulate images and become proficient in their use in order to meet the increasing demands of the client.  Such services are expensive and are not aimed at the mass market.  The only real solution available to the general public is to purchase a suitable computer and acquire the knowledge to create masterpieces of their own images using relatively costly retouching software. A number of companies now offer online retouching services and make the whole process easy and affordable for individuals and businesses alike. One such company is London based Retouch Genie Ltd – Photo retouch, image enhancement and photo restoration.

The yearning to look flawless and conform to contemporary ideals is not a new concept.  For hundreds of years Chinese women bound their feet to stunt growth and in Elizabethan times wore corsets which caused broken ribs all for a desirable curvy silhouette.  In recent years however, celebrity obsession, glossy magazines, television makeover shows, fashion, pharmaceuticals, weight-loss and advertising industries, rightly or wrongly, have intensified the quest for perfection.  In the UK, the number of cosmetic surgical procedures carried out has increased by a third between 2004 and 2006.

From a number of business applications, selling items in online auctions, social networking profiles, online dating, leisure, tourism and travel, the perfect image has many diverse and varied applications and the photographic retouching industry is likely to grow as a result.

 

Anton Sheker asked:




The art of photographing children starts with connecting to your subject, in this case a child. The trick is to try and capture an expression or emotion on your child’s face, a daunting tast but workable. These are the stuff memories are made of.

Step One

Set up early before the child gets to the set. This includes the equiptment and lighting. Make sure they are well strapped and are safe in case the children decided to make toys our of your gear. Your goal is to make it as quick and swift as possible.

Make sure all your batteries are fully charged. When the Child gets there, waiting is not an option.

Step Two

Setup your camera using your assistant or associate as a model.

Fix the lighting effect you like and make sure they wont irritate or hurt the child’s eyes.

Step Three

If given a chance, natural light is much better. Keepting the enviroment as normal enough for the child is good so he does not suspect something goin on. Once they figure out that something is happening, they usually get irritated or go into a fit.

Step Four

If you are outdoors, make sure the sunlight dont get into the eyes of your subject, the childs eyes are delicate. Becareful with placement of shadows

Step Five

Keeping the subect unaware and far away from invasion of his personal space helps the model act more naturally without getting intimidated. Use long lenses to capture the children at play or in a posed shot.

Step Six

In some cases, bribery works with kids bringing in some toys or playing some sounds to evoke an emotion is a good technique.

Joke around and even make funny poses to bring the childs guard down and capture that laugh or smile. Timing is the key.

Step Seven

Use filters and other special effects to give you a different look, feel or mood.

Step Eight

Make sure the child is comfortable, prepare drinks or snacks that they enjoy. Making the whole experience enjoyable for the kid so he can give you his best smile or laugh. Try to get to know your subjects before shooting them. Once they are at home with you, you can bring out the best in them.

Akash Mehra asked:




If you are a photographer, amateur or experienced, you will ask the question, “Why do I need a website ?

Your question is valid at the first instance, you are a photographer and you have a studio where customers walk in and you get your business done by developing and printing rolls and thats how it works. Now where does the website come in here ? What is the value addition that a website design can give to you.

Well, let me ask you a few questions ?

1. Do you wish to grow your business ?

2. Is there are any more business in the market, for photographers, other than that you get ?

3. Do you wish to add other revenue streams to your existing business ?

4. Do you wish to popularize your brand name ?

If the answer to all the above questions is YES, than you need to read further.

A Web site design will be answer to all the above questions, a website will complement your photography business. It will create a good first impression that will last for a long time and will also build brand equity. Now do not worry about losing clients, instead look forward to making new clients, and you laugh your way to the bank.

Designing a website for photographers focussingon photography, you can do the following;

1. Grow Your Business

While you have your existing photography business, with a web design you can see your business grow. We can develop a web portal for you wherein a website will be designed for you and a dynamic interface will alsi be designed wherein you can offer to print the digital photos that you receive and send them across to the customers.

It works this way, a customer comes to your website and signs up as a member. Upon signing up, the member can then login and upload the pictures that he wishes to be printed. Upon successful uploading of the pictures, the member is asked to make the payment. After the payment is made, the photographs come to you, which you can print and deliver to the customer. Isn’t this an exciting way to increase your business. There are many more features that can be incorporated in this website design.

2. Widen your offerings

While having the website for prints, you can widen your offerings by offering print the digital pictures on TShirts, cups, mugs, caps, key chains and more items. It will work in the same way as for prints, here you can charge additionally for item as well. Still better, you can develop your own personalised gift store.

3. Cash your photographs

Since you are a photographer, it is assumed that you love photography. If you love photography, it can be assumed that you have clicked a large number of stock photographs which, most probably are just lying idlly with you. Now with website for photographers you can have an interface by which you can upload your stock photos and categorize them into different categories. You can then offer this photographs for sale for a certain amount and earn money for your stock photos. Further on, keep on clicking photographs and add to your collection of stock photos and offer that for sale.

4. Make money on others photographs

Like you, there are numerous other photographers who would be having a large collection of stock photos — but not a website for photographers. With the web design for photographers, we can create an interface wherein the fellow photographers can sign up as a photographer and offer his stock photos for sale, and upon every sale that he makes you get a pre-decided commission, so that makes you money as well.

5. Sell other media as well

With this web design for photographers, you can also opt to sell other medias like footage and sound clips, which only add to your revenues.

Web Design Temple, can develop website for photgraphers. Most web design companies do not have any idea of what photography is, these companies are general web designers who make websites for all and any companies. While, Web Design Temple has a profound knowledge of photography and years of experience in the web designing field. We specialize in designing website for photographers.

Greg Gillespie asked:




It is probably one of our greatest fears of loss, to be standing amidst the burnt out remains of what used to the place where our family home once stood. The absolute devastation of not know where to start in putting the pieces all back together, personal keepsakes, important documents, your clothes, insurance papers, financial information and your photos all lost.

Devastating.

Okay so you are glad to be alive, to have gotten your family and pets out safely, you can be thankful to God for this, but this is a situation that you never thought you would find yourself in. Doesn’t this just happen to other people?

Yes this does happen to other people, in the wake of the recent tragic Australian bus fires that swept through Victoria and at a pace so ferocious that caused the destruction of over 700 homes and claimed almost 200 lives. It is something that is happening more and more as our planet’s temperature continues to rise.

Listening to some of the survivors stories, you hear over and over again how many of them lost their treasured family memories, that were taken away in the flash of the flames. Pictures of ancestors from past generations, those dear sweet photos of the grand children and the precious moments when your own children were young, your own wedding day – all gone.

One thing that stood out as a major contributing factor in the high numbers of lives lost in these fires was the speed at which properties and people were caught by the flames rapid onset. Being able to get everyone out including the last dash back to the house to get the photos albums was not a privilege afford by many, in fact some reports indicate that this one act may have contributed to the loss of some peoples lives.

Tragic.

So How Do We Get Better Prepared For Such Events?

3 Ways to Protect Your Family Treasures

Method One – Back Up Your Photos To CD or DVD

The first way to ensure that your family photos are safe in the event of a fire or hurricane, or tornado is to have them backed up and stored off site.

You can have your photos scanned on to your home computer if they are original prints, then saved to a CD or DVD and stored with a relative.

This method is fairly inexpensive to do but the downside is you need to be vigilant in remembering to do the scan or save to your computer from your digital camera and then on to the removable media CD or DVD for storage.

This method is the most time consuming.

The Second Way Photo Backup the Free Method

The second method is to use a free photo sharing service such as Flickr or Picasaweb to store your photos online. The advantage with using such a service you can get into the habit of uploading all your photos to online web albums that you can easily with friends and relatives.

Your friends are able to download your photos and have prints made for themselves, which in itself is another level of extra insurance that your photos are going to survive come what may.

The only downside to the free method of online photo backup is that you can never be sure that your photos will not be removed or lost from their servers. In fact many stories can be found of people who have used free photo back up or sharing sites as their only source of their photos, and had all their memories swiped.

Some of us may be familiar with the process here, when we are uploading our photos from our cameras memory we are asked if we want to delete the originals or keep them. Don’t know about you but I always click to delete. Now this method is okay if you them stored on your home computer as well as your photo sharing back up website service but some people for want of space saving have deleted their home copies.

Another problem associated with most things free on the web these days is advertising. If you don’t want your photos sharing their web space along side of annoying advertising then you may need to consider my suggestion of the third way of ensuring your photos survive.

The last and perhaps the most prevalent and offensive an issue you will no doubt come up against on the free photo sharing sites is the presence of pornographic images and advertisements that people upload. In fact when doing my research for this article I was confronted by an overwhelming amount of sexually explicit materials both video and still images, that left my stomach churning with disgust.

As they say, like all things in life, “you get what you pay for” and in this case not paying you get more than you bargained for. And it stands to reason that these free sites just don’t have the staff or resource to ensure the porn is kept out as they only make money from their ads.

The Third Way To Safe Back Up Photos – Paid Photo Storage

It may come as no surprise that the third way to achieve safe, secure and guaranteed backup of your treasured family photos is to use a photo storage website that charges a small fee, of around $40 per year is the same as about .10c a day. Not bad insurance for your life most treasured memories.

All the advantages of online easy to upload storage that in some cases is unlimited, as the free websites usually limit your photos storage amounts so you eventually run out, but not on the paid service websites, it is usually all you upload you can store.

Of course there are no annoying advertisements, the pornography is strictly excluded by the vigilant staff, so you can rest assured that the photos of your daughters 5 birthday party you send to your aunt in Sassquandicha are not going to be presented alongside an ad for an adult xxxx rated website.

There are many of the paid services to choose from but from my research the very best at this point in time would have to be Smug Mug. They have the best and easiest to use service I have found. They even come with a free 14 day trial that allows you to upload a few photos to test them out and see if they are as good as they claim to be.

I don’t’ know about you but if you are anything like me you are pretty tired of paying for things on the Internet that don’t work out. I know I am so the fact of being able to safely test the service before I pay, is paramount to me trying anything these days.

Free Trial and No Credit Card Required

Another good thing with the free trial is you don’t need to give any credit card details, just sign up and upload your photos.

So if safe, secure photo back up Is what will help you sleep better at night is what you are after then I can thoroughly recommend you check out the paid online photo sites for total peace of mind.

James Davenport asked:




The French word “Giclee” was invented to name the process of fine arts on Iris printers, done through an ink jet printing method from a digital source. This word was mainly taken from the French word “le gicleur” which means “nozzle”. To be more specific the word “glicer” means “to spurt” or “spray” through a nozzle. The word giclee was started by a print maker Jack Duganne in 1991. He was a print maker and used to work in a field for representing any kind of ink jet print which is used as fine arts. Giclee prints are often used in print shops and in galleries.

Origin of giclee prints:

Before the use of giclee printing, the methods of ink jet technology were used as an alternative option to serigraphy and lithography. Afterward, the word giclee was invented to describe the methods of digital prints used as fine arts. It was first created on the Iris graphics in the early 1990s with the help of continuous ink jet printers. Iris printers were initially used for producing the prepress proofs from the digital files for the job of colour matching. Gradually, giclee printing developed and became very popular among the publishers, artists, galleries and photographers for the fine art reproductions. Finally, in 2001 the GPA (Giclee Printers association) was formed where a clear distinction was made between a high quality giclee print and lower quality ink jet print. As the demand of art buyers purchasing high quality prints have increased, the concept of giclee print became more popular.

Today’s giclee technology:

Giclee printing has become a big hit among every photographer and artists. This type of printing is mainly used to make reproductions of the original artworks and photographs. This is more expensive than the old process of lithography which was traditionally used to get such reproductions. To get better results than lithography prints, high end archival inks are used. In this type of printing, there is a dot pattern which is not visible to the naked eyes. And its colors are very bright and fade resistant.

Giclee is a technique used on various types of media. For example – canvas, archival adhesive paper, water color paper, etc. The depth of giclee’s prints and its range of colors are far better than those of lithography prints. It has got a higher resolution than any other print. The secret behind this success is the combination of Archival Paper and Archival Pigment Inks, which makes light fastness for 100 years and can be extended up to 200 years in perfect lighting conditions.

Nowadays, whether you’re interested in photography or scrapbooking or creating your own reproductions, you can easily get the art materials in cut sheets available on Internet. This type of print is more popular in today’s world because it provides depth and luminosity which represents the original work better than any other modern printing technique. Because of all these reasons, the concept of giclee printing is very popular among all the professional artists.