Category: Tips/Tutorials

The Digital Skills Pro Photographers Need Now

Post author By David
Post date February 10, 2010
6 Comments on The Digital Skills Pro Photographers Need Now

3294417476_20fb4830e1_o — Sometimes the younger generation seem to get a handle on all this more quickly

As a photographer, Apple Aperture consultant and web designer for photographers, I spend a lot of time helping other pros.

Recently three episodes have shown me how drastically the photography business is changing, and what range of skills are required to run a successful photography business.

Episode 1 – “WordPress is hard”

I’d just finished a site for a client and had carried out a training session on how to use WordPress to keep the site up to date. The next day I got a call from the flustered photog who had spent the afternoon trying to add one article. ‘This is much harder than I thought it was going to be,’ he explained.

I have some sympathy – for people who’ve never spent any time around a website before, the admin panel and functionality of a content management system takes a little getting used to. But part of his difficulty was that he lacked even basic web skills such as knowing how to copy a link from the address bar of a browser and paste it in somewhere else. This lack of familiarity with what are for many everyday habits made everything else much harder.

Creativity Tips/Tutorials

What being a writer taught me about being a photographer

Post author By David
Post date January 15, 2010
5 Comments on What being a writer taught me about being a photographer

writing For my first thirty years I was the writing guy: good at English in school and college, Masters in Literature, and a working journalist for The Irish Times and other publications in Ireland, the US and UK. And I’m the author of a a book of travel literature (that doesn’t have any photographs in it).

Even my entrance into the world of technology came because I could write – in this case, training materials teaching people how to use Microsoft products (God help me).

This might seem like a lot of wasted time, or at best lots of irrelevant experience.

But since I’ve been pursuing photography more seriously over the last four or five years, I’ve come to see that a lot of the things I learned writing have been very useful when I have a camera in my hand.

News Tips/Tutorials

Taking boys’ portraits – don’t ask them to stop running

Post author By David
Post date November 25, 2009
2 Comments on Taking boys’ portraits – don’t ask them to stop running

If you’re taking pictures of boys, you have to move fast. The brothers I did a portrait shoot of recently in White Rock were no exception – aged nearly five and seven, they were chasing around like mad, clambering over boulders and not very interested in me at all.

Which is how I like it. We’d chosen the crags at White Rock as their family likes to climb, and giving the boys space to be themselves seemed a much better idea than cramming them into smart clothes and a studio.

Links News Tips/Tutorials

Liking the look of mpixpro.com

Post author By David
Post date August 29, 2009

I’ve just signed up for mpixpro.com, having been a very satisfied customer of their prosumer mpix.com printing service.

I’m impressed so far. They offer a ood range of products (including prints on fine art paper, and some funky looking acrylic prints).

Their site seems to be set up so that you can direct clients there to see all the product and print options, but without showing the prices. That way, if you’re adding markup (which you should be as a pro shooter), your clients won’t see that, but they can make informed choices about what they’d like.

Mpixpro also provide white-label PDFs which describe the different product types. If you put them on your own site, it would give clients lots of useful information without getting the in way of your own branding and service. Nice.

The calibration prints are on the way, but if they’re as spot-on as my previous mpix jobs have been, I think I might have found my new printing home, after much shopping around. Turns out it’s the big brother of the place I already loved.

Tips/Tutorials

Eight tips for photographers on a cruise vacation

Post author By David
Post date May 2, 2009
1 Comment on Eight tips for photographers on a cruise vacation

I’m writing the first draft of this post at sea, on the way back to Los Angeles after a week’s cruise to the Mexican Riviera.

Cruising wouldn’t be my first choice of holiday, but family obligation dictated we go, so I brought along my camera stuff, and thought I’d share with you what I learned from my experience – some tips and advice for the keen photographer on a cruise.

1: Bring all your gear

Unlike the holidays I normally take, once you get to the ship, you’re not going to have to lug your bags anywhere. So pack as much camera stuff as you can, so you’ll have everything you might need.

In my case that was a Canon 5D, an EF 24-105mm f/4L, an EF 17-40 f/4L, an EF 50mm f/1.8 II, and an EF 85mm f/1.8 USM. I also brought a laptop, an external drive with my Aperture library on it, a second drive for backing up the vault, and even a mouse for easier computing.

2: Go long

As we were sailing away from San Pedro habour, I realised that with all my gear, I’d made a mistake. I should have brought a longer lens as well – which in my case would be my 70-200mm f/4L.

There’ll be a lot of times when taking pictures of things from the ship that a longer lens would really help. There’s a chance you’ll see some wildlife (whales, interesting birds . . . ), or want to get tight on something on shore as you come into port, so if you’ve got a big lad with you, so much the better.

In my case, when my daughter played with dolphins at an adventure centre in Puerto Vallarta, cameras were restricted to an area a long way away from the pool (at least partly so the centre could make tons of money from the (not very good photos) they shot. If I’d had the 70-200mm with me, I’d have done well.

News Tips/Tutorials

Lensic Performing Arts Center use my images

Post author By David
Post date April 15, 2009

Who says Flickr doesn’t generate business? The Lensic Performing Arts Center here in Santa Fe got in touch recently to see if they could use a couple of my images to promote their Nuestra Música show this Friday.

Apparently there just aren’t that many good photos of legendary New Mexico musician Antonia Apodaca kicking around and they found mine on Flickr. One lesson from this is to make sure your images are tagged usefully, as you never know who’s looking.

Tips/Tutorials

How to organize a photo show on the cheap

Post author By David
Post date February 19, 2009
3 Comments on How to organize a photo show on the cheap

Now the dust has settled from my opening in a local cafe, here are some details on how I sorted out the practicalities – in case they’re useful for other folks facing the somewhat daunting task of organizing your first show.

1) Find your location

I was very lucky in this regard. I go to Java Joe’s North pretty regularly (especially for a Friday morning latte and breakfast burrito), and have enjoyed looking a bunch of the artwork they have up, which changes every month.

I asked them how you get a slot, and it turns out all you do is ask. I showed Dave the owner some of my Moo Cards as I didn’t have my portfolio with me, and he said that was fine. I was signed up for the next free slot – a few months in the future.

Your experience will vary of course, but cafes, restaurants, public libraries and even supermarkets (Whole Foods do exhibitions, for example) are all places to try outside the full-on art gallery circuit (which is not an option anyway in lots of places).

Photoshelter Tips/Tutorials

Integrating Photoshelter and WordPress – a quick guide

Post author By David
Post date January 7, 2009
2 Comments on Integrating Photoshelter and WordPress – a quick guide

As a photographer and web designer, I’ve built my own photo sites and ones for other photographers, and I’ve always been frustrated, until I just combined Photoshelter with WordPress.

The problem is that photographers’ sites often need to combine both excellent photo handling and display, and also good handling of text-based pages.

Some photographers’ site solutions (especially Flash-based ones such as Evrium) don’t let you have more than the most basic amount of information about you – say 1 page of a bio, and 1 page of contact information.

But photographers might want to have a blog, details on the type of work they do, articles they’ve written . . . all kinds of stuff. This helps them differentiate themselves and do well in search engine listings.

But they also want great galleries, slideshows and if possible, the ability to sell prints or license their work right away.

Creativity Links Tips/Tutorials

“Figuring out your true passion” – coming up with a new business plan

Post author By David
Post date December 29, 2008

As we enter a new year, it’s a time for reflecting on what happened over the last 12 months, and making plans for the next.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what goals I should have for the year, and how I might reach them. Some of these are practical-sounding – like working out my budget for the photography and web design sides of my work – but once you start asking these sort of questions, they quickly end up bringing up much larger issues.

I’m in the fortunate position of working for myself, and last year I made money building and maintaining websites, taking photos, training photographers in Aperture, and writing articles. But I have to admit none of it was really based on a detailed business plan.

So I was very interested when I came across a great article by photographer Doug Menuez about how he came to redefine the work he did and enjoyed a more fulfilled (and more successful) life as a result.

Tips/Tutorials

Using a monopod

It seems like it should be easy to learn how to use a monopod, right? Just plonk your camera on it, stand it up and Bob’s your uncle. Except if you’re me.

I was disappointed with my first monopod shots (at the Balloon Fiesta this year), and I thought it was time to try again.

We were out last night to visit Santa at the Palace of the Governors on the Plaza in Santa Fe (he didn’t seem very impressed when I told him I’d like a 5D Mark II, but anyway).

Reading the How to Use a Monopod instructions at Outdoor Eyes was a help. The basic thrust being that you really need to wedge that thing in good, either by leaning it into you while your legs act as the other two in the tripod, or wrapping yourself around it like Julian Cope and a microphone stand.