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Unique Group! by Thiru Murugan

So you’ve learned composition, you understand the basics of lighting, and you take photos all the time. But you feel like every photo you take has been done better by someone else.

I get that feeling often, and I know it can be annoying. Focusing on the negative doesn’t help matters though, so I’m learning how to take more original photos. You can learn to take more unique photos with these tips!

Spend Time NOT Taking Photos

Practice makes perfect only when you’re practicing the right things, otherwise you’re just adding polish to bad habits.

Read voraciously. Devour the photography section of your local library, invade the photography blogs and their wealth of information, and frequent talks by local photographers. Put your camera away, learn the proper techniques, and then go out to refine them.

Break the Rules

Everyone says it’s important to break the rules, but it’s hard to do right. It requires more time, planning, and thinking about photography than all the other suggestions here combined. Not to say you shouldn’t try, it’s just a warning.

Much as you had to figure out when you could get away with cutting class and when you couldn’t, it’s really difficult to know when and how to break the rules of photography.

I find that the best way is to break a single rule in an obvious way. Make the break stand out by religiously adhering to the other rules of photography. This communicates that you’ve broken the one rule with a purpose, not through ignorance.

Mix n’ Match

You know the rules for macro photography? Apply them to portraits. Take the lighting setups of fashion photography and use it on photos of old mailboxes. Do something interesting with the clichés of photography or avoid them entirely.

There are certain things that are photographed often: sunsets, flowers, children, and naked ladies. If you can’t bring something original to the table for these subjects, try to mix it up; take macro photos of sunsets reflected through water droplets. You’re not obligated to have the same macro flower photos as everyone else, have fun with it!

For example, Japanese art collective PIKA PIKA took lightpainting photography and added the dimension of time to it. With just that one simple change, that entire field of photography was turned on its head. Suddenly, everyone was studying stop motion animation to try this new style.

Focus on Things Overlooked

Take photos of things that other people don’t. Take photos of things that attract you. It’s not a perfect example, but I love taking photos of the wheat-paste art around Vancouver. Photographers tend to focus on spray-paint graffiti, but I’d rather shoot the bleak work of the dark or cameraman’s tongue-in-cheek meta-meta-art.

Go places that other people don’t. The photo that I use for the header on this blog was waiting for me in an alley. Dozens of people walked past while I was there, but not one stopped to take a photo.

Take the Long Way Home

Photographs and break-ins have one thing in common; they are both crimes of opportunity. Everyone has snapshots of the sunset, because they happened to have their camera with them. However, someone with planning, patience, and the right equipment will have a much better and more original photos of the same subject. If it’s an easy photo to take, other people are more likely to have taken it too.

Take your heavy equipment to hard-to-access places, spend thirty minutes composing a shot of a garbage bin, use expired film and restrict yourself to only taking ten second exposures. Introduce an element of difficulty in your photos that forces you to think and adapt to different shooting conditions. The payoff is worth it.

Above all else, don’t get depressed. All truly original photos are the products of immense amounts of time and effort. There will always be imitators, but people will remember you as the originator of that type of photography. Creating your own style is the best way to become an authority in the field.

Chinese Class by Claire Liu

Part two of this series, Five Reasons NOT to Attend Photography School, is now available!

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about this new generation of photographers, it’s that they are disdainful of traditional learning methods. I’m no different; I’d much rather teach myself than go to a photography school.

A lot of new photographers from the digital generation haven’t considered the benefits of attending a top-notch photography school. With that in mind, here are five solid reasons why going to school for photography can be a great career move:

1. You Learn From the Best in the Business

You know the old adage “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” Well that’s a load of crap. If you believe that, then you’re one of the unlucky few. In my experience, educators are among the brightest stars in any field.

Photography is no exception. You’ll be learning from seasoned pros who’ve forgotten more than you know about photography and they’re going to teach you everything.

2. You Learn About All Aspects of Photography

Speaking of everything, that’s exactly what a good photography school will teach you. Not only are they going to exhaustively cover composition, lighting, and optics but you’ll get a lot of coverage in other areas, too.

Photography schools give you a clear understanding of the business aspect of photography, something that’s difficult to teach yourself. How to deal with difficult clients and how to work with assistants are two more examples of stuff that will be taught in school, but are hard to learn on your own.

2. You Get Studio Time & Access to Professional Camera Equipment

This is the biggest advantage right here. I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve considered taking photography courses just to get access to sexy equipment and loads of studio time. Neither of those two things comes cheap, so it’s a big advantage to have them at your disposal while honing your skills.

4. Network and Learn From Other Photographers

Learning on your own from the Internet is great and all, but sometimes you have to know the people in your area. Going to photography school will open dozens of doors, just from networking with your classmates and teachers. I got a taste of this when I went on my first photowalk last month and met some great people. It was totally worth it and really made me feel like more of a part of the local photography community.

5. Photography Schools Provide Job Opportunities

Much the same as big business recruits top MBA graduates from prestigious schools, prospective employers will be keeping an eye on the latest class of grads from any of the big photography schools. You’ll also find that major schools will often have a placement program for graduates to start work immediately as photographic assistants.

Even if you don’t happen to be one of the ones recruited straight out of school, your experience and time there should have you in a great starting position. You should have a good portfolio together, knowledge of how the industry works, and the desire to get out there and put your skills to use. The mental boost alone from finishing school is enough to propel you into your dream photography career.

In the end, everyone has their own route to their dream job. Going to photography school can make a huge difference, though. Hopefully I’ve given you something to think about.

As an aside, this post was inspired by two of my friends, Brian Larter of Aperture Studios and Renée Clory, who will be taking photography courses starting in the fall.

Enjoyed reading this article? Subscribe to my RSS Feed to keep up with the latest digital photography tips and digital camera news. Read part two of this series, Five Reasons NOT to Attend Photography School, right here.

Something for everyone this week! Enjoy:

• Cheap Grid Spots - Flickr user Blazelle posted a short and sweet tutorial on how to make your own grid spot covers for flashes.
• Impressive Wedding Photos @ FlashFlavor - Photographer Dave Cheung explains how he made one couples wedding photos unique, with an airplane. FlashFlavor is all about creative wedding photography and I like it quite a bit.
• ‘Bears’ by Kent Rogowski - Photos of teddy bears turned inside out & an interview with the photographer. There’s not really much more to say than that.
• A Plethora of Photographic Mediocrity - Darren Barefoot talks about photo library management, the current excess of digital photos and children raised in this new photographic era. It’s an interesting perspective on this whole shift in the realm of photography.
• PicLens - A Firefox extension offering one-click full screen photo browsing. I found it via one of my readers at dptnt.com and I like the cut of it’s jib. I’m going to install and give it a shot later this evening.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m pretty much dropping any pretense of a coherent theme to these linkdumps. The articles I read and sites I visit are so varied that the smallest coherent theme for any week is “photography.” Besides, I like being able to put up interesting things as soon as I discover them, without have to wait for enough to group together to form a theme.

A Georgian in Saskatchewan by Space Ritual

This summer I’m taking a brief vacation to attend my cousin’s wedding in Saskatchewan. Of course family takes priority, but I’m hoping to use the wee hours of the mornings to make my first serious attempt at landscape photography.

While I’m excited, I’m also pretty nervous. After all, I’ve never done landscape photography before; it’s a completely new field of photography to me. To that end, I’m going to outline a few of my thoughts and concerns in this post. Then I’m going to throw myself on the mercy of my readers and hope it all turns out.

…No, you can’t have my camera after I die.

Landscape Photography Camera Equipment

I’ll be taking along my trusty Rebel XT body, a 50mm f/1.8 , the 18-55mm kit lens, and my Velbon tripod. I’m very strongly considering a lens rental for the week, but I’m worried about limiting my shooting options. Whatever lens I choose might wind up doing double duty for wedding photos.

I’m currently considering renting the Canon 24-105L f/4, the Canon 70-200L f/4 or the 17-40L f/4. Noticing a pattern yet? I love Canon ‘L’ glass and I ain’t ashamed to admit it.

Where in Saskatchewan is Carmen Sandiego?

I will almost entirely be shooting in the area between Swift Current and Stewart Valley in southern Saskatchewan. Here’s a virulently green Google Map of the area. I’m at my relatives’ mercy with regards to vehicles, so I expect to be walking around a lot. The nearby river to the north looks like it might have some interesting photo opportunities and it’s only about ten clicks, so it’s looking like my best bet.

Trip Planning

Obviously I’m going to need to keep an eye on the weather and plan for a situation where I’m stuck hoofing it the entire time. I’m determined to pack light in case I’m out hiking for hours, while still bringing the essentials. Small snacks, a bottle of water, my cell phone and a flashlight will all have a place in my bag.

Recommended Reading for Landscape Photography

I’ve read a few articles on landscape photography, but nothing beyond a ‘ten great tips for’ style of post. I have yet to read about the field in any sort of depth.

This is where you come in. What do you consider to be essential reading before I get on the plane? What else should I study or prepare for?

If you enjoyed reading this blatant attempt to profit from your knowledge and generosity, subscribe to my RSS Feed to keep up with the latest digital photography tips and digital camera news!

Oops, there goes the camera! by Jesse Millan

So you read my article about how you should always take your camera with you, did you? Now that you’re getting in the habit, I’ll show you how to make it safer to take your camera with you all the time with photographer’s insurance or its more affordable younger brother, tenant’s insurance.

What is Photographer’s Insurance?

Photographer’s insurance is a specialized insurance package that is very important to have when working as a pro photographer. It will cover your camera equipment, income streams lost due to equipment failure and your liability in case you drop your camera on that nice Maserati.

It’s designed with the professional photographer in mind and unfortunately, the price reflects that. For those of us who have nice equipment that we’d like insured but no income streams or liability needed, we look to a cheaper alternative. This is where tenant’s insurance comes in.

What is Tenant’s Insurance?

It’s pretty much what it sounds like: An insurance package designed for apartment tenants. It’s homeowners insurance for the non-homeowner. Tenant’s insurance covers your possessions as well as limited liability with regards to water damage, fire, and so on. Very useful stuff, but how does it relate to photography?

Tenant’s insurance is much cheaper than photographer’s insurance and covers all your camera equipment in a way that makes sense for the average hobbyist. This kind of insurance protects your possessions, including all that expensive camera equipment at home. Just give ‘em the serial numbers and save the receipts, same as you normally would for a warranty. You can expect to pay somewhere between $30 and $50 a month for tenant’s insurance, if that.

Get a “Floater” on Your Digital Camera

Tenant’s insurance protects your stuff while it’s at home and locked up. Unfortunately, it has limited coverage outside the home. You know, out there in all those nice places you like to take your camera. But this can be remedied!

When you’re setting up your policy, ask how much it would be to add a ‘floater’ policy for your digital camera. A floater protects your camera both at home and away from home. As always, read the policies so you know exactly what’s covered and what’s not, but you should be safe to take your now-insured DSLR with you wherever you go. Don’t do anything overly stupid with your camera, because the paperwork and deductible can still be a pain.

Keep Your Camera Receipts Somewhere Safe

Fireproof filing cabinet, safety deposit box, whatever. The insurance company will ask you to present these receipts if something happens to your camera, so you better have them handy. Store the original receipts along with photocopies of each one. Sometimes receipts are printed on thermal paper and will fade after only 6 months or so.

For added meta-humour, take a photo of the receipt and the photocopy using the camera that the receipt is for.

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Related Articles:

• Why You Should Always Take Your Camera With You
• Insuring Your Camera Stuff @ Photocritic.org
• High End Nikon D3 Digital SLR Rumors

I’m doing this week’s link roundup like I buy Christmas gifts; nothing is practical and everything’s entertaining. I’m like a cross between Santa Claus and Clint Eastwood. Here’s your fistful of inspiration:

• Hiroshi Sugimoto - This portfolio floored me. Hiroshi does sublimely beautiful black and white photos of a number of this. His photos of theaters, seascapes, and wax figures lit to resemble oil paintings are not to be missed.
• Diesel “Human After All” Ads - I don’t speak Russian but I can still appreciate these shots from the new ad campaign for Diesel. Highly surreal futuristic scenes with people acting like… well, people. Photographer credit goes to music video director Johan Renck.
• Mark Story’s “Living in Three Centuries” - A series of black and white photos of long-lived people and their stories. The stories alone are worth a look, but the photos are where the real beauty is. I just finished reading Douglas Coupland’s excellent “Eleanor Rigby,” which had a tertiary character that was also deeply interested in the lives of the ancients. I like life’s strange little symmetries like this.
• The Still Travelers - Swiss photographer Jean-Sébastien Monzani has posted a small selection of photos from this series. Solemn miniatures traverse a paper world that is both warm and familiar.
• Michael Wolf’s “100×100″ - The site description sums this up quite well: “100 rooms, each 100 square feet in size: Photographs of residents in their flats in Hong Kong’s oldest public housing estate “

Yeah, I don’t really know where I was going with that Santa/Clint thing either…

Storage Space by Andrew Ferguson

We’ve all heard this a dozen times - “Take you camera with you wherever you go.” And yet no matter how many times we hear it, we all still leave our cameras at home all the time. I’m not talking about situations where you specifically don’t want it (dinner with your wife, funerals, rock concerts) but situations where you could take it with you, but you forget or get lazy.

I’m trying to drive this message into my head as much as yours. I’ve missed a couple good photos lately and I’m determined not to let it happen again.

Take your camera with you on a whim. Better yet, switch around what equipment you take, too! Bringing some of your less-frequently used camera equipment means that you’ll either have more photographic possibilities or you get to  do crazy stunts to adapt in a weird situation. Either way, you’re going to get some good photos.

A perfect example of having more possibilities happened to me a couple weeks ago. I left my house at about 1am on Canada Day to grab a pita and decided at the last minute to take my camera. I decided to leave my faithful 50mm f/1.8 walkabout on, since I’d be going through the (comparatively) bright club district. Realizing that I hadn’t used my kit lens in months, I grabbed that and my tripod on my way out the door.

I know, pretty ridiculous considering I was only walking five blocks to get some food. But I’m really glad I took all of that equipment. I wound up spending two hours looking for interesting subjects on Granville St and snapped a few architecture shots on the way home.

The Granville street partiers I could have gotten with my 50mm, there’s no question. I didn’t need to take extra equipment for that. But the wide-angle shots of the Wall Centre and a church, which turned out far better, I would never have gotten.

Remember, photo opportunities are everywhere. Literally. The photo at the top of this post was something I walked past on my way work until one morning when I brought my camera with me. Suddenly, it became the subject for a photo that I’m reasonably proud of.

How often do you take your camera with you? Do you think it’s worth it?

Edit: Made some minor grammatical changes and reshuffled title. I normally don’t like doing this, but these errors were getting on my nerves. Apparently I was tired when I wrote this :P

Orange Amber Ants by Michael Rhys

Nikon is firing up the 2008 edition of their annual micro-photography contest, Small World. The competition has prizes totaling almost $10,000 worth of Nikon camera equipment with the winner taking home $3,000 in Nikon products and an invite to the awards ceremony in NYC. The contest is accepting submission until April 10,2008.

Not familiar? Here’s a quick definition for you, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Photomicroscopy,also known as “photomicrography“, is the combined art of photography and microscopy and its name is a portmanteau of these two words. Photomicroscopy is usually performed simply by hooking up a regular camera to a microscope, thereby enabling the user to take photographs at reasonably high magnification.

You can see a ton of examples on the Small World site, including all the past winners. If you’ve ever wondered how they got those really beautiful photos of cells and microbes, now you know!

On an unrelated note, the weekend’s coming up! This week I’m determined not to lose myself so much in my hedonistic lifestyle that I forget to post. Expect useful photography tips and accept no substitute.

Here’s a little something to brighten your day! Looks like Japanese art collective PIKAPIKA’s animated lightpaintings caught the eye of an ad executive stateside. This Sprint commercial is entirely made of lightpainting photos put together to create a stop motion video.

It was filmed over the course of four days and uses no special effects, just flashlights. And if you were wondering, the music from the commercial is ‘Souvenirs’ by Architecture in Helsinki, from their Fingers Crossed album.

There’s also a behind the scenes video of the commercial, to show you how it was made.

Related Posts:

• Animated Long Exposure Lightpaintings
• Top Ten Advertising Tricks Used in Tokyo Subways

One of my coworkers has taken to listening to Jazz at work lately; we’re all getting hooked on it. I don’t go out of my way to listen to it, but I’ll definitely listen if it’s on. No specific theme this week, I’m just making it up as I go along:

• Photography Competitions - Having trouble looking for photography competitions to submit your work to? This blog does a decent job of keeping track of what’s available out there and how to enter.
• The PhotoBloggies - Awards fort the best photoblogs on the net. If you’re looking for a good selection of photoblogs, check out the past winners gallery for tons of inspiring work.
• Hands-on with the Canon EOS 1D Mk III - A concise review of the new DSLR blockbuster from PopPhoto Magazine.
• Melting Ice Pops by Meredith Allen - I have no idea why I keep coming back to these photos, but I do. Latent childhood memories, no doubt. I was no doubt abused by a half-melted Tweety Bird Popsicle.
• Rodney Smith’s Surreal - A small section of Rodney Smith’s surreal monochrome photography. “Three Men with Shears, No. 1” and “Skyline” are both strangely compelling to me. They’re easily two of my favourite black and white photos.

Apparently the music I’m enjoying is John Scofield. Sweet.