goldengod

#3478
by Wee Keat Chin

There’s not many times I’ll be able to advertise an effortless way to improve the quality of your photos, so listen up! Today we’re going to improve our photos by leaving them alone. That’s right. Go out, take your photos, come home, download them, and then forget that they exist.

Why? Because you just took the photos! You’re riding high on serotonin (or whatever; I quit biology) and aren’t making objective decisions about the quality of those shots. So as Kevin Smith would say, just “pimp away.”

Let Your Photos Steep

I make much better choices about which photos to post and which to hide when I let those few days pass between shooting and processing. This pays dividends in terms of my photo quality. It comes at the cost of a lot of time, though. This system only works for those of us without strict deadlines.

By waiting a few days, the excitement of having just taken those photos wears off. This helps you judge the quality of your photo more objectively. I can’t speak for everyone, but I’m pretty biased about judging my photos right when I get back from a shoot: Everything is awesome!

A System That Works

In the end, I’ve developed a two-pass system for selection. As soon as I download my photos, I’ll quickly go through them, to mark Picks and Rejected. I don’t spend more than five seconds thinking about any individual image, this is zippy.

Then I leave those photos alone for a couple of days; I just pimp away. When coming back to them, I re-evaluate my choices. Anything still rejected gets deleted and anything that’s still a pick goes into my development queue. Skimming the unflagged ones looking for more picks is good too, but repeat the process of letting them sit a few days.

My photos aren’t the best on Flickr yet, but making this change to my workflow improved the quality of photos I post. Amusingly enough, this is a trick I learned from writers and editors instead of other photographers. I started applying it to my blog for months before I made the connection with photo processing. Go figure!

Go Canada by Steve Jurvetson

I spend a lot of time talking about how to take good photos, but I don’t spend much time talking about making a career out of it. It’s time for that to change. After minutes of studying ways to make money from photography, I’ve unlocked the secret to a great career.

Not only have I unlocked it, but I’m also going to share it with you. Follow these five rules, and your photography career will launch you into the halls of… photographic fame, I guess:

1. Work for Hire - Everybody knows that a direct trade of time for money is the best way to go. Not some convoluted system where you sell the same thing to multiple people. The jokes on them! They’re saving you from hours of work doing pesky ‘copyright licensing’ and they’re still paying you!

2. Never Update Your Portfolio - Nobody cares what your portfolio looks like, clients just want to make sure you have one. It’s all about culling the amateurs. By not updating your portfolio, you’ve saved yourself a ton of time - time that could be spent… working for hire.

3. Do the First Job for Free! - This is a photographer’s dream. You get the experience of working with the client, but without all the money worries. You already know that this one’s a freebie! Besides, the editor said the work would just come rolling in once word got out. He’s a professional, so he probably knows what he’s talking about.

4. Save Money by Skipping Backups - Saving extra copies of your photos to offsite storage is for nerds and pussies. Real men take risks and gamble; that’s how leaders are made. They don’t read warning labels or wear water wings, they drink from bottles with skulls on them and try to surf Niagara Falls.

Real men probably also contract VD from transsexual prostitutes in Taiwan, but that’s a tale for another day. The point is that making backups of photos is a waste of time and as we all know, time is money.

5. Microstock, Microstock, Microstock - People love buying things for a dollar. Look at how many dollar stores there are. Study the iTunes dollar-a-song success story. You can’t argue with things for a dollar; it just plain works.

Most people don’t buy photos because they’re too expensive. But if your photos were all only a dollar, everyone would want one. You’d be rolling in money!

Therefore, no matter how much time or effort you’ve put into a shoot, make sure every photo is priced at a dollar. Undercutting other photographers is the best way to ensure success for the industry and your career!

This incredibly satirical article goes out John Harrington, photo business blogger and author of the book “Best Business Practices for Photographers.” If you can’t afford expensive luxuries like books, Subscribe to my RSS Feed instead. My mom says I’m cool!

I’ve technically been back in town since late Sunday, but I’ve had my parents in town since then. Today marks the last day of my week-long summer vacation. I feel refreshed, awake and quite happy with how my first foray into landscape photography turned out.

To celebrate my triumphant return, I have decided to… do nothing. Instead, enjoy some links:

• The F Stop Mag - There’s not much here yet, but the content that’s up is top notch. Two issues have been released so far, each focusing on four photographs and four photographers. I highly recommend you read the whole archives.
• Panoramic Digital Camera Concept - This clever concept camera spins like a top to give you a full 360 degree panorama view. I can see children playing with a low-res version of this in a few years and real estate agents using a high-end one to map homes.
• Fergus Burnett Lighting Tutorial - I’m addicted to these lighting tutorials over at SitBonzo. Fergus Burnett is the photographer up to the plate this time and if you’re learning light, you should take ten minutes out of your day to watch this.
• “Into the Woods” by Mert Alas & Marcus Piggott - Fashion gets fuzzy in the August issue of W magazine. While I found this linked in a story mocking mainstream magazines and furries, I like some of the photography. I’m a sucker for strange fashion photography, though.
• Spellbinder Image Matching Software - I’m really at a loss of how to explain this in two sentences, but it sounds cool. Perhaps you should click-thru to the BBC and see for yourself.

Now, to roll up my sleeves and get to work on a couple projects for the site that I shelved while I was on vacation. I’ve got some great articles slated to hit the site in the coming weeks; Subscribe to my RSS Feed and stay on top of things!

That’s right folks, I’m back like the clap. I flew back into Vancouver late Sunday night, but my parents are in town all this week. I’ve been spending a lot of time with them and it’s been keeping me away from my computer.

I’m currently nowhere near my home, on a pc with a version of IE7 programmed to crash every six minutes. Because of this, I’ve made no progress on a proper post with the usual research, Flickr photos, and all that jazz.

Instead, I’m recommending that you amuse yourself in the following nooks of the Internet:

• Haiko Hebig’s “Endangered Machinery“ - Photos of abandoned and decrepit control rooms from all over.
• scaryideas - My favourite source for quirky ads, both print and video.
• Fireworks Photos - My first attempt at photographing fireworks; shots are from China’s display at the 2007 Celebration of Light

I fail.

Buried Magazine by David Goehring

On my flight home from Saskatchewan yesterday, I had a layover in Calgary. I needed a break from the novel I was reading and decided to stop at a newsstand. Standing in the magazine aisle, I came to the realization that I’ve never bought a photography magazine, ever!

The selection in the shop was pretty limited, but I persevered. I was determined to buy a magazine about photography instead of one of the rags that has ‘photo’ in the title and just reviews digital cameras. That’d feel like reading a spamblog and paying for it.

I have a long-held bias against magazines; I don’t like them. I’ve always felt that they’re overpriced, saturated with ads, and thin on real content. Because of this, I haven’t purchased or read any magazines in years. Except for Cosmo, of course.

I ended up buying the ‘Emerging Photographers‘ issue of a Canadian magazine called Photo Life and, honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I feared. There weren’t too many ads, and it was only six bucks. But content? It was like skating on Kate Moss in a spring thaw. Other than the photos of the up and coming photographers, there was precious little to read.

Much like dating a Catholic girl, the whole experience left me wanting something more. More detail in the articles, more tutorials, more… how you say… stuff. You know, everything that’s normally only a mouseclick away.

This brings me to my point: I’m considering a subscription to a photography magazine and I’d like some advice:

What are the photography magazines that you consider worth reading?

Sara by Andrew Ferguson

Today’s guest post is written by my lovely girlfriend and secret blog editor:

Hello, my name is Sara, and I am not a photographer. Instead of trying to ad lib about cameras, I’m going to hold forth on writing about photography, based on observations I’ve made as goldengod’s resident grammar geek. The following suggestions are basic, but should be a good starting point for anyone who wants to become an internet-famous photography blogger.

1. Teach your readers

If you want a readership larger than your circle of friends, you have to write work that appeals to strangers. Luckily, photography is a popular hobby and many people will be intrigued by the possibility of improving their own photos. Instead of writing only personal interest, include information that could be of use to your audience.

For example, don’t just talk about the great pictures you took last weekend, describe the lighting setup you used to get that effect. Don’t say your new camera is the greatest, explain why it’s better than the other models. If your readers learn something from everything you write, they’ll keep coming back for more.

2. Tailor jargon to your audience

Photography comes with a vast lexicon of technical terms, but cameras do not come with vocabulary tests. Keep your intended audience in mind when choosing your words. Many photographers are self-taught, and there is no guarantee that your readers will know all the terminology.

This does not mean you need to talk down to everyone, but tailor your language to the expected audience. If you’re writing about advanced lighting techniques, feel free to mention matrix metering*. If your article is titled “What does ISO mean?” you’re better off sticking to simpler terms unless you want to include a long explanation.

3. Check your facts

Now that you have people reading your tips on photography, try to ensure you give the right tips. Your reputation as an photography guru will be ruined if your information is bogus. If you’re not sure about the definition of a term or how a technique works, look it up. You have the internet; this is not hard.

Sometimes you will be wrong, even (perhaps especially?) if you double-checked with Wikipedia. Try not to be a jerk when someone corrects you, unless being a jerk is your schtick. Being right most of the time and accepting corrections when you’re not will make you sound intelligent–like someone worth listening to.

4. Edit, edit, edit

Speaking of sounding intelligent: make sure to edit for spelling and grammar. Yes, this is the internet, and blogging is meant to sound casual. There is, however, a difference between casual and incoherent. Spend a little time choosing your words, and proofread before you publish. If English was never your strong point, enlist a literary-minded friend to look over your work.

There are resources both online and off that can help you with everything from the proper use of a semicolon to writing catchy headlines. Even if your command of language is lacking, you will improve with practice so long as you keep looking for ways to improve.

5. A picture’s worth

When you’re writing about photography, it only makes sense to include some photos. Use them to illustrate techniques you’re talking about, equipment you use, photographers you’ve met. If you don’t have any appropriate photos of your own, Andrew has a post about finding Creative Commons pictures.

These are all basic hints, but keeping them in mind can help if you’re just getting started writing about photography. Perhaps someday Andrew will let me write another guest post, in which I shall expound on the wonders of the thesaurus. Until then, get out there and take some pictures!

* I looked through previous goldengod posts and picked the first piece of jargon I didn’t understand. Andrew assures me it does relate to lighting. Now you know why I didn’t write about cameras.

This is a guest post that my friend Brian Larter graciously agreed to write. I told him I was heading on vacation and he leaped at the chance to air my dirty laundry while I’m gone.

However, that didn’t work out. Instead, here’s a post on what Brian has learned running his own photography business:

A little over a month ago I made the giant leap of quitting my day job to do photography full time. I’ll be honest, that wasn’t the main intention of quitting my job, but it is what happened in the end, and I could never have been happier with my decision. This coming September I will be attending Nova Scotia community collage to take photography as a full time student and that will consume the majority of my time I suspect. But between that and when I quit my day job I have been running my very own small photography business.

I have learned a lot of things over the past few months since Aperture Studios opened, from the good to the bad and everything in between. This is going to be a multiple part post as it is way too lengthy a topic to cover in just one session, and I would be doing it a disservice if I just skimmed the basics.

Me, myself and I

First thing you need to know when it comes to any sort of freelancing photography or photo business is that you are the product you are selling. You are selling yourself as a person as well as your talent and skills with a camera. Pretty much you need to be on your best behavior from this point on and be an upstanding citizen of society. Well not really, you don’t need to become the atomic family or anything, you just need to start watching what you say and do online and in certain people’s company. Anything you do in a negative fashion reflects on you in a negative way therefore reflects on your product in a negative way, and you will have no one to blame but yourself.

Everyone nowadays has two personalities. They have their real world personality where they are in a more conservative setting and then they have their online personality where they tend to let go and be free. This is the personality you need to start being careful of as they may come back and bite you.

Every post you make on a forum, every comment you have made or is made about you can be Googled nowadays. Anyone can look it up by simply typing in your name or your online handle and find all sorts of info about you. This isn’t a huge deal except to that potential client who wants you to photograph their children in the park. They may look up your name and discover you are a member of a forum where you made some comments on how you are disgusted with children and their snotty little noses….yeah, that client may find another photographer.

Now this is a bit of an extreme case and it doesn’t happen with every client of course, but it is always be to be safe when the product you are selling is yourself.

Just charge it to my client please…

One mistake I see photographers making over and over in my studio is they don’t charge their clients for the studio time. Studios and equipment cost money, that money needs to come from somewhere…make the client pay for it! During a photoshoot you are working for someone else, you are the product they just bought for a short amount of time. You have a job to do and that job is not to be spending your money to get their photoshoot done. You are probably not making a bucket load on this shoot anyway, so any small expense you cover is just less money in your pocket for profit.

Some things that I have found photographers covering themselves are studio time, rented equipment, products for the photoshoot itself, makeup artists and hair stylists. If a client wants to have a model shot with makeup they need to understand that they need to pay for that makeup artist and hair stylists.

When you finish with the photoshoot and you go to invoice the client be sure you include all of those expenses. You don’t need to go into detail on your invoice either, simply list them as photoshoot expenses and be sure to include studio rentals and equipment rentals in there. Be sure that the money you are making on a photoshoot is not leaving your pocket as soon as it gets in there.

This is the end of part one on running a small photography business. I am honestly not sure how long this could run as my list for brainstorming is pretty long.

Until next time…

The Photographer’s Frazetta by Jhayne Holmes

My sincere congratulations go out to my friend Lung S. Liu for winning Non-Professional Editorial Photographer of the Year at the 2007 IPA’s. Lung’s medium-format film work of the Salton Sea and Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside swept the category.

I’m lucky enough to have not one, but two prints of his work at home. He very generously gave them to me as a birthday gift this past February and I really need to get around to hanging them. Or putting any photos up on my walls, for that matter.

Lung also took home three 1st place prizes in subcategories, one 2nd place, two 3rd places, and twenty honorable mentions. If you’d like to see his work, and a massive amount of inspiring work by other photographers, click on over to the 2007 IPA winners list.

You can see more of Lung’s work on his personal site or in his Flickr account.

I’ve noticed a big surge in my RSS readership lately. Almost 50 new subscribers have shown up in the last two weeks alone. Welcome, all of you! You have no idea how happy it makes me to know that so many people appreciate the posts I write here.

I maintain a list of my five most popular tutorial posts in the sidebar, sorted by traffic. By no means does it cover all of my best content, though. I’m taking this opportunity to share five more tips and tutorials that I’m proud of and the feedback I got:

• Five Ways to Make Your Texture Photos Pop - One of my longtime active readers, Damon Carr, got into a good discussion with me about one of his early photographic forays into texture.
• Using Your Digital Camera in Burst Mode - Definitely read the comments on this one. Brian Auer and another reader named Latoga add a ton of useful information.
• Five Reasons to Attend Photography School -This was really well-received. Apparently, a lot of my readers have been considering going to school for photography.
• The Secret Keys to Taking Original and Unique Photos -This didn’t get much of a response other than ‘great post’, but I still feel like there’s a lot of discussion to be had here.
• Five Reasons NOT to Attend Photography School -Wow, being negative really got some discussion flowing on this one. People had much more to say about this post than the first part.

You may have noticed that all of them are dated in the last two months. Towards the end of June, I got really inspired to spend more time working on goldengod. Since then, I’ve put a lot more time and effort into the site as a whole, but focusing on better quality posts.

I have also now managed to get posts up every day for three weeks, now. It may seem small to you, but it’s something that I’m rather proud of. Between my full-time day job, time spent taking photos, my girlfriend, and a normal social life, it’s a wonder I find time for my site at all.

I’d never have managed it without interacting with you guys, though. So thank you, all of you. You make me a better writer and photographer, just by participating and talking to me.

Of course, the aforementioned chicken is me. BarCamp was a resounding success and I had a great time, but I’m still ridiculously busy. Swamped or not, nothing comes between me and my precious links:

• POV Photography - Chase Jarvis shows how to take stunning point of view photos using some reasonably priced equipment and a little ingenuity. The video is well worth watching.
• Reverse Lens Macro Photography - Brian Larter gives us the lowdown on how to take macro photos by turning your lens around and attaching it to your camera body backwards.
• Is Digital Printing Ready for the Mainstream? -Aaron Bieber over at Single Serving Photo gives a quick overview of the current state of digital printing and how it relates to the quality of a good ol-fashioned silver gelatin print.
• Lost America: Aircraft Boneyard - I love seeing photos of thrown-aside objects that we don’t consider ‘disposable’. Using creatively gelled strobes and long exposures, Troy Paiva takes night-time photos of old and gutted airplanes as part of his ‘Lost America‘ project.
• NYT on Photographer Permit Protest - It looks like I wasn’t the only incensed photographer when I wrote about the draconian new photography permit rules in New York. The article talks about a protest by a number of photographers and local filmmakers that took place last month.

I hop on a plane tomorrow morning and go incommunicado for 5 days. Posts have been pre-written for your enjoyment, including a guest post or two and I’ll see if I can badger my lovely girlfriend into approving comments.

I’ll be back in the saddle next week; try not to miss me too much!