Stacy F's Image Critique...

Hello everyone. Here we go with this week’s image critique. This one comes to us again from Stacy F. She sends us a shot of a fire-breathing, stilt-walking, back-alley dwelling, guy. So lets get to it…

Fist off, this image is very striking, very interesting. Immediately, I was drawn into the image, to figure out what’s going on. Nothing like an abnormally tall man spewing fire from his mouth to peak one’s interest. Love it. One thing that will always raise impact level is to shoot subjects seldom seen. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, the number of times I’ve seen a photograph of a guy on stilts breathing fire – three (counting this one). If it were a shot of, say, a squirrel at the park, then it’d be much harder to hold my attention (I saw enough squirrel photos the first week of photog school alone to last me a lifetime). So just by having such an interesting subject you’ve started off with a huge plus. And then there’s the scene. The creepy, decaying, dead-end alleyway is a great place to place your subject. It really gives it that “I’m-lost-and-went-the-wrong-way-down-a-dead-end-alleyway-and-there’s-bars-on-the-windows-and-a-creepy-fire-breathing-carney-in-the-shadows” vibe. It really works with your subject.

The exposure of the image is very well done. You have handled your flash very well. Wait…What? Flash?? That’s right. It may not have as short of a flash duration as, say, an SB-900, but the fire is acting as a flash, illuminating the entire scene. And you’ve exposed for it quite well. You were even able to underexpose the sky by a couple of stops or so, keeping it a dark, rich blue, which is very suitable to the overall image. I also love how the fire creates so much contrast and deep shadows.

Lets talk composition. Here’s where the image could use a little work. The position of the scene is placed nicely within the frame. The angle of the walls framing the sky, the dark shadows to the left and bottom right. So kudos for the composition of the scene. The placement of your subject could use a little work though. As is, its not too bad. But I think if you were to have placed him further into the corner, turned him 180° (facing to the left) and had him blowing the fire towards the left (at the same upward angle), it would have been a stronger image. That would anchor him in the middle of all those great leading lines the building is creating. We could also see his face, which would add some interest as well. Whenever I'm on a shoot like this, I’ll shoot my subject from several different angles and positions, exploring as many options as possible. And maybe you did that. But for this image, a little moving of the image would make it a bit more powerful.

Overall, I really like this image. It has a lot of interesting components. And there’s really only minimal tweaks that I think would help it out. Nicely done Stacy. Keep up the great work!

Now, go out and shoot something!

Your Questions Answered...

If you’ve been following this blog for any amount of time, it’ll come as no surprise that I really want to help other photographers improve. As much as my schedule allows, I’ve tried to pass on as much help/info as I can. For this week's post, I’ve been asked a number of questions that can be lumped into the same pile. I’ve gotten a barrage of “What blogs are you following?” “Who do you learn from?” “Who do you gain inspiration from?” etc. In other words, I’ve been asked “what do you do to keep up with the photography industry and sharpen your skills?” Well, here’s the skinny on this part of my photoggin’ leranin'.

Let me start off by saying, I put the greatest amount of effort on my family life. I strive to be the man, husband, and father that my family needs. If it were to ever come down to choosing between photography and my family, I’d leave photography in the dust and never look back. I carefully and consciously strive to daily guard my family life. Keep this in mind as you read this post. It can sound like I spend every waking moment reading, studying, and shooting. But I strive to keep a balance between what I do, and who I am to my family - and I tend to lean towards the family side of this balance. Having said that, here’s what I am currently putting into the learning side of my photography.

First of all, I read and ingest as much as humanly possible concerning our craft. I read and study constantly. The internet is a beautiful thing. There is so much good it does. And the proliferation of knowledge is some of it. Land a commercial job photographing custom leather baby shoes, and not know how to light it? Google it, and you’re overloaded with multiple lighting scenarios that’ll help. Get to shoot a model’s portfolio and need some pointers on how to use the only light you have? Search it on Youtube and you’re inundated with videos showing various ways to accomplish a fashion shoot with one light. I recently shot for a new restaurant that opened here in Tulsa. Having never photographed food, I first called a commercial photog friend of mine for pointers. I then quickly hit the web. After a short serf around the net and I was able to walk into the shoot with confidence and accomplished it with peace of mind. The client was ecstatic with the results. So the internet is an invaluable tool in my photographic arsenal. But what about all the other time, when I don’t have a “special” shoot coming up? There are several things I do to continue to learn.

There are several blogs I follow. I have chosen them because of 1) they offer so much in the way of learning, and B) they offer a great deal of inspiration to me. So what ones do I follow? Here’s a few who have made my RSS feed:

zarias.com ~ You’ve probably heard me talk about this dude before. Even though I went through a two year photography school, what I have learned from Zack has revolutionized my photography. School was great for the basics, but what Zack has given away on his blog allowed me to take what I knew and catapult me to another level. He’s one of the present-day lighting gurus. But the biggest thing he offers me is not technique, its inspiration. I’ll not retype his story here, but in short, early on he lost everything, and found himself working at a Kinkos, having to sell all his gear just to pay rent. But it was from there the dude pulled himself up, headed out with a borrowed camera and speedlight, and built a hugely successful career, all without going into debt. Just knowing there’s a regular guy out there who has successfully built a career doing what he loves, is able to provide for his family, and give back to the photography community, gives me a great deal of inspiration to keep going. So, I always read what he has to say.

pixelatedimage.com ~ David is another photographer that has a spot on my RSS feed. Talk about inspiration. First of all, the guy is doing exactly what I aspire to do: travel the world using his camera to work for non-profit organizations. When I was a kid, I wanted to be Indiana Jones when I grew up. I wanted to travel the world in grand adventures, fighting off bad guys. Now that I’m grown, not much has changed. Now I just want to have a camera in my hand. I would love to work with/for organizations like “For the Silent,” “Compassion International,” or “Voice of the Martyrs.” I want to create images that help them further their respective causes. And this type of thing is exactly what David is doing. He’s traveling the world shooting for some great causes. And his blog is constantly updated with very worthwhile posts, offering very sound food for thought on our craft. He has also written several books that I HIGHLY recommend. The most recent one I’ve read is “Visionmongers” ~ An absolute must read for every photographer trying to make a buck IMHO. If you haven’t already, check out his blog, its worth it.

jeremycowart.com ~ Relatively new to my RSS feed is this dude Jeremy. I don’t know much of his background, but he’s another that is very inspirational to me. Last year he is responsible for creating the Help-Portrait movement. This was a grass roots movement of photogs all over, volunteering their time and talents to take family portraits for families who otherwise couldn’t have any made. Around Christmas-time, there were something like 40,000 families around the world who received family portraits for free from photographers around the world. More recently, Jeremy traveled to Haiti to create his Voices of Haiti Project. While there, he created portraits of earthquake survivors. He is now selling these images and all proceeds are going directly towards Haiti disaster relief. It’s a VERY powerful collection of photographs. Plus, the dude is simply an awesome photographer. I love to look at his work.

noireblanc.com ~ I follow Beki’s blog for a couple of reasons. A) she’s an incredibly talented young photographer. By young, I mean, she’s only 17 years old. But, regardless of her age, Beki creates some of the more beautiful nature/macro photography I’ve come across. She’s also quickly become a Queen of Black and White. I have a lot to learn from her concerning BW photography. And 2) Beki is a friend of mine. Though I’m a little biased because she’s my friend, she really is an inspiration. At only 17, she is quite accomplished in her photography skills, is a very creative designer, and maintains a blog that is loaded with stunning images, photography techniques and design ideas. She is one to keep a close eye on. Her career is just starting to blossom. (did you catch the macro pun? Close eye... blossom... um, okay, moving on...)

scottkelby.com ~ Scott is the world’s foremost expert on everything photoshop. I could write forever on what he brings to the table. His blog is updated daily, loaded with tons of industry news, photography techniques, and of course, photoshop stuff. Scott has also written a plethora of books on photography and photoshop. He has another site called kelbytraining.com where members have access to a sea of online photoshop classes. He even has his own online "tv" station at kelbytv.com that airs webisodes teaching photoshop and technical camera stuff. If you’re not familiar with him, you owe it to yourself to get acquainted with what he does. He's like the Michelangelo of modern photography - he's everywhere creating impossible amounts of photography realted stuff.

Here’s a few more on my RSS, since you asked =)…

strobist.com ~ Everything you ever need to know about using hotshoe flashes.

joemcnally.com/blog ~ Joe is the Kung Fu Master when it comes to lighting.

digitalprotalk.blogspot.com ~ This one I just found out about… I haven’t spent a lot of time on David’s blog, but so far, it seems to be loaded with tons of great information, largely aimed at wedding photographers. If you’re into weddings, you may want to check into this one.

One other site I want to bring your attention to is creativelive.com. I’m just starting to learn about it, but I believe this will completely revolutionize the photography industry as we know it. Simply go to the site. Sign up for free. And then, you are able to “attend” live workshops FOR FREE. And there are some amazing workshops being offered. For instance, Zack Arias is conducting a three-day workshop in June. All you have to do is log on and participate. Catch that? Everyone who is “attending” the workshop is able to ask questions to the instructors, as they are conducted LIVE. Not available for the workshop you want to attend? No sweat. Once a workshop is over, you can purchase the workshop and watch it at any time. This is how they offset the cost of the website. In short, watch all the live workshops you want for free. Then, if you miss one and its worth it to you, you can pay for it. Its that simple. This is an amazing concept brought to us by the genius known as Chase Jarvis. I am pumped about it!

So there you go. There’s a short list of where I draw photographic inspiration and knowledge. Check ‘em out. Maybe they can give you something that will help you along on your journey. That’s it from me for this week. Have a good weekend everyone.

Oh, one more thing I want to add. Even though I spend a great deal of time studying, it doesn’t do any good if I don’t get off my backside and get out and shoot. There’s a deliberate reason I end every post telling you to go shoot. As much as I want you to learn something here, my goal is to get you out there and shoot. Do all the “book” learnin’ you want, but there’s no substitute for experience. Soooo...

Now, go out and shoot something!

Brad V's Image Critique...

This week’s image critique comes to us again from Brad V. The image is of a tree standing in a cut crop field, in black and white. So lets get to it…

First off, the image is composed pretty well. The tree, which is the subject of the image, is placed in the right third of the frame. As a general rule, it is much more pleasing to break the frame into thirds, and then place the subject of a photograph in on one of those planes. Sometimes, rules need to be broken, but for this shot, it was rightly followed. Had the tree been placed in the dead center of the frame, the overall image would loose much of its interest.

One that would have helped the composition would be to use the leading lines of the crop rows. Notice how the lines created by the crops in the lower left of the frame lead your eye into the image. Now, picture the base of the tree at the pinnacle of those lines. The viewer’s eye would be lead right up into the subject of the photo. But, wait, you can’t transplant a grown tree, so how would you make this happen? Well, assuming that all the crops in this field were planted in rows, you could have walked further to the right until the tree was in line. It may mean your subject would have to be in the left of the frame, but it would allow you to further draw the eye to your subject. The way it is now, these lines compete with the tree, the subject of the image. Its not necessarily bad, but could be that much better using the crop rows.

I really like the heavy use of grain in the image. It adds a good amount of texture to the image, giving it more depth. It has an “old-school-photo-shot-50-years-ago” feel, which adds to the “fine art”-ness of the image.

I like the choice to use Black & White. However, it seems to be more Dark Grey & Light Grey, instead of black and white. In other words: Its Flat. It simply needs more “pop”. You can adjust the levels from this:

To this:

Notice that I just pulled in the sliders from the left (shadows) and right (highlights), and moved the middle slider (contrast) to the right. The made the image pop off the screen (I didn’t post the adjusted version because I didn’t obtain permission from Brad to publicly “hack” his image). Whenever creating B/W images, they really need to have areas of deep black and bright whites. This way the images have more impact, more “umph” to the viewer. Black and white images need to smack viewers in the face. And this image falls just a little short of that.

The biggest problem this image has is the white halo-ing around all the tiny branches of the main tree (which is near impossible to see here on the blog). I'm not sure what happened here, but its just too distracting. It looks as though you needed to darken the sky, using the magic wand tool in photoshop to select it, then darkened the selected area. The problem though, is this always leaves an edge around whatever is selected. This can be “fixed”, but it would take an insane amount of time to go around every little twig, darkening the halo. This could have been captured in camera using a Circular Polarizer (or, since shooting B/W, maybe an 80A filter). A Circular Polarizer polarizes stray light in the sky, darkening the blue, and giving more contrast to the clouds. And it does nothing to the colors of a scene. But, it is dark, which forces a slower shutter speed by a couple of stops, maybe causing the need for a tripod, so be aware of that.

Overall, this image is pretty good. But it needs a little work to get it to the next level; the level that really “wows” people. Thanks for sharing your image with us Brad! I hope I’ve given you some things to help you along. You’ve been doing some great work, and you seem to be improving, so keep it up!!

Now, go out and shoot something!

First Friday Photos!!

Thats right, its the first Friday of May, so here's a small sampling of what I shot this past month. Let me know what ya' think! Any and all feedback is ALWAYS welcome and appreciated!! See you next week!

First up are some shots from Gage's Senior Shoot:

And here's the location for his football shots (pretty nice 'eh?):










Here's a few from some of the GOYA shoots I went on:












Here's how the world looks through my daughter's eyes (though her sunglasses anyway):


And here's a few of my family on Easter Weekend. Starting with my beautiful Wife Jenny and Daughter Addison:






Here's one of Jenny's sisters and niece:




That's all for this week. To all you Mothers out there: Happy Mother's Day!! Each of you are worth more than you know! Have a fantastic weekend!

Now, go out and shoot something!!

My Image Critique...

Hey everyone. I've got a bit of a curve ball to throw at you. This week, instead of me critiquing one of your images, I would like your thoughts on one of mine. So those of you who read the blog, especially those of you who've had images critiqued on here, I'd really like to get your input. So, for the image above, give me your critique in the comments below. I can't wait to hear what you have to say!

Also, I'll have my regular post on thursday, but I will be posting some of my work from the previous month on Friday. It's time again for First Friday Photos!! so be on the lookout for that!

Now, go out and shoot something!! (right after critiquing my image) =)

I'll sell you the Mona Lisa for $1

So you've decided to make some money with your camera. To do that, you have to take pictures for people, and you have to charge a price for it. So where do you start? How do you determine what to ask for the work you do? When it comes to the business side of photography, this is the number one question I've been asked. It's a hard one to answer. There are just so many variables involved, its nearly impossible to answer. Everyone of us has a different style that appeals to a different market. We live in various places serving very different demographics. Different markets will tolerate different rates. To an extent, each one of us will have to figure out what we will charge for our photography. Being relatively new to the industry, and having to have figured this out for myself, I do have a few thoughts on the subject. I could go on and on about it, but hopefully I can at least get you thinking.

When starting out, it is easy to think that price alone give you the edge over your competition. "If I can just undercut Frank's Fabulous Fotos, then I'll get some of his clients." Its natural to think this way. So much of our materialistic culture is based around this ideal. Think of it this way. Say there's a small-town hardware store that sales a particular power drill for $200. But down at Wal-Mart you can get the exact same power drill for $150. The same exact drill, made by the same exact manufacturer, but at 3/4 the cost. That's a no brainer. But photographers aren't in this game. The photography you offer is not, and never will be, the same as anyone else's. You view the world in a particular way, possess a particular shooting style, and produce a unique photograph. To think that what we produce is exactly the same as what everyone else produces is ignorant. We aren't manufacturing a widget. We are creating art. And since we are not producing the exact same thing as Frank down the street, we shouldn't be competing on price alone.

If we ever get into a price war with photographers around us, it won't be long before all of us are out of business. I work part time at a retail camera store. We sell some of the exact same items found at other stores. Competing on price alone, we can lower the price on these items to barely above cost, or even below cost, in order get customers in the door. The hope is we can then sell other items that have much higher profit margins. We may loose a couple bucks on one thing, but profit fifty on another. The reason you can't do this as a photographer is simple. There is only one of you. You only have one thing to sell. If it we compete on price alone, we would have to lower our prices over and over until we are charging less than what it costs us to be in business. Game Over when this happens. And there are so many photographers in the industry who are doing this very thing. And many more who have gone under because of it.

Have you ever walked by the portrait studio at a Wal-Mart and seen how much they charge for a portrait package? Here its something like 30 prints for $9.95. Ever done the math on that? The prints lone would cost me much more than that. And that's not considering my time to photograph the family, edit the images, the wear on my equipment etc. At $9.95, that's massive loss for someone who can't also sell the family a flat screen TV for a large profit. It may be different where you are, but I can't pay my bills with a negative cash flow. So how do we compete with Wal-Mart? Simple: you don't. Nor should you. What you produce should have so much more value than what Wal-Mart has. I know that people can get 30 prints for $9.95 there. But I also know that they can come to me and receive much more value for their money. "Say what? Your sitting fee alone is nearly 13 times Wal-Mart's entire package price. How in the world is that more value?!?"
David duChemin wrote, "Value is not determined by price. Value is about what the client gets for the price paid. If I pay $100 and get nothing, that's not value. It's cheap. If I pay $1,000 and get much more than I expected, that's not expensive; it's value. And when you consider this way of thinking, it's easy to see how competing on price can lead a client to look at your pricing and ask the question, 'what's wrong with their service? Why are they so inexpensive?' Repeat after me: 'I can't compete on price alone.' Is pricing important? Yes. Will clients consider the price? Yes. But if you need to lower your prices until you are bankrupt, then these are not clients you want and you should find a new market... the clients who are worth keeping want value."

Instead of worrying about what others are charging for their work, we should be building value into our own. Put simply, charge cheap rates, and you're perceived as cheap. Add to what your clients receive for the money, and you're seen as valuable. Think about it. Say you have a newborn daughter. You want portraits taken of your beautiful little girl. Money is no object. Do you go down to Wal-Mart for the $9.95 package, or do you higher Anne Geddes and pay her whatever she charges? Somehow, having your child photographed by Anne Geddes seems so much more valuable than being able to pick up some milk and a new shirt on the way out of the studio.

Get where I'm comin' from? The value of your work is perceived. Many of us are very good at creating the images we do. However, way too many of us charge way too little for it. Granted, some simply don't have it, and need to move on to something else. I tried to play the guitar for years, and finally gave into the fact I simply didn't have it. Bt for the rest of you, those who are shooting good, solid photography, need to recognize the value of your work. Charge $9.95 and your work won't be perceived nearly valuable as if you were charging $1500. Also, you will attract certain clients based on your perceived value. A $9.95 photographer will attract $9.95 clients. A $1500 photographer will attract $1500 clients. This all should play into your thinking as you determine what to charge for your photography.

One more thought before signing off. If you have decided your photography is unique, has value, and are charging a good amount for it, then what you create better back up your prices. These two things, the work you produce and the amount you charge, go hand in hand. Anyone would gladly pay $9.95 to have their newborn photographed by Anne Geddes. That would be an incredible value. But no one in their right mind would pay Wal-Mart what Anne Geddes charges. That would be a rip off.

If you say you can give something of high value for really cheap, people will question its value. If I were to tell you I'd sell you the Mona Lisa for $1, all kinds of red flags would go up. "Is it the real Mona Lisa, the one that is worth so much more than a dollar? What's wrong with this deal?" But if I were to tell you I'd sell you a great painting for $1000, and gave you the Mona Lisa, you'd think you got a great value for your money. Work on your craft, charge what its worth, produce great images, and add value where you can. You are an artist, not a peddler of power drills. You cannot and should not compete on price alone.

So there you go, 1348 words about pricing your work. This is a massive subject, one I am still learning. I could never do the topic justice in a blog post. But hopefully I've given you something to think about. Whatever you do, don't undervalue your work. It is worth so much more than you think it is. Do your research, think it through, and charge accordingly.

Now, go out and shoot something!