[ennuipoet]

a single cloud with a vague resemblance to a squirrel with a pair of giant nuts.

Someone, please take this pikchure. 😆

I could MAKE that picture, but that is an entirely different contest, all together.

[ennuipoet]

FWIW I’m okay with ennuipoet‘s image. Time for another patented “Kes Litmus Test”: Rather than “clouds are a majority of the image” maybe “are the clouds an integral part of the image”? For example: the presence or absence of the clouds wouldn’t change the focus, subject or tone of kat‘s picture but the presence or absence of clouds drastically changes ennuipoet‘s.

Or for another example: Say someone posted an image that was 75% empty blue sky but contained a single cloud with a vague resemblance to a squirrel with a pair of giant nuts. It’s only 25% cloud but I don’t think we would DQ it.

I actually don’t think I am going to use this one, but I wanted to have a back up in case I had a failure of faith in my entries.

[ennuipoet]

Would one consider this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ennuipoet/5637789191/

a cloudscape?

[ennuipoet]

I was recently gifted a new Nikon for my birthday

Your gift-ers are smart people.

Oh, and welcome!

Really? You think? Because, you know, if they were, they would gift of Canon!

This is what we do here Yugo, bicker about Canon v Nikon and mock Pentax people 🙂

[ennuipoet]

Now see, this is what drives me nuts about myself. I can photograph a stranger on the street and achieve a compelling, visually compelling and remarkable image (at least in my opinion) but I cannot do the same for my friends and famly! The shots I posted this week are…nice…but they don’t grab you, they don’t speak to moment or the person. I really don’t understand why I am perfectly comfortable stalking a strange to get the right shot but I can’t do the same for the people I love. 😡

[ennuipoet]

Another potential grey area could be Kestrana‘s and my photoshoot yesterday where one of our friends was modeling for us. I set up the lighting and some of the settings on her camera as a baseline, but Kestrana directed the model, composed the shot, and adjusted the settings as she saw fit within the confines of the lighting I gave her. If anything I say it makes the shots even more hers because she had to adapt and conform to the lighting I gave her. Conversely, the shots I took in between with my camera, are inarguably mine.

In that situation I would say that co-photographers share the credit. Either or both of you could reasonably say you were the photographer. You probably shouldn’t both use shots from the Set in a contest, but even if you did I would vigorously argue that it was kosher.

One of the things about being a photographer rather than just “taking the picture” is creativity. A monkey can push a shutter, but it can’t compose a photograph. I would say in the end, if you created it, you own it.

[ennuipoet]

OK, after digesting this for a day or so: What is the difference between having someone else push the shutter and setting a timer or clicking a remote shutter? The photographer conceives, composes, and lights a scene, the activation of the shutter is a mechanical component, not a creative component.

Let me put is this way, say I am working for Joe McNally as a photo assistant, he sets up a shoot, gets everything read to go and then turns to me and says “wanna trip the shutter?” and I do. Does that make me the photographer? I’m sure Joe and the publisher would beg to differ.

In this case Elsinore is the creative vision behind the photograph, she constructed the scene, decided on every element about the scene, she is the photographer. It doesn’t matter who pushed the shutter.

[ennuipoet]

So do any of you ever bring your cameras in for service? I get mixed messages on other forums online. I see some that say it’s essential to make sure your machine is running fine, though most say you can usually just air-blow your sensor and that’s essentially all you’d need to do until the shutter starts dying on you (in your experience, how long until that tends to happen – if it even happens at all for any of you?).

I work under “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. My digitals have never been in for service, never had the need. I’ve had my Canon AE-1 serviced when the shutter stuck on me, but the ONLY reason I spent the money was it was my Mom’s camera and it has a ton of sentimental value. I shoot on several classic cameras and I try to service them myself as much as possible, I won’t entirely break one down but I will strip an old camera and clean one to the best of my ability. (I don’t touch shutters, all I am going to do is break it). You can reasonably expect a modern consumer level digital camera to give you hundred thousand shutter activations without a problem. Higher end camera should have more, you get what you pay for. There is no magic number before they shut down, I’ve a 20D that I am quite sure is well over 100k and it is still humming along without a problem.

[ennuipoet]

When I first when digital I was shooting like mad, I would routinely come back from a short walk in the neighborhood with 200+ exposures. If I were at a big public event like a parade I could fill two or three 4GB cards with 8mgpxl camera.

These days I might go out for two hours and shoot, max, two dozen exposures. I shot the Easter Parade here in NYC on Sunday on two bodies and took 280 exposures. What stopped me from machine gunning was starting to shoot film again. It took me back to the days when every time I pushed the shutter cost me money. Now I take the time before I click to think about the content, and instead of taking five or six exposures of the same thing I make sure the first shot is what I want.

I will still shoot multiples if the action is fast or the composition is dynamic. If I am shooting brackets for HDR I shoot twice, particularly if I am hand holding to compensate for camera shake. There is nothing WRONG with shooting 500 exposures every time you go out, but taking a second before you shoot to make sure you’ve got everything the way you want it makes you a stronger photographer. It teaches you to anticipate the shot as they develop and if you are shooting in RAW minor errors in exposure are easily correctable without shooting a bunch of shots to get the right exposure.

[ennuipoet]

Rent a Canon Body and some decent L glass 😈

/obligatory!

[ennuipoet]

Does the bunny dancer dude have fairy wings too?

No, just a darling little backpack to carry his eggs in.

[ennuipoet]

As a minimum we would need Drew’s blessing and most likely there might be some underlying liability issues that would need to be reviewed before we were to sell under the Farktography name. As to whether Drew would want a %, I make no pretenses to know him any better than having a few drinks with him and forty other Farkers once. My feeling is he probably wouldn’t care much about the money, but liability and trademake issues would probably concern him greatly.

[ennuipoet]

Nice! Like the HDR work!

[ennuipoet]

Thanks, couldn’t have done it with orionid‘s awesome idea and ready access to an Xray machine! 🙂

[ennuipoet]

I use two routes for prints, I have my Internet Sales route here at Redbubble

http://www.redbubble.com/people/fvpncy/portfolio

It is linked from my website, Facebook, Twitter and Blog. Redbubble is a bit like Flickr in which there are communities and groups to promote your work. I tend not to use a lot, RB is just the hosting and printing provider. RB sets the base price and you then decide how much commission on the print you want to make. I usually go between 30-50% over and above the print cost. I’ve made some sales, mostly friends and family buying small things. RB is OK, I would prefer stronger pricing controls but it is OK in the short term.

For person to person and personal printing transactions I use myphotopipe

http://www.myphotopipe.com/index.php

and negotiate the price with the buyer. I’ve now made three sales of prints, one was a gift at no extra cost above printing and two print sales that spun off from that. I used the base price of the printing and then negotiated a price from that. The prints were small, 11×14 and of people’s pet’s so I sold them for less than $100 each.

We’ve discussed print pricing before around here, so I am not going to run through those arguments again. Eventually I want to migrate the print production services and pricing to my website and run it all from there. There are several storefront services out there and I’ve only begun researching them. At this point using a storefront printer is not worth the effort and cost because I am not moving any prints. If and when I decide to transit to a more professional set up I want the infrastructure in place to do so.

So, to shorten it, I like Redbubble for the amateur that wants to try and sell a few pieces to friends and family, I like myphotopipe for semi-pro work because of the flexibility of prints and pricing but if you decide you want total control over your work you need a storefront on your website linked to your printer of choice or a local printer that you’ve built a relationship with, true professionals rent time at a printer and do their color correction and printing as part of the price.

The more I research the business side of photography the more I am into it AND the more frightened of it I become!

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