New Site and Blog coming to a screen near you!

I am in the final stages of creating my new website/blog. I have been struggling with the idea for months. Being self employed I have always worn many hats, sometimes too many. Photographer, accountant, sales rep, web designer, graphic designer etc... so many hats I can't find my head some days!

So one of my new years resolutions was to turn over some of these hats to people/companies that do these things best. I am in the middle of a career direction change. I am finally, after 13 years, going to follow my heart. Add to that, I need to continue making money in the area that I have been, while my new marketing takes off. And delegating some work to others is one of my tasks for moving into the future.

For one, my new brand/logo/identity is being created by my friend Shawn Skvarna. He has been a graphic designer for nearly as long as I have been a photographer, and I have known him for almost 11 years.

As for my site/blog: I have been designing it myself for the last 6 years. Mainly because I require full control over my site. I need to be able to update things on my schedule, and to be able to publish proof galleries to my clients any time. Even at 2 in the morning, if I am working that late- which I do sometimes.

I'm ready to be done with the process, I just don't posses enough web skill to make a truly awesome site. But at the same time I still require full control. So I have been looking at many of the photography centric hosting solutions. I had 2 finalists last week:

LiveBooks
ViewBook

Both had their pluses and minuses. What I need is the following:

Editable layout
Variety in portfolio designs
Slide Show capability
Video capability
Private client areas, with interactive proofing
High res image delivery to my clients
The ability to sell my images
Multiple pages, including a slick contact page
Blog integration
Little or no use of flash (for many reasons I do not like flash based sites... a post for another time)

They both possess most of these functions, but I had reservations about both as well (for 1 they are both flash heavy). Then one day I happened across both Ami Vitale's, and Jack Gruber's sites/blogs. I scoured them, looking at all their pages. And after some googling to see how their sites were built/hosted, found that they had the ability to do everything I required. And did not rely on flash, to boot!

The set up relies on 3 separate web companies to accomplish it's task. Photoshelter, Wordpress, and Graph Paper Press. It takes a bit of setting up, but once it is done I will have a nice active design that fulfills all of the above requirements while still allowing me to make updates when ever I want.

The site should be live by next week. And until then this will be the last post on this blog. I will keep it active for now as an archive to my older posts. But I plan on migrating my better ones over to the new blog.

So until then... have a great weekend!

Last minute shoot

Sometimes we get assignments/jobs at the last minute. ( I am not a daily newspaper journalist, I know they deal with this all the time...) But as a magazine features/commercial photographer, I usually have some lead time.

My girlfriend is a makeup artist. And one of her clients has a client that needs a hand model (did ya follow that?) So they called her and asked to see a shot of her hands asap! The shoot is in a few days and the client of the client needs to see hand samples. She asked: "Who has professional photos of their hands just lying around?!"

That is where I come in. So we got right to it. Very simple lighting. Pop a few shots. Then up to my office for a few minutes in Adobe LightRoom. Her client needed this photo with in half an hour of asking for it.

So here is what we came up with.

More Copyright infringment cases

First up is this case, it is SOO blatant it is ridiculous. But here it is a sculptor infringing on a photographer's copyright, in contrast to last weeks post.

Then there is this story. A photograph of a celebrity taken for People magazine, and some how American greetings got their hands on the image to make a card out of it! Take a look at the articles for the full stories.

I hope the photographers, in both cases, receive maximum compensation that is appropriate for each.

Infringment, or Fair use?

I came across this story twice on Twitter today:

http://www.petapixel.com/2010/02/03/public-art-lands-photog-in-hot-water/

The article pertains to whether or not photographer, Mike Hipple ,infringed on the copyright of sculptor, Jack Mackie , when he created this photograph:


Mr Hipple, created this photo and licensed it for sale as a stock image; to reap financial/commercial gain. Here and Here are links to see part of the original work.

I think Mr. Hipple's photo shows enough of the original work to leave no doubt as to where the subjects are standing. As a matter of fact, Mr. Mackie's work is integral to the compositional success of this particular photo.

Within copyright law there is room for another person to use part of an artists work for several reasons. Here is a clip from the US governments website of Title 17, copyright law:

"Section 107 contains a list of the various purposes for which the reproduction of a particular work may be considered fair, such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. (emphasis mine)Section 107 also sets out four factors to be considered in determining whether or not a particular use is fair:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes
2. The nature of the copyrighted work
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted work"

So, did Mr. Hipple infringe upon Mr. Mackie's copyright? Only a court of law can determine this. Matter of fact here is another quote from the copyright site:

"The distinction between fair use and infringement may be unclear and not easily defined. There is no specific number of words, lines, or notes that may safely be taken without permission. "

However, from my perspective, I think Mr. Hipple did in fact infringe. I am sorry Mr. Hipple. Here is an excerpt of what Mr Hipple has to say about the suit:

"Think of it this way: if Mr. Mackie is correct and this isn’t fair use, then he can file a $60,000 law suit against anyone who, when strolling along Capitol Hill, thinks the dance steps are nice and takes a photo or video. He may not find you if you just leave the image on your camera or computer, but as soon as you post it to Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, etc., he can (and apparently will) sue you."

I believe the above statement is wrong. If you are a tourist, taking photos of cool art you see while on vacation, and not trying to sell said photos for profit, but only sharing with your friends on Facebook, etc. then you are not infringing on copyright. The minute you try to make a commercial gain from someone else's work you are in trouble.

One more part of copyright law to consider is derivative works. Here is a bit of info about how a new work might be considered derivative or not:

"A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some previously published material. This previously published material makes the work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a "new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and format, for example, are not copyrightable."

-From: US Copyright Office Circular 14: Derivative Works

According to the above it does not appear, to me, that Mr. Hipple's work can be considered a Derivative work that is independently copyrightable.

The Law Suit

Mr. Mackie first contacted the stock agency that held the image. The agency agreed with him, removed the work and gave him a settlement. Mr. Mackie made his claim of infringement known, and the stock agency complied and gave him money. I believe that his further law suit against Mr. Hipple is now just frivolous.

As a professional photographer I am not sure how I want this case decided. On the one hand, I can sympathize with Mr Mackie. Why? Because I would not want to be in his shoes. If someone created work for commercial gain based on my images, I'd be pissed.

However, I may side with Mr. Hipple for two reasons. 1)I can't stand frivolous law suits. As stated above, Mr Mackie already received financial compensation. 2)How would this play out, if Mr. Mackie does win, for taking professional photos in public places. All public art and buildings might become off limits.

I did some research here to support my feelings, and I may change them as the case moves forward. But as of now I think they are both in the wrong to some degree.

So what do you think?

Site changes in store

I know, I know. I've said this before... I'm making changes to my site. Seems like every 2 years I'm saying the same thing.

Well, I've been self publishing my own site for years now. One of the many hats that must be worn as a self employed photographer. As I have come to learn, true success needs focus. And to focus one must delegate tasks to others who are better suited to them.

One of these tasks I am giving up control of is website design. I am deciding between two hosted solutions, and will have a decision made within a week. Shortly there after going live.

So, keep your eyes tuned in for these changes. When this is done, my site should look more polished and be updated more often. I also hope to have my blog published under the sites domain to keep everything together.

Speaking of the blog: I plan on setting aside time to work on it more frequently. Here's to good intentions.

Show at Oyster Mill Playhouse

I currently have some prints hanging in the lobby of Oyster Mill Playhouse. They recently completed some renovations to the space and I had the honor of being the first artist to show in the new digs.

Over the last 2 decades I have had work in dozens of shows locally. And each and every time I went with shots that were close to my heart. I decided with this exhibit to show pieces that may have a more commercial appeal to them. By that I mean images that will, hopefully, appeal to the art buying audience in this area.

This selection was based on images that recently sold well in other shows.

Here are a few of the shots in the show. I encourage everyone to go to Oyster Mill to see them in person, and maybe even take in the show that is currently running, "A Shot in the Dark".

Thanks

Street Photography

What photographer, at some point in time, hasn't shot on the street? There is a freedom that comes from not having any other motivation than to capture the Decisive Moment. A rush of adrenaline from the hunt. The sense of danger that is associated with fear. Fear of intimately photographing strangers, fear of the stranger detecting my voyeuristic lens.

When shooting images on the street I think it is important to remember to be respectful of the people at which you are pointing your camera. We can capture people in their daily lives, and even in moments of tragedy while still being respectful.

These 2 images came from a trip to Manhattan back in August '09, while walking through Central Park.

Haiti Relief, Loose Print Sale

2009 was a tough year, all over the world. And like so many other people I have been moved to help the relief efforts in Haiti. The easiest way, for most of us, is to donate to an organization like the Red Cross.

During the last 10 months I have had images in 5 exhibits. And after each exhibit closed I took some framed prints back home. Each of these images have been removed from their mats and frames, they are "Loose" prints.

I am offering these loose prints for sale and donating 50% of the proceeds to the Red Cross. There are limited quantities of each print and size. As you click through to the full size preview of each you will see a table of sizes available for that image. From there select the appropriate paypal button below the image. I will update each image's remaining quantity as they sell.

I have priced these images at discounted rates and am offering free shipping in the USA. Thank you for considering a purchase. And remember, 50% of your purchase price is tax deductible.

Click HERE to visit the site.

Donation for Haiti

I have been working on idea to help generate some money to donate to the relief efforts in Haiti. I am nearly done with the project. I will have it posted on the morning of January 27.

Playing Catch up. Starting with Makeovers

This week will see several posts in close succession. I am trying to play catch up. Quite a few things have been noteworthy lately, but I haven't posted. So here is one of at least three.

Prevail Salon is doing a Summer Makeover promotion through August. Stacy Buxton, proprietor, contracted me to shoot the before and after images for each winner. If you would like more info on entering the monthly drawing please click here.

The winner for June was Danielle Swift. Please follow this link to read her story, and to see more images.

New Website Content

Finally! I have updated my Website . There are now 4 galleries of images, and a new home page. I am plugging away to finish other parts of the site.

I still need to put up galleries for Fine Art, and Documentary work. I also need to complete the About page. Hopefully all this will come in the next few days.

Eye of the Beholder...

...Isn't that what they say about Beauty?


About 2 weeks ago I was driving along North Front St in Harrisburg, returning from a shoot at the Symphony Show House, when I drove by this scene. What do you see?

I see a red wall. Green Grass, yellow dandelions. White flowers on three trees of differing heights, from short to tall. And stark shadows cast by a mid afternoon, early spring sun. I also see the ugly construction site on one side, and the not so pleasant looking motel on the other. Not to mention the close proximity to a busy secondary road. I took all this in in the time it takes to drive by a 10 meter long scene at 40 miles per hour, about 1/2 of a second (at this speed you are traveling at 58.6 feet/second).

Two more views of the overall scene:






The potential for images made here was begging me to turn around. I had a full afternoon of work, but I could not resist the Siren song of all the beauty I had driven by. A quarter mile down a did a u-ey and parked in the construction site to the left. Warning about getting caught up in road side photo opps: ALWAYS watch were you park. On this day I pulled in over hundreds of rusty nails. Somehow I was able to get out of there with out a flat, or tetnis!. Other times I have almost been stuck in mud or in snow banks and once even had the owner of a farm chase me off with a fog horn! Glad it wasn't his hunting rifle.

One more word of caution, please pay attention to traffic, people think you are crazy when you stop your vehicle in the middle of traffic to take a photo. And while lost in their thoughts of you in a straight jacket, may not pay close enough attention. I have almost been hit by buses, semi's, mini vans and Hummers. Also, pay attention to personal property. Unless you ask permision don't park on it, and be carefull photographing it, that is somewhat of a legal grey area that I don't endevour to get into at this time.

Here are a few of my interpretations of the scene:







And HERE is the link to see the images a bit larger.

The Economy Hits Home

As some of you may now I have kinda been Harrisburg Magazine's main squeeze when it comes to photography for the last few years. With the downturn in the publishing industry, and the downturn in the economy in general, there has come a perfect storm of sorts. Periodicals are facing their toughest times ever. With media migrating to the web, and the economy making companies think long and hard about parting with advertising dollars, Magazines, and other print media, are faced with making hard decisions. Just look in the news these days and see how many daily newspapers have folded, or filed for bankruptcy.

Take a gander at this link: News Paper Death Watch. The name alone implies what it is all about. The first post there declares: "The [UK] Guardian announced today that it will cease print publication after 188 years and go Twitter-only. All future content will be formatted to less than 140 characters and the newspaper has launched an ambitious effort to retweet its entire archive. " Can you imagine getting your daily news in clips shorter than a Text message? Wow!

So these hard times have finally hit home, I had wondered how long it would take. Bench Mark Group Media, parent company to Harrisburg Magazine, have had to make some hard decisions lately, and trying to cut costs for image production is one route the powers that be chose to go. They are still trying to decide what route exactly they will take, I may still shoot some images for them, but no where near what I had done in the past.

I shot many a story for them over our 10 year relationship, and have met a lot of people in that time. I used to Joke that I had photographed everyone in our city at least once. I made a lot of friends and shot a lot of interesting subject matter. And created, what I hope will be, some life long friendships with the employees in their office.

Over the next few months I plan to highlight some of my favorite stories that I shot for them. I will be creating slide shows and posting links to the images here on my blog.

Onward and Upward!

4/2/2009- Update

I have just heard from the publisher at Harrisburg Magazine that I will still be shooting images for the publication. Back on a more traditional freelance basis. This is good news. I can't wait to work on my next assignment for them, looks like it will be the cover of their June Regional Guide Issue.

Death of a Camera

Two weeks ago my camera, a Canon EOS 40D, developed a fatal problem. The much talked about (on web forums) Error 99. This issue started mild. One error. Than a couple of days later a few errors. At this point I researched the problem on line and found some DIY fixes. Tried them and it seemed to do the trick. Then a few a days later the problem returned with a vengeance. While shooting a job the camera kept telling me "Error 99..." about every other shot. Sometimes I was able to go for about 10 shots or so, than it would yell at me again. By the end of the job the camera completely quite on me.

YIKES

I called Canon immediately upon returning to my office. They had me try a few things out and determined it had to come in for repair. Off it went. Bad thing was, my camera is just out of the 1 year warranty period! another Yikes. However, the Canon repair person told me that they do not advertise this, but they usually give a 90 day grace period on out of warranty issues such as this! So I was saved from the expense of paying for the repair.

One other quip about this ordeal is the fact that I have belonged to the network of Canon professional users for 5 years, CPS. They offer expedited repairs for their members, as well as loaners. Well this year they changed some of their requirements. One of which was what equipment allowed you to qualify for membership. I have lots of Canon gear, all of which qualified last year... but not this year, some of the stuff they consider too old, even though I use it all to earn a living everyday. Because of this I had to go through regular repair channels and wait 10 days for the repair/return instead of the CPS time frame of 3 days!

Well, I just found out that my repaired main camera is on it's way back to me. Can't wait to start shooting with it again!

Marley and..... Well, John!

A few years back I had the pleasure of meeting John Grogan and photographing him for Lehigh Valley Magazine. He's a very personable guy. I have to admit (sorry, John!) that I have yet to read the famous book. But a few weeks back, a very good friend and I went to see the movie. What a ride! If you have ever owned/loved pets, especially hard-to-train ones, this story will pull on every string your heart has.


My buddy and writer/co-adventure seeker Luke Rettig wrote the story for Lehigh Valley Mag. Here is a link to his site, and the story he wrote. I encourage you to stroll through his site and take in his other stories; he is quite the wordsmith, and an excellent storyteller. I went back and reread what Luke wrote. That combined with seeing the movie inspired me to finally read John's book, which I've now purchased.



So here are a couple more shots I took of John and his family's new lab, Gracie. She is better behaved than Marley was, and no less loved. I had a great time photographing both of them. I encourage anyone who has yet to read the book, or see the movie, to take it in one way or the other or both. You won't be disappointed!

An Autumn Walk

I love water. I need to live close to it. The larger the body of water the better. The Susquehanna River is no slouch in full filling my needs here. Though it ain't the ocean!! But I can deal. Walking along a body of water is very therapeutic for me, I try to do it often. Though it does not happen as much as I would like in the coldest of the winter months.

Here are a few shots from one of my October jaunts along this water way. Vibrant colors, movement and tree species juxtapositions all make for very cool compositions.

When shooting color I like to stay away from ultra contrasty, saturated colors. If these appear naturally well then, no problem. But my passion has always been, and remains to be BxW. When it comes to BxW I like to mold and shape the tonality of the image. My goal being to create great tonal relationships. With color images I feel a responsibility to the integrity of the image, so colors matter. If they are unnatural than the scene as I saw it is not truthfully represented. Don't get me wrong, I do fine tune color images so that I get the very best colors and tonal quality from them. I just try to stay away from fantasy. My first photography instructor made an impact on me with the following statement: A photographers job is to show the world to their viewers in ways that they have never seen it before. I always took this to mean showing the viewer what they are missing all around them- to accentuate the ordinary or show them a place/person/event they have not seen with their eyes, not to create something new for them to see.



When it comes to BxW as long as the tonal relationships make sense I may shift them around more freely to make the image have more impact. Shades of gray instead of color reduce the world in the image to relationships of the elements with in the scene. This allows the viewer to more easily see what the photograph is trying to say. Since the colors are removed the viewer is placed in a position of voyeur instead of participator. After all we don't see in shades of gray. Where as with color images the viewer can feel the reality of the scene, these images are literal representations.

I Love to print BxW images. For the longest time after moving to digital I missed my darkroom. I sold it all in early 2003 when I bought my D30. But in the last few years I have come to appreciate my current tools. I print my BxW with an Epson 2200. This printer uses archival inks and has a great reputation. Although it is now about 3 (or is it 4) generations behind Epson's current printer in this model line, it still gets the job done. I like to print on Ilofrd papers they make some lovely surfaces that remind me of my days printing under the dim glow of a safe light and the smell of fixer hanging in the air.



To see more images from this collection please click HERE.

Fog

Wednesday, December 10th, witnessed the perfect conditions to produce delicate clouds that blanketed Harrisburg. Fog. I love fog. I love to walk through it, smell it, watch it and use it as a compositional element in photographs. A mist that undulates, hiding and revealing elements of a scene. Isolating beautiful forms from distracting backgrounds. And softening the color pallet just enough to produce romantic monochromatic color images or soft Black and Whites.

As I crossed the Susquehanna River, on the way to an appointment, I saw the fog consuming it. I nearly crashed as my jaw dropped upon observing the perfect scene that I was missing. I got to my appointment, ran my errands and made my way back home, which is 2 blocks from the river front. I changed into some boots, grabbed my G9 and was out the door. As I approached the river I could tell the scene had changed, it was no longer as mystical as it had been 2 hours earlier. But there was still fog, not all hope was lost.

So I started shooting. Nothing was happening. I wasn't seeing the image. I thought it was mostly due to the diminishing water vapor. So I started walking, my goal was to walk across the Harvey Taylor bridge and shoot over the islands in the middle of the river. This would help eliminate the distracting view of buildings on the West shore. But as I went along I decided to try going to the lower walk way that sits right next to the waters edge. I descended the steps from the lower sidewalk right up to the water. This provided the needed change in perspective I was looking for.















It got me closer to the fog and changed my vantage point just enough to allow the remaining fog to isolate the islands, and their barren trees, from the man made structures on the other side. Cool. Very Cool! I shot for about 1/2 an hour until I decided that I had really covered this location. That was all the time I could allow anyhow, I needed to get back to my office and work.

I like shooting this type of subject with my Canon G9. I can shoot with iso's from 80-400 and get a very nice film like grain. Really reminds me of my days shooting Tri-x. I am always astounded when I view the images later, this little camera's 12 megapixels and great lens really resolve fine detail! One of the keys to using this camera, I have found, is to shoot as if you were shooting chromes, expose for the high lites- and nail the exposure. There is just enough latitude in the shadows that I can pull out a bit more usable detail than one might think. I can make very fine looking 12x18" prints.





Please follow this LINK to view a couple of other images from that afternoon.

While there you will get a glimpse of the changes that are coming to my website. Hope you enjoy!

Show me the Money!

So here we are. Living the dream. Riding the wave of capitalism. So it goes, we see up years and we see down years. The price we pay for the freedoms and opportunities we have. Smart spending and saving is the way to ride it out, at least the way I am going to ride it out.

Perhaps if we all think of our neighbors right now we will have a less stressful time as we wait for the next upturn. Well, that is what brings me to the topic of this new post: Talking about money. What my services cost, how I arrive at those prices, and what I will be phasing in for the short term to help my customers out.

I have decided to implement some creative incentives that will hopefully help your bottom line. Please watch this space for more info in the near future.

More Site changes in store

It truly is never ending. Just when you think you have something under control -BAM- you realize that your master plan to rule the world flops because your (seemingly) simple web site does not like to render across all browsers!

So there I was, happy that I just needed to get a few more galleries posted to my site when a friend told me that things were not displaying properly in her browser, Safari. Than I look a bit closer and where one thing appears right in IE, it does not in Fire Fox. And vise-versa.

I had decided to stick with simple html (with a little bit of JAVA) I wanted the site to load as quickly as possible, to view well on all browsers, and be something simple enough that I (not being a web designer) could update and change easily. And to be able to do all this with out having to buy any software. Oddly enough, the problems that I have come across so far are not caused by JAVA, but rather by the html code.

I had plans to start learning and using css when this happened. In conjunction with these findings I also learned that using frames puts up a road block to web indexing services (those things that catalog the web and allow search engines to show my site in their lists of results). So here I am now, contemplating buying software. I can not afford to pay a web designer at the moment, add to that that I am a control freak, so I need a web authoring package.

I will be looking into several, but if anyone has any suggestions please pass them along. I am still going to put up 1 or 2 more galleries while I iron out this mess. But things will be changing, again, real soon.

Canon 40D LCD Screen

I have been working on creating a small review of this camera. Hopefully that will come in the next week or 2. But for now I just wanted to comment on one aspect of the camera: It's LCD Screen. People on the net have been complaining about the resolution of the screen, and how the preview jpg is worthless (because it is only about 2mp). The complaint is that you can't really judge sharpness on the lcd screen based on the (...tiny...)jpg preview.

When I first bought the camera I thought the same thing: " Man, even zooming in to 10x I can't tell what is in focus!!" I have since resolved this issue (well enough for my uses now right now, anyway). And I thought, for sure, that I would read about this idea some where else on the net. But so far I have yet to see any one else talk about it, and there are some very creative thinkers that post to the different photography forums.

Well, here it is: I always shoot raw, so any image parameters I set in camera don't affect my final image quality. So I experimented and used one of the user presets, in the picture styles menu, and set the sharpness all the way to 7. Although these settings have no effect on my raw file, they do effect the camera created jpg preview. Voila! The jpg preview is now clear enough to judge sharpness at a zoom level of about 5-7 (this is dependent on subject matter)

No more complaints from me about the LCD screen!