A professional photographer is perceived as someone who has the pure pleasure of getting paid to snap pictures all day. Though I have been a professional for over thirty years, my working life has never been that simplistic or idyllic. So, earlier this spring I tracked EVERY thing I did for seven days. I do mean everything. For anyone considering “going pro,” a few minutes spent looking at my detailed list of one week’s labor will be real eye opener. Read More
A wise student asked me:”Tell me about your Tumblr. How it works & how it serves your purposes.” I thought it was a brilliant question, that if I answered it fully, would benefit many photographers. So, I made a podcast answering his question(s.) Read More
With graduation season upon us, thousands of photographers-in-the making will soon be graduating from institutions across the country. The commencement speakers those students would be listening to will be loath to admit it, but getting paid to be a photographer is dying as a career option and it is clearly time for a new paradigm in the business of photography. Read More
Registering your photographs with the Library of Congress is THE most important thing any photographer can do to protect their intellectual property (their photographs.) While it is not a difficult process, it can be tedious. In this podcast, I walk you through my copyright registration process, in great detail. Read More
Another query comes in and another blog post comes out…. I received an e-mail with a question that was so good that I immediately answered the writer AND told him I would turn it into a blog post. His question, to put it succinctly was “How could he organize the unorganized?” This is a question nearly every photographer working digitally may have to face. Read More
This week’s blog entry is a cross posting of a blog that was the result of an interview I did with photographer and marketing expert Cindy A. Stephens for the Boston Photography Focus blog, which is sponsored by the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University. The blog was posted on February 13th, 2013 and was titled: How to Build Awareness for Your Work.” Below is the full text (the interview and the blog that was built around the interview.) Read More
A question came my way recently via email and again during a class in SIngapore. Any question that recurs that often is almost guaranteed to be worth a blog entry. After answering the question a couple times, in person and by e-mail, I knew I had a moderately intelligent answer that became this blog entry. Read More
Geotagging of photos is one of those technological advances that vaguely impressed me, but it is also one I was sure I would never use. It all seemed so “gear-head-esque” to me. I am here today to eat my words, having just finished a project where Geo tagging was a savior (and a bit of a headache.) Read More
Next year will be ten years since I “went digital.” That fact prompted me to think about the next ten years. Yes, I have been using Photoshop for editing and printing my images for more than ten years. But when it comes to digital capture, I am nine years (and counting) into that technology. I recently came across information (including a nine year old quote that predicted where digital imaging was going to lead.) The great thing about that nine year old clairvoyant quote was how far away it was from talking only about technology yet how spot on it was in terms of predicting the impact of that same technology. Read More
I was thinking about old software and new software when a friend asked me about the new features of Lightroom 4. Since I am using Lightroom 2, I couldn’t say much. Then the same friend wrote me: “I recall being with you when you first loaded Lightroom on your laptop. Several of us were already using it and you finally decided it was better than what you were using.” While that statement is true on one level, it got me thinking about Lightroom, how I use that software and the general tendency in photography to buy the latest upgrade/lens/ etc. Read More