Making Friends and Being Influenced
I spent a frosty but enjoyable evening recently with the gang from Photography Night Walks here in Melbourne, and was reminded of the value of being involved in the photography community. Whether this is the world wide community via the internet, your local camera club, or an organisation such as Photography Night Walks. It was [...]
Where Does Inspiration Come From?
Sometimes we all get stuck. We get into a bit of a rut, we start to feel a bit stale and have trouble finding a subject to inspire us and get our creativity flowing again. Often the solution is looking at images by other photographers, however there are other sources of inspiration to kick start our [...]
PhotoShelter Loves You!
The good folk at PhotoShelter are offering up yet more great photo business advice. Apart from offering a image storage and website solution for photographers, these guys produce e-books by the dozen and run a great blog that often includes webinars featuring art directors, photographers and people in the photography and publishing industries that provide some useful [...]
Think Tank’s Retrospective 30
I’ve been using this bag for a few months now for street and general shooting, and it’s been a long time since I’ve done a gear related post, so I figured it was time to nerd out and post some thoughts on the good and bad of using the bag. This is not so much [...]
Spring!
After a long, dark and wet winter here in Melbourne the weather is finally starting to change. Days are getting warmer and flowers are starting to bloom. I could harp on for hours here about new beginnings etc, but suffice it to say that this really is a great time of year for making plans [...]
Wrestling with auto focus
Confession: I have trouble with focus. No, I’m not talking about any type of ADHD condition (although that might also be an issue, but beside the point here). I’m talking about the act of making sharp photos. About what seems like the never ending struggle to make the camera’s focus system behave and see what your seeing. There [...]
The Photographers Ephemeris
The Photographers Ephemeris is a great little app that is available for free download for PC, Mac and also Ipad and Iphone. The app allows gives you sunrise and sunset times throughout the year for any particular area and also shows you the direction of the sunrise and sunset. It also does the same for the [...]
Matt Brandon and the importance of light
Matt Brandon’s blog is well worth a read I came across this blog post recently by Matt Brandon on his Digital Trekker blog. Matt talks about photographers perception, or misperception, of what is “good light” or “bad light” and this post struck home with me because I often speak to other photographers and come across many [...]
Shutha: a new resource for aspiring professionals
Newly launched, The Shutha website is a free resource put together by some folks from some pretty prestigeous groups, including the American Society of Media Photographers and World Press Photo. The site focuses on providing aspiring professional photographers with an insight into photography markets and avenues to earning a living from photography. It is directed largely [...]
Learnin’ for free (or close to it)
The photography industry is constantly evolving and keeping up to date with new developments can be difficult when most of your working day consists of shooting images and doing all the bits and pieces needed to run a small business. It can also be a costly exercise to attend classes and seminars. So with this in [...]
dpBestflow
dpBestflow is a web resource run by the American Society of Media Photographers (similar to our own AIPP) focusing on digital workflow issues including hardware and software considerations, colour management, storage and backup and offering guides to setting up and streamlining a post shoot workflow that works for you. The resource includes screen shots and videos [...]
Why photography is valuable (and why its important)
Whatever we do for a living, be it photography, some other artistic pursuit, or work behind a desk, most of us want to believe what we are doing is important and valuable. To us photographers, our images are important. Mostly because they carry a certain sentimental value. They bring back memories of places we’ve been and serve [...]
Fear and Growth
Many photographers are uncomfortable with promoting themselves, feeling self conscious or thinking that self promotion is the same as bragging. But here’s the thing. Self promotion is not about you. It’s about your clients and your marketplace. You have a product. They need it. You’re actually doing them a favour by providing that product. Keeping [...]
Trophy Hunters
The more I talk with other photographers who travel, the more I realise that there are two types of travel photographers out there. Firstly, the ones who do it first and foremost for the experience. To explore and learn of faraway places and cultures. And the trophy hunters, the ones for whom the travel [...]
Bruce Percy
It’s not often that I come across a landscape photographer that makes me stop everything else and just stare open mouthed, but Bruce Percy did just that when I came across his work for the first time on his website. Bruce is an Edinburgh based photographer focusing mainly on the wild Scottish landscape and creates beautiful [...]
International Back Up Your Stuff Day
Technology is our friend. Apparently. I had not one, but two hard drive failures recently. My main drive and a back up drive. Luckily, I have a second back up drive that I keep offsite that I was able to retrieve all of my files from and all that was lost was the time that [...]
Book Review: Photo Trekking by Nick Onken
Nick Onken is a commercial and travel photographer based in New York. I stumbled across his website and blog some time ago and was taken with his creative style and use of natural light. So when I heard that he had produced a book targeted towards travelling photographers, I thought I’d take a look. At [...]