Coming up with a your creative fee for commercial photography can feel a little bit like voodoo magic. But, unlike stuffed dolls or shrimp gumbo which have material and labor costs built in, creativity is a service that’s value goes beyond time and cogs. By learning some things the hard way, I’ve come up with a few techniques that help me figure how much to charge. Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted by: Lincoln in Business
It’s nice to get some perspective once in a while. The US Depart of Labor released new statistics about Photographers. It’s a great read to give you an idea of the market we’re in.
Here are some key points cited from the article: Read the rest of this entry »
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I think one of the most challenging things about being a commercial photographer is the marketing. It’s ironic because we are in a commercial world, yet marketing to our audience seems so voodoo and difficult. In my experience, no matter how good you are or how cool you are, if no one knows about you, then you’re never going to get work. I’ve done many things and read many opinions about what works. I thought I’d share what has worked for me. Read the rest of this entry »
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I’ve been a Windows user for a long time now. At first, it was a cost issue. Mac’s are so much more expensive than PCs (you gotta pay for all that marketing 
). Then it just became habit. I prefer the Window’s interface over Apple’s. I like the right-click, ALT keying through menus, and having an application background. I used a Mac for a year at a part time job and I practically got carpel tunnel syndrome from clicking everything. Plus that thing would crash all the time.
Anyway, I recently upgraded my PC from 4GB to 8GB of RAM. What I didn’t realize when I did this was that I would need to run a 64 bit OS in order to take advantage of the extra 4GB of RAM. I was running XP Pro and was holding off on the Vista upgrade because I heard of so many issues. This seemed like a good excuse to make the leap.
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Welcome to Photo Pro Tips. This is an outlet for pro photographers to share, learn, and contribute. I am the owner of this site and also a professional photographer based in Oregon. I got into blogging with my business website and quickly realized I had more to say than just what clients I shoot for.
For example, the list below is something I’ve wanted to share, but didn’t feel it was the right place for it on my business website.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy my little blog and please feel free to post your comments.
44 Totally Random Photo Tips for Every Pro Photographer
- Get it in camera whenever you can. Photoshop time is expensive and can cause a drain on your resources.
- Digital is way more forgiving in color balance than film. It can also screw you up if you don’t have a grey card shot to judge from.
- Ctrl-Alt-~ will select your ¼ tones in Photoshop.
- Use a sturdy tripod with a head capable of supporting twice you camera’s weight.
- Join ASMP
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I don’t mean to brag, but Oregon is probably the best place to do a location photo shoot. I would say even better than California, unless you’re shooting models in bikinis and board shorts (the beaches are a little chilly here). I originally moved here for personal reasons; mostly looking a change of pace from the East Coast. But after living here for a couple years, I realized how fortunate I was to find a photographer’s dreamland.
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About 5 years ago, my trusty Sony Triniton 19″ CRT bit the dust. The thing was huge piece of plastic and glass and totally worthless. At the time, I didn’t know what to do with it. So, I put it in my basement and forgot about it. When I moved out a year later, it had to go. I called around to all the computer stores and no one was taking eWaste. There was one group about an two hours from town that would take it, but you had to pay. So I asked the the computer store people what to do and they suggested I bring it to the landfill. I felt so guilty about it, but there wasn’t much else I could do.
Today it’s so much easier to recycle electronics. I’ve found this website that helps you locate eWaster recycling centers in your state: http://www.eiae.org/
There’s also a great site http://www.earth911.org/ that has loads of recycling and reusing information for businesses and individuals.
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I was walking through my local camera shop today and saw the new Hahnemühle Bamboo 290 paper line sitting on the display rack. This is a great product for the Green Shooter. The paper is made of 90% bamboo fibers and 10% cotton. Bamboo is fast growing renewable wood resource product that is already used in a millions different products from cutting boards to snowboards. Bamboo has been used to make paper by the Chinese for centuries and now it;s made into beautiful digital fine art inkjet paper. I wish I had found this before I made my last portfolio!
With a natural warm tone to the paper and a smooth matte surface, it’s ideal for your warmer colored images or if you want that warm black & white look. It’s been coated to work well with all inkjet printers.
I’ve found ICC profiles for the following printers on Hahnemühle’s website (I’m sure more are on the way soon):
The Bamboo 290 line comes is 20 and 50 sheet boxes in sizes 8.5″x11″ up to 17″x22″. It also comes in 3″ core rolls 24″, 36″, and 44″ wide by 39′. Prices start at $26.95 for 20 Sheets of 8.5″x11″.
If you’ve used Bamboo 290, please let us know by making comments here.
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Step One in becoming a green shooter is to carbon offset your vehicle. Most photographers generally drive small vehicles, lightweight trucks, or vans. Bigger shoots sometimes require bigger vehicles like RVs and grip trucks. If an average shoot consists of an assistant, a client, and a subject; you could easily triple your normal carbon output on every job. Since the average small vehicle puts about 10,000 lbs of carbon dioxide into the air per year, a single day of shooting could cause roughly 750 lbs of pollution.
There are a couple easy and inexpensive things you can do to carbon offset your ride.
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UPDATED: So, as Johnny Danger pointed out in the comments below, I didn’t upsample the 5D to match the native resolution of H3Dii in the original test article. I have added two new slides to illustrate this and it really shows how much better the H3Dii is compared to the Canon 5D. I’m still amazed that this little blog post gets about 100 unique visitors a day and is the #3 link when you do a Google search for h3dii.
As you may have followed in my
Daily Photoblog, I’ve been testing out the new
Hasselblad H3Dii 39.1MP Back. The camera is just awesome and really fun to shoot with after being in 35mm format DSLR for the past 4 years. And the files I pulled off it were amazing. The image quality, sharpness, and dynamic range just blew my mind. But is it worth $30,000? Better yet, is it worth a $500/day rental versus a $150/day rental for
Canon 5D?
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