When it comes to photographers, there seem to be those that dabble in a bit of everything and there are those that shoot one and only one genre. It's a difference of mindset and of perspective, but is either better than the other or does it boil down to a matter of preference? Is there a clear cut benefit for either stance? I'm a one-track mind type of guy and I'm here to tell you that it doesn't bother me one bit.
I often think back to what it must've been like being a photographer before the birth of the Internet, the social media craze, and the hunt for likes, shares, and follows. Photography was less convoluted before the dawn of the digital age, with specialist magazines and museum and art gallery submissions showcasing only the cream of the crop. Browsing through old magazines and reading the articles, it's clear that the top-tier photographers stood out amongst the rest of the crowd for their raw skill in their art form. Their images meant something to many of those who took the time to stop and look at it for longer than two seconds.
A good portfolio is never finished. Portfolios, books, albums, or websites, however a photographer's body of work is contained, it should be ever-evolving and developing even after a photographer has started working on professional projects. Any perception that a photographer can leave a portfolio static once work starts flowing in is a dangerous one. For a number of reasons, developing and improving is an on-going process.
As photographers, we’re often on the bleeding edge of technology, and these days, the bleeding edge often includes an app for that. However, manufacturers are increasingly relying on apps to control their hardware at the expense of dedicated physical controls — and it’s a practice that must stop.
Like the Nikon D750, the Canon 5D Mark IV is the parent brand’s attempt at making what’s arguably the most versatile professional full-frame camera system that fits the needs of most professional photographers, except that it beats the D750 on nearly every metric that matters, as it should for a newer camera. Still, Nikon’s D850 easily strips the versatility title from Canon for plenty of reasons, not the least of which is resolution. The 5DS line, however, isn’t the only thing at which Nikon is taking aim with the new D850.
Even in today’s world where all the information you’ve ever wanted is in the palm of our hand, we still get caught up in the latest and greatest tech and forget about what most important — the story. We all go through stages where it’s easier to make the excuse that you’ll start putting out better work once you buy a specific piece of gear or you’ll start practicing your video work once you get that gimbal you’ve been safe keeping in your online shopping cart. We just need to spend more hours behind the camera constantly shooting than daydreaming about the gear that we’ll have soon.
I still remember the first time I heard the word. Senior year of high school. Sitting lazily squeezed into a metallic desk-chair combination unwillingly decorated with the carvings of amateur graffiti artists from years past. The boisterous post-recess classroom went quiet as my favorite teacher, and apparently everyone’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Wallace entered the room. With an ever-present sense of flair, she strode to the chalkboard and wrote out eight letters in big bold type. P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M. I didn’t know what it meant. Heck, I didn’t even know how to pronounce it. But, in that moment, I was introduced to not only a new piece of vocabulary, but given a dynamic tool to develop as an artist, and as a person.
CrashPlan is a popular cloud-based backup solution that many (myself included) use to backup their computers and external drives. But the company's announcement this morning to focus on business-to-business services leaves consumer customers hanging, despite their promise not to do so. Those of us with particularly large backups on CrashPlan's consumer service have a problem that raises a greater question about cloud-based backups in general.
If you’re like me, you spent yesterday evening flipping through dozens of eclipse photographs on social media. Whether you wanted to see them or not, there they were. All the blurry, grainy Instagram shots taken through cheap eclipse glasses got me thinking…how much did we actually experience this crazy, incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event, and how much of it was spent waiting for the perfect, “'gram-worthy” shot? Does photographing something take you out of the moment and prevent you from actually experiencing it? According to a study published in Psychological Science, it’s complicated.
Photography requires repetitive tasks that can often become habit forming. When we find a way of doing something that works, we repeat those steps to get the desired result. We get locked into certain styles and certain ways of thinking. This can be valuable because it makes us dependable, but these habits can also have an undesired effect: they can make us predictable, bland, and stifle our creativity. What can a photographer do when their creativity starts to atrophy? The answer is play.
For freelance creatives, earning passive income is a great way to increase your annual profits, but getting a large library of images uploaded can be a daunting task. Plus, which agency should you use? When will you find time? The simple answer is the time is now, and the sooner you jump on, the sooner it will pay out.
Unless you live on another planet (or in a different country), you probably haven’t missed the announcement of the upcoming solar eclipse that will take place on Monday when the moon passes in front of the sun, casting a shadow on the United States for less than three minutes. While I am confident that the eclipse does not mark the end of the world, I will probably stay in my office catching up with accounting tasks at that time. Here is why I will miss the eclipse party.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail," but then again Franklin wasn't a photographer. Photoshoots with humans, animals, or even some objects are dynamic and even active situations that are at the same time part inspiration and part performance. Finding the right balance between planning and improvisation can help take your photography to the next level.
Facebook has put a fresh coat of paint on its app with an overhaul to some of the graphical elements. One major change of note for photographers is that profile photos that appear alongside comments and in the newsfeed will now be circles instead of squares.
Dynamic range tends to be an important feature for any camera and something many photographers either boast or complain about. Canon cameras aren't really known for their dynamic range performance, but in this "two-minute video," Peter McKinnon explains how you can use the built in Canon picture profiles, to improve performance for video.
