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Here’s an interesting interview with a pet photographer – Artist Showcase: Ken Phillips by James Morrissey.

Ken works with an animal hospital, shooting patients and medical procedures, and shoots pets and people portraits as well. He discusses both the photographic and the business side of what he does in this interview. It’s interesting how seasonal pet photography is – the vast majority of Ken’s work comes in November and December, with people wanting pet portraits for personalized greeting cards and gifts, but he also gets a ‘puppy rush’ in Spring.

Filed under: Photographers,Technique
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Creating a portfolio of your photographs is a very rewarding process, which can often lead you to see your work in a new light and inspire you to explore new directions.

How to Create a Portfolio of Your Work by Alain Briot gives detailed guidance on how to plan and develop your portfolio. It explains what a portfolio is, helps you identify your audience and your purpose in creating a portfolio, and contains plenty of practical advice on putting your portfolio together.

If you’re serious about your photography, this is an exercise you should definitely consider trying.

Filed under: Exhibitions
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PhaseOne has just released Capture One version 3.7.1.

Capture One 3.7.1 PRO now offers RAW file support for Nikon D2Hs, D50 and D70s and the Epson R-D1. Tethered shooting is now supported for the Canon EOS 350D/Rebel XT. There have also been various usability enhancements and a lot of bug fixes/stability improvements. If you use Capture One, this update is worth downloading.

Phase One has also released firmware version 3.3.4 for P-series medium format backs (P20 and P25). This new firmware includes features for enhanced LCD brightness, CF card formatting, CF card validation, and the ability to achieve write speeds of up to 20 MB/s with Sandisk Extreme III 1GB, 2GB and 4GB CF cards.

Filed under: Firmware Updates,Phase One,RAW Files,Software
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The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) has joined the debate on proprietary RAW file formats with the following press release:

The American Society of Media Photographers is deeply concerned at the developing crisis that is threatening continued access to the world’s photographic heritage. The RAW format (1) is fast becoming the standard for professional and other serious imaging. Encryption and the abandonment and termination of support for older RAW formats put in jeopardy the future use of many digital photographs.

As a result, the ability of photographers, clients, librarians, educators, and the public at large to access, use and control the photographs that make up our historical heritage and the economic livelihoods of professional photographers is at serious risk.

It is urgent that the manufacturers of digital cameras look beyond their respective, short-term business plans and act for the good of future generations. ASMP implores them to do so and offers to work with them and all other interested parties towards ongoing and open access to images without regard to proprietary technology. The visual history of the world requires no less.

Additional information is available at the following web addresses:

• http://photoshopnews.com/2005/05/11/digital-preservation/
• http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/raw-flaw.shtml
• http://www.openraw.org/
• http://www.rawformat.com/

(1) A RAW file is a digital format to store light-sensor data from a digital camera. Like film, a RAW file must be “processed” in software before it can be viewed as an image. Unlike TIFF or JPEG files, which are the same everywhere and are defined by published standards, RAW files are defined differently by each camera maker. Some manufacturers are willing to reveal how their data is structured, but others keep that information secret.

Source.

Filed under: RAW Files
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Dan Heller has started shipping the first of his two books on running a photography business today, Profitable Photography in the Digital Age. This looks like a great book for professional photographers, ‘weekend warriors’, and those who’d just like to make a little scratch from their photography to help pay for all those lenses and gadgets.

Dan’s second book, How to Make Money with Digital Photography, will be released in September 2005. This one is more of a coffee table book, with lots of full-color images and a bit lighter content.

These are not how-to books on setting up and running a photo business of any one specific kind, or even an internet-based one. Instead, they help you understand how things work, so you can decide on which of various business approaches are right for you.

The two books together will set you back USD$39.90 (plus $10 shipping within the USA, $20 outside the USA) if you pre-order now. And if you pre-order, Dan will even autograph them for you.

Filed under: Books,Business
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This is an easy technique I read about a long time ago, and it works really well. I use it a lot when shooting weddings and portraits.

Outdoor portraits can often end up with a washed-out and boring sky when you set your camera to correctly expose the person’s face. But if you set the exposure to capture the sky perfectly, you end up with a very dark or even silhouetted person. We all know you can use fill flash outdoors to correct this, but even then the exposure can be a bit unpredictable if left up to the camera.

The technique I like to use is:

• take a meter reading from the sky
• set your camera to Manual mode
• set the aperture according to the depth of field you want
• set your shutter speed to correctly expose the sky (based on the earlier reading)
• turn your flash on and set it to E-TTL (or whatever the equivalent is on non-Canon cameras)

You may need to tweak your aperture setting (or ISO, if shooting digital) if the required shutter speed is faster than your flash sync speed.

The manual exposure gives perfect exposure for the sky, whether it’s a deep blue with white fluffy clouds, a sunset, a looming storm, or whatever. The flash will light your subject perfectly, giving a nicely balanced overall picture. You might need to experiment a little to determine whether you need to use flash exposure compensation – I get good results from my EOS 20D/580ex combo without any compensation.

One problem that might occur is that your on-camera flash can make the subject look a bit flat, giving the photo a ‘fake’ overall look. A diffuser like the Lumiquest Big Bounce can soften the edges of shadows and make your lighting look a lot more natural, especially if you can combine it with an off-camera flash cord. Even better would be a mobile studio light with a softbox or umbrella. Just make sure you get the lighting direction from the flash right so that it doesn’t contradict the direction of the lighting in the background – that can look awful!

Filed under: Photography Tips,Technique
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Here’s an interesting thing to try if you store your images (or information about your images) in some kind of database.

Brooks Jensen recommends adding three extra fields to your image database:

Distance to Subject: infinity, 20-50 ft, 10-20 ft, 3-10 ft, under 3ft, macro, super-macro

Colour: warm tones, cool tones, saturated colours, pastel colours, monochromatic

Composition: round, diagonal, T, L, random shape

He says it’s useful for identifying what types of approaches you favour for various subject types, and can help you identify new ways to approach old subjects to help you break out of a creativity rut. I guess it can also help when you’re trying to find groups of photos that will go well together, such as cool-toned macro shots.

Listen to Brooks’ audio blog entry.

Filed under: Asset Management
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Michael Reichmann from The Luminous Landscape is currently in the process of publishing a book of his photographs from Bangladesh.

He’s using 100 Books Publishing Company to print the book, and seems very happy with the price and quality, even for small print runs (under 1000 copies).

There’s a lot to preparing a book for publication, and Michael describes the process in quite good detail. It’s not a small project to undertake, but it is within reach for any photographer with a portfolio of 75 or so high-standard photographs and the money to back it.

Down at the bottom of the article there’s a link to email Michael to register interest in this book. It’ll only cost USD$29.95 + shipping and handling, which is a real bargain for anyone interested in seeing the work of a prolific pro. I’ve signed up for my copy!

Filed under: Books,Color Management,Exhibitions,Photographers,Presentation
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Extensis has released version 7.0.6 of Extensis Portfolio. This update provides compatibility updates for Adobe’s Creative Suite 2 and Apple’s Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

• Extensis Portfolio 7.0.6 update
• Raw Filter 2.0 update

Additionally, Extensis has added support for 14 new camera formats on both Mac and Windows versions of Portfolio. The Portfolio Raw Filter 2 update adds support for the following cameras:

• Nikon D2x
• Nikon D2hs
• Nikon Coolpix 8400
• Nikon Coolpix 8700
• Nikon Coolpix 8800
• Olympus E-300 (AKA EVOLT)
• Olympus C-8080
• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II
• Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT (AKA 350D)
• Canon Powershot G6
• Canon Powershot S70
• Canon Powershot Pro 1
• Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D
• Pentax *ist DS

Filed under: Software
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A new page has been added – Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D Reviews – to collect together information from various sources about the new Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D (also known as the Dynax 7D in some countries).

Filed under: Equipment,Konica Minolta
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