A Proposal for your 2013 Photography Project - 10 Steps to Photos That Matter

Yeah, it's that time, the time for resolutions and self-promises and all manner of other stuff that generally develops a best before date of February 3rd. My proposal to you.  Build a plan to become a better photographer.

Sounds simple huh?  Really it is.  And like many ideas, it has been influenced by a number of sources and reinforced by the opinions of others that I will listen to from time to time. So here goes.

1.  Repetition is the mother of skill.  That's why you practice the same kata a thousand times in martial arts.  Even if you aren't making a photo, practice changing the key settings on your camera without taking the camera from your eye.  You'll be surprised what a huge difference this will make for you.  Repeat daily.  Test yourself.  Change the ISO without taking your eye from the viewfinder.  If you cannot do it, then you had best do some practicing.

2.  Shoot everything.  We're in this for fun and joy, not necessarily to earn revenue.   If you are really attracted to an idea shoot it a lot.  If you aren't, give it a try to find out if you might like it.  I'm not a fan of watching sports.  When I was first offered the opportunity to photograph Polo, I wondered why the heck anyone would want to photograph this, let alone watch it.  Turns out, I love shooting Polo.  Many of the people I can live without, but the athletes and riders impress me.

3.  Becoming a good photographer requires generalization, you should be able to competently shoot a variety of topics and styles.  Experiment!  The cost is pretty darn low.  Try new things, but expect that one shoot does not an expert make.

4.  Becoming great will require specialization.  Figure out what kinds of photography you really enjoy and invest time in that.  It doesn't matter what it is, but it's very hard to really push the envelope of learning if you are trying to do everything well.  It's easier than you think.  Ask yourself questions about the kinds of things you like and you don't like.  I can shoot weddings.  I don't.  I don't enjoy the process so I don't spend time becoming a great wedding photographer.  I love wildlife.  I buy books, learn biology, look at great wildlife photographers and try to copy what they do, and shoot lots.  Sometimes I even get images I want to keep.

5.  Don't fall into the "daily dose" claptrap.  This is the time of year where people sign up for 365 projects.  Don't do it.  While you may be able to make a decent photograph each and every day, odds are against you so why end up with hundreds of barely passable images.  Make images that matter, not images that fulfill a quota.  Think, plan and shoot.  365s are the equivalent of Fire, Ready, Aim

6.  Look at the great works of photographers in your areas of specialization.  If you are committed to street, look at Cartier-Bresson, if sports, look at Dave Black, if portraiture, look at Yousef Karsh.  Don't know where to look for inspiration?  Go to 500px.com and search your topic of interest.  Be prepared to be amazed and perhaps even a bit discouraged.  Seeing great work is challenging and we get to rise to the challenge.

7.  Seek critiques from photographers you trust.  Non-photographers don't see like photographers and won't be able to help you.  Flickr is not the place to seek help, because all you get is "great photo" suckups.  You can post an out of focus picture of a toilet bowl on Flickr and someone will tell you its great art.  I would not recommend sending images in to Scott Kelby's web show The Grid either unless you want your self-esteem eviscerated.  Mr. Kelby is an incredible instructor and I think he's a very talented and funny guy, but I don't care for his critique style.  The hosts take too much pleasure in being nasty when they don't see something that they like.   However, I'd pay Joe McNally for a critique because his approach is so developmental.  I'd also shy away from the pay by the hour booth style crap such as I've seen at the Imaging show.  I saw and heard a lot of really horrible guidance from alleged professionals there.  A good critique is about you, not about the person offering the critique.  Massive egos make lousy coaches.

8.  Learn to edit viciously.  Just because you went out for four hours to make images doesn't mean you will come back with greatness.  I have spent hundreds of hours shooting, and upon review on the computer, determined that I might be better off taking up wallpapering.  I am constantly frustrated by my own work.  The X key in Lightroom is your friend.  Don't lie to yourself about whether the image is good or not.  If you feel it's not, it's not.

9.  Take classes, workshops, One on Ones, video trainings, shoot days, field trips.  Get books by the photographers you admire, if not to learn their technique, to have something to emulate.  Focus on the things you want to learn.  Basics are fine, but they aren't enough. Be able to articulate what you want to learn and go learn those things.  Don't do a basic field trip if you want to get better at macro photography of wildflowers, unless that's the curriculum.  If you focus on portraits, make it complete and learn portrait retouching.  If you focus on landscapes, learn about the zone system and how to expose in camera and post-process effectively.  If you want to really learn about HDR, take a class, get a book and here's your first tip.  Clouds are NOT black.  If you want to work with studio flash, learn to use a light meter.

10.  Create constriction.  Go out with only one lens, or only one focal length on the zoom.  Pretend your memory card can only hold 12 images and make each one count.  Shoot only from a tripod.  Shoot only from one knee.  Shoot only in portrait mode.  Shoot only at ISO100.  Require motion blur in every image.  Not only think outside the box, smash the box to bits.

So that's it.  Your mission, should you choose to accept it.

Happy New Year!

Ross

Tethering your Nikon to your computer

Canon owners are probably aware of the EOS Utility that simply allows tethering of your Canon DSLR to your computer whether running Windows or OS X.  It comes in the box with the camera,  Nikon users have to look further afield and a couple of club members were asking me for a tethered solution for their Nikons if they don't already own Lightroom or Aperture. If you use a Macintosh, the tethering app you want is called Sofortbild.  It's done by a fellow from Germany and he does a great job of keeping it up to date.  You can get it on the Mac App Store or download it directly from here.  It's a simple app that does what it promises giving you simple and efficient tethering from your Nikon to your Mac using a simple USB cable.

If you use Windows, check out Camera Control from www.diyphotobits.com  They have a compatibility listing posted on their site.

Both tools are free.  Be aware that there are a slew of chargeable apps for tethering but I wanted to focus on tools that work and don't hit your wallet.

iPhone : Great panoramas with Microsoft Photosynth

 Photosynth has been around for a while, as a sort of skunkworks project from some really clever folks at Microsoft.  Photosynth on the PC allows you to do some pretty cool photo tricks and the app has been enhanced to facilitate posting images to Bing as a sort of share your work scenario.  Those are not the things that excited me however.  What is wicked cool is how simple the iPhone app makes the creation of panoramas. Now certainly you can create panoramas with your DSLR both manually or with a glut of obscenely expensive tools.  You could also go with the Gigapan system that programmatically uses servos and information you program in to create incredible panoramic images.  (I like the tech, but not the perpetual license to use your images).

But as I am prone to say, perhaps at the risk of babble, "the best camera is the one you have with you", and I, like many of you, always have my iPhone and with the 4S, the camera is pretty decent.  Photosynth for iPhone does many things but most importantly it makes creating panoramas scary simple.

Launch the app and you follow the process to capture images and then stitch them together.  There are tips sites as well but I found the app so simple and so powerful that I am doing panoramas a lot, certainly not all good, but lots because it is so simple and fun.  Putting the 4S in one of the little cases with a tripod mount and you are set to make some pretty darn nice images.  At the time of this posting, Photosynth is free.  If you have an iPhone, have ever fired up the camera and would like to try making panoramas without getting a solid headache or spending a fortune on added kit, get this app.

5 out of 5

New iPad app from Kelby Training - Light It

I really get a lot out of my membership in the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP).  Today I received a release advising of a new iPad magazine and delivery application called Light It.  It is produced by Kelby Media Group, who are well respected for the quality of their materials and sessions.  The magazine focuses on, unsurprisingly, studio lighting and off camera flash.  Since we all hate red-eye and that horrible deer in xenon lights look that comes from on camera or in camera flash, this magazine looks like it will be really useful.

The first issue is free, and Mr. Kelby's dark sense of humour might appreciate that it's a bit like a heroin dealer, the first taste is free.  Kelby Media Group produces excellent content that is not only informative but visually rich and the first issue of Light It delivers on the promise.

Yes you do need an iPad to use the magazine but if you are a photographer and don't yet have an iPad, here's another substantive reason to get one.  I use mine for a multitude of purposes including backup of my memory cards in the field during a shoot, so there's another justification.

The layout of the magazine is clean and elegant, the content is rich and instantly usable and I'm very excited to find this resource.  I've focused on the articles and have not yet determined how future issues will be delivered or what the cost will be, but given my positive experiences with NAPP and Kelby Training, I'm pretty confident it will be a great value.  Perhaps they will use the Newstand functionality that is coming in IOS5.

Take a look, I think you'll be impressed.

Peace.

Ross