- Posts tagged photography
- Explore photography on posterous
have i mentioned how much i love the 85mm lens?
anywho, this last wedding we shot, Carrie & Alberto's, we had the 85 in tow (two of them, actually). one of the big recurring design themes throughout the day was the peacock feather. it really showed up when we got to the reception and as we are wont to do, we started shooting all the different decorations around the reception hall. i made especially sure to get pictures of peacock feathers, but didn't think too much about it until we got home and started unloading pictures.
jac was sorting through and she got to this particular shot and she kept zooming in. and again. and again. and again.
anyways, i've yet to see a lens anywhere that can capture as much as the 85 does. Canon really knocked it out of the park with this one and it continues to absolutely astound me the more i use it.
- Posted from Eufaula, AL
aperture preset fun happy times
[if you're reading this on Twitter, yes, you've already seen this. sorry.]
the little Presets built-in with Aperture are nice enough, but nothing i would ever consider mind blowing. then a couple of weeks ago, i discovered a website called Preset Pond. its super new, but it opened up my eyes to the ability of Aperture to import and use third-party preset. at Preset Pond, there's a section for Aperture and in there are a small collection (for now) of user-created, free presets, available for download.
so i tried it out.
and i LIKE it.
its a really easy way to swallow up tons of time, thats for sure, and there are some incredible effects that otherwise would take a whole lot of initial tweaking to setup. and, because the effects and pushing and pulling and weirdness are done with the RAW files, you're never "stuck" if you wind up going a really bad direction.
that said, its not without caveats.
anywho. just wanted to share!
if not us (which would be great), then who?
Jac & i (via LAP) are members of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), a really helpful, deep, and committed community of professional photographers from around the country who all strive for the same thing: excellence and top standards in professional photographic business and technique.
recently they began a campaign called See the Difference to call attention to the benefits of hiring a professional photographer for wedding services. the website they have setup is really thorough and full of information and reasoning about why hiring a professional should be a top priority for every bride. also included: a simple search tool to find local photographers who are, yes, PPA members. is it the hardest thing in the world to be a member of PPA? no, not exactly. but you do have to prove the existence of your business in various ways and all the photographers listed in the Montgomery area are super-reputable and established names.
basically, what it comes down is this: if you're hiring someone who is a PPA member, you're hiring someone who ultimately gives a crap about whats at stake for both the client and for them.
so share this with friends, family, whoever might be getting married soon. if not us (and that'd be great!), please... make it someone who is a professional.
last produced roll of Kodachrome developed
It’s the end of an era. Photojournalist Steve McCurry has developed the last roll of Kodachrome film produced by Kodak.
National Geographic has been following the final journey of the last Kodachrome roll ever since Kodak’s announcement last year that it would retire Kodachrome. Kodak has been manufacturing Kodachrome since 1935.
McCurry developed 36 slides on Monday at Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons, Kansas, which is the last labs to process the film type. The final images were shot in New York City, but the last three frames were taken in Parsons.
If you’ve got undeveloped canisters of Kodachrome of your own, Dwayne’s will develop them only through December of this year.
Image Credit: Old Kodachrome canisters by Ryan Sahb
goes well with this: http://blip.fm/~tizla
facebook & LAP
nope. watermark had been cropped out. in two instances (that i know of). the client had nabbed a picture from the Facebook album, cropped out the watermark, and used it as their profile picture. no mention of LAP or where it came from, just there. this is basically where the metaphorical sleepless nights started.
[editor's note: no, i have not actually lost sleep over this. just want to make that perfectly clear. at least not yet.]
so i started to do some digging, and what i've found between now and then, and what i've fleshed out as my problems, get to be a bit unwieldy and frankly, a little disturbing.
first off is the fact that Facebook provides no tools to protect intellectual property (in our case, photographs). hell, we've probably all done it with a friend's photo: click, hold, and drag to the desktop. that simple. second, when a photo is uploaded to Facebook, all of its EXIF data is stripped out. EXIF data, as well as IPTC data, basically form the photographer's DNA into a digital image with information that includes date, place, time, geolocation, name, camera make & model, ISO, exposure, shutter speed, and copyright. yup, Facebook's uploader strips any and all embedded data before you see it in that lovely organized album. to that end, we have to stop relying on Facebook for sharing photos.
"but hey, i still retain the copyright, right? i mean, i uploaded it and its under my account, so surely i still have ownership of it!"
you see, Facebook claims that when you upload a photo to their service, you still retain the copyright.
You retain the copyright to your content.
well, wonderful. thats settled. except its not...
When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content of the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicense of the foregoing.
blah blah blah, right?
basically, Facebook says you can keep your quaint little notion of "copyright" and "ownership," but we'll still do as we please with your photos. sure, we all know about the security settings that tell Facebook to not use our personal photos, but you know where they don't exist? on business pages. because the LAP page is inexorably tied to Jac's and my respective accounts, there's no way to go in as "Little Acorn Photography" and change things around, and even if there were, there are no similar security or privacy settings for small business pages.
now, the optimist will argue, "hey, throw a watermark on everything you post and if Facebook wants to use it, it'll have your nice, fat watermark for everyone to see, and what better publicity is there than free publicity straight from Facebook!?"
well... sure. that would be great. but looping back to the original problem (no copy protection), Facebook could take that client's de-watermarked profile picture and use it for whatever, with no mention of credit or ownership. and it goes without saying, if Facebook writes a book and one of our images is included for some reason and that book sells trillions of dollars worth of copies, we don't see a penny.
le sigh.
so! i've been researching new ways to post photos for LAP. below are options with the Pros & Cons (where applicable):
- post purely via the blog- yes, we have an LAP blog (here!) and i really like writing for it. Posterous is also a wonderful way to throw photos online, as it automagically creates a tidy, easy-to-flip-through gallery without any extra steps. and (!) it keeps all EXIF and IPTC data intact. but, like Facebook, there's no copy protection. its as simple as a click and a drag, and bam, you've got the picture. leading to the next point...
- watermarking the hell outta' everything- now, we already watermark everything we put online, except anything on the website proper. one of the first personal lessons i learned though was to not make crappy watermarks. i always hated photographers who destroyed their online images with gaudy, ghastly watermarks all over the photo. it looks terrible, and it comes off as if they're compensating for something, like, "LOOK AT ME, I'M A PHOTOGRAPHER BECAUSE I HAZ WATERMARKKKKKKSSSS ALLLL OVER THE PLACE!!!lolz" to that end, i always try to place our watermarks in unobtrusive locations, almost artfully, so as not to take away focus from what the viewer should be looking at. but, as stated previously... this can lead to easy cropping out which sorta' defeats the purpose. its been suggested that i bite the bullet and just start throwing watermarks on faces, but, well... yeah.
- slideshows- this suggestion actually came from an online community i'm a member of and honestly, its not a terrible idea: create tasteful, gorgeous, quick hitting slideshows of particular events and shoots to showcase the work. its actually pretty clever and i'm beginning to lean towards at least trying that out. however, thats a whole lot more work for me to do because, let's face it, i'm a perfectionist and until its done perfectly, something i create will not see the light of day. hm.
- everything on the website- ugh. this is my least favorite option. i like our website fine, but i'm over the whole Flash thing. too many compatibility issues and extra software and plugins... and it runs slow on older machines. but it does allow for complete protection from the old click & drag scenario, and the right-click & save scenario. but... ugh. hm. i dunno.
- everything on the print site- this is marginally better. ok, maybe thats not fair. its a whole lot better than the website option. A) no Flash, and B) unlimited storage. everything we shoot as LAP goes to the print site because thats where clients view their images. so we could conceivably create special "Look At These, Potential Client!" galleries and if they want, they can explore a little deeper into other galleries. plus, you can't click & drag or right click & save. if someone was super clever and tried to turn off Javascript so they could steal, well... then no pictures show up at all. problem: i'm not particularly in love with the look of our print site. it looks alright, but its definitely more utilitarian than anything else. hm.
as you can see, there's not really a perfect solution here, and for the foreseeable future, there won't be. i do hate that Facebook is nearly a necessity as a newer photographic entity in Montgomery, but for now, its a necessary evil. however, we've yet to come across a wholly Facebook driven client. i dunno. blerg.
thoughts? comments? ideas? lemme know; i'd love to hear them!
today's wedding...
so... we did a wedding today (Friday) at 11 o' clock (AM not PM). it was a tiny little thing, no more than 30 people in attendance, including bride & groom. many of y'all have thrown up the big QUESTION MARK as to what it was all about, and quite plainly, it was just a really small, really simple affair. it was what we're terming a "later in life" wedding, and it was absolutely fantastic. we were absolutely stoked to be a part of it and it certainly fell into that category of "once in a lifetime" events (although we'd love to do a ton more just like it). everyone was fantastic from start to finish. i could go on and on about it, but what i really want to do is share pictures.
but we can't.
because it was what it was, we agreed to their request to not to use their photos for publicity in any way, shape, or form and that is the one thing that really stinks because Jac and i both feel we did some really outstanding work today. didn't even pull out the light kit. just two cameras, a flash, and three lenses.
so to that end, if anyone from today happens to stumble across this, we want you to know how wonderful it was to be a part of today. and if the bride and/or groom happen to be reading this, y'all absolutely stole our hearts today; everyone should be so lucky to be as amazing as the two of you are with each other and with your respective families.
random things.
- i think one thing thats dampened my love for So You Think You Can Dance the past couple of seasons has been the change in venue. i really liked the old setting, much more intimate. the new one is nice and all, but it just feels so giant and blown out. it made more sense to use that setting as the finale stage, not so much the weekly one.
- the Microcell is finally working for Jackie. i would like to think that we'll soon not need it (considering we're supposedly experiencing an outage and normal service should resume), but... we'll see.
- this weird thing with a client going on complete radio silence is just bizarre. we've called, emailed, & texted, and have heard nothing back. this isn't a normal scenario where we're chasing after a new client; this is someone whose paid up already and isn't responding to requests for confirmation of an appointment. wouldn't be so big a deal if the client weren't in Auburn and required a extended day trip there and back.
- big thanks to our neighbor Scottie P. down the street for lending me his push lawn mower. the giant riding mower we got from Jac's dad is great (especially when it comes to efficiency), but those curb side weeds were starting to kill me. i can now lift my head in pride in the neighborhood again.
- tomorrow we start life as a Nielsen family!
- did you know that finding the perfect rechargeable battery for a Canon Speedlite (or any flash) is really frustrating? now you do. if any other photog readers are reading this and would like to chime in, i'd appreciate it. i'm tired of spending good money on tons of AA batteries for the Speedlite and the stationary flashes.
- i have five more days of vacation left. i'd like them now, please.
- also: emailing a post to Posterous and writing one on the web produce different fonts in the resulting posts. i don't like this. can you fix this, Posterous?
improper white balance!
what does improper white balance look like? like this.
ah HA
raining
its raining in my fair city tonight. sort of a plan ruiner but whatevs. i'll live. i got a picture out of it, if nothing else.
nothing fancy. aperture was set wide open, but everything else was auto, including the white balance which had somehow found itself turned over to "white fluorescent." hm. oh well.
g'night.
