A stunning festival of photography links…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about photography recently, and that’s caused me to also collect a lot of interesting stuff about taking pictures. Here, then, is a quick collection of the highlights of my recent surfing and pondering…

Paul Burwell: The power of Simplicity.

Paul Burwell: Top ten mistakes aspiring pro photographers make. A couple of his points:

• Listening to the wrong critics
  

One of the hard lessons I learned in my fiction writing was that I needed to remove me ego and accept real criticism; I was fortunate to find a writer’s group (the old  Over the Hill Gang) that didn’t believe in pulling punches. It wasn’t always fun, but it was educational. These days, as I like to say, if I want to hear good things about what I do, I send it to my mom. Finding a group of people who push you to be better is tough — most folks pull their punches, whether or not they realize it, because they know how they feel when their work they love gets dumped on. Me? I hope someday to create a group of photographers like the Over the Hill Gang, a bunch of pros and semi-pros not afraid to push each other to be the best they can be, and people who understand “if you want good news, send it to mom”. (one note on the old Over the Hill gang, About half of the people who thought they wanted to be members never made it past the first two meetings, because they weren’t as ready for brutal honesty as they thought they were. We considered that a feature….)

Photoshelter: Photo site SEO. Interesting ideas here.

• Working without a business plan
  

I’ve actually been putting a lot of time into how to structure my move to semi-pro photographer, and perhaps to full-time pro as either a photographer or writer/photographer. The good news is I have the luxury of doing the planning now for implementation later, so I can take my time and refine both my technique and my business plan. The bad news: it’s a tough market to crack. More on this some other time, but your ability to take a good photo is sometimes rather irrelevant to whether you can make it a business. Me? I think I can break through the hundreds of others trying to do it, too. I have no preconceptions it’ll be easy.

• Believing you’re better than you are

When I started getting serious about my photography again, I thought I was a pretty good photographer. Then I started hanging out around really good photographers (like these people) and studying their photos and comparing to mine, and I realized just how much work I needed. Then I went off and started working on it. Now? I’m a much better photographer. More importantly, I’m able to create good photography more reliably. And I have a lot more work to do….

• No marketing

Flickr is not marketing. Flickr can be a component of a marketing plan, but throwing stuff at Flickr will not market your photos. Most of the thought I’ve done on my business is how to market photos in the crowd of hundreds of photographers all trying to market themselves. I think I have a strategy that can work. I don’t think anyone knows of a strategy that’s guaranteed to work. Now “all” I have to do is implement it and make it work….

• Listening to the naysayers

With all that’s going on in the photography industry, it’s easy to get discouraged and decide you can’t succed. If you can be discouraged by this — you shouldn’t try. The successes will not go to photographers that WANT to be pros, but photographers that HAVE TO BE pros. If you merely want to sell your photography, you’ll get beaten out by those driven to succeed. But for those willing to fight to make it work, there are always opportunities. You just have to be willing to fight to get them and take advantage of them. Wanting them isn’t enough.

Doug Menuez: Zen of Film vs. Digital Gratification.

Chase Jarvis: POV Photography. A spanish falconer straps a camera on an eagle and sends it for a flight. Ever wonder what it’s like being a bird? Stunning video.

Moose Peterson: Nik’s Tonal Contrast.

Gary Crabbe: It’s a jungle out there

(The) painful truth is that this is a horrible time to try and make any serious money selling – no offense, but – real generic travel & landscapes.

Moose Peterson: Platte River Day 2

After a night in the blind, at 06:41 the light started to come up and the cranes went into action. We no sooner had our stuff cleaned up from the night and lenses in the tripods when the cranes up river burst into the sky. It was still dark as sin but shot I anyways.

The more I read Moose and the more I study his photos, the more I’m learning from and appreciating his work. And he seems to be taking the kind of photos I am starting to really enjoy pulling off. For instance, compare his photo with this one from one of my trips to Merced:

Bonus points that they’re both shots of sandhill cranes… (That Merced trip was the one that taught me to keep DEET in the car’s emergency pack….)

Brian Auer: My favorite film after a year of shooting

I do not, repeat, do not, miss shooting film at all. Even as I loved what Velvia could do. I also don’t miss doo-wop, the 68 Chevy Corvair I drove in high school, or typing up term papers on a typewriter. That said, I understand why others might, especially if it changes your mindset and gets you out of a creative rut or forces you to think about your photography differently.

Steve Berardi: dispelling the megapixel myth

David duChemin: Know your Place, Part 2

Neil Creek: An Elevator Pitch for the Blog

Luke Edmonson: Does your website make you look like a jack of all trades, master of none?

There is, or should be, a place for a good generalist in the market. But realize that it’s actually just another niche market, and it’s actually a tougher niche to fill than specializing, not easier. And I say that as someone who’s generally tried to act as a generalist in the tech market — it’s not always the best or easiest strategy, especially in a tough market where people buying or hiring are looking to pigeonhole their buying or hiring.

Justin Paguia (via Scott Kelby): breaking down a photographic assignment

Jim M Goldstein: Permanence and Permanency of Photography

Moose Peterson: Heat Shimmer

David duChemin: Organization in Lightroom 2

Nick Potter: Sharpening in Lightroom (and part 2)

Ctein: Transition State

Time to start considering my digital exposures a little more carefully and seriously, I think. They do not come for free.

David Hobby: A walk around the monobloc (and part 2)

David duChemin: Global Workflow (from Photoshop Magazine)

Vincetn Laforet: Online equals free?

Vincent Laforet: one day in and to some online equals free

Yes, an unfortunate truth, but still a truth. You can fight it, but you won’t win, any more than you can fight and win the changes going on in stock sales thanks to places like iStockPhoto and the microstock sites. So you really have two choices: embrace the changes and turn them into advantages, or hide from them. HIding from them, I believe, is a failed strategy because you’ll cut yourself off from the places where sales will happen moving into the future — and look how well hiding from change did for railroads in the days of plane travel (a favorite quote of mine: what if railroads realized they weren’t in the train business, but in the transportation business? Look at how both FedEx and UPS have line extended from the opposite ends or the market to be the two big players? Because both realized they weren’t in the “overnight” or “ground” delivery business, but in the “getting things delivered” business.

What’s this mean? Understand that the sales of lower-resolution images is basically going to go away; don’t fight it, see the low-res images as marketing for sales of other forms of the image, whether print, or high-res images for publication, or other forms of collateral. And once you stop worrying (as much) about piracy of images that have no real resale value anyway, you can start seeing them as ways to promote and leverage sales of other forms of your photography. But this implies (duh!) you can’t start posting those high-res images online, because if they become commonly available, you’re dead.

More — perhaps lots — on this later.

John Harrington: The Glass is Half….

Michael Lamotte: What it takes to be a food photographer

PDNPulse: The most exasperating tihng about LIFE.com

It also means the value of an unlimited, worldwide, editorial license for a professional news picture has just fallen to $0.

Basically, game over. But it’s been over for a while.

Art Wolfe: Art Talks about travels to the edge

I’ve been finding this series fascinating to watch and study; Wolfe’s been one of my favorite photographers for a while, and this series reinforces him as a photographer to study.

Mike Johnson: The season of light

I sometimes miss the darkroom. I quickly get over it; My abilities to work on images on a computer blow away my best possible work ever in a darkroom. And it means I can work on my images while watching hockey games on the TV, too.

John Camp: A life in art

James  Duncan Davidson: Our pictures are our footprints

Ctein: Does Ctein have 100 True Fans?

Michael Johnson: Ctein’s big deal

Ctein is experimenting with the patron model. I’m watching very closely.

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