Kachoozie Stock Images

DIGITAL CAMERAS VERSES FILM CAMERAS
by Heather Shimmin

About a year ago, I made an appointment with the owner of a local gallery to show him my portfolio. I was interested in having a solo show featuring the images I took of the Salt Flats in Utah. After looking at a few of my images he asked me if they were film or digital. I said that they were digital. He look at me and said, “I don’t show anything but film here. If it isn’t film, it isn’t real.”

I was taken aback by this statement. What does he mean, it isn’t real? I’m still recording light, only it’s captured by a memory card instead of a piece of plastic coated in silver particles. I shut my portfolio – maybe a little too loudly – and left. I was seething. I got in my car and drove away calling him a list of expletives. What an idiot. What a hick, thinking he’s so sophisticated, so high class that only film is acceptable in his gallery. Nothing but a small-town, backwoods nobody. Since then, I have shown my work to many other gallery owners. None of them have ever asked if my images were shot on film. It just didn’t matter to them.

So which is better, film or digital? Neither, because that’s not the right question. The question is, what is better for what purpose? There are pros and cons to both mediums. Understanding these will help you make the choice of which to use.

Quality is the center of debate between old school film photographers and younger, digital camera users, Comparing the quality of film and digital is rather complex. There are a myriad variables which effect quality in film and digital photography. For film, quality is effected by the film size (35mm, medium format, large format), the film speed (ISO), and the quality of the lens used by the camera. For digital, quality is effected by megapixels, the quality of the digital sensor, and the image processing algorithm used to interpolate sensor pixels to image pixels.

Because of so many variables, it’s hard to say what the megapixel equivalent is for film. For example, slow, fine-grained 35mm black and white film with an ISO of 50 to 100 has an estimated 20 to 30 megapixels. Color films (both negative and slide) are between 8 and 12 megapixels. This means that most film cameras are better than most point and shoot digital camera and vastly superior to any image taken by a camera phone. Film resolution decreases as the film speed increases. Dramatic differences can be seen from shooting ISO 100 and 400, the latter being of inferior quality.

So film is better, right? Again, it depends of the project. For instance, if your image is only going to be seen on TV or on a computer screen (whose output is about .3 megapixels) then the resolution provided by a low-end digital camera is more than sufficient. When looking at a standard 4 × 6 inch print, it is debatable whether there will be any perceived quality difference between digital and film when it comes to resolution.

I took of series of images on a 6 megapixel DSLR a few years ago and enlarged them to the standard poster size (16 x 20) and they are flawless – no pixelation, no distortion, nothing. The reason for this is that I shot on ISO 50, had good lighting, and a good lens. For most consumer needs, any of the high-quality consumer or prosumer DSLRs are all you’ll ever need as far as quality goes.

However, there are still some things I still use film for because I can’t replicate it with digital, the main one being cross processing. Yes, there are filters and plug ins for Photoshop that “replicate” the cross processed effect, but I don’t think they’re good enough. They still look off. So, I schlep my film camera around and keep my fridge stocked with film to use on those special occasions when I want to experiment with cross processing.

Another thing to consider when weighing the pros and cons of film vs. digital is convenience. Convenience is the main reason why the digital revolution has taken off and is still going strong. Before the digital age, you had to take the full roll of film (usually 24 or 36 shots) before you drove all the way down to the photo lab to have it developed. You would then have to wait in anticipation to see how the images turned out until you drove back to pick them up an hour or a week later. With digital, you can see the image immediately on the LCD screen. If you don’t like it, you can delete it and try again – new angle, different exposure, maybe change the WB. Keep the good ones, chuck the bad ones. You have instant feedback and see what’s working and what’s not.

When it comes time to transfer images from camera to computer, digital is by far the most convenient. A cord and a few clicks and there you have it. With film, you have to go through the arduous process of scanning each and every image you want digitize and store on your computer. And we haven’t even talked about the time required to remove all the specks of dust from the scanned negative.

Another point to discuss is price. With digital photography, cameras are significantly more expensive than film, like for like. This is remedied by the fact that the taking of photographs is free – no film or developing costs required. Some extra items are needed such as special batteries, battery chargers, memory cards, and extra storage space.

The price of digital cameras continue to fall and it could be argued that film is more expensive than digital.

Film cameras are less complicated and therefore less expensive. But with the cost of film and developing to consider, the average cost of each shot is between $1- $3. Some Polaroid films cost $5 per shot, like my favorite,Type 55, in all its silky, sexiness, impossible to duplicate with even the finest DSLR.

So what’s better? It depends on what you’re doing with the image.

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Travel Photo Tips
By Tammy Gray-Searles

Click below for a podcast of this blog!
Travel Photo Tips

Travel photography presents its own challenges and opportunities. Whether you are shooting for yourself or for a client, you want your travel photos to fall somewhere in between art and stock photography, creating a sense of place and drawing the viewer in to the scene.

There are a few simple things you can do to improve your travel photos and make sure you come home with some great shots. These include properly framing the scene, including people in your shot, creating a sense of place and looking for unusual shots.

Spending a little extra time to properly frame the scene can make the difference between a disappointing picture and one that you’ll treasure for years to come. While photography rules are made to be broken, using the rule of thirds is a great way to make sure you get great landscape and architectural pictures, which are some of the most common travel shots.

When taking a landscape picture, avoid placing the horizon at the center of the shot. For many beginning photographers it seems almost natural to have the horizon line right at the middle, but most of the time you will get a much more interesting and beautiful shot if you choose between either two-thirds sky and one-third landscape or two-thirds landscape and one-third sky. Try shooting one of each to see which you prefer.

You can use a similar approach when taking long shots of buildings and other structures. While you will probably want to get a few closer shots of buildings that completely fill the frame, taking a few pictures that include the surroundings, whether fields, nearby buildings or mountains in the background, will help create a sense of place (which we’ll discuss in a minute) and add even more interest to your pictures. This is also a good way to create a series of vacation photos, with one long shot of a particular building, a shot that fills the frame and a close-up of an architectural element.

Nothing brings more warmth to a vacation photo than including people in the shot. Naturally if you are shooting for yourself you will want plenty of pictures that include you and your family or travel companions. But don’t overlook opportunities to include other people in your photos. Snap a street performer, a cook preparing traditional food or local children enjoying themselves. Not only will these pictures capture daily life at the place you’re visiting, but will bring back wonderful vacation memories years after the trip is over.

Creating a sense of place in a travel photo is often the difference between amateur pictures and professional pictures. It takes some time and thought before you press that shutter button, but the results are worth the extra effort. What is creating a sense of place in a photograph? It’s bringing not just the visual element, but the sounds, the smells, the personality and the atmosphere of a location into the photograph. Flip through any travel magazine and notice the pictures that truly give you a sense of what it’s like to actually be there. These are the photos that create a sense of place.

It will probably take some practice, but the best way to create a sense of place is to decide what you are trying to convey and then carefully set up your shot. Do you want to show the tranquility of the early morning in the mountains or the hustle-bustle of an outdoor market. Are you trying to convey the excitement of native dancers or the festive feeling of listening to reggae band perform in a local bar? You might get a lucky shot that conveys a sense of place, but taking a moment to decide what you’re trying to convey will help ensure that you get what you want.

Once you know what you want to capture, think about what lighting and elements will best convey what you hope to show. Some shots will probably require that you take them at the right time of day, while others are more a matter of capturing people doing their thing without them knowing it. A telephoto lens is handy for getting un-posed shots.

Finally, don’t forget to look for unusual photo opportunities everywhere you go. While you’ll probably still want to take pictures of the most popular attractions where you are traveling, look beyond the main attraction for other travel photo opportunities. For example, if you are visiting the Grand Canyon you wouldn’t want to leave without several photos of the canyon, but look around and you’ll see that tourists on mules, forest wildflowers, friendly lizards and Native American vendors offer some great photo opportunities. Signs and billboards, store displays, product packaging, neighborhoods and streets are just a few items often overlooked by most travelers that provide some of the most interesting photos.

One final tip: if you are traveling somewhere unusual and would be terribly disappointed if you wound up with no photos, purchase a few postcards as back up. If for some reason your camera, film or memory card don’t make it home or something happens to them before your photos are printed, you will have at least a few photographs of the wonderful place you visited. You can also use the postcards for ideas of places and things you may want to photograph yourself.

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FUN PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES
by
Heather Shimmin

FUN PHOTOGRAPHY TECHNIQUES -Listen to the podcast

In this digital camera age, the idea of filters is long forgotten. Photoshop has added camera filters to its list of tools available in the digital darkroom. But there are still things which cannot be replicated on your computer.

Something which I like to do is use everyday objects as lens filters. This can be anything from a zip-lock bag to a piece of glass. By holding transparent and translucent object flush to the camera lens, you can produce some pretty cool effects. I achieved the look on this image of the stairway leading up to the house by simply blowing on the lens and fogging it up with my breath.

Some of my favorite household filters are:

ziplock bags
Vaseline (be careful, it’s messy)
nylons (experiment with all of the wonderful varieties)
a piece of window screen
a piece of colored glass

One of my favorite looks is what I call the Hollywood Glamour Shot, that classic Hollywood, soft-focus look. This is achieved by putting a thin plastic bag (ziplock bags or a bread bag with no writing on it works well) over the lens after focusing on the model and setting your exposure (which you may have to increase, depending on the thickness of the bag you are using). This is important because the lens has a hard time focusing once you put on the plastic bag. Pull the plastic tightly around the lens. The more wrinkles or bumps you have in the plastic, the foggier it is. Use a dramatic light source to help achieve that glam look.

Photoshop is also a great way to add effects to images, just be careful and don’t over do it! The best photoshoped images are those that you can’t tell have been photoshoped. Here is an image that has an interesting lighting effect, can you tell if it was photoshoped or not?

You would be amazed at how many people comment on this image, specifically about the lighting! Well the lighting is not lighting at all, this image was shoot in a studio in front of a green screen, then an image of rusty sheet metal, yes rusty sheet metal, was combined to create the effect. Pretty interesting huh?

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Inevitably, the moment people find out that I am a photographer, the first question they ask is what kind of photography do you do, and the second question is what kind of camera do you use?

I think the first question is a valid one, although when I say that I enjoy to do photo illustrations and fine art photography, I get nothing but a blank stare, (Apparently, not the answer they were looking for. What do they want m to say, weddings?) But when people want to know the brand and the model of camera I shoot with, I have to bite my tongue and thing of sea horses. Because it does not make a difference what i shoot with.

I am a good photographer because of my photographic eye, not because I have a fancy camera.

I bring this up for two reasons: one, as a photographer you don’t need to buy an $8,000 camera to take good pictures; and two, the public needs to be educated.

YOU DON’T NEED AN $8,000 CAMERA

I can feel the wrath of both Nikon and professional photographers breathing down my neck for what I am about to say but I’m going to say it anyway: Do not buy an $8,000 camera. You do not need it.

The reasoning behind this bold and very unpopular sentiment is many amazing photographers – not just an isolated few – shot with very simple cameras: Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Dorthea Lange, to name a few. It hasn’t been until recently with the advent of the digital camera that people, especially photographers, feel the necessity to buy over-priced cameras. The David La Chapelles of the world are perpetuating the perception that photographers are rock stars with entourages and high-end equipment through their bold and extravagant lifestyles.

I have taken amazing images with my plastic $10 Holga, my 6 year old Canon point-and-shoot, and my iPhone, none of which are high-end, pricey cameras.

It’s not the price tag of a camera which determines the quality of an image, but the one pushing the shutter release.

THE PUBLIC NEEDS TO BE EDUCATED

For all the reasons I stated above and more, the public needs to be educated about what constitutes a good photograph; it is never because of the model of the camera used the create the image.

As with all art mediums, photography relies on the elements and principles of art:

• shape
• line
• color
• form
• texture
• space
• value
• emphasis
• balance
• harmony
• variety
• movement
• rhythm
• proportion
• unity

Aside from these factors, the general principles of composition, the rule of thirds, and a thorough understanding of lighting is needed. Not to mention the basic understanding of exposure, the law of reciprocity, aperture, and shutter speed.

I spent 4 years studying photography before I earned by Bachelors of Fine Arts in Photography. Many artists go on to earn masters degrees in photography. It’s preposterous to assume that purchasing a four-figure camera alone will produce good imagery.

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The world is filled with amazing photographers, both past and present. The list is endless of gifted and talented image makers. Here are five of my favorites:

RICHARD AVEDON

Richard Avedon was an American photographer who brought an elegance and sophistication to everything he shot. In the NY Times obituary following his death in 2004, Andy Grundberg said that, “his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century.”

He worked for many years with Harper’s Bazar, Vogue, and Life Magazine, his oeuvre includes such celebrities as Marilyn Monroe, the Beatles, and Audrey Hepburn.

He has published many books. Those of particular interest are Portraits and In The American West.

WILLIAM EGGLESTON

William Eggleston is an American photographer who secured color photography’s place as a recognized and respected art medium.

While teaching at Harvard, Eggleston discovered dye-transfer printing. For three years he read and experimented with the technique until he put together his portfolio entitled “14 Pictures” which was exhibited at the MoMA just two years later.

Eggleston’s work largely focuses around common, everyday objects, such as his most well known image of a tricycle.

JEFF WALL

Canadian Jeff Wall is known for his large-scale, back-lit illfochrome images, mostly of common, ordinary events. However, these seemingly casual photographs were meticulously planned out and coordinated, designed to look as if they were happenstance.

Mimic, (1982), is a classic example of Jeff Wall one frame cinematography. It seems as if Wall just snapped this shot, but in reality, it was a grand production, a recreation of a scene the photographer has witnessed before: The bearded man, walking along side his girlfriend, is making a racial gestures towards the asian man on his right; he is pulling the corner of his eye out to the side, slanting it, in mockery of the asian man’s eyes.

MICHAEL KENNA

Englishman Michael Kenna is best known for his stunning black and white landscapes, although, he has done color and commercial photography, as well.

Over a period of 15 years, Kenna photographed Nazi prison camps, the end result was a magnificent and haunting collection of images published in his book ,“Impossible to Forget: The Nazi Camps Fifty Years After .” Kenna was criticized because his imagery was “too beautiful.”

ANNIE LEIBOVITZ

Annie Leibovitz is an American photographer who got her start as a staff photographer for the newly launched Rolling Stone Magazine. And her career has just gone up from there.

Leibovitz took the last photograph of John Lennon in 1980, which appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine. Five hours after the photo shoot, John Lennon was murdered.

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by Heather Shimmin

Shooting at night can be tricky. I’m sure you’ve had your fair share of failed night shots. The extreme contrast between light and dark is confusing to the camera meter, therefore, you should never shoot on the Automatic or Program setting. So first thing’s first – take the camera off of all program settings and set it to Manual (M). This will allow you to control the shutter speed and aperture independently.

There are really only two tricks to shooting at night: make sure there is enough light entering the camera and keep the camera from shaking when exposing the image to prevent image blur.

Set the camera’s ISO to the lowest setting because the higher the ISO, the more noise and distortion you’ll have in your images.

The first part is easy. In order to let in the most amount of light, open the camera’s aperture as much as possible (i.e. f/2.8). You are now free to experiment with the shutter speed until you get the result you’re looking for. Start off with an exposure time of 1 second (usually indicated by “1) and go from there. If there’s too much light, reduce the time, if there’s not enough light, add time to the exposure.

The time required for night photography is much too long to hand-hold the camera. Any slight movement and the image becomes blurred, even if your camera has an image stabilizer or anti-shake setting. Make sure these settings are turned off in that they may actually create motion in the camera when shooting these types of long-exposures.

A tripod is the obvious and ideal solution to the problem of camera movement. It also allows you make minor adjustments to your composition, if necessary. If your prefer to travel light, a gorilla tripod is great, too. If you have neither of these, look for a table or ledge on which to put your camera.

Inevitably, when you use your finger to push the shutter release you will cause the camera to wobble slightly. Use the camera’s self-timer or a cable release instead to prevent camera shake.

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Delivering Files to Clients

Do you still burn CD’s? How do you send large files? Do you email them only to find they are too large to send? Well check this out we have some free accounts for trial all you have to do is sign up for our email list, or refer someone to us! That simple.

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DraganFlyer X6 UAV

This remote controlled UAV (unmanned arial vehicle) should really excite aerial videographers and photographers.  The X6 is a video stabilized, miniature helicopter with a wireless video downlink and remote control.

The remote control console allows you to control the helicopter as well the camera’s zoom, shutter speed, aperture, and shutter release while seeing what the helicopter sees through video glasses.

The 6 rotor UAV is built on a carbon fiber, collapsable frame and fits inside a 5 inch diameter tube, making it extremely portable.

While the Draganflyer X6 helicopter is in use, constant GPS readings are sent back to the handheld controller as part of the real-time telemetry display.

The DraganFlyer X6 is used by the police and Homeland Security.  Grant assistance is available.

Visit DraganFlyers’ website.

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Dual Camera Shoot
by
Terry Runion

Here is something I have been toying with, it is a shoot with a dual camera setup. I have tried this several times, and the outcome took a little experimentation to get the shots just right. Once you master the dual camera setup the possibilities are endless.

On the shots below, I was working on a dual camera setup with my son. The dual cameras setup was as follows: I was shooting with my Nikon D300 and a Pocket Wizard, along with my 12 year son who was shooting a Nikon D200 also with a Pocket Wizard attached. My camera was the primary and the other camera was the slave, so when I shot an image the other camera would fire creating something totally unique and original. The concept was simple, what sort of interesting outcomes could I come up with shooting through the other camera’s perspective? The results at first were less than stellar, but as I directed my son a little the results were stunning, it was quite interesting visually to see the shots from my son’s camera.

Give it a shot and see what you can come up with, I would be very interested in your outcomes. If you come up with some great shots please send them to me and I will add them to this blog posting.

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Groovy cyberspace web site portfolios

In this cyberspace age, featuring an internet portfolio is not just a good idea, it’s a must. An internet site is the most beneficial path to extend to a astronomic quantity of masses and easily showcase your body of work. Employers, clients, and art galleries would like to discover what you have made and interpret your viewpoint as a lensman. If you do not have a internet site, get one. If you have got one, make it groovier.

Here are the basic principles of how to begin an internet site and what you ought do once you have got one.

Purchase A Domain NAME
The first matter you need to arrange, is the purchase a URL AKA a Domain name, you know the www.xxxxxx.com part. The most beneficial place to arrange purchase of this is link “http://www.godaddy.com/”www.godaddy.com, Really you do not purchase the name, you pretty much rent it on a yearly or muti year basis. Here, you will be able to ascertain what URLs are purchasable and buy them straight away. Just about all URLs are $9.99. The superior, more coveted names could be a hundred bucks or more. I have seen them in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for all intents and purposes you don’t need those.

Discover A HOST
Now that you have acquired your URL, you require a manner to publish it on the World Wide Web. Online hosting companies offer you a place on their server in which the masses online can access. It’s how you arrive on the internet. There are a countless number of companies which offer this service. The difference in rates depend upon how much space you are assigned, or purchase. Additional factors in cost are the quantity of electronic mail accounts you acquire and if you ante up for the full twelvemonth period at once, or on a month-to-month basis. You can anticipate paying approximately a hundred bucks a year. I typically purchase my domains and hosting from godaddy.com since the one stop shop is easier than using two different companies. Be careful for the hosting companies that offer to register for you since that means they own the domain name in that case, and it could be troublesome to transfer the name should you need to change hosts.

Specify the internet site’s aim
The next matter you need to answer is think of the aim of your internet site. What type of portfolio are you planning to exhibit? Commercial or fine artistic creations? Whenever you do both, deliberate on getting two separate web sites, and or two separate domain names. An acquaintance of mine actually delivers one internet site for his black-and-white body of work and a different web site for his color work because they’re so dramatically dissimilar. Do you prefer to sell prints of your body of work? Do you prefer to appeal to brand-new clients? Do you prefer to furnish data about photography thru a web log or a blog as they are commonly known? Are you targeting art galleries? You must specify the aim of the web site prior to you doing anything additional.

BUILD THE SITE
The two things which define a great web site portfolio are design and content. Your web site will not have that wow-factor if you do not have both.

Locating an internet designer which accommodates your expressive style calls for a bit research and it is not inexpensive. An innovational, modern multi-media internet site will cost you a minimum of ten thousand dollars. Realize that a well designed,high caliber web site will cost you some money up front. For an inexpensive website post an advertisement in craigslist and at the local university and look and their portfolios. Also, internet design houses feature standard bundles and templates which are less costly. While you require people to pay you for your talent and expertise as a lensman, and so it is with a web architect. The really good ones cost money, the old adage applies, you get what you pay for!

The 2nd component of featuring a groovy online internet site portfolio comprises of content. Content is king in your portfolio.Content also helps your website to be found in the vast sea we call the Internet. Showcase exclusively your most proficient body of work, and whenever you need to, go out and shoot many more pictures in the domains that you are inadequate. You’re entirely as good as your best picture.

MARKET YOUR internet site
Once your internet site is constructed and is filled with potent content, you will be able to do some free promoting for your site. Apart from manually sending your internet site to those who request it, there are a host of complimentary directories which you will be able to submit it to. A few directories call for a reciprocal hyperlink. You just need to construct a page on your internet site for this aim, call it something like resources or links. Additional directories demand that you ante some money up to be listed. Do not do it. There are a plenitude of complimentary directories out there. Do not get suckered into paying for something you do not require.

Finally you should create or have created a Google site map, this helps Google do what is called spidering your site, which is essentially discovering the website and the contents of the web site. This is particularly important if you use flash to protect your images from online piracy ( which I highly recommend). Once the site map is created submit it to Google. This is done via Google’s webmaster tools and is very easy to sign up for.

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GREAT WEB SITE PORTFOLIOS
by
Heather Shimmin

In this internet age, having an online portfolio is not a just a good idea, it’s a must. A web site is the best way to reach a large amount of people and easily showcase your work. Employers, clients, and galleries want to see what you’ve done and understand your point of view as a photographer. If you don’t have a web site, get one. If you have one, make it better.

Here are the basics of how to get a web site set up and what you should do once you’ve got one.

BUY A DOMAIN NAME
The first thing you need to do is buy a domain name. The best place to do this is HYPERLINK “http://www.godaddy.com/”www.godaddy.com. Here, you can find out what domain names are available and purchase it right there. Most domain names are $9.99. The premium, more sought after names can be $100 or more.

FIND A HOST
Now that you’ve got your domain name, you need a way to publish it on the internet. Web hosting companies provide you with space on their server which people online can access. It’s how you get your site on the web. There are a myriad companies which offer this service. The difference in rate depends on how much space you’re allotted. Other factors in price are the number of email accounts you get and if you pay for the entire year at once, or on a month-to-month basis. Expect to pay about $100 a year.

DEFINE THE WEB SITE’S PURPOSE
The next thing you need to do is think about the purpose of your web site. What type of portfolio are you going to display? Commercial or fine art? If you do both, consider having two separate sites. A friend of mine actually has one website for his black and white work and another for his color because they are so dramatically different. Do you want to sell prints of your work? Do you want to attract new clients? Do you want to provide information about photography via a blog? Are you targeting galleries? You must define the purpose of the site before you do anything more.

BUILD THE SITE
The two things which define a great web site portfolio are design and content. Your web site will not have that wow-factor if you do not have both.

Finding a web designer which fits your style takes a little digging and it’s not cheap. An original, innovative multi-media site will cost you a minimum of $10,000. Understand that a well designed, quality web site will cost you some dough. Post an ad in craigslist and at the local university and look and their portfolios. Also, web design firms have basic packages and templates which are less expensive. As you expect people to compensate you for your talent and expertise as a photographer, so it is with a web designer.

The second part of having a great web site portfolio is content. Content is king in your portfolio. Showcase only your best work, and if you need to, go out and shoot some more images in the areas that you fall short. You are only as good as your weakest image.

MARKET YOUR SITE
Once your site is build and is filled with strong content, you can do some free advertising for your site. Aside from manually sending out your site to those who request it, there are a host of free directories which you can submit it to. Some directories require a reciprocal link. You just need to build a page on your site for this purpose. Other directories require that you pay to be listed. Don’t do it. There are plenty of free directories out there. Don’t get suckered into paying for something you don’t need.

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Has the term “edgy” Lost it’s meaning?
by Terry Runion

By now I am sure you have heard the term “edgy” typically you hear this term used in photography or graphic design, and sometimes the term is used to describe a model’s look. Well just some food for thought here, but as we use this term more and more, it really starts to lose meaning. Here is my point, the term is used to describe an image that is new and unusual, something completely different, right? It is my personal opinion, when the term is used to define something new and unusual, we start to formulate an idea in our mind exactly what is edgy. Once that look is defined as edgy it no longer conforms to the meaning of edgy. The term edgy conjures up images of something bold like a totally new hair style or some new makeup technique for a model or subject. So while this blog is short and sweet, I truly believe the term “edgy” is sort of like saying tomorrow, you know tomorrow never comes since it will always be today. While I am not sure that makes any sense at all, it is intended to provoke thought, and the realization that we can never truly achieve and “edgy” look, since by sheer definition that can never be.

OK, here is something completely off the wall, I propose since the term “edgy” is a useless term, and can never be , we could use a new term, perhaps naming the new look like hurricanes are named, like today’s new look is called Ike, or New look version 1.x , or New look version 2.x .

Really I hope you don’t think I have lost my mind, since I write this partially in jest, the real point of this whole blog is to point out how the term “edgy” is fast becoming worn out and the term itself is indeed no longer “edgy”.

Just something to think about, but don’t stop trying to achieve an “edgy” new image, since without that we would not have anything to look forward to, or aspire for greatness.

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Scanning Services
By
Terry Runion

Do you have a bunch of old photos hanging around, that you would like to convert to digital format? Do you have old negatives, slides, just sitting in a box? Well many folks know this, but I think many may not, there are a ton of scanning services out on the Internet that you can use. I did a quick search on Google for “photo scanning service”, and came up with about 12000 hits, so yep there are plenty out there. Not too long ago I decided to clean out my closet and my negative files to see what I may want to convert to digital.

The entire process was actually allot of fun, I had stuff that I had totally forgotten about, like some portrait shots I had shot at the Career Education Center (CEC) in Denver. The CEC was a sort of vocational curriculum geared towards photography that I took in high school. I took this class since I loved photography, and my counselor told me I was not college material, but that is a story for another time. It was pretty amazing to me that the negatives had lasted so long, I mean it has been about 20 years, and I can’t even remember how many times I have moved over the years, but yep they were still in good shape. I selected about 50 frames, I had to do this since the service I was going to use was www.scancafe.com and they have a minimum of 50 frames you can send, then once they are all scanned you select the ones you want to convert.

OK, so I had my 50 frames ,and I had to go online and sign up to print out a tracking slip, and send this company all my negatives and prints, not really a thought I relished since these negatives are literally irreplaceable. I bit the bullet though and mailed them all to scancafe.com and once they were received , I was notified via email, it was a relief they arrived in tact. While the service was good on the front end of the process, the actual scanning process took about two months, and near the end I was becoming very impatient with the service, but I think the company had done some sort of huge marketing program, and it buried them.

When the negatives and a few prints were completed with the scanning process, I received another notification email that they were available to be viewed online. When I viewed the images, in particular the prints( the prints I had sent were quite yellow and faded) it was like no time had passed at all, and they had been restored back to their original state. The images were crystal clear, and had no dust, or scratches. They were simply gorgeous! I went through the selection process, and decided on about 15 final images, and hit the finish button on the site, and waited for the CD to come in the mail.

Probably another 3 weeks passed and I finally got the CD in the mail, you can only imagine how cool it was to put the CD in the drive to see the images. As I viewed the images, something was wrong, the final CD was not as good as the web versions, some had scratches and the prints looked like the old ones. I contacted the company and they said it was possible the untouched versions were sent. As a part of the service, they retouched all the images, to clean up any imperfections that may have been on the negatives. For those of you who think negatives, are anything but photography related, it is not like digital where you typically get a clear image, all it takes is a little dust, a scratch to mess up the negatives, sometimes to the point of not being of any use at all. It is somewhat similar to having dust on your sensor, but with that you can at least tweak it in Photoshop. Negatives are a different animal, if you had a negative that was scratched you would have to touch up the final print, and they almost never really looked that good after that. Scancafe told me they would send a new CD with the final images on it, and in about 2 weeks I had another CD.

This time I dropped the CD in the drive to look at the final images and they were spectacular just like the ones I had seen on my preview on the web.

So my advice to you is try this out, be patient, and you will be very pleased with the end result. The only other advice I can offer is you might want to try and find a local scanning company, then you won’t have to go throughworrying about lost negatives in the mail.

Below is the scanned copy, it actually looks better than the original print:

This is the final image, once it was digital I could add some elements via Photoshop

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I just got published!
Terry Runion

Just thought I would share this with the readers, I just got published, well actually it will be November 08. I can’t begin to tell you how exciting this is, since for the past year, I have worked so hard on my craft, it is great to see things paying off!

For those of you just starting out, don’t quit keeping working at this and you will not be sorry. The saying comes to mind, ” do what you love and never work another day in your life” That is so true, I truly love this and don’t even consider it work, once I see the results!

Here is the book cover, and a link to the book if you would like to order it – http://www.leonjeanpublications.com/about.html

This is a synopsis of the story: Amanda appeared to have it all; an understanding husband, an $800,000 home, and a career as a homicide detective. Will her secret sex life cause her to lose it all? Volanda has a new outlook on life. Not only has she slimmed down, but she’s also found the man of her dreams. Just how far is she willing to go to keep her new life intact? Mance owns a successful barbershop, has a new woman in his life, and will soon be a father. He also has a secret that could jeopardize it all. Ghetti’s biggest mistake was leaving his DNA at the scene of a double murder. Now on the run, the one thing he’s determined to do is get revenge on the snitch that ratted him out to the pops. Never has six degrees of separation been more relevant. Grand Deceptions is a tale of people from different walks of life, whose lives eventually affect each other in one way or another. Touching on topics as diverse as interracial dating, infidelity, black on black crime, and homosexuality, Grand Deceptions keeps you on edge as the drama unfolds and each character’s secrets are finally revealed.

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Using Cheap Memory cards
By

Terry Runion

Hello, I would just like to share an experience I have had using cheap memory cards. I currently own a Nikon D200 and a Nikon D300 that use CF memory cards. Since I first bought them, I have been using either a Sandisk or Lexar in either the 2 Gig or 4 Gig versions. Well, a few weeks ago I saw an ad in the paper for a Kingston 4 Gig for like 14 bucks, at Frys Electronics. I thought what the heck I will buy one and if it does not work out , I have only wasted 14 bucks. I also thought since it was a Kingston it had to be good, I mean after all Kingston makes great RAM, so how could I go wrong?

OK so here we go straight to the bottom line, I hate this card, since it is super, super slow. In my mind all memory should relatively similar in speed. Seriously I always thought that all the speed stats you see for the high quality cards was just marketing fluff, and perhaps the cheaper cards would be slightly slower, but that is completely not true. Honestly if I pop in my high quality Sandisk and shoot at 5-7fps , the CF card keeps up with me, and allows me to shoot rapid fire style, which is what I typically do. When I popped in my cheapie Kingston CF Card, and started shooting at 7 fps for about 14 frames, the camera just stopped. I looked at the light on my camera that indicates the CF card is being written to from the buffer, there it was just blinking away. I thought ok no problem, I will wait 10 or 20 seconds and it will finish. A full 2 minutes later the card stopped writing and I started shooting again, and yes once again only got about 14 frames until I had to stop and wait. You can only imagine how frustrating this is, not to mention interrupts the shoot tremendously.

While the point of this blog is memory cards high quality versus low quality speed wise, I am not too much into the stats, all I try to do is find the brand that works the best and typically stick with it. I mean think about comparing speed rates for two high quality cards, is a 1millisecond difference really going to make a difference? I will say that high quality versus lower quality that does make a huge difference, in my case about two minutes of my life I wont get back, not to mention theinterruption of the flow of the shoot. So here it is , this is the card I currently use,

I will tell you my cheap card days are over, and I will never skimp again, but then again, it was a great learning experience, and also good blog material. So the moral of this story is find a good quality card and stick with that brand, even if you see acheapie advertised, don’t waste your time or money.

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Well, here is the story, Photography was my passion,when I was in high school, however; it was a passion that did not pay the bills. I remember spending countless hours in the lab at school hangin with friends developing pictures what a blast that was. Photography did lead me to a job at a photo lab(remember those?) and it was not a bad job, I mean I made some decent coin for a 21 year old dude, but I worked like 80 hours a week, so in reality salary was not worth it , I think it worked out to like minimum wage or something. The best part of that job was training people in the dark! We used an infrared scope and it was soooo funny to see people in the dark with their eyes wide open, trying to find things in a pitch black room. We did have a guy who was bind that all he did was crack open film canisters and put them on a giant reel to be developed. His name was Mario, and he was cool since he could tell who he was speaking to just by smelling their cologne or deodorant. The other very interesting part was seeing all the pictures people had shot come through, as you can imagine there were so crazy sheet that came through. The Sheriff’s office used to send stuff through, and we saw cops burning piles and piles of weed, and the occasional dead person. Of course the homemade porn was always interesting, since most people think no one ever sees that stuff, what they don’t know is, there was one maintenance man who would keep copies and had stacks, and stacks of homemade porn. Wonder where all the stuff is today? Probably scanned and found its way onto the Internet!

Anyway I moved on to a job at Motorola, and it was because of photography that I actually got the job, which was totally hilarious since the job I ended up doing had absolutely nothing to do with the Photographic process. The job I ended up doing was called “metals” it was basically washing soon to be computer chips in a solution of Hydrogen Peroxide, and Hydra Floric acid( pretty toxic stuff, if it got on your skin, it would eat its way from your bone to the skin surface-yikes). They called the mixture Piranha since when the two were mixed it bubbled, gurgled , and looked like Piranha fish were feeding. Very cool sheet that’s fo sho! I loved it, so much I did it for 12 years. I met my friends there, one of whom, I would end up marrying his sister ( not sure if he has ever fully accepted that since I was a pretty crazy young man, now I am just a crazy old man, hahaha). Anyway you can probably figure out the rest , got married had kids, basically the only photos I shot were of the kids, besides, back in the day it was a pain to shoot, since you would shoot the pictures, and either develop them yourself, which included getting a dark room chemicals , etc., or if you shot and dropped them off at the lab, you had only about 36 shots on a roll of film to get it right. Once you dropped off the film you waited about a week, there were no one hour photo shops then, let alone immediate images like you get today from a Digital SLR. So basically I gave it up and packed away all my gear in storage.

For many years I had no interest in the art, and then I bought a digital camera and started using it. I did enjoy the immediate availability of the images. Notice I call them images? Well, in my mind pictures are something you hang on a wall or see in a book. Images to me are a digital medium, so today instead of calling myself a photographer, I refer to myself as an imager and my work are images, hence my company name NewLifeImages. I will write more about the NewLife portion in another blog. At the time I bought the DSLR it was a Canon Eos 8 mega pixel, pretty good for the time, but I still did not have what I was looking for. At that time Photoshop was at like version 4 or something, so that was not really a factor since most people who used it had big fast machines, and were graphic artists. That was the early 90′s , so I ended up just using that camera for snapshots etc.

When the 2000s arrived DSLR’s had come a long way, and then the traditional camera makers like Nikon , Pentax, got into the digital space in a big way. Last summer my family and I were on a cruise and I ended up shooting some pretty good shots, and just so happened started reading about stock photography. In the past I would shoot but really did not have a good way of getting things published or seen, in those days it was pretty arduous, since there were no CD’s or Internet to get them to the client. Today it is incredible, I can shoot 500 images in a single session, post-process them, and have them uploaded to a file server for download very quickly! Back in my youth I was good technically, and had a great imagination but again had only 36 shots to get it right, and was not good at that, since I have zero attention to detail, so those little flaws that you sometimes don’t see when you are shooting were a royal pain to fix, and sometimes could not be fixed at all. When I was 17 I shot a wedding and had the flash set wrong, I think I had maybe one good shot, boy was that a character builder!

After the cruise I saw one image I shot of a piano bar, and it struck me, I still have some talent left, not bad for an old guy! So then it started, I bought a Nikon D200, and was completely hooked once again. Now it was different, things were exciting, I could shoot 500 images, download them to my MAC, and view them in an instant. I hired a lady to teach me Photoshop, since this was one software package I could never really master. The Photoshop lady taught me enough to get me over the hump, and while I am not a master at it , I really do enjoy tweaking and coming up with new ideas that I can use my very limited Photoshop skills. Oh yea, I also discovered I liked shooting images of people, before was mostly flowers, landscapes sort of shots. The people element brought a whole new perspective to the craft for me, and I thoroughly enjoy shooting new and unusual topics with people. I have been shooting now since July 07 and have included the family both in the studio and out. I still enjoy shooting events, landscapes and the like, but the people portion is by far the best. Next steps get a wireless setup and shoot two cameras at once to capture some unusual angles. Stay tuned for the blog where I write more about why I love the craft now, more than ever.

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This is just a quick blog. Back a year or so ago there was a photographer who shot some images of girls in Digg shirts, I though it was a hoot! However I guess the Digg effect took his server down and all the images are no longer online. So I thought I would pick up the gauntlet and shoot some images . Well, this has proven to be quite popular I have been dugg a few times on it ,and models have even started asking me if they can be “A Digg Girl,” I just hope Kevin Rose happens by sometime and enjoys the images.

You can have a look at them if you like at www.kachoozie.net just look for the Girls of Digg profile.

Enjoy

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I am going to explain how exactly I see, or even perceive the world around me, since many people that know me have actually no idea that I have a hearing problem.

About 10 years ago someone told me I had a hearing problem, I said “what?” had to put that one in. The hearing loss is about 90% of in my right ear. The person who called my attention to it, was wondering why I was not responding to them when they were speaking to me, unless they were on my left side of my body. This person was someone I worked with at Motorola, she actually thought I as ignoring here. My wife as well, always thought I was just ignoring her too. I went to a doctor and had a hearing check, and indeed I had lost a great majority of a hearing in the left ear. The loss pertains to certain levels of sounds so that rules out a hearing aid, since that would only amplify the sounds that I do hear, and I can tell you everything sounds like Mickey Mouse is talking, so you can only imagine how annoying that is, so I would rather just be without. There is a hearing aid that acts like a transmitted in one ear, then the other ear is the receiver, but think about that. A hearing aid like that would cause me to think sounds are coming from one side of me , when in reality they are coming from the opposite side, that in my mind would be truly upsetting, and could actually be a little dangerous. The transmit/receive hearing aid is also about eight thousand dollars, yikes!

After a battery of tests through, many different doctors, even a specialist in the hearing field, at the Mayo Clinic, they all came to the same diagnosis. The hearing loss was not like the type of loss one would experience from loud sounds or loud rock ‘n roll, but through some sort of virus and I got at some point in my life that had adversely affected by my hearing. I personally think it was due to some prescription drugs I used to take for migraines. I forget the name of the drug, I think it was Imitrex or something, but when I did take the drug I always felt sort of like my brain was sizzling. What a sensation that was. I would get a shot and could feel the drug coursing through my veins, to my head. I really think that’s what caused the hearing loss, because there seems to be a correlation from when I started taking the medication, to when I actually lost the hearing. At the time this medication was brand-new to the market so it very well could have been the root cause, although there is really no scientific evidence to support this, at least I have not looked in a long while.

There is some good news here, is if there is good news from losing your hearing! The hearing loss over time has actually enhanced my vision, and has enhanced the way I see images. I see more color now, sometimes even where there is none. When I look at an image, or I look at it through the camera lens I can actually see things that I never saw before. The good news here is if I had lost my vision I am not totally sure I could survive, since I would not be able to do the one thing I love, and that is be a photographer, so yea it is good news that is was hearing and not vision.

Now I can visualize how colors will look on a monitor screen when I am in the field, and come back to the post process and get the result that was in my minds eye at the time.

A good example of this is a project I shot at a junkyard recently of some models. It was a bright day out, and it here in Phoenix, colors during the day tend to be pretty drab, something about the ozone, pollution or something. It was a little bit of an overcast day and the colors of the clothes on site didn’t look that vibrant, however; I could actually look at the models , and I could literally visualize how that was going to look once I got it to a post-processing.

One might say that’s inherent availability of all people but I’m not sure it really is, I think it takes it takes some kind of enhanced ability with your eyes in conjunction with your minds eye to be able to do that. Honestly I think without the hearing loss I would not be able to do that. When I was younger I used to shoot photography on film and see a concept, I could see a theme and knew exactly what I wanted to shoot, but it wasn’t at the same level it is now. Perhaps that could be attributed to age, and experience, but in my case I really don’t think so.
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How do I actually explain this, it is indeed a very hard thing not only to verbalize but, to actually put into words, so instead of write about it I am going to include some of the images. When you see the before, and look at the after, think about this, the after is what I actually see not just in my minds eye but in allot of cases in my actual vision. Enjoy.

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