Notice the Little Things

Sep
19
2011
by Jessy | 2 Comments

When taking images its important to notice the little things and think of how you want to crop an image before you take the image.  Thinking of this from your eyes view will help you determine how you want to work to get the composition that you prefer.  Granted my view may be a little different that yours or anyone else’s, but the rules are all the same.

Below is an image that I think shows this well.  I saw the reflections in the bumper when walking by and thought, what a great image!  I walked back around and looked at it a few different times trying to figure out how to take the image to get the reflections that I wanted.  Finally I ended up with the image you see and didn’t have to do any cropping to achieve this.

Cadillac Gril

This image is from a car (a Classic old Cadillac), and I was allowed to be right next to the car (without touching of course) so I had the ability to get as close as needed.  In not all situations are we able to do this but you can always snap the photo to assist with the composition.

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Site Organization

Sep
18
2011
by Jessy | 5 Comments

What is the best way to organize your site?  I have been moving around some of my galleries so that the list of “galleries” is shorter and things are easier to find.  The fist example of this is the new “places” gallery and the Savannah gallery under that.  I have several images for Philly about that are about ready to go up as well.  Is this the best idea or is there something better?

How d o you organize your site for your own photography?

I know the more information about each gallery the better, this always helps with SEO, but they can be divided so many different ways trying to determine which is best is difficult.  I have also found it’s very difficult to keep the home page updated with new things to keep returning visitors interested.  Without updating the home page users will have less reason to view further into your site.  I’ll keep researching some of the best practices and I’ll let you know what I find.

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Selling Photography #2

Sep
13
2011
by Jessy | 1 Comment

I have been playing with the FineArtAmerica site some more.  I think I’m starting to like this and the printing options are impressive!  It also has a great community of other artists that reiew and provide feedback on your art.

Check out some of the HDR here:

hdr art

FineArtAmerica also offers some different logos, and slideshows that you can place on your site to lead people back to your FineArt site. Below is a copy of one of these and if you notice it links to my FineArt site to purchase images. One thing that I do not like is that I cannot incorporate this into my site or remove/alter menu items to go back to my own site. A perfect example of this is the blog, I am not one to copy/paste to another blog, but I do not have enough time to work on 2 blogs.

Sample “slideshow” for FineArt

Art Prints


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Selling Photography

Sep
11
2011
by Jessy | 0 Comments

One of the hardest questions to answer: How do I sell my Photography?

I have been doing some research and found a site that I really like.  Granted my site now has commerce capabilities but I have them disabled because I don’t like to manage that. I  would prefer to take my images and work on processing and SEO rather than on printing, matting, framing, shipping, etc.  FinArtAmerica allows for a $30 site for you to have and takes care of all the printing for you!

This is something new that I’m just trying out (yes you get a 90 day free trial), so please view it and let me know what you think of it.  Of course I’m not sure if I will keep it going but it’s easy to set up and something that might work…

 My Fine Art site
Sell Art Online


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National Geographic Weekend Photography Workshop

Sep
10
2011
by Jessy | 1 Comment

Have you ever been to a weekend photography workshop?  I recently found that National Geographic offer photography excursions and workshops.  I am thinking of attending one but am very torn on which location to go to (Paris, Rome, New Orleans, Tucson, etc) and which type of photography workshop would be best suited for my skills, or  lack of skills.   Each offer something different in the way of photographing architecture, people, landscape, etc.  If you have reviewed any of my images please provide any comments that you have about your experienced at these workshops and types of photography that you think are best.

A full list of the workshops can be found here if you are interested: National Geographic Photography


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Abstract Photography Created by Cropping

Sep
10
2011
by Jessy | 5 Comments

I am one of those people that (oddly enough) is hesitant to take a picture if I’m not sure how it will turn out.  Last weekend while in Canaan Valley West Virginia we visited SmokeHole Caverns.  I finally decided to take a few shots that I wasn’t sure of.  I took a few shots of the wall that actually worked well.  Caves are one of those places that I’m scared to take images of because the light is random and it’s always lit with spot lights.  Please note the images below.

 

This image turned out well with the light from the cave but the spotlights themselves had to be cropped out.  Once those items were cropped out its lovely with the colors and the layers.

SmokeHole Caverns West Virginia bacon staligmite

f/4.8 ISO 2500

 

This image is taken from the cave floor up the wall.  I used the camera flash for this image as the other lights were too high to illuminate the part of the wall I wanted to focus on.  As the camera flash is not idea you can clearly see the shadows created from the imperfections of the wall.  Those some of the shadows add to the image, some also distract from the image.  Some additional cropping could assist in correcting this issue.

Smokehole Caverns West Virginia canaan valley wall

f/3.5 ISO 2500

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Flow of Water in Photographs

Sep
06
2011
by Jessy | 0 Comments

Many people recommend using different filters (neutral density) when photographing water and waterfalls.  I typically agree with this and have previously done this in practice.  This weekend while out in Canaan Valley in West VirginiaI had the opportunity to go to Blackwater Falls. This is a beautiful little place and just a short walk (192 steps) down to the wonderful waterfall.  I was playing with shutter speeds, exposures, etc trying to get the shot I wanted without having the filters I thought I needed.

Below are the 2 photos taken from the same spot within a minute of each other with different settings.  This will help to show some of the things you can do if you know the details of your shutter speeds and how to alter it.

Blackwater Falls exposer 1/25 sec at f/3.5

 

Blackwater Falls exposure 1/6 sec at f/19

 

You can see how the longer exposure make the water stream and flow nicely rather than show every drop coming down.  This is something the the filters will do for you as well without the need to change the settings on your camera.

 

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Workflow with Digital Images

Aug
28
2011
by Jessy | 2 Comments

Many of us always remember the basics of our workflows.  Its the items like “keywords” and “naming conventions” that we don’t take the time to add to our photos when we initially upload and start working on them.

I am just as guilty if not more guilty of this than everyone else.  I finally got annoyed with it and started working through my many gigs of photos.  Luckily I have them grouped in directories that assist with some of this so I can add keywords in 1 fail swoop, then go back for the specific different ones later.  This is still taking a tremendous amount of time that I would rather use processing  photos.

Please remember to complete your keywords and any naming convention changes the day you drop your photos on your machine, it will save so much work later!

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Lake Scott Car Show

Aug
26
2011
by Jessy | 0 Comments

This year I managed to make it back to Scott City Kansas for the Lake Scott Car Show and my dad’s b-day. I took several pics around the park and elsewhere around town. I love the perspective that the wide angle lens gives to cars, it’s wonderful! Below are 3 images each with the wide lens (12-24mm) and all turned black and white.
If you haven’t noticed yet, black and white is may favorite. I do like color images and how vibrant they can be, but I have a special connection with the black and white.

You can see more about the Lake Scott Car Show posted on The Horses Asses Car Club site here.

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Photoshop Brushes

Aug
26
2011
by Jessy | 1 Comment

I found some great brush sets at Paxton Prints!  He has put together some great brushes and textures that you may want to check out.  I even found some Light Room workflows on the site that are open for (Free) download and provide great installation instructions if this is something that you are new to.

All of these items are easy to install and use to help you provide some more artistic touches to your photos without spending the time to create each of these yourselves!

If you have other resources that you primarily use please share them here so that we can build a library of links for everyone.

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