Gary Crabbe / Enlightened Images

This last weekend while spending a belated anniversary getaway with my wife, we had a chance to visit the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) to see several of their exhibits. The first, and listed as the premier exhibit (that cost $5.00 more than the General Admission ticket) was Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities. The idea was to bring together these two artists, each working with a different medium, and to show a similar convergence in how each artist rendered their personal response to the natural world around them.

Overall it was a great exhibit, although I admit I’m not a huge O’Keeffe fan, but I do enjoy her work. There were several renditions of trees that I really liked, in addition to her famous floral paintings. There were also a relatively large number of lesser known Adams prints, along with several of his icons. All of the prints were smaller in size, but still, staring at an original Moonrise over Hernandez, or Monolith (Half Dome from the Diving Board) is a treat in itself, and easily worth the price of admission.

My biggest problem with this exhibit was Read the rest of this post »

From Scott Bourne: How to write a sample query letter. Rather than long winded explanations of the hows and whys, he gives you a very interesting, real life example of one of his own query letters.

From Black Star Rising: Are you adding context to your photos? “Extreme close-ups can have an impact on viewers — but often do little to advance a story. Relating the subject to its surroundings can provide context, but without impact, the image will never find an audience.”

From PhotoShelter: Photographer Websites: The Basics. A good primer on what you should have in your “to be considered” folder when building or updating your photography web site.

From Phillip Colla: Metadata, Photography and Workflow for the Web. A great article by a wonderfully talented underwater and nature photographer on how important including the various metadata aspects are into a professional work flow.

And one from the Absurd & Ridiculous files, courtesy of the New York Times: Flickr as an Interior Decorating Tool. How do you turn calm and happy go-lucky photographers in to an angry pack of blood-thirsty rats? Simple; write an article on how cool it is to just print photos off of flickr to decorate your house. And while your at it, don’t worry about something as trivial as copyright, because, hey, it’s not commercial, and it’s not like you’re harming anyone. (The same logic kids use when telling their buddies to steal the candy bar from 7-11.) Be sure to check out the reader comments. Update: Due to the outcry of comments, the author has posted a new “follow-up” article where she attempts to explain herself.

Bonus Link - From Digital Photography School: A two-part interview with Art Wolfe. A legend in the landscape & nature genre, and although not totally a business post, he does discuss the issues of making money and choosing photography as a career path. Having worked for a legend myself; it always pays to lend an ear when they offer words of wisdom based on their years of experience. (The link goes to Part One of the Interview. You can access Part Two from here, or at the bottom of the page on Part One.)

Picture: Red rocks at Kodachrome Basin State Park, Utah

Today, the Kodak Company announced that it was retiring Kodachrome, its flagship slide film that it been producing for well over half a century. Take a look at any National Geographic Magazine circa the early 1990’s or earlier, and that’s all you’ll see; images shot on Kodachrome. When I first started shooting slide film after getting a job working for Galen Rowell, it was at the very cusp of the “velvia revolution”. Since Velvia was still so new, the default was to shoot the “industry standard” Kodachrome. It was certainly a wonderful film emulsion with a very natural palette. But for the richly saturated dramatic landscapes, it couldn’t hold a candle to what Fuji had developed. It was then, long before the advent of digital, that the grandfather of all slide films started its long slow decline toward retirement. The announcement today by Kodak just puts the final nail in the coffin of what was now, truly, an end of an era.

I can’t help but think of the Simon & Garfunkel song, “Kodachrome”, which today seems to be echoing inside the barren hallways of my cranium. I have to wonder how soon it will be before people hearing that song, or visiting the Kodachrome Basin State Park in Utah are asking themselves, “what was a kodachrome?”

From Don Giannatti: Preparing yourself for getting out there as a professional photographer. A great first post in a planned series. Lots of good heads-up info you need to know if you’re thinking that being a pro photographer is in your future.

From Scott Bourne: Get Creative: Telling Stories with your Camera. Be Brave, Shoot, Practice, Experiment; Stretch your boundaries. Learn to tell stories.

From Jim Goldstein: If it’s on the Internet, it’s free! Didn’t you get the Memo? A good rant following a number of recent incidents, including the US Family showing up in Czech grocery store window ad, and another photographers image being Farked into a million pieces.

From PhotoShelter & Peter Krogh: Digital Asset Management and the Professional Photographer. One of the most pressing issues faced my the modern professional: how do you manage your workflow from capture, to output, to archiving, and everything in between.

From John Lund: Interview with Dan Heller. John ask Dan about SEO and the scope of the stock photo marketplace. Personally I was a bit disappointed not to see any mention of Picscout or other image recognition technologies and their usefulness to photographers, but I understand that might be a ’sensitive’ topic at the moment.

Bonus Link: From ZenHabits: The 10 Essential Rules for Slowing Down and Enjoying Life More. Mindful disconnectedness can be a good thing; preserve your vital energies that you need to fuel your creative self.

Photographers Beware; There’s another really bad photo contest out there being run by what most would consider a very reputable institution. Courtesy of Photo Competitions, I saw their recent posting advertising an upcoming photo contest being done by the Smithsonian Magazine.

The catch: Just by entering the contest, (as opposed to winning) you’ll be giving away your permission for the Smithsonian to use your image however they want, with no payment to you outside of a “credit line”. And to be clear, this is your name next to the photo, not a line of credit that you can use to buy things at the grocery store or Home Depot.

See for yourself:

By entering the contest, entrants grant Smithsonian Institution a royalty-free, world-wide, perpetual, non-exclusive license to display, distribute, reproduce, and create derivative works of the entries, in whole or in part, in any media now existing or subsequently developed, for any Smithsonian Institution purpose, including, but not limited to advertising and promotion of the magazine and its Web site, exhibition, and commercial products, including but not limited to Smithsonian Institution publications. Photographs may appear on the Smithsonian Journeys Web site as well as in Journeys publications. Any photograph reproduced will include a photographer credit. The Smithsonian Institution will not be required to pay any additional consideration or seek any additional approval in connection with such uses.

Time for an uproar of disapproval, I think. My advice, stay FAR AWAY from this contest.

“So that’s what it looks like.”

There’s an unmistakable feeling you get when you see something for the first time. It’s that sense of “wow” and awe when you discover something heretofore unknown. I had that feeling this last weekend as I came across a recent posting by one of my favorite photoblogs, The Big Picture. This time they showed me something I really had never ever seen before; and despite being devoid of any life or color, they were simply amazing. Take a look for yourself.

Introducing: The Planet Mercury. Bigger, better, and closer than ever before.

Picture: Sunrise behind Thor’s Hammer, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

I’m very pleased to announce that I will be co-teaching a workshop on The Business of Outdoor and Nature Photography in conjunction with fellow photographer Charlie Borland and Aspen Photo Workshops. The workshop will be held November 5th through 8th, 2009 at Ruby’s Inn & Conference Center near Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah. Joining us will be Marv Johnson, CEO of the online stock agency, Fogstock.

The focus of this workshop is about business, and takes place during the day, so photographers are free to shoot during the sweet light hours. As many people will know, Ruby’s Inn is within a few minutes drive of Bryce Canyon National Park, famous for it’s geology and wildly-shaped hoodoos.

For those that want some hands-on, out in the field instruction, Charlie and I will be doing a supplimental field workshop on November 3rd and 4th.

See the complete details here.

Picture: Sunset light on the face of Half Dome, from Olmsted Point, Yosemite National Park, California.

In my last two blog posts, I reported on the mediocre quality of images used by Travel & Leisure Online for their Best Views from US National Parks feature, and the subsequent post when it was discovered that one of those ‘mediocre’ images was actually mine, albeit wrongly credited and badly reproduced.

So allow me to tell you how this has resolved itself. As soon as it was pointed out that the image metadata contained licensing information from one of my agents, yet that sale had never been reported, I contacted my agent last week and asked them to investigate. This morning I got an email saying that the sale had been re-instated, it showed up on my sales report page, and I’ll be getting my due percentage of the licensing cost. I’m sure when they contacted T&L, it was probably all explained as an ‘oversight’, which is not an uncommon excuse when dealing with high volume buyers and sellers. Today, the photo is now properly credit to me on the T&L web site, but the photo still looks like crap. OK, maybe not crap, but the reproduction quality of the scan is certainly ‘mediocre’.

Now, if by comparison to Travel & Leisure’s quest for low cost or free images, and the overall poor quality of their BEST Views presentation, look at a similar presentation done by National Geographic, called, “Best of the National Parks: The Most Beautiful Places.” The difference, in my humble opinion, is quite dramatic. Clearly, NGS cares about image quality and the overall quality of the presentation, and Travel & Leisure Online obviously cared more about saving money than distributing a quality product. So, which company do you think showed me the “Best” views, and which company do you think I admire more? (Rhetorical questions.)

Photos: Storm over Half Dome from Sentinel Rock, Yosemite National Park, California

Yesterday, I made a post critical of the mediocre quality of photos used by Travel & Leisure in their online feature, Best US National Park Views. I said a couple were decent at best, a couple were “OK”, and the rest were, well… just plain blah.

Well surprise, surprise, surprise:It turns out that one of those mediocre “OK” images was actually mine.

Thanks to a phone call from former SAA President David Sanger, he had seen the metadata containing my name for the above image that Travel & Leisure had used, but had credited to a photographer named Matthew High. Now I admit when I first saw that image, I had a sneaking feeling that it might have been mine. I certainly recognized the location. But the scan was so light, the highlights so blown out, and I pretty much assumed that I wasn’t the only photographer to take a photo from this vantage point. I gave it no further thought after seeing the photo credited to another photographers name.

Here’s the original:

Besides, when T&L had contacted me originally about using one of my photos, the image they wanted was of Glacier Point at Sunset. FWIW, I found out in retrospect that I did get a follow-up note after I’d asked about payment. It was a short one line reply via email that said, “Unfortunately we have decided to use another image.” (read: Irony.)

Worse; the image was apparently sold by one of my agents. Yet there is no sale listed for this image in the last 12 months. (read: Opps!)

So now, in addition to using a bunch of blah images, they’ve so horribly slaughtered the scan of my own image that I didn’t even think it was mine. I’ve pointed the finger, and called my own photo “mediocre”. (Yes, I admit, I’ve taken lots of mediocre photos over the years. I just don’t shout about them publicly from the rooftop.)

Well this will not stand. Someone is gonna have to pay for this self-humiliation I’ve just put myself through. Oh, wait, Travel & Leisure will pay. Maybe I’ll charge them enough that they’ll think twice before scrounging for “Free” photos.

And as a Post Script: Let this be a lesson on the Value of Having Accurate MetaData!!! I’ll be paying forward a home brew to David when I see him at the upcoming SF PhotoMetaData.org meeting.

Picture: Alpenglow on clouds in evening above Half Dome and Tenaya Canyon from Glacier Point, Yosemite National Park, California.

A few weeks ago, I was contacted by an editorial intern at Travel & Leisure (Online) requesting permission to use an image of mine of Yosemite National Park for a feature they were planning on running called, “Best U.S. National Park Views.” The email said they could offer a credit line, but made no mention of payment. When I replied saying I’d be happy to have my images considered, but queried about payment, well… that was the last I ever heard from them.

Yesterday, I finally got a chance to see what Travel & Leisure Online selected for showing off the “BEST” views from our US National Parks. Sufficed to say, I think T&L got exactly what they paid for, and the result was completely underwhelming. Best Views; hardly. A representation of anything Best? Certainly not the best photos. I thought their photo selection was mediocre (at best) and at worst, just a crappy representation of our country’s most stunning visual landscapes. (My personal opinion is that only two of the images rise above “decent”, a couple more are “OK”, and the rest… ugh.)

If you’re like me, and are completely underwhelmed by this lackluster visual presentation, please contact the Editors of TravelandLeisure.com (second listing under the Comments & Questions section) and tell them that with visual features that use such poor quality photos, you see no compelling reason to return to the site in the future. With enough comments, maybe the editors will think twice before using photos that are merely (read: barely) (re-read: not even) good enough.