A couple rock climbing near the top of Cathedral Ledge. Echo Lake State Park in North Conway, New Hampshire. White Mountains.

This last April I attended the American Society of Picture Professionals’ reinvention weekend in Boston, and the major theme was finding ways for those working in the picture industry to keep working while the landscape of the industry is rapidly changing.  Both stock and assignment prices have been deteriorating for years, if not decades, challenging both stock agencies and photographers to change business tactics in order to survive.  It’s no secret what is causing the decline in prices – digital technology. To some extent, digital cameras have leveled the playing field on the content creation side of things.  More importantly, digital distribution has drastically reduced the cost of selling images.  On the stock side of the business, digital distribution (first in the form of royalty-free CDs, then with the advent of microstock) has enabled stock companies to be profitable without charging large rights-managed fees as the administrative costs of managing a large stock library have been drastically reduced due to digital image management and distribution.  Lower stock prices have also led to lower assignment fees, both on the commercial and editorial side of the business, though to a greater extent in the editorial world, as newspapers and magazines are downsizing and going out of business.

Here is a very quick tip: See the light.

Look for the direction of light (above: back light), the contrast range in a scene (above: medium), and the color of light (above: warm).

In the opening shot for this post, back light, which created beautiful rim light, makes the shot more than snapshot. The back light also adds a sense of depth to the image, much like a background light adds a sense of depth to a portrait.

Less Is More
I try not to do too much editing to my images, with the thought process that if an image requires too much work to get it looking good, I should just go and shoot it again. However when using Photoshop, one of the things that I quickly learned was this…shortcuts make editing a much faster process. There are however MANY to be learned, so I thought I’d go back to basics with a video to show a few of the more commonly used ones as a beginners guide. They may be simple, but once learned, I guarantee they will speed up your editing.

Further down you can see a brief list of what is covered in the video for quick reference. However do check out the video to see examples of them in action, as well as a couple of extra tips that show examples of how you can really use them to your advantage.
 

In a nutshell
The video above talks about and demonstrates the following basic functions amongst other tips:

B to select the paintbrush
S to select the clone stamp
C to select the crop tool

In 1978 Rick submitted an image and article to Studio Photography Magazine.  On this first submission, the magazine invited him to be their editor.  Rick traded in one keyboard for another, and entered the publication world.

Much as been written on the web about waiting years and years for all the elements in a scene to come together for a “once-in-a-lifetime shot.”

That’s all well and good, and sometimes it’s true.

But sometimes a good shot is just dumb luck. Here is an example.

In the above photograph, the five subjects are completely isolated, the side lighting is wonderful, the reflection is perfect, the background is effective in adding to the “sense of place” of the image, the dog adds an extra element of interest, and the exposure is good.

Fourth of July is right around the corner. For all shutterbugs of all levels, that means we are all thinking about capturing that most quintessential of Fourth of July image - fireworks.

If this will be your first time shooting fireworks, or if even you are a seasoned pro, I’ve put together some tips that I hope will appeal to you.

Out of all of these helpful hints, I'll give you an important pointer up front: do some research! See what various people are recommending on the net. Don't just read this article--read a bunch!  Just like a a recipe, there are a hundred different ways to make the perfect meatloaf. Pick and choose which recipes you follow. Bon Appetite!

Ready for my recipe? Here we go…

Grand Tetons, HDR Stitched Panorama - ©2010 Juan A. Pons (click to enlarge)

I am not much of a landscape photographer, I tend to concentrate more on wildlife, but sometimes the landscape is so majestic, as it is in the Grand Tetons, that it is hard to make a bad image. I made this image (MAKE SURE to click on it to enlarge it) last week during my Spring Yellowstone & Grand Tetons photo workshop. We had some pretty uncooperative weather the first few days we where there, but we had a few occasions during those rainy days where we had a pretty clear view of the mountains.

That morning, I took the opportunity to make a large HDR & stitched panorama. This image was made by taking 18 individual frames. Here is a quick rundown of the process to making an image such as this.