by successfulbob | art books, photography - art quote, photography education
I often find myself thinking am I really any good as a photo artist? Some days the answer is a timid yes… Some days not so much. Am I a pretender? Sometimes I just don’t know the answer. Which brings us to today’s Photo/Art quote.
“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”
― Steven Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
Personal projects are a fabulous way to stretch when confidence wanes.
I want to share a TED TALK with Miru Kim who explored ruined urban spaces with a camera and an imagination to tell a story. You can see she is really brave with her art but nervous to talk about it. Called My Underground Art Watch and see if any ideas occur to you. Spread your wings. Open your mind – and see where you are taken….
Yours in Photography, Bob
PS – You don’t have to do your personal project naked…
by successfulbob | photography, photography education, photography gear, photography software
“It’s not a question of IF you are going to have a hard drive fail, it’s a question of WHEN you will have a hard drive fail!” That quote is from a computer geek friend. The question is,
“ARE YOU READY??”
Obviously we need to back up our images but many photographers don’t have a great system in place. Ideally you would have a proper RAID system that is also backed up to a secondary location and everything is done automatically. But, we are talking some big bucks and high tech stuff there so I’m going to share the way I take care of my stuff. It’s a little more work but it is a plan.
There are four hard drives in my computer. One is for the Operating System and programs only. I try not to save many images or files to this main drive as it gives the best performance in allowing your main drive to also operate as the main space for your calculations to occur. Mine is called MACINTOSH HD. The other three drives are for the main data I need to store and labeled as such. WEDDINGS – COMMERCIAL – ART FILES. Each of these drives is cloned to another drive of the same name MACINTOSH HD – WEDDINGS BACKUP – COMMERCIAL BACKUP – ART FILES BACKUP.
Please note I did not say copied, I said cloned. This is important especially for the main OS drive. When you copy you have the data but you don’t have the ability to Boot up your computer. With a cloned drive you have a complete drive ready to start up your computer. Why is this important? (yeah I said it again it really is important!) If your main drive goes down and you need to recreate it you need to load in an OS, load ALL of your programs and reset ALL of your preferences and setting to do with the computer. It often takes a day or two to get things loaded then another week to really get all your settings back in place. If you had cloned your drive – you take the clone – Boot up your computer and clone that information into the drive that needed to be replaced and you are back to work full speed in about an hour or less.
OK Bob how do you do it??
Here’s the skinny. I work with a unit called Voyager from Newer Technology that sells for about $79 that allows me to work with hard drives that are not in enclosures. This makes for a less expensive back up solution because you are not paying for the enclosures and fans and various electronics each time you buy a hard drive. When I went to this link it was only $37! Way cool you need two anyway ultimately.
Newer Technology Voyager with inserted Hard Drive. You just pop different drives in and out to clone each one.
I’m on a MAC so I can only attest to the software I use called Carbon Copy Cloner. I available for $39.95 and will be the best bucks you spend on, as they say, “Saving your Bacon!” With Carbon Copy Cloner, your data and the operating system’s data are all preserved on a bootable volume, ready for production at a moment’s notice. When disaster strikes, simply boot from your backup and get back to using your Mac. At your convenience, replace the failed hard drive and then let CCC restore the OS, your data and your settings directly from the backup in one easy step. This is a great way to protect you when you are upgrading to a new OS also because you will still have a copy of your old setup until you know that all is working well until you clone the new system over it.
For PC users just click to search ‘pc clone software‘ and you’ll learn which software will work for you.
Hard drives from my back up system.
You notice there are more than four drives in my back up pile. That’s because in addition to the base drives housed in my computer tower I also have some drives for specific subject matter or specific clients who require a lot of storage. That’s why you need the second Voyager so you can clone from drive to drive.
Not a pretty system but a useful one. It doesn’t matter if you embrace this system but, run don’t walk, to get some sort of back up system in play before you end up shelling out a bunch of bucks to try and recover your data someday.
Yours, in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | marketing, photography education, success education
You need to stay in front of the people in your community. One of the ways to keep out there is by sending out press releases. You know I’m a fan of this piece of the marketing puzzle and I want to make you one also. Here’s another article that appeared in Sedona’s local entertainment newspaper/magazine to show you that it works…
Kudos article on Bob Coates Photography & AZPPA Convention Competition Results
This particular article is about some success in imaging competition. I am a huge fan of entering competition at the local, state, region and National levels especially when you have access to viewing the competitions and getting critiques of your work. It pushes you to take your work to the next level. And that’s a huge benefit for you and your clients. Learn more about image competition at PPA.
When we pursue this press release avenue it is a win/win/win situation. It’s a win for the newspaper or magazine because they get well written content that doesn’t cost them a lot of time or money to use. It’s a win for your community because they get to learn about you and your skills. And, it’s a win for you because you are kept front of mind in your community in a positive way that you really can’t pay for… Learn more about writing and sending press releases by checking in here.
If you need some help with your marketing give me a call. Coaching rates are very reasonable. The first hour is no charge if you don’t think I’ve been a help to you… then you don’t pay – No hard feelings.
Yours in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | landscape photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography, photography education
Mirrors are funny critters… They will lie to you as you look at them thinking, “Wow, I look good!” Whoops! wrong blog post. Back to our regularly scheduled conversation…
The focus point in a mirror is on a totally different plane than the frame that contains it. Been caught by the, photographed the bride in the mirror and found either the subject you wanted to have in focus in the glass or the surrounding area surprisingly out of focus?
Here a possible work-around when you would like to have everything in focus but don’t have time to get on a tripod with a really small aperture. And even if you had time to do that you still might not have enough DOF to make it work. This is an extreme example with several focus points in play. The background which has the sign telling us where we are. The side view mirror on the car. The side view mirror. And the convex utility mirror for helping to keep the driver out of accidents. All are important to telling the story I want to share so I made an exposure for each of those individual surfaces then blended them together in Adobe Photoshop. Here’s the result…
The assembled photo with all the pertinent information in focus. Bell Rock Vista in Sedona, Arizona.
Here are the raw captures before assembly.
Photographed with the Lumix GX7 and the 35-100 f2.8 Vario Lens while focusing through the range of the scene.
Now how about that bride shot with mom reflected in the mirror and crying???
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to give me a shout or comment on this post.
Yours in Photography, Bob
by successfulbob | photography, photography books, photography education
Even if you are a seasoned photographer, if you are new to the Lumix GX7 & Lumix GM1 you’ll get a lot out of Rob Knight’s book From Snapshots to Great Shots. I picked up some great tips for set-up of these cameras. These are more like computers with all the possibilities available. Being able to find the quickest ways to work the menus make these cameras extremely versatile. Check it out here…
Panasonic Lumix GX7 and GM1From Snapshots to Great Shots book by Lumix Luminary Rob Knight.
by successfulbob | commercial photography, Lumix GH3, Lumix Lounge, people photography, photography, photography education
The Sedona Integrative Medical Clinic was a great opportunity to shoot in many different styles of work on one job. The catchphrase of Bob Coates Photography is ‘Making people, places and products look better than good.” Here was the job. Head shots, group shot, action images (for sense of place) and product images.
What a great group of people! I went to get some Physical Therapy from Eric and suggested I might be able to help in dressing up the Sedona Integrative Medical Clinic’s web site and marketing material. First on the docket was to update the Facebook header with a group image of the staff.
Nicole, Dom, Linda, Eric, Tera and Vanessa. Staff of the clinic.
I was looking for a very clean background and went with white to help give a clean medical feel. The font is Trajan Pro from their logo to tie together with previous marketing and is reversed with a drop shadow to keep with the white theme. Images were captured with the Lumix GH3 with a trigger to set off studio lights I brought in for the job. Paul C Buff lights were used one equipped with a shoot-through umbrella. A second light was outfitted with a regular umbrella on the same side as the shoot though for form fill. This gives a nice shape to the faces but doesn’t let the shadow side go too dark.
One suggestion I make for offices with multiple people is to photograph each individual separately and then assemble them into the group photo. This saves trying to rally all the staff for a new photo when there is a change of personnel. When that happens now we only need to photograph the new employee, remove the employee that is leaving and insert the new employee in the image. This saves tons of time and allows the staff photos to be up-to-date with little additional fuss or the cost of redoing the entire photo. Many different styles of background or lighting may be chosen with this approach.
I also set up a quick faux studio to highlight different product lines offered for sale. If this was a shoot for the manufacturer’s advertising there would have been a lot more attention to detail and lighting, but since this is just for web use I think we did OK using the ivy wall as a background and white surface as the base. I had Dom hold a scrim over the product in order to control the overhead lights giving an even illumination with no hot spots. Here are a couple examples…
Using a shallow depth of field allows the product to come forward in the photo.
Light coming form the window behind adds depth and dimension by
also helping to separate the product from the background.
The scrim Dom is holding spreads the light and keeps distracting
highlights from taking your attention away from the product.
I always ask in my business blog posts, “How may I help you tell your business story in a professional way?? Give me a call or drop me an email to have a chat about your wants and needs. No obligation and as always if you aren’t thrilled with the images we’ll work it again or I’ll refund your money.” And give them contact information.
I’ll show you some more images tomorrow that help tell the story of the clinic.
Yours in Photography, Bob
