This is a powerful LED light that’s solid for studio work and light enough to take on location. I appreciate the Color Rendering Index is a high 96 for clean color with no shifts. It produces lots of light 230 watts. It’s easier to show you how this light works than to write about it, so I invite you to check it out. See what I like, a lot, and a small issue or two to watch for…
Review LED Light – Godox LA200 Single color 5600k. Godox also makes a LA150 and bi-color versions.
If you have any comments or questions about this review let me know. BTW, I was able to keep this LED Light at no charge.
It’s interesting the turn my career has taken over the years. Commercial photographer, wedding photographer, portrait photographer, educator and writer. I’ve worked through many genres of photography and now concentrate on creating art, commercial imaging and education/writing.
Current writing ASP and The Photographer Magazines
Article in the Fall Issue of ASP Magazine
Here is are a couple magazine articles I’ve penned and had published recently. One is for American Society of Photographers (ASP). It was a follow-up to my photographing the Milky way article. This was on processing to take the images to the next level. Look for the Summer issue for planning and shooting. Fall issue was on post-production of Milky Way images. The camera, lens and long exposure collect way more information than your eye can see. Post processing reveals all the color and grandeur of the Milky Way.
Article in the latest issue of The Photographer Magazine
The other magazine article that just dropped was for ‘The Photographer’ magazine. It shares ideas on capturing water droplets in and artistic and colorful fashion. The Art of Photographing Water Droplets can be accessed and read here.
Photofocus online
Photofocus is an online magazine for which I write at least three articles a month, often more, for the last three years. This is in addition to writing for Successful-Photographer. Here are a couple links to the last articles I posted.
Weirdly enough all of my photography career has been some combination of photography, education including hands on and presentation to photography groups and writing about it. If you need a speaker, writer, photographer or Lens Based Artist, let me know!
American Society of Photographers (ASP) has announced their second annual image competition. Images of Distinction (IOD) was wildly successful in it’s inaugural year. Using the same criteria for judging, and Professional Photographers of America jurors the event is a great way to get feedback on your photographic imagery. Check out the rules at PrintCompetition.com And get start getting your images ready.
ASP Images of Distinction February 25-26, 2022
What’s different?
IOD uses scores on the first day of judging. The following day there is image commentary for all makers who wish to receive feedback on their work. This is an invaluable part of the learning process to get your images ready for Professional Photographers of America’s (PPA) International Photographic Competition (IPC). Kristy Steeves shares her thoughts on how the process helped her achieve Diamond status in the Artist category and Platinum in the Open categories at PPA’s IPC.
I interview Kristy about last years ASP – IOD success and why you’ll benefit from entering.
https://youtu.be/-02oPm0LV6Y
The fifth, and final, installment of a five-part series on getting your photo book into print from my photographer friend Sara Frances. Start with Part One.
Getting your Book Out There
Thought you were done, once You’ve done a great design and edited away any little errors?! To make your book findable on the web, on Amazon, in libraries and stores you must have an ISBN (with barcode for the cover) and preferably also a Library of Congress number. The LOC is a free sign-up on line, the ISBN will cost $35 as of last report at Bowker.com. Don’t forget to copyright!
John Fielder is a star with his extensive line of fine landscape books and accessories; this image from Colorado Black on White. Note this is a chapter heading page, reading like a story.
You’re ready for the next part of the game: warehousing, distribution, wholesaling, fulfillment, and PR. Unless you have a huge garage, insured, heated to accommodate several pallets of heavy, bulky boxes, you need a distributor. And are you planning to take orders, pack and ship, take returns, vet stores for their business licenses and payment, collect and report sales taxes, keep track of inventory? Not a wrong answer; especially for a limited, short run doing this yourself makes sense.
Here’s the reason I enjoy John’s work so much: he writes little experiences about his hikes, the weather and unexpected things he encounters in nature. Not just picture books!
A possible distributor
My distributor, Thin Air Collective is run by Melissa Serdinsky (formerly of Perseus and Ingram). She’s decided to go the small business route to help artists, photographers, memoirists, and poets in particular. She’ll do it all the warehousing, order taking, credit card orders, store vetting, fulfillment, and accounting for you for a minimal fee, and I tell you she knows everyone and everything in this highly volatile industry. Both wholesaling (to an outlet that offers books from many difference publishers as a convenient on-stopper to stores) and special purchase sales (bulk purchase to a library system, non-profit, or corporate incentive gift) are under her purview as well. Tell her I sent you: melissa@thinairpub.com.
Early on, John decided to fill a niche with a series of self-published, regional interest books. He does everything, including high profile web sales and in-person appearances at special interest events, not just book stores. He’s a consummate promoter.
Promotion
But you can’t just rest and expect the orders to come in. PR on virtually all books, even by high profile authors, require a hands-on approach by you! Gallery events, gallery or bookstore or other venue talks (don’t expect a fee, and some venues require a minimum guaranteed book purchase or an organizer fee.) Facebook and Instagram are essential. Blog and postings weekly to lure readers with extra content are essential. No, you don’t continually ask, “Buy my book!” You give readers tips and anecdotes and insider information they can’t get elsewhere. Your public wants a connection. Start a mail list for your book: ConstantContact or iContact seem to be favorites. Offer gallery prints as a special deal along with a signed copy of your hard bound edition. Have links that make it easy for people buy. It’s a continuing job, but the public will love you for the value they receive!
Marty Knapp is another fine promoter. He emphasizes fine art print sales, but books and accessories help support his gallery. His email list is probably equal to John’s—and the model for the rest of us as we get started!
Sara Frances
Sara is a many-decades Master Photographic Craftsman out of Denver whose artistic focus has always been book making with images. Her albums won PPA merits starting well before digital capture, as well as for what is believed to be the first ever awarded portrait album. She has evolved from daily, shorter-term studio photography into exclusively special projects of long commitment. Her second hybrid photo/memoir art book, Fragments of Spirit, now published under her own mark, Photo Mirage Books, is available mid-December 2020.
Renewing her lifelong interest in creative writing, she was recently was accepted for Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Poetry Collective, graduating a year later with a forthcoming hybrid work marrying over 275 manipulated iPhone images with 120 poems: What to Wear to Paradise.
Her three-year quest to learn all facets of the art book industry has influenced her to give back with hands-on publishing classes. She is a judge for the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and for Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA.) She teaches for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Denver, for PPA Super One Day seminars, and also mentors hybrid image/text projects.
Number four of the five-part series on getting your photo book into print from my photographer friend Sara Frances. Start with Part One.
You are Designer and Editor
Paying outside services for book consultation, editing, cover, and design are the costs that put a book project out of reach to most photographers. Here’s the good news: your abilities with image making and with Adobe apps give you the tools to do this yourself. The power and facilities of Photoshop now provide almost everything you need; Both publishers and Adobe are noting that many books, including my own Fragments of Spirit, are now designed exclusively in Photoshop. Who better to select, sequence and design your photographic art into a beautiful book?
Cover of my own Fragments of Spirit showing both hard bound and soft bound versions. Note they must have separate ISBN numbers.
What do you need to know?
Once you’ve selected your eventual print house, query them about every detail of the specifications, and make a reference copy of all of this: file size and type, resolution, template, bleed margins, gutter, color space conversion, embedding images, vectors, layering, paper type and weight, cover stock, cover materials and debossing, single page or spreads, PDFs, FTPs, proofing, corrections, timing, delivery. You’ll be responsible for all of these, but it’s like paying yourself back for many things you already know how to do.
Three main pitfalls.
• Conversion to the specific CMYK required may make changes in your original file. Open the original and converted files side by side and compare as your monitor simulates that color space.
Go to View>Proof Setup>Custom and then a drop down menu. This is not sticky, so you have to recheck constantly, and it’s tricky to have two files open with different settings.
Where to find the Photoshop simulations of different color spaces. Click the Custom menu option for the long list, then save the ones you use most often lower down. Cover of an artist’s retrospective book I am currently designing for a museum.
• Different types of printing will require different contrast, saturation, and sharpness. This is an experience thing, and sometimes quite subtle. But you’re a stickler for precision, aren’t you? Ask (and pay) for a few pages in advance proofing to see directly what you need to do. Continuity is king. Sometimes proofing is with inkjet that will be similar, but not as sharp as the final printing, and possibly have a paper-driven color bias (this is not done on your studio Epson or Canon equipment.)
• Photoshop is a hybrid: not fully bitmap or vector in its file structure. Vector PDF submission is essential for all traditional offset printers I’ve encountered. I’ve found the easiest way to create the vector PDF is to open in Illustrator> convert layers to objects> save out as an Adobe PDF. Then Acrobat will take the single page or spread file and create one document. You’ll be uploading to the printer’s proprietary site.
Settings that make you look like a seasoned pro with type manipulation in Photoshop.
Sound like a lot?
Not really, because you are only adding a few nuances to the skills for every piece of commercial work you manipulate and enhance.
Want more detail? Sign up for my Zoom online 8-week class at Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of Denver, Boulder location. All teachers are unpaid volunteers. Next class starting 1/12/21.
Or, look for the next Professional Photographers of America Super One Day!
Sara Frances
Sara is a many-decades Master Photographic Craftsman out of Denver whose artistic focus has always been book making with images. Her albums won PPA merits starting well before digital capture, as well as for what is believed to be the first ever awarded portrait album. She has evolved from daily, shorter-term studio photography into exclusively special projects of long commitment. Her second hybrid photo/memoir art book, Fragments of Spirit, now published under her own mark, Photo Mirage Books, is available mid-December 2020.
Renewing her lifelong interest in creative writing, she was recently was accepted for Lighthouse Writers Workshop’s Poetry Collective, graduating a year later with a forthcoming hybrid work marrying over 275 manipulated iPhone images with 120 poems: What to Wear to Paradise.
Her three-year quest to learn all facets of the art book industry has influenced her to give back with hands-on publishing classes. She is a judge for the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) and for Colorado Independent Publishers Association (CIPA.) She teaches for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Denver, for PPA Super One Day seminars, and also mentors hybrid image/text projects.
Occasionally I'll send out a digest version of the blog posts on Successful-Photographer. I'm not a fan of Spam and I'm sure you are not. Your Email address is safe with me. Bob
For infrared conversion of my cameras I use LifePixel. Infrared allows you to put an older camera to use and opens up a new time time of day for productive image creation.
Learn Photoshop in a fun environment. Aaron Nace applies the right amount of fun with easy to understand and follow tutorials. Actions and brushes are included with lessons!
Luminar 4 and LuminarAI software from Skylum are creative tools. In addition to being a stand-alone program, I often use it as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop. Full of creative possibilities! Find all of the Skylum products by clicking on this link.
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Luminar 4 and LuminarAI
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Lightning, waterdroplets, sound, time-lapse, HDR sequences, smiles and much more control for your camera!
Cameras Get Smarter -
A High Speed Smart Camera Remote
