Usually the Sunday Photo/Art Quote is devoted to creative arts and how to get better as an artist. Today it’s kind of a two-pronged thrust tied in with business. We are artists. But if we don’t get paid enough and often enough we’ll be out of business and not able to stay in this creative field.
Today’s quote comes from a man who is all business, yet appreciates and collects art. He is the founder of the Wizard Academy (an out-of-the-box-place-of-learning) and writes a weekly piece you can subscribe to called the Monday Morning Memo. (I know I look forward to the Memo and the subsequent foray through the Rabbit Hole that touches on art, science, business, the weird, music, art – well you gotta go there to understand)
But I digress. Here’s today’s quote…
“Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind.” Roy H. Williams
The reason this quote came forward this morning was because I gave a talk to the professional photographers of Michigan on ‘Personal Projects – Why to do them, how to do them and how to make money doing them’. The talk ties creating art for it’s own sake and finding a way to monetize it. I realized that every project I assigned myself I ALWAYS learned something new and found it led to at least one, if not more, of these five things…
• Service to my community. • Press releases. • Photographic competition images. • Food. • Money.
And, not necessarily was that list in order of importance. Most of the time I wanted to learn a new skill and then found a way to tie it to the list for extra benefit.
Think about his quote. Sit with yourself and quiet your mind. (I know it can be hard to do with the circus running ’round in there!) But do your best. Relax. Clear. Be in this moment for a little while. Can you see the window? What is just outside that you would like to do? Dwell there for a bit. Expand the idea.
Go do it…
Yours in Creative Photography, Bob
PS – have some thoughts you’ like to share? I appreciate comments and moving this into a dialog. Agree? Disagree? Let me know….
Pulled into the driveway the other night and saw the full moon starting it’s ascent from the eastern horizon and I immediately ran for my camera. Now we’ve all had the wonderful (I say sarcastically) experience of photographing the moon and being disappointed by the amount of volume it took up in the entire image surface. You know, way too small for what we had in mind when we made the photograph.
The FZ1000 is 400mm at the long end of the zoom at f4. While solid even that is pretty short for something that is 238,900 miles (give or take a centimeter or two) away from the camera. The camera has a setting called Digital Zoom and shows and captures the image at a larger size. 1600mm in this case. This does degrade the image vs having optics do the job. But have you priced a 1600mm lens lately? In spite of a bit of degradation of image quality I like the Digital Zoom because I can see exactly how the image will fill the frame.
Even after cropping in there’s 2300 pixels of moon that when made smaller and placed in an art piece will have plenty of detail
Now are these images good for study of the craters on the moon’s surface? Heck no! But will they be good for art projects where a moon is needed? You betcha!
One way to add interest to a moon shot is to silhouette an object. I wish I had thought about this a bit more but didn’t have much time to scout out a more appropriate subject but you’ll get the idea with these mesquite branches starting to bud out with our warm weather.
Moon with mesquite branches
One thing to be aware of when attempting this when you have the foreground element in focus there will be a blob of light behind your subject. To help this along I took one of my plain moon images and placed it under the mesquite layer and put it into Multiply Blend Mode. This allowed the image of the moon with detail to show through.
Many photographers ask me, “Where do you get your ideas?”
And because I believe this artist says it ever so much better than I do I think I’ll turn most today’s Photo/Art Quote over to Chuck Close from a Facebook Post in Patron of the Arts.
“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Chuck Close
“The advice I like to give young artists, or really anybody who’ll listen to me, is not to wait around for inspiration. Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work. If you wait around for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to strike you in the brain, you are not going to make an awful lot of work. All the best ideas come out of the process; they come out of the work itself. Things occur to you. If you’re sitting around trying to dream up a great art idea, you can sit there a long time before anything happens. But if you just get to work, something will occur to you and something else will occur to you and something else that you reject will push you in another direction. Inspiration is absolutely unnecessary and somehow deceptive. You feel like you need this great idea before you can get down to work, and I find that’s almost never the case.” – Chuck Close
If you haven’t heard of Chuck before make sure you read up on his story and take a look at his work(remember these pieces can be HUGE) and his web site and you will be even more inspired to follow his advice and thoughts.
Here’s a different time lapse from the same location as a few days ago at Sound Bites Grill. Was able to set the tripod up on the deck that overlooks this wonderful scenery in Sedona.
This time I set the camera behind a red rock stone column in order to stay out of the gusts of wind that caused some extra work on my last time lapse at this location. I also unclasped the camera strap and tied down the camera for even more stability. I was able to do this quickly because I have the Peak Design Camera Strap. I really enjoy the ability to quickly be able to remove the camera strap when shooting video or time lapse images. This cuts down on the wind profile of the gear leading to to steadier capture. It also make it easy to change the type of strap if I’d rather use a wrist strap instead of over the shoulder. This is a pretty cool system with lots of options.
But I digress… How about the video Bob? Here you go…
Sunset time lapse in Sedona
I used similar settings as the last time lapse on the Lumix GX8 capturing a frame every three seconds processing out to a 4K video .MP4 in camera at 24 frames per second. Then taking that video into Adobe premiere Pro to add some Ken Burns movement through the scene.
I was hoping that the clouds your view scudding across the scene were going to be there as the sun snuck beneath the horizon and giving spectacular color, but alas, it did not. Such are the vagaries of predicting the weather.
Of note, as you study this time lapse be aware of the look of the red rocks after the sun has gone down and the sky begins to move toward cobalt blue and the density range begins to tighten up. This is an ideal time to capture the red rocks as the light is being reflected off of clouds and there’s lots of depth and dimension and beautiful color. I can’t tell you the number of times I will be at a scene with other photographers and they pack it up and leave moments after the sun sets. I wait that extra fifteen to twenty minutes AFTER the sun goes down to get much more intense images. Does it always work? Nope. but way more often than you might think and the rewards are worth it. I’ll address this in more detail in a future post.
Last night I had the honor & pleasure of sharing some thoughts & ideas with the students of Gene Devine’s Business Operations and Management for Photographers class at the Art Institute of Phoenix. It was a great group who asked the right questions about being in business.
I’m very glad that this kind of a course is available for those working to become professional photographers. The business of running a photography business is often neglected in classroom environments. Sure we all want to create fabulous photographs & art! But if we don’t understand how to market, price our work, run the business and know if we are making a profit or not we won’t be around very long as professionals.
Instructor Gene Devine ‘awarding’ me the Art Institute Cup! (so proud!)
If you are newer to photography as a business make sure you learn as much as you can about marketing, pricing, negotiation skills, bookkeeping and staying profitable. If you’ve been around the block a few times & are making it as a pro get out and share your business acumen with high school, college and other groups learning how it should be done to stay successful.
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.
Fotopro tripods are well worth checking out. You can learn about the ones I use and recommend by clicking on the Fotopro Tripods link at the top of this page. If you want to see what other tripods might fit your needs check out the Fotopro.com website. Check back with me before you buy as a Fotopro Ambassador I’m able to get you discounted pricing including complementary continental USA shipping for my followers that you won’t find through retail outlets.
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!
Lightning, waterdroplets, sound, time-lapse, HDR sequences, smiles and much more control for your camera!
Cameras Get Smarter -
A High Speed Smart Camera Remote
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Platypod has become a great resource for being creative in getting your camera gear easily into unusual places. As an Platypod Pro I get to work/play with the gear even before it comes out. Head over to Platypod, subscribe to the newsletter and you will get special discounts reserved only for subscribers.
“Every door of opportunity begins as a window in the mind.” Roy H. Williams
