by successfulbob | commercial photography, Lumix GX7, Lumix Lounge, photography education, success education
One of the ways I keep in shape with my photography skills is to practice and try new things on a regular basis. Yesterday I was having an IPA (that’s India Pale Ale for the brew bereft) I quickly photographed the chilled glass of beer and then the bottle before enjoying my libation… By the way it was quite tasty!
Then, before I went to bed I decided to build a mock up of a magazine ad for the brew. Here’s what I started with…
IPA beer bottle capture.
Frosted beer glass with a nice head. Images captured with the Lumix GX7 and the 20mm f1.7 lens.
Then it was off to Photoshop with three different textures and the tools to separate the bottle and the glass from the background. Using Layers and Blend Modes some drop shadows and a little VooDoo Magic I came up with this…
IPA ad mock up.
How have you stretched and practiced your skills lately?? Let me know…
Yours in Photography, Bob
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 software, success education
When prepping images from an event or wedding it used to take me quite a while to give a quick once-over to the images in order to make a proof gallery. Take the images that were shot in the same situation. Make some corrections get the color set and apply it to all the images from that portion of the shoot. Gather next set of images and repeat. It was pretty amazing how much time that ate up even though single adjustments were being made to multiple images it was still pretty hands on…
Now I’m using Perfectly Clear. I must admit I have had access to this software for quite a while but it takes a while for this old dog to jump on new tricks! Wish it wasn’t so. I had played with the software using it on an image here and there but i wish I had been a bit more diligent! Once I realized that you could batch process files while making up to 12 corrections in an image without touching them i started kicking myself for not utilizing the power of this software earlier.
Here’s a strip of a couple images from a batch process that includes three different scenes and would have needed me to touch multiple sliders in Adobe Camera RAW three different times, and that’s just part of the wedding…
Thumbnail view of two bridge windows of the same images. Top row – unprocessed RAW files. Bottom row – Images after running an action using Perfectly Clear Software. Cleaned up exposures. Smoothed skin tones. Neutralized white balance. Opened up shadows and more.
For today and tomorrow you can pick up this time-saver at 50% off. Sunday night and the price goes back up but after that you can still get it by using code COATES. Cool part is you can get the software right away, try it out for a month and if you don’t think it works for you get your money back. Take the time to save some time. Check it out. If you have any questions give me a shout.
Yours in Photography, Bob
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
