Photographer Tips | Real Photography

printing your files

Nov 02, 2012

When photographers first consider selling digital files, they have a minor panic attack because they lose control over the final product. Why do we care so much? Different labs are calibrated differently and many apply auto-adjustment programs to files before printing them which can mean very different results from different printers. I use a calibrated monitor so that what we see on our screen matches what our lab sends back to us. With consumer labs, we just don’t know what we’ll get back–it’s a bit of a gamble. I recently began using Costco for some of my own snapshots for Project Life and was seeing a wide range in how close the print was to the original image. As you can see in the samples below, sometimes the differences are very large, and sometimes they’re only slightly noticeable. (For my photog readers, I did not resize and sharpen these before sending them to my lab since clients don’t have that capability.) My takeaway from this quick experiment is that it’s a good idea to send a small print through a lab before buying that photo in a larger print–if you’re happy with the colors in the small print, then committing to that lab for the larger print is easy.

Posted in Photographer Tips

Photography Tip Tuesday: The Blind Monkey Factor

Feb 10, 2009

There’s an interesting essay in The Inner Game of Outdoor Photography about how much of photography is a leap of faith. Rowell compares photography to a type of cortical blindness that creates a situation in which your eyes function, but your brain is unable to process the image.

Monkeys with this blindness can be taught that though they don’t actually see consciously, they can fully function just like any other monkey. Running around obstacles, reaching and successfully grabbing objects, etc. But humans are too self-conscious to reach for things that they only *think* might be there and they therefore never regain the same level of functionality that a monkey can be taught.

What does this have to do with photography? A lot.

When we try to capture a scene, many times we are just blind monkeys reaching for something that we sense will show up on our computer screens after the image is captured by the camera sensor and we post-process it. This is especially true with wedding photographers, where you are often reacting to a moment on instinct.

Often times at weddings I won’t know exactly what I was seeing until I start proofing the images. Like this shot that is one of my favorite getting ready photos from the year:

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I adore that Belinda is completely surrounded by layers of wedding dress/underskirt. I love the texture and composition, but in the moment that I was taking the image, I didn’t consciously realize that THAT was the image I was taking. And you can tell, because here is the original:

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As you can tell, the original is not so good. There’s a bunch of extra STUFF going on in the background. So we crop it to get to the GREAT shot.

One of the great parts of proofing is discovering images like this. Where you couldn’t tell at the time exactly what the shot was, but when you get working on the image it’s obvious what the photo was supposed to be.

So the tip of the week is to be a blind monkey, not a blind human. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly the shot you’re taking at the time you take it. Snap that shutter anyway. You might only see what your subconcious saw after you download the image!

Posted in Photographer Tips

colorado springs family photographer | oplove session | palmer park

Feb 01, 2009

There are several great charity organizations that photographers can donate their services to. I volunteer with NILMDTS and OpLove, which both coincidentally have their headquarters in Colorado. They are both fantastic ways to give back, and if you’re a photographer looking for ways to help, definitely check out these organizations! I know they always need more volunteers!

Operation Love Reunited focuses on providing photography services to families of deployed military members. I love seeing how strong military families are, and today’s family was no exception! Araceli, Alondra, and Aliveigh were great at our portrait session today, in spite of the cold weather!

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You know how I love to photograph little boys? I also love to photograph sisters. These two are awesome sisters. Check out how they’re holding hands–I didn’t tell them to do that!

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