Stop Whining About Your Equipment, Get Out There And Shoot!

Every day I get emails from photographers asking which camera to buy so they might become better photographers. STOP!  Use what you have, get out there and shoot! As Darren Rowse wrote in a recent article about camera lust ”Sometimes I think our lust for cameras and gear could be getting in the way of actually becoming better photographers.” I have to agree with that statement.
I love using a good camera and an L lens as much as the next photographer. That new camera and expensive lens does not create a good picture. You do! And processing software? Photoshop, Lightroom or Aperture will not turn a bad picture into a good one, but they will certainly help make a good image even better.
A new camera will not make you a better photographer. Period. It will only make you a new camera owner.  To become a better photographer, learn to see.  Learn to see the new and see the familiar as new.  Get out there every day on photo walks.  Work on a daily or weekly project. Give yourself assignments or goals.  Most importantly – get outside your comfort zone!  Shoot, shoot and shoot some more.
If your work is not improving and you have the money, then buy more gear and help the economy.  If your work is improving, and you feel limited by the equipment you have and you have the funds, then maybe it’s time to invest in a better camera body or a new lens.
I used the most basic gear for years.  Even as I turned pro, I kept using the same equipment for quite a while. Sometimes my clients had better cameras than I had!  I upgraded my gear gradually only as my client base grew and I could afford it.  I did not go into debt and honed my skills as a result. I am very grateful for that.
It’s true that a more advanced – and expensive – camera system can improve your work, but only if you already know how to make a good picture with your current equipment.  Everyday I see dozens of amazing images shot with basic cameras or iPhones. I also see plenty of bad pictures shot with fancy, expensive equipment. When someone sees a truly great image, they don’t ask which camera was used. They say, “Wow, who took that amazing photograph?” After a piano performance, no one ever asks the concert pianist whether she was playing on a Yamaha or a Steinway. The audience is moved by the performance, not by the piano. Let’s face it, the most iconic photographs of the last century were all made with far less sophisticated equipment than the most basic point and shoot we have today, but they all had something in common: They were made by people with passion and vision.
Inspiration is everywhere – online, in photography books and in the work of others. Get inspired, but don’t try to copy them!  The idea is for you to develop your own style, not imitate others. Style comes with vision, technical expertise, and experimenting – it takes time to develop. A better camera may make you look cool, but it will not provide you with photographic style.
Limitations are challenges that can serve you well.  For example, even if you own ten different lenses, carry just one on your photo walks.  That one lens will help you see your familiar world in new ways – and your back will thank you later!  Maybe you can only afford a used DSLR and a 50mm f/1.8 – then take some awesome pictures with that.  Either way, in the long run you will improve your craft and shoot some killer images along the way.
We all have to start somewhere. Our camera is just a tool. It’s okay to lust after the latest gear, we all do to some extent, but stop whining and wishing you had the latest Canon or Nikon. Get out there and use what you have.  That is what will make you a better photographer.
Happy shooting!

Instagram and its Impact on the World of Photography

Instagram and its Impact on the World of Photography:
A Guest Post by Guy Prives.
If you were not on a hot-air balloon for a journey around the world or in a Tibetan monastery on a pilgrimage yet have experienced these images on Facebook then it’s likely you’ve already been exposed to Instagram.
“Instagram” the photo-sharing application, recently bought by Facebook, allows participants to shoot, edit and share photos with users of the application through the personal world of each one of us. The network allows us to react and give feedback in the form of “Likes” and comments.
I have lived in the world of photography for several years and keep a close eye on every new and innovative discovery in this field. It is this reason I was exposed to this application at an early stage; more than a year ago now. After just a brief observation I fell in love with it and started to upload not only photographs I had taken with my own cell phone but also many pictures that I had taken with my camera. I like to share my work and images that reflect my personal life with my friends both of which increase in number as time goes on.
When I started using this application, Instagram was still in its initial stages. Most of the network members were from the Far East where such applications are highly developed due to tech savvy culture and high standards of technological and cellular industries. I set myself a goal; to succeed to make my photos appear within the most popular collection of images and if an image did not managed to get there I would define it as a failure.
After a long period in which the application was not so popular I put it on the shelf and abandoned it. Only a few months passed and I found that in that short space of time the application had gained dramatically in popularity. I decided this was the time to come back and share my photos on it.
I must admit, although I am a professional photographer, I sin very often, taking photos directly from my iPhone because I feel too lazy to get my professional camera out of the bag/home.
Instagram led to a very interesting phenomenon that could possibly change the world of photography from one end to another. Almost suddenly people who seldom took pictures of their daily life encounters, began to photograph the world around them on a daily basis, increasing and discovering a love for photography. Some have gone even further and consequently decided to study photography.
A question that been asked by my colleagues was:

“What direction is the photographic world going in?”.
“Is this phenomenon, which has brought the art and culture of photography to the forefront and to places and people who were not originally exposed to it, turning its initial audience into amateur photographers urgently and suddenly into millions of pseudo photographers a positive or negative phenomenon?”
“Is the photographic world that previously wasn’t charming to hundreds of millions of people suddenly the hot topic? Does that, therefore, leave dust to creep into other areas?”
“Has the way the hobby has progressed so dramatically to assistant photography moved it closer to an individual art genre or turned it to a banal category of its own?

It’s clear to all of us that the world is moving towards one direction. Technological developments that come up frequently will continue to surprise us in the coming years. The result of the current development in the form of the Instagram has helped the field of photography reach tens of millions of new people. Every one of us has a never-ending creativity and a different perspective which we see around us. Although most of these application users tend to take photos with their cell phones and not with professional cameras, the processing and editing applications available can surprise us with high quality images as an automatic process that has a final professional finish.
Maybe my opinion is different from the professionals that surround me in everyday life but my opinion is clear; I believe Instagram is a blessing although in a different way from what I initially thought. In the end it serves the purpose for which I and my fellow photographers get up in the morning with a smile on our face. That reason is this; Instagram provides amateur photographers with the tool to share their art with others while receiving additional tools for developing creativity and observation to detail. Additionally even I, as a photographer, leave the house sometimes without my big camera which makes my dependence on my mobile phone endless. The fact that it incorporates a high quality camera allows me to be constantly sharp as if I’m at work and looking for new frames each time my eyes espy a new “strip” during my daily life.
In addition to his big sister; the Facebook network, Instagram as a social network gives us the opportunity to meet new people and see the world through the eyes of others who live in different, new, interesting places and learn about their culture. The network allows us to follow a guy from New York and see the Big Apple in an entirely different and cultural way from how it is usually projected. We can keep track of people from different countries and see that life in a certain place is not the way we assume or are led to believe. Even the way we see our country can be dynamically challenged when it is reflected in the eyes of another person with different opinions, views and artistic vision.
I cannot reach an unequivocal answer as to whether Instagram is contributing or will contribute to the photography field. The fact that this field is in the headlines these days, thanks to this application, makes my colleagues and me very happy and there is a feeling that, at last, a reality that I had hoped for, for years of my life has come completely naturally into the home of others.
UPDATE: Please vote in our poll – Are you on Instagram?
Look for me at Instagram @guyprives
Guy Prives is a photographer based in Tel Aviv, Israel and teaching photography at Galitz School of photography. Guy discovered his love of photography during a long trip to South America, and now this passion to capture the moment with a click of the camera has been with him ever since. Check out more of his work at his website.

Understanding the Lightroom Catalog and File Management System

Understanding the Lightroom Catalog and File Management System:

The SLR Lounge Lightroom 4 DVD

This tutorial has been transcribed from the SLR Lounge Lightrom 4 DVD, a 14 hour A – Z video tutorial guide on mastering Lightroom 4 including over 6 hours of developing techniques!

Introduction

It is absolutely vital that every photographer using Lightroom has a full understanding of the Lightroom catalog system in order to prevent workflow issues. While this article may sound basic, even the most advanced Lightroom users will probably find some golden bits in this article, so don’t skip! In this article, we will be covering several main points which are stated below:
1) Non-Destructive Editing

2) Lightroom Previews

3) Understanding the Catalog System

4) File Management

5) One Catalog or More?

6) Recommended Best Practices

1. Non-Destructive Editing

We commonly hear the term non-destructive editing vs destructive editing. But, let’s take a brief moment just to discuss it to make sure we are all on the same page in regards to what is non-destructive editing. Non-destructive editing simply means that any modifications made to an image are not changing the original image. This would mean that with a non-destructive editor (i.e. Lightroom) you would be able to revert back to the original image at any point in time, regardless of how long or how many changes have been made. Photoshop on the other hand would be an example of a destructive editor since changes that are made to an image are saved directly over the original image, thus destructively editing the original file. For this reason, when we work in Photoshop we always suggest that you are work in PSD files and creating multiple layers to ensure that we preserve each change or step all the way back to the original file. So, if Lightroom isn’t actually modifying images, then what are we seeing when we modify develop settings inside of Lightroom.

2. Lightroom Previews

When we see changes being made inside of Lightroom as we are adjusting Develop settings, what we are seeing is actually just a “preview” of what that image would look like were the settings applied to the image. These settings and changes that we are making, won’t actually be applied to the image until you “Export” the image from Lightroom. When you Export the image, Lightroom will take the original file, process it with the settings that were used on that file, and save it as a separate file based on your Export Settings.

Message shown in Lightroom 4 when previews are being rendered

Ever notice while moving from one image to the next (particularly in the Develop Module) that Lightroom pauses and shows “Loading” as shown above? This is Lightroom preparing the image previews on the fly. To save time, we always recommend that prior to developing your images you “Render 1:1 Previews” for all of your images. You can do this by going into the Library Module, turning off all filters so all images are visible, then selecting the following from the menu:
Library –> Previews –> Render 1:1 Previews
This will save enormous amounts of time during developing since Lightroom will no longer have to pause to render a preview when moving from image to image, or when zooming into an image.

3. Understanding the Catalog System

So, given that Lightroom is a non-destructive editor and what we see inside of Lightroom is simply a preview, then what exactly is being stored inside of the Lightroom Catalog file? The Lightroom Catalog file, or .lrcat file, only contains information. In fact, you can think of the .lrcat file as simply a giant database storing the metadata, attributes, develop settings and any other organizational information related to your images. However, the actual images ARE NOT being stored in the Lightroom Catalog. Lightroom is simply referencing those images at a particular location on your hard drive. Knowing this is important because when Lightroom asks you if you want to “backup your Lightroom Catalog” you know then that you are only backing up the information and not the actual images themselves.
During import, there is an actual option where you can backup the actual images in the catalog, however beyond this feature you will need to make backups of your images on your own. This backup option can be found by going to the Import Dialogue (Ctrl + Shift + I or Cmd + Shift + I for Mac).
Then selecting the “Make Second Copy To” option in the File Handling Panel on the right side of the Import Dialogue.
If you wish to make an entire backup of the images within a catalog along with the catalog file directly from Lightroom, there is one other option available.
From the Library Module, Right Click on the folder containing your images in the Folders Panel in the Left Panel display. Select “Export this Folder as a Catalog” and choose a destination as shown below.
This option will take all of the images within the folder and export them as a completely new catalog with its own .lrcat file. It will also preserve all existing develop settings, metadata, attributes, etc. On a side note, it is also useful for making a selection of images, and breaking of just the selected images as a new catalog.

4. File Management

Since Lightroom only stores the information related to your photos, we know that Lightroom has to be pointing or referring to the images somewhere on your hard drive. If you have ever had the ? appear over an image in Lightroom, or had Lightroom tell you a file is “missing” it is because Lightroom has essentially lost the reference to where those images are located as shown below?

This will happen when you move or rename image locations outside of Lightroom. In this situation, you simply need to tell Lightroom where the images have been moved to. For this reason, we recommend putting the Lightroom catalog and the original images into the exact same folder.
So, for example if we just got back from London and I wanted to import my images into Lightroom. I might create a new folder called:
2012.03.01 – London Family Trip
Inside of that folder I would have catalog and images stored in the following folders
00_Originals

Catalog
It would look like the following:

Because the images and the catalog file are in the same parent folder, if I need to move my catalog I can take everything at once by simply moving the 2012.03.01 – London Family Trip folder. If I rename the same parent folder to something else, the Lightroom Catalog would still link to the images correctly since they are stored in the 00_Originals folder inside of the parent folder.
However, if I need to change the name of the 00_Originals folder at any point in time, this is a change that you will want to make from Lightroom by Right Clicking on the folder and “Renaming” it. If you make this change from your OS file system, then the image locations will be broken inside of Lightroom, and you must update it manually.
If your images are missing, to update the location simply Right Click again on the Folder and select “Find Missing Folder” selecting the new updated location for your images as shown below.

5. One Catalog or More?

We often are asked whether photographers should have only one Lightroom Catalog for all of their images, or have multiple Lightroom Catalogs for every single shoot. There are most certainly benefits to each, the two primary benefits are discussed below:
Catalog Size – The biggest drawback to having a single catalog file for all your images is the catalog size. Despite what Adobe says, Lightroom catalogs do indeed slow as the catalog sizes increase. Now, this isn’t typically noticeable until you reach around 15,000 + images within a single catalog. However, there is a difference. If you do have large catalog sizes, we would recommend using the File –> Optimize Catalog feature from time to time to optimize the catalog efficiency. The other downside to having large catalogs is having large image folders where your images are stored. Transferring or backing up from one drive to another can become extremely cumbersome.
Usability – The biggest benefit to having a single catalog file for all your images is the fact that all your images can be searched, found and edited within a single Lightroom catalog. Since Lightroom catalogs are independent of each other, images within other catalogs cannot be searched and found from Lightroom, unless that specific catalog is open.

6. Recommended Best Practices

So, in regards to the question above, here is what we would recommend, though each one of you will need to make the final decision on your own depending on your workflow and preferences:
The Casual Shooter – For the casual shooter that shoots maybe 10 – 25 pictures a week, we would recommend that you put all of your images into a single Lightroom catalog as you will benefit most from having all of your images stored in one single location. Perhaps every 10 years or so, when your catalog exceeds 15,000 – 20,000 images, then you might want to archive your existing Lightroom catalog and create a new one.
The Frequent Shooter – For the frequent shooter who captures around 50 – 250 images a week, I would recommend that you create a yearly Lightroom catalog file. This will make sure your Lightroom catalogs still remain efficient in terms of speed, while still having decent usability given that to find a particular image, you just need to know the year it was shot.
The Event Shooter – For the event shooter who frequently captures around 1000+ images per event/shoot, I would recommend that you create a Lightroom catalog for each client/event. For the event shooter, efficiency is the primary priority since you need to be able to move through catalogs, edit, transfer and archive at a good speed. The downside here is to find images for say a portfolio, you will need to pull up each client’s catalog.

7. The Lightroom 4 DVD

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial! For those of you that truly want to master every facet of Lightroom 4, be sure to check out the SLR Lounge Lightroom 4 DVD . Quoted as the best and most comprehensive video tutorial guide with nearly 14 hours of education covering every LR4 topic from A – Z including over 6 hours of basic and advanced developing techniques specifically for Lightroom 4.

Beauty and Portraits on a Budget

Beauty and Portraits on a Budget:

White V-Flat as fill behind

If you have ever had any interest in beauty or portraiture, but found yourself frustrated not being able to afford expensive lighting, studio space and more – fear not! With a quick visit to a local signage or art supply store you can buy the right supplies to create some very simple and striking beauty images and portraits.

What’s a V-Flat?

What’s a V-Flat? In short – your ticket to cleaner beauty work on a budget. Also sometimes known as a book, it’s essentially two large pieces of mounting board taped together in the middle with gaffer’s tape (a commonly used studio tape). They’re white on one side, black on the other and fold together to create a “book.”
Many local art shops or signage stores carry a variety of materials you can use to make your V-Flats. Check around for mounting board, gatorfoam or foam core. You’ll want two 4ft x 8ft pieces to make one V-Flat – and try to get them around a half inch to inch thick. Anything thinner and you’ll chance them falling over on you all the time. They cost around $50-100 a piece and can be used in a variety of ways for beauty and portrait images.

Model in V-Flat in studio

White, Black and Backlighting

So how do you use them for beauty work? One great way I’ve found is to fold them into a simple triangle – photo history buffs might know this technique as an Irving Penn triangle. Place your subject near the front and fold the triangle around them. From here find an open but shades light source – an open garage door, a bright sun room or even outside with your back to the sun. The great part is you don’t need an expensive space – just the ability to use an even natural light.
This two sided v-flat allows you to create three different looking beauty lights. When folded with the black side facing you, place your subject very near the front and make sure the triangle edges are right at each shoulder. This creates a strong front light with a sharp drop off in light that allows the subject to pop out from the background. This can work great for black and white portraits as well.

Black V-Flat behind

Flip over to the white side behind your subject and you can create a lighter backdrop and clean background. This is great for fresher portraits and smiling faces. A third option is to backlight your subject and let the background blow out, sticking the flat open on the white side at your back. This reflects enough light back to add a nice fill, while still allowing the background to go.
You’ll find some examples of each shot in this post. Simple as that, you’re on your way to some catching and budget friendly beauty images.

5 Tips for Creating a Workflow for Speed Portrait Shoots

5 Tips for Creating a Workflow for Speed Portrait Shoots:
When I was in Colombia last month, my photography team took on the challenge of photographing portraits for an entire orphanage full of adorable and energetic children. We had about 20 minutes one morning to photograph all 60 or so kids. There would be no other opportunity to do so again, so we had to be spot on the first time.
Envision: On location. 5 photographers. 60 kids.
We had about 15 minutes to organize and prepare. Ultimately we wanted all the photos to have a cohesive but creative series so the orphanage could use them later. Here is the workflow we developed for a smooth and organized portrait shoot.

1. Find the Perfect Location

The first backdrop we chose was the side of a distressed wood building. The warmer tones were pretty, but after some discussion, we decided that the building was not true to “Colombia” – the audience may think the photos were from any rural place in the world. To make it more unique to Colombia, we chose a path between two buildings, with Colombian bush in the background.

2. Be Sure About Lighting

Sunlight is known to change within just a few minutes. While we didn’t want every portrait to look cookie cutter, we did want the lighting to be unified across all the portraits. We could have had the children stand in the direct light, but settled on the shade cast from the side of a building. We also added a reflector to even out the skin tones and capture beautiful catch lights.

3. Get Variety from the Posing

To fly through a set of portraits without making them all the same, have a list of poses you can draw from. With 12 or so number of poses, you can change up little details to make each pose unique – such as how a hand is placed or the angle of the head.

4. Use Identical Settings

Even though multiple photographers were shooting, we wanted all the portraits to have a unity about them so there was not a distinction between photographers. We placed all the cameras on the same settings to achieve these results.

5. Be Fun and Exciting

The most challenging part of a speed shoot is having the ability to make every child smile in a matter of seconds. The person who is the most engaging and entertaining ought to be the one directing the child’s attention. Genuine smiles are always the best for portraits, but it’s not always easy to capture.
Our speed shoot was a smashing success. Every element we worked through in the organization ultimately yielded portraits of each child that were beautiful and authentic. I for one, and more than pleased with the results.
Note: Images of Children withheld for privacy