On Photographer’s Business Cards

Posted on February 4th, 2010 by admin

There seems to be a lot of debate about whether a photographer’s business card should have a picture or not. Some people feel that having a photo on your business card is strictly for porn stars and real estate agents. Others feel that not having the one thing that identifies who you are is a grave sin.

So what of all the division? Is it more professional to have a simple, elegant design with the words carrying the message; or is it better business to have the instant advertising and portable portfolio effect of a photo?

I’m divided too, so that’s why I’m doing both. I’m creating one run of cards with just graphics and text, something elegant and clean; as wells as having another run of cards (or several) with photos on them.

The thing is you have to feel out your potential leads. Some people will be a little more conservative and they’ll want the 12-point Garamond on cream-white stock, while others are a little more risque and will want the glossy picture of the dominatrix. And, as always there’s the entire spectrum of people in between. It’s been said that the surest way to failure is to attempt to be all things to all people, and that’s why having just one business card for all occasions is just not gonna work.

You have a full spectrum of work and styles and ideas, the business card should reflect that. Right tool for the right job.

Tags: advertising, business, card, interaction, marketing, photographer, promotion, publicity, relations | Category Uncategorized

Haven’t we learned anything?

Posted on January 29th, 2010 by admin

Where's your head at?

I like to go to Borders because I can browse through a lot of magazines very quickly and get a sense of what’s going on in the world of photography, technology, fashion, design, and style. There’s one thing I don’t understand though.

Do magazines think everyone is clueless about how to operate a DSLR? Why does this crap sell? It’s the same camera basics like aperture, focal length, shutter speed, and exposure that has been with us forever. The fact that it’s digital doesn’t change the basics, it just makes the more advanced stuff that much easier to handle.

All you need is a basic camera course

Every month, every issue, every publication has at least one article about this kind of thing and usually there’s quite a few pages dedicated to explaining the same things over and over, month after month.  The pictures here were all taken on the same day from different “Digital Photography” publications.

Please publishers, please stop this. It only serves to make us dumber. I don’t want or need another 10 page article on “Using High ISO Lets You Shoot in Dark Conditions!!!”

We know this, we know it because it’s in the camera’s instruction manual and every other blog article I see online. You could probably Google for “granola recipes” and find an article on ISO vs Shutter Speed vs Aperture.

Instead show me some articles on unique light modifiers and fresh lighting techniques. Or maybe ideas on fresh poses for those of us shooting models. Or — gasp — some business advice to help us make more money as shooters.

But not this.

Tired of it

Tags: dslr, learning, magazines, n00bs, tutorial | Category Uncategorized

Reinspiration

Posted on October 24th, 2009 by admin

LIRR

For most of 2009 I’ve been feeling pretty frustrated with my work. I’ve been feeling as if I’ve hit this brick wall in terms of style, technique, execution, skill… you name it and I’ve smashed my head against it. The whole thing has been really frustrating because 2008 was all about hitting new plateaus for me on all fronts.

Today I got the chance to attend PDN PhotoExpo ‘09 thanks to Dave at RacerX photo who was kind enough to send me a VIP code. Naturally as a diehard Canon shooter I went right over to their booth and they were good enough to have live demos going on all day as photographers would set up there and shoot models live while explaining their techniques. It really makes me wish I had been able to go Thursday and Friday to check out all the other shooters.

There were some really great booths there from lots of different vendors. My favorite by far was the PhaseOne/Leaf booth. A Russian sounding guy was getting the deluxe sales pitch from the PhaseOne booth guy when suddenly I hear “So… how much does this cost?”  and my ears suddenly perk up. The answer?

$44,000

That’s for the body, the lens, and the digital back. Now if you’re used to Medium Format stuff, this is no big shock to you… and honestly I was expecting something in that ballpark; but to actually hear it and see it in the flesh is another thing altogether. Then Mr. Booth Guy starts talking about native 16-bit capture, 60MP resolution, 1fps, and so many other juicy things that I damn near wet myself in the middle of the Jacob Javitz Center.

Sigma, Tamron, and Canon all had lenses and cameras I could play with live on the floor. Actually getting to use an 800mm IS lens or fisheye for the first time was just soooo exciting. TOYS EVERYWHERE!!

Lensbaby had a neat little booth with some great sales people demoing their newest stuff. Having never played with it before I was really super impressed, it looks like the pinhole stuff I started out with. And as excited as I was over all the fancy schmancy equipment, it was the lensbaby stuff that was the most fun. Sure it looked like crap, but it was GREAT crap, crap I want to keep playing with.

I don’t think I really realized it when I left but by the time it was all over I got this completely renewed energy to shoot. All the rest of the day and well into tonight I’ve felt that pure excitement about photography that I used to feel when I was a kid. I truly want to shoot for the pure joy of shooting. It’s amazing. Kita St. Cyr comes back Tuesday and believe me, we’re going to be shooting practically as she steps off the plane.

I’m in love all over again.

Tags: canon, ilford, inspiration, leaf, lensbaby, love, mamiya, nikon, passion, pdn, phase1, photoexpo, photography, pinhole, shooting, slr | Category Uncategorized

Thoughts on furry things

Posted on October 22nd, 2009 by admin

In Soviet Russia, the cup drinks YOU!

My new obsession has been with these Domo Cups at 7-11. Yes I too am susceptible to cute marketing strategies. They’re promoting all kinds of Domo products including a Domo Energy Drink that my girlfriend absolutely can’t stop raving about.

Personally the last thing I’d ever be interested in would be an energy drink, but for a girl who’s all GO-GO at the Slipper Room, Domo energy is just what the doctor ordered. Me? weird and awesome coffee cups are where it’s at.

And that’s the thing about marketing, you never know when where or how its going to work. Stick the same, beloved, cute character on 10 different items and you get 10 different responses. For a company like 7-11 or NHK (the Japanese TV station where Domo lives) it doesn’t even take a second thought to throw half a million dollars at a marketing scheme just to see what sticks.

Now, small potatoes like me, have to think very carefully before spending even a single dollar on a marketing effort that might not pan out. Sure you could say even failures are learning experiences, and that success comes from the unlikeliest of places, but where do you start?

I think that most traditional marketing methods are a non-starter. Direct-mail and advertisements in major magazines can be expensive and the return rates are pretty low. If you’re struggling to stay in the black with your business and you don’t want to waste a single cent, what is there to justify sinking hundreds or thousands into an experiment? Especially if that $500-$1000 could mean the difference between sink or swim this month.

A lot has been written and continues to be written about social networking, and most of it is done more eloquently than this little blog, but I find most SNS efforts to be too heavy handed. The potential customers get driven away by a campaign that’s too “in your face” and uncool.

So where does that leave us?? Great question!  Maybe you have some ideas.

Tags: 711, advertising, burlesque, domo, energy, marketing, nhk, photography, promotion | Category Uncategorized

Hacking’s not dead.

Posted on October 1st, 2009 by admin

There’s something you have to understand about me: I don’t see any distinction between art and science.

For me they’re two different expressions of the same fundamental human trait. Curiosity. When we create a formula to explain gravity at the subatomic level we might do so because we’re curious about how it works. When we create art to be seen by an audience we might do so because we want to create curiosity in others. Everyone has their reasons for each, but those are some of mine, and so when I see a lot of photographers in the world today I get very pissed off.

Not because I think I’m better, hell no, there’s plenty of amazing professionals out there. No, what pisses me off, what really gets my goat is how few of them use the scientific side of the coin in pursuit of art. The two sides always have been and and always will be inseparable. Particularly special math equations are said to be “elegant”, crystalline structures in chemistry can be “beautiful”, and so it goes without questions that art has its roots in science.

One person who is NOT pissing me off is Michael Bass. I found his site while trying to see if anyone had yet taken apart a Canon 430ex Speedlite. For those of you that know me personally, you’ll know that I’m no fan of strobe photography. Not that there’s anything wrong with it per se, it’s just that I’m so used to continuous lighting that anything else seems weird and clunky to me. We all know that continuous lighting is the future anyway, but that’s a different topic for another time.

See the reason that Michael Bass is NOT pissing me off is because he took his knowledge of science and applied it to the arts. How about an off-camera flash cord that fires two flash units and allows them both to be eTTL triggered? Or how about this completely awesome trigger that looks like a doomsday device? Ok, ok, I can already hear you saying to me “Child’s play!  Stuff just like that already exists!!” Fine fine. Then try triggering two separate camera bodies remotely using a 3 stage programmable delayed timer. Oh. Right. That’s not in the camera manual. Didn’t think so.

Leonardo DaVinci had it right. He drew, he painted, he engineered, and that was just the beginning. It doesn’t matter what we do or what field of study we practice, we all should strive to understand many disciplines, because that is the path to greatness.

Tags: 430ex, art, build, canon, custom, davinci, engineer, equipment, flash, hack, michael bass, mod, remote, science, speedlite, strobe, trigger | Category Uncategorized

Missing Opportunities

Posted on September 30th, 2009 by admin

After a recent fiasco involving a pink flamingo shoot, I swore to myself I’d never do another “last-minute” shoot… and that’s exactly my problem.

Recently Kita informed me that she was going to have a part in an indie film. Besides having some of the most awesomely cheesy lines I’ve ever heard in a film, Kita was asked to provide some photos for a “racy pinup” poster to be used in the film.

Here’s where my gears started turning and I thought to myself “DING DING DING! OPPORTUNITY”

Only problem was that I had to shoot it that night. Alas I deemed it too much of a last-minute shoot and decided against it. And so the filming went on without me and I went on without a credit.

That leaves me sitting here in Dunkin Donuts thinking… “Why did I do that?”

Opportunities are weird. They can be the best thing and they can be the worst thing, often both at once.

Tags: cheesy, flamingo, kita st. cyr, lines, movie, new york, opportunity, photography, pinup, work, zombie film | Category Uncategorized

The first real day

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by admin

Today’s my first real day of posting. I let this blog whither and die the way I did the original incarnation of RazorFantasy. The problem was I wanted to create something that already existed (Zivity) and I wanted to create it without their resources (millions of dollars).

Instead this is going to be all about my work and my experiences instead of trying to make this an instant business.

Today I completed some work for Andrew at Poleriders.net, he runs a mobile poledancing platform, basically a stripper pole on wheels.  I’m doing the banner that’s going to go on the trike whenever he’s not advertising anyone else. It’s a fun project and Andrew’s a really nice guy.

I’m also studying up on some standardized lighting setups. I found a few cool sites that show you basic lighting diagrams that are used by photographers all the time. I think it’s a nice place to start learning about this strobe thing. I mean I’ve been shooting with continuous lighting for so long that the first time I tried strobes I was pretty confused.

After trying out Markman’s AlienBees setup I was blown away by the quality of the results. I’d used a few strobes and softboxes before at a studio I rented but the photos were full of nasty flare and the lighting looked like lamps I stole from a motel. These AlienBees though were hands down amazing.

So I’m thinking of investing in a single AB800 and softbox kit. Would make a *nice* addition to my tools and would greatly improve my shots, even if I only use it for headshots and basic portraits.

In the meantime I’m redoing all of RazorFantasy and rebranding my MM page as such.  A lot of things can be said about photography, but this gig has never been boring.

Tags: AB800, AlienBees, blog, business, headshots, motel, personal, photography, softbox, starup, strobe, studio | Category Uncategorized

First Post

Posted on September 27th, 2009 by admin

This a test of emergency blogcasting system. This is only a test. If it were an actual emergency, this message would be followed with lots of whining.

| Category Uncategorized