Quick Tip: Set Your Camera to Default Mode

Image from Pixabay.

Have you ever turned on your camera and snapped a couple quick shots to capture a fleeting moment only to discover that your settings were all wrong? I have. Fortunately this problem is a relatively easily one to solve by setting your camera to a default mode at the end of every shoot. It’s much easier to adjust aperture, ISO, shutter speed, and focus modes at the end of a shoot when you are unhurried than to have to change a bunch of settings when you feel rushed and your subject is quickly slipping away.

Here are the settings you should focus on: anything related to exposure (including aperture, shutter speed, and ISO, as well as metering settings), focus settings, and anything related to frame rate or shooting delays. Your goal is to set your camera to a happy medium by setting it up to allow in as much light as possible without compromising image quality. You are trying to find settings that would be acceptable for a variety of situations rather than the perfect setting for a given shot.

Exposure: Set your exposure mode to something automatic. I prefer either a full auto mode or aperture priority with my aperture set around f/4. This allows me to turn on the camera and start shooting right away. I find f/4 to be a good default because that aperture is wide enough to let in a decent amount of light but not so wide that my depth of field is super shallow, and all of my lenses have a maximum aperture of f/4 or higher.

ISO: I recommend setting your camera to the fastest ISO you can before image quality noticeably degrades. For me, using a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 1D Mark IV, ISO 400-800 is about right. Those with newer cameras can probably bump the ISO up quite a bit and still get really clean, noise free images. This allows you to use faster shutter speeds and shoot in less light.

Metering: In general, I find that spot metering does a good job for portraits and subject in habitat type shots as well as shots where the subject tends to entirely film the frame. If your camera doesn’t have a good spot metering mode or the metered area doesn’t correspond with your chosen focus points, matrix metering works fine as a default setting.

Focus Settings: Definitely leave your camera and lens set to autofocus. Enable either your middle focus sensor/area or your entire focus field. I prefer to leave my camera on continuous focus, but if you rarely shoot moving subjects one shot will do fine.

Frame Rate: Leave your camera set to the highest frame rate you can successfully take a single photo in. If your camera’s highest FPS setting makes it impossible for you to depress the shutter without snapping multiple frames, you can use the second fastest frame rate setting.

Mirror Lock-up: Disable mirror lock-up.

Timer: Turn off all self-timers and shutter delays.

Filters: Remove all filters unless you are one of those people who refuse to do any type of shooting without a clear protective or UV filter on. Any other filter generally blocks light. Some types of filters, such as polarizing filters and graduated filters are also directional and need to be aligned to work correctly, so having them on will only get in the way and slow you down when you are trying to snap photos quickly.

Memory Card: Always store your camera with a newly formatted memory card or one with plenty of leftover space on it. Nothing is worse than having no room to record images when you’ve already downloaded all of the photos on the card. I always reformat my cards right after downloading previous images to my computer. I also always format cards in the camera I plan on using them in.

Battery: Store your camera with a battery that has at least half of its charge. A freshly charged battery is best, but there is nothing worse than arriving on a shoot or whipping out your camera to capture something and have your battery blink at you then die.

By always switching your camera to these settings at the end of a shoot, when you aren’t rushed and have time, your camera will be ready to go at a moment’s notice. You won’t end up with noisy ISO 3200 photos of a brilliant sunrise or a photo of an unidentifiable black blur crossing the road shot at 1/10th of a second. A fresh memory card and battery will also ensure you can keep shooting no matter what the conditions, so you can capture whatever moments life brings your way.

Facebook for Real People (Who Happen to be Photographers)

Within the past three days, I’ve deleted roughly a quarter of my “friends” from Facebook. Over the years I’ve accumulated a number of them – people I went to high school, college, and grad school with, people I worked with or collaborated with on projects, people I met briefly on my various travels, and people I honestly didn’t know at all.

Facebook has evolved a lot since its first incarnation. I know, because I’ve grown up with it. Facebook was released the year I became a freshman in college, and at the time, it connected you to a small network of your classmates. Now, thirteen years later, it can connect you with the world, providing followers with an intimate glimpse into your thoughts and private life.

Despite accumulating more than 1500 “friends” on Facebook, the actual list of people who are fundamentally important to me is pretty small. In my real life, I don’t talk to a single person I went to high school or college with. When I go visit my hometown, I usually tell only my mom and two of my childhood friends. Aside from them, the people I keep in touch with by phone are almost exclusively people I worked with or went to grad school with, and I can count them on my fingers. Many of my closest friends aren’t even on Facebook anymore, and those that are tend to share very little.

I ended up with 1500 “friends” the way anyone who is social and nomadic can. I grew up in a decent sized town and went to a decent sized college, and have worked a lot of different jobs in different places. I traveled a lot, moved a few times, and went to many different conferences and workshops where I met a lot of people. When I worked for NatureScapes and was heavily involved with NANPA, photographers would connect with me that I did not know and had never met before, but as a brand ambassador, I accepted their friend requests, compromising my personal privacy to help build the brand and connect with potential clients and collaborators.

I’ve wanted to cull my friend list for a while. Facebook doesn’t make it easy – there is no easy way to go through your list of friends in a stagnant order (such as alphabetically) – but devising some trickery I was eventually able to search my whole list and begin the process. I unfriended the people who used fake profile names when I could no longer remember what their real one was. I unfriended people I plainly didn’t recognize and had no idea who they were or why I had connected with them in the first place. If I couldn’t recall how I met someone, or if I met a person only once years ago at a conference or workshop and never communicated with them since, I unfriended them. If they were someone who I knew but never really talked to – people who lived on my floor in college freshman year, friends of friends who I only saw with those other friends – they got axed. The same with significant others of friends and friend’s exes who weren’t really friends of mine. I unfriended people who had died, the parents and siblings of friends whom I knew but didn’t have any relationship with, and most accounts that had been deactivated. I unfriended just about anyone I had never met face to face in real life – the few who I kept were those I would recognize in person and want to grab dinner with based on mutual respect and common interests. A few of those I unfriended were talented photographers, so if possible, after unfriending them I followed them or their photography pages instead. I deleted high school and college classmates whom I had little interaction and no shared memories with. When people had duplicate profiles, I figured out which one had the most recent activity and deleted the other.

I unfriended anyone who had ever made me feel threatened, like the older male photographers who offered to take me on photo trips with them and the people I hardly knew who used Facebook as a platform to stalk, offend, attack, and demoralize others or whose actions repeatedly made me feel uncomfortable, upset, or angry. I unfriended annoying people when social niceties didn’t prevent me from doing so – the people who only interacted with me when trying to sell me a product from their multi-level marketing scheme or encourage me to vote for them in some stupid contest. If I felt unfriending them would result in unnecessary drama because we lived in the same town, worked in the same place, or had mutual friends, I just unfollowed them instead.

After all of this, I still have 1130 of the 1500+ friends I accumulated in the past dozen years but I suspect many more will go in the days, weeks, and months to come. Facebook has become an easy outlet for sharing photos and life’s moments, but I really don’t care if someone I met at a conference knows what color I painted my living room. More important things like relationship updates or additions to the family are things I’d prefer to keep more private, and Facebook’s ever changing features and privacy policies make it difficult to continually regulate who can and can’t see specific things you post.

I no longer accept friend requests from people whose names I don’t recognize and have never met face to face. I operate a Kari Post Photography Facebook page and post my work there instead of on my personal private page, yet I still regularly get friend requests from photographers. I deny every single one. This has been my routine for several years now, and it’s clear to me that posts on my personal profile get more views and likes thanks to Facebook’s algorithms that hide posts from pages to discourage engagement. I don’t care. If the cost of getting my work seen by more people is sharing personal moments of my private home life with strangers, I’m not interested.

To see my photography on Facebook, feel free to check out and like the Kari Post Photography page. When you “like” and “follow” the page, you can opt to see posts in your news feed first (you can adjust your notifications by hovering over the “Follow/Following” button) which will ensure you don’t miss anything, as the default setting allows posts to fall off your news feed quickly. The more you visit and engage with my page, the more relevant posts from it will show up on your newsfeed. If you actually want to connect with me for professional reasons – to collaborate on a project, get together and shoot, etc – you can send me a message through my Facebook page or if you prefer, find me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the platform I prefer to use for networking and professional connections, and if you send me a message, I’m happy to connect with non-friend photographers there.

Update 11/7/18: Kari Post Photography is no longer on Facebook as of December 2018. I have moved my photography feed over to Instagram. If you are an Instagram user, please follow my public photography handle @karipostphoto. I have also made my personal Instagram feed private as well (and knocked that followers list down to under 500 people)!

Creativity Doesn’t Always Follow the Rules

Waterfalls are easily one of my favorite natural features and favorite things to photograph. I enjoy them so much that I even authored an eBook called The Essential Guide to Photographing Waterfalls back in 2011. In it, I share a number of tips and recommendations, one of which is that generally I prefer to photograph waterfalls on overcast days, when cloud cover softens the harsh contrast of glittery water flowing over dark rocks.

Well some rules are meant to be broken and this is one of them. Given the right conditions, the right setting, and the right tools you can create beautiful waterfall images when the sun is shining.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Smoky Mountains, Great Smoky Mountains, national park, waterfall, Tennessee
Waterfall in Sunlight : Prints Available

The sun shines through a canopy of trees framing a waterfall in the Great Smoky Mountains.

I took this photo while visiting the Great Smoky Mountains with photographer Greg Downing in Tennessee back in 2013. It had rained hard the previous day, and I was excited to go find a good waterfall to photograph because I knew they would be flowing. By the time we reached these falls, the weather had improved by normal standards, but it proved tricky for waterfall photography. It was partly cloudy and breezy, which meant the slow shutter speeds I would typically use the blur the moving water would also show any movement in the leaves from the wind. It also meant the light kept changing, from full sun, to partial sun, to complete cloud cover. I took a lot of shots from different angles, trying different techniques, hoping to capture something memorable.

For this image, I snapped the shutter as the sun emerged from behind the clouds, purposefully allowing highlight details to blow out. I was aiming for the bright, fresh feeling of spring, which I think translates well. It took several years of reworking this shot to get it to the point where I feel comfortable sharing it, but even if it isn’t the best waterfall shot I’ve taken I like how its so different from many of my other photos of similar subjects.

Branching Out

Washington D.C., Keystone XL, pipeline, protest
Back in 2011, I attended a protest opposing the Keystone XL Pipeline at the national’s capital and brought my camera with me. Being immersed in a crowd of like minded people helped me feel less vulnerable as a photographer and step out of my comfort zone try try and photograph new subjects. I don’t just photograph nature and sports all the time!

Fifteen years ago, I published my first photograph in my high school newspaper. I ended up winning several awards for photojournalism every year of high school after that. I remember at one point a friend came to my house and saw a second place award certificate and said “Wow second place in the whole state! Who got first?”

“I did,” I told her.

In college, I landed my first paid photography gig, shooting athletics for my school’s Sports Information Office. Throughout college and every year since, I’ve earned at least a little bit of money every year from photography, whether it be shooting assignments, selling my work, or photography related writing and instruction. Over the years my photography career has grown, changed, and at times, plateaued. I created niches for myself, first shooting primarily high school and college sports, then focusing on nature and wildlife. While there are a few subjects I’ve managed to avoid altogether, like weddings and product shoots, I have dabbled in many genres at one point or another.

It’s easy to gravitate towards one subject or genre as a photographer, and as a professional it is almost always encouraged. You build your brand around what you shoot best, and it’s easier to be better at something if you specialize in it. This is how you market your business and attract clients.

Does focusing on one genre of photography make you a better photographer? Yes.

Does shooting one subject limit your creativity, professional, and personal growth? Yes.

Shooting subjects you are not comfortable with and don’t shoot often will make you a more well rounded and creative photographer. I’m damn certain I can take a better wildlife photo than Annie Leibovitz because I’ve spent many hours practicing the specific skills that I need to shoot wild animals, such as finding and approaching wildlife and using a long lens. However, I don’t feel comfortable coaching human models into great poses or using artificial light so my portraits are overall quite mediocre, especially if taken indoors. As a photographer there are things I’m good at and some of these things apply to a wide range of subjects, such as noticing great natural light and creating balanced compositions. There are also many more things I need to work on, some of which I may not use that often in my chosen area of expertise but that might prove helpful from time to time. When I only shoot the things I am good at and comfortable with, I don’t improve the skill areas that need the most work and ignoring those makes me less capable overall.

American Alpine Club, benefit dinner, Henderson House, Massachusetts
I was asked to take photos at a fundraising event for the American Alpine Club in exchange for free admission, which included a fancy dinner, auction, and slide show presentation and speaker. The organization only needed a handful of web publishable photos, so it was a task I felt I could manage even though I rarely photograph events or people, and since it was an exchange of services instead of a paid assignment, I didn’t feel as much pressure as I would have if I was hired to photograph the event, so I said yes. There were challenges I didn’t anticipate – the main room had many different light sources that were all different color temperatures and even though the space was large it was crowded and more confined than I thought it would be – so I ended up improvising quite a bit. This ended up being my favorite shot of the evening – a black and white photograph of the main hall that I snapped with a fisheye lens. The fisheye is both the widest and fastest aperture lens I own, and converting the image black and white eliminated the weird color issues I was having from the mixed light available sources. I’m sure a photographer with a background shooting weddings or similar events and gear suited for poorly lit indoor spaces would have taken a much different approach, but I made it work. The shoot lasted just a few hours and was very different from anything I had done before, so it was a great learning experience for me.

I am also a person who likes to learn. Learning is fun! I want to be able to capture images of all the things I want in the ways that I want to, and that isn’t just limited to college students playing soccer or the beach at sunrise. While I may have focused mostly on sports and nature subjects in the past, different things are important to me now and I want to be able to photograph them with the same level of expertise and passion I have when I shoot subjects I have had more practice with. Just because I don’t photograph people doesn’t mean I don’t like people or photographs of people.

I’m also not the same person I was in college or even five years ago. I have a job and responsibilities that make getting up before the sun rises and shooting all day until dusk not very practical. My financial resources are allocated in different ways, towards home improvements and retirement savings instead of a faster computer and new gear. Things like wild animals are not so easy to photograph in the spare hour or two I may have on a given day. So I can either not shoot at all or shoot differently. I’ve been doing a little of both, but I’m trying to shoot more, even if its subjects I’m not great at.

prom, gown, teenager, high school, field, sunset, suit, formal
People photography is not my thing but when a group of teens I am close to asked me to snap photos before their prom, there was no way I was saying no. The teens made the perfect clients and subjects – they didn’t have lofty or unrealistic expectations, I felt comfortable around them and they felt comfortable around me, and they were delightfully confident and goofy and came up with some of their own poses and ideas. I really struggle with directing people for photos because it just seems awkward for me, so this was great practice. Both the teens and I had a lot of fun with this shoot and were really happy with the resulting photos.

I don’t know if the best photographers ever shoot other subjects, but I imagine that they do. Annie Leibovitz might not be able to resist a gorgeous sunset, and I bet David Doubilet takes a snap above water from time to time. Sure it makes sense to specialize in certain genres, especially if you have a photo business, but that doesn’t mean you should never shoot anything else. If we only shot specific subjects, we’d miss out too often on other incredible ones, and that just seems wasteful. There is so much to marvel at in this world. Beauty is everywhere. I am inspired and amazed by things all the time. So why wouldn’t I photograph them when I feel compelled to do so?

If you feel inspired to take a photograph, do it! It doesn’t matter whether its your subject or not, whether or not you can sell it or have a client for it. Shooting different subjects will make you a better photographer instead of just a good [insert specialty here] photographer, and we all want to be better at our craft.

GoPro Hero 5 Black: First Impressions

Update: Please read my updated review GoPro HERO5 Black Review Update: Doesn’t Play Nice With Water published July 11, 2018.

I really love point of view (POV) cameras. As an adventurer, there are many times when a lugging around and shooting with big DSLR camera isn’t practical but I still want to be able to share my experience with others. Small, wearable action cameras make shooting on the go much easier and allow you to focus on your adventure and capture images at the same time.

GoPro has been a leader in consumer priced wearable action POV cameras since they became a thing. I was so psyched with the concept that I bought an early generation GoPro back when they first hit the market, but I ended up rarely using it. The first GoPro cameras were not user friendly – switching settings on the camera was not intuitive at all – and the image quality left much to be desired. With each new model GoPro made changes to the camera menus, settings, and operating systems as well as improvements in performance, and they started to become more popular with professional and amateur athletes, photographers, and filmmakers but I still refused to upgrade.

For a GoPro to be useful to me as a professional shooter, I really wanted the ability to shoot RAW photos not just JPEGs. Enter the GoPro Hero 5 Black with RAW still photo capability. Recently introduced, this camera finally had everything I wanted in a wearable POV model – ease of use, small size and low profile, a variety of mounting options, waterproof, and RAW shooting capabilities. I’ve now owned one for about 24 hours and can say this camera is truly night and day from my first GoPro. I can easily see this becoming an essential part of my regular kit as a photographer and everyday excursions as an outdoors enthusiast.

Here are my first impressions:

Image Quality – So much better. The GoPro Hero 5 Black handles high contrast and backlit scenarios much better than my first GoPro, as one would expect. Details are sharp, colors are accurate, and both shadows and highlights are nicely rendered. The camera does a good job of balancing details in light and dark areas while still producing an image with natural appearing contrast and saturation.

RAW Files – The Hero 5 Black produces JPEG files with sidecar .GPR files. Originally I thought the Raw files would be .DNG (Adobe Digital Negative) but it turns out the .GPR files are an extension of the .DNG format. You’ll need the latest version of Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom to open and process these files – I had to upgrade from Lightroom 4 to Creative Cloud – or you can download GoPro Studio for free. Viewed in Lightroom, the .GPR files are ok. Compared to the native jpegs from the camera, the .GPR files are more saturated and have funky color vignetting caused the exagerated wide angle perspective of the lens – the edges of the frame are not only darker, but bluer in color. This was very evident in the photos I took of white snow – the jpegs did a better job of representing the snow as an even white color across the entire frame. Colors of the jpeg also appeared more neutral and natural – flesh tones and the magenta fleece I was wearing appeared a little greener compared to the RAW file. After tweaking sharpness and noise/masking levels in Lightroom, it was possible to get more fine detail in the RAW file. One nice thing is that the GoPro creates both a full size jpeg file and .GPR file when writing images to the memory card, so you have access to both. The jpegs straight from the camera are honestly quite good, but it’s nice to have access to a file with greater editing latitude. It is also important to note that RAW files are NOT created when the camera is in burst mode – something I didn’t realize until after my test run yesterday – and there are a few other scenarios where GoPro RAW doesn’t work, explained on GoPro’s website. Overall, I think the RAW files are slightly disappointing when viewed with the default settings in Lightroom, but things like color rendering and light falloff should be easy to fix in future software updates and better profile settings from Adobe. For the company’s first foray into RAW the quality is acceptable, and the fact that you get high quality jpeg images alongside the RAW files is a big plus. You can definitely take good images with this camera!

Menu Navigation and Settings – The Hero 5 is easy to use, something you could not say about GoPro’s first POV cameras. When you first start up the camera, there is a tour that explains how to do most things, and nearly everything on the camera is controled by two buttons and an LCD touch screen. Changing from photo to video mode is easy and adjusting important features like resolution and frame rate is simple and intuitive. The menus are well organized and make sense and give access to the most important things without being cluttered and confusing. The LCD provides a very clear image and appears to be high quality. The touch screen is responsive.

Voice Control – This feature is AWESOME. I haven’t exactly nailed the commands yet – I tended to make them overly complicated and said things like “GoPro Capture Still Photo” which is not a recognized command whereas “GoPro Take a Photo” is. Even so, it worked most of the time, and it’s possible that nearly all the times it didn’t were because of user error. The ability to take completely hands free photos is a game changer, especially when paired with a number of GoPro’s wearable mounts. I can think of so many scenarios where this is helpful – when paddling a kayak or helping your kid pizza down a ski slope. If you set beeps to on, you can tell if the GoPro heard you even if you aren’t looking at it thanks to audible cues.

Smartphone Apps – I downloaded all of the apps GoPro makes to my iPhone, but so far have only tested the Capture app. Setting it up with my camera was pretty easy. I synced the two via Wifi. The camera is also supposed to sync via BlueTooth but every time I connected to the camera I had to use the Wifi connection, which mean I could not connect to both my camera and internet at the same time – I’ll have to play around with it more to see if that can be fixed. When I was connected, it was easy to see the camera’s view on my phone, and I could also go through and look at all of the media I took and download photos or videos directly to my phone. This made sharing snapshots on social media a breeze – once I switched my Wifi connection back to the internet. I didn’t try using the app to shoot and control the camera out in the field because my iPhone’s battery life drains quickly in cold temperatures, so I only used the app briefly when I returned home to share a snap to Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BN-GAdSDuRN/

Battery Life and Performance – My camera shipped with a battery about 15% full, which died pretty quickly upon me fiddling around with it, but I was very excited and probably fiddling a lot! It comes with a USB charging cord and you have to charge the battery in camera (unless you get a supplementary charging port from GoPro). The media I read said it would take 2 hours to charge plugged into a wall and 4 hours plugged into a computer – I plugged mine into a wall and had a full charge within 1 1/2 hours. After about an hour of use, worn on a chest mount in temperatures right around freezing with the GPS on the entire time, I had about 55% of my battery life left. I wasn’t recording the entire time but did take a fair number of stills, bursts, and some video. Because so many factors affect battery life, including environmental factors, recording mode, and other things it’s impossible to say how long the battery will last in “normal” conditions. To better understand the many factors that affect battery performance and anticipated battery length in different recording scenarios, check out GoPro’s website.

I’ve only taken the camera out on one trip, a hike through the snow covered woods with my dog, and tried a limited number of settings during that time, but so far I really am enjoying the new GoPro. I look forward to using it more and can definitely see it becoming my “have everywhere” camera. It makes a great portable pockable point-and-shoot to complement my iPhone, and the fact that it shoots RAW will give me added opportunities to shoot professional quality work with a tiny, easy to use camera that I can have on me at all times.

Update 7/11/2018: Unfortunately, my beloved GoPro died a sad death on its second in water adventure. I cannot recommend this camera for extreme water sports or in water use. Please read my updated review here.

Picking the Right Size Print

I’m not an art consultant or interior designer, but I do know a thing or two about choosing and displaying photographs on walls.

Many people struggle over picking out the right art to enhance their living or work space. They focus on picking pieces with colors and a frame that matches their furniture or compliments their rug, often overlooking one of the most important aspects of buying art to fit a specific space – size and spacing.

In order for artwork to have a meaningful impact it needs to be the right size and have the right proportions. Art should complement the other objects in the room, either filling the space provided for it or purposefully juxtaposing the area in inhabits. A too small picture looks incredibly out of place over a giant couch, and a horizontal image doesn’t work well in a vertical space.

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Art that is the wrong size just doesn’t work, no matter how beautiful it is. This image of St Marys Falls is way too small for my office, and it looks out of awkward and out of place even though its nicer than the drooping banner and wrinkled poster on either side. The poster to the right is a much better fit for the amount of wall space and large bricks.

Photographs, like wall mounted TVs, also need to be hung at the right height. Too high and they make a space look unfinished and incomplete, too low and they are awkward to look at. In general, photographs hung on blank walls should be centered at around eye level. Since people vary in height, a good rule of thumb is 60-66″ from the floor to the center of the photo. This of course varies with artwork that is long and vertical or artwork hanging near or around other objects, such as furniture or over a fireplace.

My advice when purchasing a photo:

1) Don’t skimp on size. Too big is almost always better than too small. Unless you have a clutter free home and very minimalist decorating style where empty space is a thematic design element, art that is too small for the space it occupies will nearly always look cheap.
2) Prioritize proper proportions. Many people spend a lot of time matching colors when they should be focused on balanced proportions. If you are one of those folks who have a long sectional couch, don’t put an oddly tall rectangular art piece over it. This is where a panoramic image or triptych really stands out. If you are hanging artwork over furniture, it is generally recommended that artwork should be 2/3 to 3/4 the length of the piece of furniture in order to provide the right balance, although I think you can play around with those numbers a bit.
3) Don’t forget the frame. If you plan on matting or framing your art, keep in mind that this will not only add size to the finished piece, but will also change the proportions slightly. For example a 20×40 inch photo with has a ratio of 1:2 without a frame, but if you add framing that is 3 inches thick, the overall artwork becomes 26×46 inches with a ratio of closer to 1:1.4. Plan for the frame when buying your piece.

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Art that is proportional to other objects in a space makes the space feel balanced. This photograph has a similar amount of above and below it as it does from side to side and is a litle less wide than the small couch.

If you aren’t sure what size to buy, I suggest creating a mock up. It may sound silly and it certainly takes a little time, but the 10-15 minutes and inexpensive supplies this exercise involves are definitely worth it, especially if you are considering spending upwards of several hundred dollars on art for your home or office. Here’s what you’ll need:

1) Large piece of paper or cardboard. This can really be any material, as long as it is big enough to represent the artwork. If you are considering a really big piece you might want to use something larger or more durable, like a thin sheet of plywood, but for smaller pieces cardboard, foam core, or wrapping paper should be sufficient.
2) Measuring tape.
3) Straight edge.
4) Scissors, box cutter, or any tool sufficient to cut clean edges of the material you are using.
5) Hanging supplies. Painter’s tape is perfect for lightweight materials, because it leaves no residue on the walls.

You can go about this one of two ways. Either start by making the mock up the size of the artwork you are considering, or design the mock up to be the ideal size and then find art that closely matches. Essentially you are going to make a cardboard cutout of the art and hang it in the space you envision it. If supplies are limited, start big and gradually trim your stencil down until you get the ideal size. You’ll quickly get an idea of how the size of the artwork plays with its surroundings.

Adding art to your home is a beautiful way to make a space feel lived in and loved, and in a work setting art can help liven up dull spaces and make them feel welcoming. Resist the temptation to buy art you love in a smaller size to keep the price affordable. Make your investment count by choosing art that compliments the space it is given. If you really must stretch a tiny budget, buy something big, inexpensive, and mass produced from a box store like Ikea to fill the space temporarily, then save up for a truly incredible piece by your favorite artist in the right size that will last for years to come. You won’t regret it.

PS: I really love articles by interior designer Emily Henderson and she did a great one about hanging art. Check it out for many awesome examples of art that is the right size and art that isn’t, as well as additional tips on how to measure and select properly sized pieces.

For Sale: Lensbaby Composer + Close-up Lenses

Lensbaby Composer for Canon mount for sale. Includes lens cap, rear cap, kit with removable aperture discs, and close-up lenses for close focusing and macro shots.

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The Composer allows you to create blurred areas simply by moving the outer ring – there are no knobs or dials, and the magnetic aperture rings are easy to change. These particular products are discontinued from the Lensbaby line-up in favor of newer lenses with autofocus, integrated aperture adjustments, and other advanced features, but the original Lensbaby Composer with aperture ring set and close-up lenses will allow you to get the same affect at a fraction of the cost.

This setup is what I’ve used to capture a number of dreamy, close-up shots of flowers like the one below.

yellow tulip, abstract
Tulip Abstract : Prints Available

This is one of my favorite flower abstracts of all time. My mom had planted over 200 tulip bulbs in her garden, knowing they are my favorite. Wild deer ate all but a couple of them, and this soft yellow tulip was one of the few survivors. I photographed it near sunset using a Lensbaby Composer. The pink and yellow in the background are the only other tulips that weren’t eaten.

These items retailed for well over $200 when new. Willing to sell the whole bundle for $50 plus shipping and fees. Continental USA buyers only.

Using Websites to Sell Your Work Online

I’ve been selling photographic services and work for more than a decade. Finding a niche price point and marketing my photos to potential buyers has always been somewhat of a struggle. There are two general strategies when it comes to making money – you can sell fewer, more expensive items (generally with higher markup) or a greater quantity of lower priced products. Either way, people need to be able to know your product exists.

I know one photographer who has built his entire brand around limited edition, fine art collectors prints. He only sells large prints, mounted and framed, and operates his own gallery where he hosts fancy parties when he reveals a new piece and exclusive receptions for collectors complete with wine and hors d’oeuvres. His work is gorgeous and outrageously expensive, and he caters to the rich and famous; several of his clients are well known celebrities or socialites. He has won contests and appeared on local TV – his name is out there among people with money who want to spend it.

Then there are the photographers that sell a higher volume of lower priced work. Maybe they sell inexpensive post cards, calendars, and greeting cards at local gift shops, shoot school photos or toddler portraits at the local box store photo studio, supply photos to royalty free stock agencies for a small fee, or deal exclusively in online digital image sales. Buyers might not even know who they are, but their work is readily accessible and affordable.

Many photographers fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, hoping to sell their photos for a modest fee. How do you know which model is right for you? And how do you get people to find and buy your photographs?

While I’ve never demanded an exorbitant amount of money for my photographs, as I simply don’t have the ego to support the mystique of uniquely talented artist nor the temperament to indulge wealthy society types, over the years I have sold a number of larger fine art pieces for what amounted to a very nice unexpected bonus for me. Those buyers have generally found my work through my website. However those sales are few and far in between, and most years I generate very little revenue from photograph sales.

Last year, after a career of demanding strict control over my work, I decided to sign with the stock agency Tandem Stills + Motion and see if they would have any luck in moving my photographs to a larger market. One of my photos sold rather quickly and I was optimistic about more sales. I received a small check fro the usage of the image, then nothing for nearly a year and a half. While my work is no longer represented by Tandem (the relationship was a positive one and ended amicably), I suspect the single sale I got through the agency is one I would likely would not have gotten on my own.

Recently, I started to sell digital files on a website where amateur athletes can purchase photos of themselves participating in an event – the site I use, Roots and Rain, is for mountain biking but no different than websites I’ve seen that sell photos from obstacle course races, town 5Ks, or high school track meets. The price for each photo is very low (less than $10) and since the website takes a cut and payments are processed through PayPal I don’t get very much per image sold, but the visibility is high and in just one event I have made a profit equal to what I have made from selling art prints this year.

In the past I may have frowned on sales like this, but the reality is this: at this point my photography business is more of a hobby on the side than my career. I have another unrelated job to support myself and don’t rely on my income from photography to pay bills. Ideally each year I make enough money from photography so that the hobby supports itself. The less money I make from it, the less I put back into it, and if I have a particularly good year, I’m more likely to buy new gear or upgrade my equipment. So selling work, at whatever profit margin, makes it easier for me to keep shooting.

Also, the photos that I am selling on this website don’t have much other value. While good photos, they are mostly unremarkable – I won’t likely be selling them to ad agencies or winning any contests with them. I currently only sell 3000 pixel high resolution photos for personal use; my buyers are guys who ride mountain bikes and want to show off pictures of themselves racing, usually on social media, which has the added bonus of getting me more publicity when they credit me as the photographer. Since I’m already at these races supporting my boyfriend and taking photos of him, there is no added cost to take photos of other racers, and once those photos exist, why not sell them? While I do spend some time editing and processing the images before they go on the website once they are there the site handles everything for me – sale, distribution, and payment. Once the images are loaded and tagged, I literally have to do nothing but get a paycheck. Overall its a pretty easy way to generate a little extra money from photography and a great confidence boost to see others liking, buying, and linking to my work.

Every photographer needs to decide for themselves what works best. I’ve found that by being flexible with my image and being willing to try new avenues, I’ve succeeded in selling images I never otherwise would have. By giving up a little control, I’ve made sales through my stock agency and Roots and Rain, without the headache of handling every detail of the sale. For me, the reach to more customers and the efficiency of the selling process makes the commission I pay to these websites more than worth it.

Skunked!

I miss fall foliage pretty consistently. The season is usually pretty short, I’m often busy, and the colder temps and shorter days don’t motivate me to try to squeeze photography into my already packed schedule. Even though I live in one of the most beautiful spots in the whole country for fall color and landscapes are one of my main subjects, I’m good at making excuses why not to go shoot – the dog has been home alone all day and needs playtime, I’m carpooling, its too windy, too rainy, there isn’t a single cloud in the sky or the sky is completely overcast, the colors aren’t at peak, the colors are past peak, blah blah blah. I stare at the beautiful trees from my car and wish there were pull-offs near wetlands next to busy highways, but that’s often the extent of it.

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Well tonight on my drive home from work I noticed some wispy clouds in the sky. It was a warm, perfectly still, perfectly blue day, and I almost went straight home, but I thought it was possible the clouds would do something so I drove to the only spot I could think of with a clear view of the sky, maple trees, and no hike. I got there minutes before sunset and… got skunked! The sun went down without much excitement, the clouds never lit up with color, and the light was cold and blue. I could have went home disappointed but I decided to shoot a little anyway and got some decent, different new shots. Not every photo needs to be dramatic or have killer light or perfect foliage to work. Sometimes just getting out there and making due with what you find is good enough.

I guess my motto for today is “It’s better to try and fail than to not try at all.” Sometimes, you make out okay.