With the closure of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in May though, my goal of retiring as a newspaper photographer took a hit. My colleagues and I were faced with the challenge of being laid off in the worst economy of our lifetimes. We would all have to consider the question of how to get our careers back on track or whether to continue a career in photojournalism at all.
What I have learned in the following months of the paper closing is there’s no right or wrong way to be a freelance photographer. The majority of my fellow Rocky Mountain News photographers are still working here in Denver. None of our paths have been quite the same. Some are pursuing video production while others are breaking into the wedding market. The other portion is seeking primarily editorial and commercial gigs.
My friend and fellow photographer, Marian Crostic, recently attended Paris Photo, and having never attended myself, I asked her to be the Lenscratch reporter and share her insights. This will be a two-part article.
What new ways are there to raise awareness of ongoing conflict like the war in DRC? As an example, John Prendergast explains the multi-platform project that he worked on for CBS’ 60 Minutes.
With just a few days left in the Christmas shopping season … here’s to all of you Ralphs out there: A look at a few cool things that that I found very useful this year:
I thank my lucky stars every day that I am a Nikon shooter. The glass is sharper with better color and contrast. The flash system works ten ways to Sunday and better than any other on the planet.
Looking at assisting as a good way to break in? Good choice. You get paid (usually), earn valuable experience and afford yourself a chance to learn without paying tuition. Think it is going to be easy? Fun? Not always. Just ask anyone who has ever worked for me.
Los Angeles-based photographer Scott Nathan recently had a paid ad he created for Facebook taken down because it was deemed “either irrelevant or inappropriate.” The photograph of Katy Perry in question was shot for Too Faced Cosmetics and has appeared in in-store displays internationally.
Jacqueline Bovaird from Glasshouse Assignment raises this question in her latest email newsletter and also her website. She posed this to Jason Lau at Team One USA, Manuel Oprea at Adweek, her excellent photographers Ryan Schude and Evan Kafka, and also asked me to weigh-in on the matter because Wonderful Machine has photographers in so many different locations. And it turns out to be a more complex issue than I thought.
Paul Caponigro, the 77-year-old master photographer, settled into his chair and lit a cigarette, assuring his interviewer, Michael Torosian, that smoking helped him think. After each question was posed, Mr. Caponigro took a drag, exhaled a spiraling cloud of smoke and only then began to speak. This rhythm continued as he and Mr. Torosian spoke about his photography, philosophy, the Boston of his childhood and classical music.
Over at the Getty Images Contributor Group on Flickr (it’s private and you have to be an accepted Flickr/Getty photographer in order to see it) there have been a number of threads started over the past few months where Getty/Flickr contributors have posted and shared basic information about how their sales are going through the Flickr/Getty partnership thus far. While it is probably far too early to accurately ascertain a lot of the statistics on how things are truly going, I thought I’d compile some of this information as anecdotal.
Exploring a new city is always fun. But if you can’t get there, a gorgeous, zoomable 360-degree view photo can be an acceptable substitute. 360 Cities, a Dutch company, has created a stunning panoramic photo of Prague in the Czech Republic. “The creation
On the surface, the subjects of Hisashi Shimizu’s book Portraits of Silence are soldiers who perished during the Iraq conflict, indirect portraits developed from the perspective of the soldier’s parents. But Portraits of Silence is also about the desire to maintain the memory of a beloved, and the fight to keep a tangible presence of who they were while dealing with the grief of their loss.
Apps for the Apple iPhone®, especially those designed specifically for photographers, have proven incredibly creative and useful. One that has been welcomed by studio photographers is Mamiya’s Leaf Capture Remote for the new Mamiya DM system. This app transforms an Apple iPhone® or iPod® Touch into a remove image viewer.
This is the first application to permit real-time, on-set remote viewing of medium format images, enabling instant feedback on any shot.
Last week I received a fun instant message from my pal Vincent Laforet (who until 6 months ago was my neighbor on the UWS of Manhattan) letting me know he was on a plane cross-country to JFK for one of his infamous helicopter shoots over NYC. He asked if I wanted to fly along. I accepted….it was a no-brainer.
I never had the chance to update my DL4 since the latest firmware update was removed shortly after it was announced. The rumor is that there could be more than the originally described French language issue with that firmware update (the information below