So you have decided that you need to update your company’s portraits. Now what? What images are going to show your company in the way you want and what will the images say about you? Not an easy question.
The hardest step has already been taken; you have made the decision. I mentioned in my last post the questions to ask to find the right photographer. Now that you know who you want to capture your company’s face, what type of images? There are the good old group shots where you have the entire company empty out into the parking lot and stand together, perhaps waving or holding up a banner with the company’s logo or tag line, but that style is a bit dated IMHO.
At some point everyone hires a photographer or knows someone who will. In many cases it is a portrait or wedding photographer. At other times you may need a photographer to shoot images for anything from real estate to advertising. So how do you know which one is right for your needs?
Most people start out by asking friends, family members or colleagues. You are looking for references and that is the first question you should ask. Does he/she have references? Every professional should have references, especially photographers. But let’s be honest, if you ask me for references I am not going to give you a clients name where we didn’t get along. I am going to give you 3 – 5 names that I think were my best combination of results and compatibility. I want to put my best impression out there after all.
Remember when you played dress up as a kid? You would put on your parents clothes and pretend to be an adult. Maybe you wore your mother’s apron or your father’s jacket and tie. The idea was to show you in a different way. Perhaps you were showing what you wanted to be when you grew up.
Now you’re all grown up and you need to get your portrait done. But you hate having your picture taken. Join the crowd. Most people do. Maybe you just don’t know how to get the image of yourself that you want, or you don’t even know what you want the image to say about you. After all, there are all kinds of different portraits. There are studio portraits, business portraits, casual portraits, family portraits, candid portraits, formal portraits, fine art portraits just to name a few! How do you know which type to get for yourself?
Answers. Hmm… Seems like many people have nothing but questions anymore. What about answers? You would think that with the internet and sites like About.com, Answers.com and of course Google, answers would be easier to find. If answers were so easy to find why are there sites like Question.com?
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I certainly don’t have all the answers. If I did I surely wouldn’t be sitting here writing this! But I do know a thing or two especially about photography. I can tell you how to take a picture, what f-stop to use, what lens might be best for a certain situation and what lighting to use. But if you could make the image that you need you wouldn’t be reading this would you? Or maybe you can but you just don’t have time. Time, it is a four letter word. But I digress.
Recently it was suggested to me to change the direction of my blog. The thought was that I was writing more for other photographers rather than my potential clients. To be honest, the person who suggested that was probably right. Let’s face it, my clients (I hope you are one of them) don’t want to know how to create the James Effect or Make an Image Pop! That’s what they hire me for. (I hope!)
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In addition they suggested that I do a blog post about the differences between “a job well done” and a “great job!” I am going to be honest, I gave up after 7 tries; well sort of. This is actually number 8. I think I figured out what I was doing wrong, I wasn’t writing like I usually do. I usually write like I am having a conversation. That isn’t what I was doing with attempts 1 thru 7.
In the faster digital age of today, “What have you done for me lately?” has been sped up to, “What have you done for me today?” I run a service business so these are words I need to listen to. After all, my business relies on the success of my clients. Plain and simple I provide a service. Yes there is the tangible image or print. But when it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a matter of what I can do to make my client’s life easier, more profitable and simpler. To do that, I have to provide services – good services.
Something that I can offer my clients that hasn’t been traditionally offered is speed of service. In the days of film I was at the mercy of the lab to take my images, develop them and turn them into prints that my client then had to have processed in order to use them in whatever way they needed. Often this meant days more processing and prepping. Now that most photography has gone digital I am able to process them in record time. But not only can I do this processing fast, I can do it better. Now, along with better imagery, if it is at all possible, I am going to turn a job around just 24-48 hours. I can do this partly because of new technology. My clients should reap the benefits of the faster and more detail oriented advances. It’s my job to make that happen. Continue reading »
When is “good enough,” good enough? Hell of a question to ask a perfectionist. But the real answer is actually easy. Good Enough is never good enough.
Seriously though, many businesses think that imagery, video or stills, can be done for less that it traditionally has been done. Because of this many marketing directors and art directors are forced to settle for smaller budgets. They try to make do with less. Less is not more in photography. Less is just, well, less.
Your product or service isn’t just good enough is it? Isn’t your advertising supposed to show your best side, show how you stand above your competition? Let’s look at a few examples. We will get to my images later but first go to Google.com and type in “sneakers” and click the first link that pops up. Top of the list, #1 ranking. Go ahead. I’ll wait. That was fast. Not a bad site, rotating images of, well, sneakers. Now go to Nike.com. I’ll wait. No problem I have time.
As many of the regular readers of this site know, I am a huge fan of HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography. I love how you can create images that really pop and have deep, rich saturation of color. In many cases, it can be over done to the point of surreal and almost (and in some cases, very) unrealistic. Many believe this is the only way to do HDR; it is the “HDR Rule.”
Another rule is the Rule of Thirds. In the rule of thirds the thinking is that you should divide an image into thirds or 9 cells as the image below shows. In the final image that you present it is strongly suggested that pour points of interest (POI) should be along those lines and even better, where they intersect (the red circles).
On my last tutorial I showed you how to generate a good HDR image from Lightroom to Photomatix then to Photoshop. I got a few comments saying “I don’t use the plug-in!” or “I don’t have Lightroom!” Well, Photomatix is a standalone program too. So in this 3 part series of video tutorials I will walk you through the entire process starting in Photomatix and ending in Photoshop CS4.
This tutorial is a little longer than the last one totaling just under 30 minutes for all three parts combined. You may want to sit back and grab a cup of coffee before you start. I don’t think I sound boring, in fact I was surprised how long it took to get through it all because it felt like a lot less than that when I recorded it. Click the image below to watch part 1 then come back and watch the second two parts!
I was looking for information on Photomatix recently and I found very little helpful information. There were 5 pages of YouTube videos but 90% of them weren’t very helpful. So many of the videos said thing like, “I don’t use this slider/option so just leave it as it is.” Or, “This is how I use the software. I’m not sure what this does.” Unacceptable!
I took it upon myself to give a better overview of the software. I did not get into the batch processing, or any of the other tools that are in the stand alone program. I looked only at the Lightroom Plugin in the overview/tutorial. As it is, I had to do this in three parts. What I do is I take an older set of bracketed images and show you how Photomatix can manipulate the merged HDR image. I then re-import the image back into Lightroom and Photoshop and take the process through to saving the final image.
