Over spring break, I went out to shoot the various stadiums at Arkansas for the Traveler to use in a new sports blog. I don’t like sports, and I’ve never pretended to. That said, I wasn’t too impressed with these photos, mainly because of the subject and the fact that I couldn’t actually get in to the stadiums. So I fixed them up a bit. Here are a few.
A month ago today, I was wandering through the woods of the Buffalo National Forest with my friend Stephen Coger on our way to see the falls at Hemmed-in Hollow. This waterfall, above the Buffalo River in Arkansas, is the tallest waterfall between the Rockies and the Appalachians. It was the first time I’d been backpacking in a few years, and though my hips were literally bleeding from the weight of my pack, it was great. The moon was full, it wasn’t really that cold, and there weren’t many people on the trail. The waterfall was quite impressive.
We also stopped for lunch on the first day at Granny Henderson’s cabin, where Granny Henderson lived alone into her 80s with her chickens and cows. She was featured in a couple of articles–in National Geographic and in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette–and was evicted from her house when the area became a national forest. This was in the 1970s, I believe. The cabin has been partially restored and is pretty interesting. There are old magazine/newspaper ads plastered to the walls upstairs and some relics–an older butter churner, a shoe–lingering around the house.
We got to cross the river, see a cedar forest floor covered with moss, and more. Not bad for a two-day/one-night trip.
And I got to learn a lesson as well–if you lug your nice tripod with you while backpacking, be sure to bring the part that connects your camera to it.
And I was sore for days. I need to get out and do that more.
Here are just a few photos from the trip. The rest are here on Flickr.
I apologize in advance if your name is Charlie.
Every professional photographer that I know has run into this problem before: Uncle Charlie brings his Canon Digital Rebel or other consumer-oriented DSLR to a wedding, gets in the professional’s way, and occassionally nags the professional about what gear or settings he’s using. Or a family hires Uncle Charlie or another friend to shoot their entire wedding/event themselves.
What’s important is what Uncle Charlie doesn’t know, not what he knows. It’s the professional who knows what Uncle Charlie doesn’t know–and that’s precisely why you should hire her, even though it will be more costly. Professional photographers are expensive. As they should be.
Here are ten reasons why professional photographers charge what they do:
10. Professional photographers are running a business. While they love to take pictures and hope to make their clients happy, they are also in it to make money. These guys have made a CAREER out of photography, just like you are a doctor or an accountant. They aren’t your average Uncle Charlie who likes to take photos of his wife’s flowers or his dog on the weekend. They are good at what they do and they do it, or are thinking about it, 40 hours a week.
9. Professional photographers buy, obviously, professional equipment. And that stuff isn’t cheap. They don’t drop in at Best Buy on their way to the movies and pick up a $500 DSLR with a kit lens like Uncle Charlie did. A professional camera body alone will run anywhere in the $1500-$3000 range or the more professional $5000 range. For one camera.
And then there are lenses. Boy oh boy. A single professional lens can run anywhere from $1000 to $10,000. Some are even more. Yes, that’s oftentimes more than the camera itself. These lenses are fast, sharp, and you WANT your photographer to have them so that he can give you the best photos possible. And that’s why he needs you to pay him just like any other professional.
Add in professional flashes and other lighting equipment, tripods, bags and cases, filters, backdrops, and other accessories, and you’re looking at a multi-thousand dollar investment right off the bat.
…then they need backup equipment for when their primary camera or lens fails and they still need that shot of you throwing the bouquet so you won’t sue them. Think double of almost everything.
(Did I mention that while lenses stay useful for many years, digital camera bodies need to be replaced every two or three years to stay competitive?)
8. Professional photographers continually educate themselves by going to workshops, joining professional organizations, and following the work of professionals better than themselves.They attend seminars and conferences led by these people. None of this is free–a single weekend photography workshop can cost over $1000. But they usually include lunch.
7. Professional photographers never use auto mode. They know their cameras inside and out. They know how fast their lenses are and the limitations of their gear. And because of it, they aren’t just snapping a picture. They are creating a photograph. A work of art. This is something that you cannot learn on the weekends; it takes years of experience to know how to compose a photograph properly (or interestingly), how lighting works, and why they need to ask to meet you for a portrait at sunset instead of at noon. They aren’t just pushing a button for you–they are recalling an entire body of experience, and that is what you are paying for.
6. Professional photographers don’t just go home from your event, dump the photos on their computer, and burn a disc for you. They spend hours upon hours to create just one photo. Their time includes, but is not limited to:
Not to mention the time to take the photographs themselves.
And they (hopefully) aren’t just doing this for you. They’re doing it for their other clients as well. You may think you’re paying for a two hour shoot, but expect the photographer to work for many hours on top of that.
5. That said, they are more than just photographers. They are CEOs. They are secretaries, marketers, accountants, salespeople, production workers, buyers, negotiators, janitors, networkers, organizers. They are doing the jobs most businesses pay other people to do for them.
And sometimes they sleep.
4. Professional photographers will do almost anything for a client. They will sit in a river, climb a mountain, travel to a foreign country, ride a ski lift, and more. If you want it, a professional photographer will be there.
3. Professional photographers provide their own customer service. You want reprints? Sure…but they’ll eat the costs. You want a photo or layout changed in your album? Fine. They know what looks good and how to get you what you want. Their goal is to please you so that you refer a friend (or ten), not just to get a check from you at the end of the day.
2. Professional photographers keep themselves up to date on the latest industry standards. This means equipment, software, products, styles, and more. They like to innovate. If you don’t like something they offer, they try to find something that you will like. Professionals aren’t using websites made in Microsoft Frontpage that look like they’re from the ’90s. They aren’t using Microsoft Paint to process your photos–they are using Photoshop, which costs hundreds of dollars…per edition. And they have to continually keep themselves informed as to what is coming out and what people like.
Case in point: I excitedly announced to my girlfriend this morning that Adobe was set to release their Creative Suite 5 software in a couple of months, and she asked if there was going to be a new version of Lightroom with it. I said “No, Lightroom isn’t a part of the Creative Suite, but they’re working on Lightroom 3 and have already released the second beta version for testing.” Does this make me a nerd? Probably. Does this make me more informed than Uncle Charlie? Absolutely. Does this make me a professional? Who knows, but it can’t hurt.
1. Professional photographers have the skills and knowledge in place to make you and your project look the best it can look. You can go buy a saw and hammer at a hardware store, but instead you spend hundreds of dollars to have a handyman repair that deck for you. You could spend a few bucks on a needle and thread, yet you have your clothes altered at a tailor for much more.
The tools do not determine quality. A professional photographer can take your point and shoot camera, or a cell phone for that matter, and make you say “wow!” OK, so that contradicts number 9, but you know what I mean. It’s not the tools, but rather the experience. You could go to your local shopping mall photographer for a portrait, but he won’t give you advice on your clothes or locations, won’t concentrate on what expression you have, and won’t give you customer service that goes beyond his minimum wage. He won’t lay down in the mud to get “the shot.” He won’t be professional.
Here’s a video to sum up:
So, in short, don’t go the cheap route. Don’t have Uncle Charlie shoot photos of your business, your bride, or your baby. Bite the bullet, hire a professional, and you’ll actually be pleased with the results and want to show off the photos to your friends.
I’ve now worked twice at Heartwood Gallery in Fayetteville, and one thing I can say is that when you work there, you get bored pretty easily. By mid-afternoon I was restless, so I grabbed my camera and headed outside to see what I could find. I decided to focus on birds, as it was nearly spring and they were already out and about. Here are a few, and the rest are in this set on Flickr.
A couple of weeks ago, I took a few photos of my friend Rachel Moore, a senior math major/philosophy minor at the U of A who plans on going to culinary school, for a profile on her in The Arkansas Traveler. Disclaimer: Everything Rachel makes tastes good incredible, so much that anything she touches looks like it would taste incredible if she cooked it, including the tomato below.
Though not technically a vegan, Rachel is a vegan when she cooks at home. She’s already put together a first version of her vegan cookbook, entitled Rachel’s Book of Secrets Rachel’s Book of Secrets: Learning to Cope with Vegaphobia, and is currently working on the second. Even if you’re not a vegan, there are definitely recipes in it that you’d enjoy, so I highly recommend checking it out. She even has a glossary of the vegan equivalents/replacements she uses in the recipes, such as Vegan Sour Cream, Liquid Aminos, Egg Replacer, etc. Here is one recipe, one of my favorites, courtesy of Rachel. You can contact her (or me) if you’d like the whole book.
INGREDIENTS
2 sweet potatoes, sliced into thin half-moons
1 red onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1-2 chili peppers, chopped
3 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons liquid aminos or soy sauce
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
DIRECTIONS
Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Once hot, add sweet potatoes, onion, bell pepper, and chili pepper. Season with salt and pepper. Sauté until sweet potatoes are cooked through and all vegetables are well browned (it’s all right if some stick!). Add liquid aminos or soy sauce and water. Scrape the bottom of the skillet to release any bits that may have stuck. When water has mostly evaporated, taste, and add more salt, if needed. Stir in parsley, and serve.
Serves 4.
Here are some of the photos from her profile, and the rest are on Flickr. Let’s just say we got some funny looks walking down the street with a tomato speared on a large knife.
Project XXX has now been taken down at the Anne Kittrell Gallery. After phoning the Provost to get it extended a week and to complain about the paper on the windows, they finally took it down because the next artist needed a week to set up (sounds fishy to me…). All in all, the whole endeavor turned out magnificently. Darby stirred up a ruckus in the community and at the university, made the news, is going to be featured again in The Arkansas Traveler next week, and may even make the yearbook.
It turns out that the reason the “controversy” started was that two women who work for University Housing complained to the ART gallery, then to the Provost, then to the Chancellor, and then to the Sheriff. The Sheriff? Seriously? I guess these ladies had nothing better to do and were incredibly offended by seeing a penis on the wall…maybe they don’t have kids of their own. I don’t know.
In any case, needless to say, I’m proud of Darby and her courage to associate her name with such a touchy subject. Her exhibit was the most popular in years, I’d say, and everyone–faculty, students, etc.– that we’ve talked to about it has been amazingly supportive. Hooray for a liberal pocket in Arkansas.
Here are a few photos I took of Darby by her exhibit. (Yes, I made sure to not get any parts in the photos :) ). They’re also on Flickr.
Update 3/24/10: Darby has now put 32 photos, the ones that she printed for the exhibition, on her Flickr page. Feel free to peruse them–and leave comments!
Update 5/27/10: A video from the reception has FINALLY been posted online for your enjoyment. Here it is.
Darby’s “Project XXX” Artist Reception from Stephen Ironside on Vimeo.
Never again will I wait this long between posts. Sorry! Things have been incredibly busy with school (did you know I graduate this summer?), and I’ve been badly neglecting this blog. But now it’s spring break…and I have at least a little more free time.
What’s new…
On February 22nd, I shot a small fundraiser at the DDP Gallery in Fayetteville for Greg Leding, a young democrat who is running for the Arkansas House of Representatives. He is quite progressive, and stands for many things I also stand for. So, I decided to shoot his gig for free, and it was an all around good time. Here are a few shots. The rest can be found in my Events collection on Flickr.
That said, I support Greg in this race–he’s got my vote.
That’s it for tonight…I’ll put up more tomorrow! Promise!
A monkey sits above Tso Pema (“Lotus Lake” in Tibetan), a pilgrimage site in northern India. 2008.
