Upgrade

I hate upgrading software. I try to avoid it. Upgrading is a process with many potential pitfalls. Over the years I think I have experienced many of them. Let's face it, my copy of Photoshop CS2 worked the day before CS3 was introduced so it will work just as well the day after.

Unfortunately there always does come a time when upgrading cannot be put off any longer. Earlier this week I did install Photoshop CS3. The upgrade went well and I had it up and running straight away - after a 200MB download of updates.

But it broke my colour mangement. I didn't know until after the installation was complete that Adobe Gamma is no longer included in the package. It maybe a fairly basic colour management tool, but it has served me well over several generations of Photoshop. So now I have to do what I should have done ages ago, buy a hardware colour management tool.

So, from uninstalling the previous version to being up productive on the upgraded version will take several days. Yet another pitfall on the upgrade trail.

Happily, installing the Pantone Huey that I sellected to take care of my monitor calibration was very easy and took less than 10 minutes all told. I am confident that my colour management will now be better than even. So maybe the pitfalls will end up being beneficial. 
Copyright © Greg Wright 2005-14 Photography from Frome - All rights reserved
¶ 14:15 0 Comments

  The Money Shots

I've been dabbling in the stock photography market for the past couple of years. I do occasionally shoot specifically for stock but most of my portfolio is made up of shots that I have primarily made with other uses in mind. I am not into hiring models and the posed business shots that do very well in this market.

It is no surprise that the shots that I have created with this market in mind sell best. In the main the best sellers are fairly mundane, even boring subjects that have been produced to a high technical standard. The hammer above is the stock shot I have sold the most. In this market 'pretty' pictures and creative work does not bring home the bacon. These can go to other markets such as photographic magazines.

For me, the editorial market is still treating me quite well, certainly better than stock. When I first started marketing my work I learned to write. Selling a package of words and pictures to a magazine is far easier than selling pictures alone. Interestingly, I have been selling far more articles without pictures recently. Either my writing has improved a great deal or my pictures suck. I'll let you judge. 
Copyright © Greg Wright 2005-14 Photography from Frome - All rights reserved
¶ 14:05 0 Comments

  Breakthrough!

Earlier today I was looking at some pictures by someone who was just starting to take photographs. Her images showed a lot of promise but the composition was not quite right and there were some other problems. I am sure with the right approach she will be able to make better pictures fairly quickly. So I started thinking about what she could do to improve.

One of the main things is to get someone who is more experiecned than she is to look at her work and give constructive criticism. Choosing this person can be quite hard becasue he must be constructive. The wrong kind of criticism can hurt someone, particularly a beginner, very deeply. This kind of help is available in some camera clubs, though by no means all. Some web forums are also helpful, equally some are poisonous.

Looking at other people's work is also important. Sorry, not looking at other peole's work - studying it and working out why photos work and equally important, why they don't. This means looking at as many pictures as possible including those you don't really like. Looking at paintings is useful here.

When she has done this it is time to look at her own work critically. Hopefully she will have learned what makes a good image and be an the way to achieving it. She might even end up applying this process to images in the viewfinder before pressing the shutter - now wouldn't that be good! 
Copyright © Greg Wright 2005-14 Photography from Frome - All rights reserved
¶ 19:57 0 Comments

  What a Waste...

I went to the local agricultural show yesterday. I saw a pick-up taking away a few bags of rubbish and shot this. The picture is now part of the 'waste' project I mentioned recently.

When one of the workers saw me taking the picture at first he was surprised. I then explained about my project. Then he could not stop talking a bout what a wasteful society we are. 
Copyright © Greg Wright 2005-14 Photography from Frome - All rights reserved
¶ 21:26 0 Comments

  Good Enough?

The great Welsh rugby fly-half, Barry John, once said, "There is no point in kicking the ball ten foot over the bar. You get the same number of points if it just makes it." Well, those may not have been his exact words, but you get the idea. I think that us photographers can learn a lot from this statement.

If you have want a photo to make a 6"x4" print, does it matter that it falls apart at 7"x5"? Of course it doesn't. Your image is good enough for what you want it for. If you look at a 100% magnification in Photoshop and it is noisey and not quite sharp it does not matter. No-one else will ever see it like this anyway. If the image works at it's intended size then there is no point in looking at bigger versions and finding fault.

The next question is, good enough for whom? I am certain that any image only ever has to be good enough for one person, or at the most a very small group of people. If you are a professional, it has to be good enough for your client. If it is a competition photo, it has to be good enough for the judge. If you are an amateur, it has to be good enough for you. This is the way you create your own style and make images to fit in with other people's perceptions.

At the end of the day, you will know if it is good enough. 
Copyright © Greg Wright 2005-14 Photography from Frome - All rights reserved
¶ 19:43 0 Comments