E-crush pt. 2

My last post was about my  new digital crush with the program Aperture. I figured I’d let you know how things are going with my workflow integration.

After reading the manual for several hours, and only being about a 1/3 of the way done with it, I came to the part about importing archived files. I was a little skeptical about my love remaining so high when I started reading this. I thought I was going to have to spend countless hours renaming/organizing all my old files. And then I found another reason to love this program.

It has allowed me to keep and maintain the same digital archive I have used for the past four years without changing a thing. What’s even better, is that I have a referenced file on my laptop of all my old files at all times. Let me take you through the process of looking at photos previously.

1. Think of a photo I wanted to use
2. Plug in my ext. harddrive
3. Wait for it to load
4. Try to remember approximately when I shot
5. Find the folder by either handpicking it on the external harddrive or searching for it through Spotlight
6. Open the folder in Photomechanic – wait for it to load
7. Wait some more for it to load
8. Select the photo and hit edit
9. Wait for Photoshop to load
10. Edit photo
11. Save photo
12. Close Photoshop to preserve resources

Here’s my new method:

1. Open Aperture
2. Either find the folder/project it’s in
3. Review it
4. Then decide whether I really need to plug the harddrive in or not
5. Plug it in and wait
6. Edit in Apperture
7. Save

That alone cut out five steps, very time costly steps I might add. Plus, it makes it so much easier for me to simply move my files from my laptop to my harddrive easily by the click of a few buttons. And they always remain referenced.

I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more post about this program as I learn new and exciting things, but here’s my big suggestion to you if you are a photographer.

Buy a Mac and then buy this program. It will be some of the smartest money you will ever spend.

Jumping ship

I decided to go ahead and give Aperture a shot this week. My copy of Photomechanic is stuck on my other computer. I don’t have the disc or the serial number available, so I thought why not.

The last wedding conference I went to a few photographers suggested. Probably the best decision I ever made.

It is such a time saver and creates a better workflow environment than my previous Photomechanic/Photoshop combination. I’m estimating it will save about 40 minutes on every hour of work. I’ll let you know how that goes. Right now, I’m going through the manual so I know how to use all the functions before I jump right in.

I think one of the things I’m most excited about is having a stacks of projects that I can quickly go back to. A quick example would be having the ability to look at all my 2008 football photos all at once instead of loading each folder individually. Plus, I can rate photos, group them and on and on.

I’m going to write up a workflow tomorrow. The manual suggests mapping it out and sticking to it, which is exactly what I’m going to do. As I find cool new features I’ll post about it and hopefully entice you to purchase a Mac and this program.

Blustery blunder

So it’s almost a week later, but I thought I’d share a few thoughts on last week’s loss to Kankakee.  Rochelle lost 22-21 in overtime.

There’s so much to say about about the game, but how critical can you really be about a group of kids, their coaches and one game. I know football always comes down to single-elimination playoffs, but I like to look at the overall season.

This season had its ups and downs. Much like this game did. And in the end, unfortunately Rochelle ended up on the short end of the stick.

Rochelle scored the first two touchdowns throughout the game. In fact, Kankakee didn’t score toward nearly the end of the game. Rochelle went for two both times, but only got it on the second touchdown.

Late into the second half Kankakee scored. The coaches were screaming the whole second half that there defenders were being tackled. I’m not sure if this really was the case. If so, my camera never caught them in the act.

With seconds left in the fourth quarter, the score 14-8, Kankakee got a pivotol call in their favor. The pass should’ve been called incomplete, but several factors including a blind look, led to the missed call. I think the crowd reaction says it all here. Shortly thereafter Kankakee scored another touchdown with about 40 seconds to go.

All looked bleek until a missed point after conversion failed because the kicker slipped. So it headed to overtime. Overtime in high school is decided by the two teams getting the ball on the 10 yard line and getting one set of downs to score.

Rochelle went first. Completed the touchdown and decided to kick the point after. Made it. Score was 21-14. Then Kankakee gets their chance. They easily convert too. They try and go for the gusto. 2-point conversion. It pays off.

Hubs are shocked and distraught. I can’t blame them. I thought for sure they had it wrapped up.

You can’t blame everything on the botched plays either. There were several instances where the defense should’ve stopped the Rays. The offense should’ve scored more points. Either way, I guess in the end it just wasn’t their day.

Every player played their heart out. I could tell by their reactions. The coaches made most of the right calls in my opinion.

From the game

I promised some of my students I would post this photo of them online earlier this week. Sorry it took me so long guys.

I’ll post a little about the game if I get a chance tonight or tomorrow.

Ciao!

Silver lining

The posts have been lacking a little again. Not by choice. I’ve been too busy and without a computer for a few days. Well, I guess I was really only without a computer for about 24 hours, but I was working on one computer for a little bit.

Let me fill you in on a lesson I’ve learned before, but needed to be taught again. There are certain things in life we should not do. I’m not talking morally, I’m talking physically. I wouldn’t want to perform surger on my children (when I have some), nor would I think most of you would want to do the same to your children.

So why do most of us think we can do just about anything, like say…..work on a computer. I know it’s a big fault I have. I always think I can do something myself. When it comes to computers, I’m usually right. I have taken apart, reassembled and fixed many computers with my limited knowledge, so naturally I thought a laptop would be pretty easy. I was wrong.

I had taken my iBook G4 apart once before with no problems and reassembled it after the DVD drive erred on me once. I had a similar problem, so I thought I’d try again.

Long story short, there’s a reason that stores have service centers with trained technicians. Because when you make a slight mistake trying to do it yourself, it can cost you dearly. In my case, a $700 mistake.

I ruined my logic board. The on/off component on the board fell right off. It may have been loose from the last time I worked on the computer or I could’ve done it this time too. I’m not sure. But it certainly was a costly reminder.

After all, I wouldn’t want ‘Uncle Joe’ trying to take someone’s senior portraits, so why would I attempt to fix my own computer. Trying to do things the cheap way never seems to work out.

But enough complaining. Every cloud has a silver lining. I guess my cloud was a new MacBook Pro. I swear I didn’t mean to lead into that cliche just because my new computer is silver, but it worked out perfect didn’t it?

I’ve needed a newer computer for awhile and it just happened that last year’s pros are on sale because the new version is out. Got this baby for $1599 and I love it. The only thing this doesn’t have that the new MacBooks have is a better graphics card. But this is a Pro also. Bigger screen, better display, firewire 800. Okay, okay, enough with the nerd talk.

Is what it really means for me, is that productivity can increase. I no longer have to wait for things to load or for strange errors with browsers. I’m fully functional. I guess that just means I need to quit blogging and get to work…..

Not sure what to expect

This past weekend, I had the joy of shooting my first maternity photos for one of my friends. I’ll admit, I was a little nervous about shooting maternity photos as I had never done any and I don’t have a full studio to bring people into to make them feel comfortable.

Instead, I opted to shoot the photos in Tony and Kate’s place.  Faced with challenges on space, I wasn’t sure what lights to bring so I just took everything. I ended up using only one monolight with a shoot-through umbrella.

I was very happy with the session. If I had a full studio, couches, beds and other props I would’ve probably just gone crazy and shot 50 different poses, but we were limited on time and space, so we got about 10 total poses throughout the session.

I think this is my favorite. I have another with Tony down listening to her belly that I like, but this one just speaks louder to me.

I’m so happy for Tony and Kate. She’s due at the beginning of January and they will be the proud parents of a bouncing baby boy. Hopefully I can pick up a few more of these assignments because I really like the beauty and melodrama you can create with this type of portrait.

If you’re wondering why there’s a logo across her face read the previous post.

Thanks guys for letting me share this photo with the interweb.

A change in plans

I want to take a second on this post to explain a few things. First, thank you for reading this blog. I know sometimes my writing gets so convaluted it’s hard to figure out what my main point is. (And if you think my writing is bad, you should have a conversation with me.) Secondly, I want everyone to know how much I appreciate the views I get from day to day. I know half of you are some of my close friends, but judging by the amount of hits I’ve been getting, some of you may not know me yet.

I also want to say that my upcoming comments have absolutely nothing to do with any friends, clients or probably anyone that reads this blog. In fact, the incident I want to touch on, has nothing to do with a personal experience, but a fellow photographer’s appalling experience.

Kevin German, former photojouranlist for the State Journal Register in Springfield, who is currently living in Asia as a freelancer, wrote about a disturbing incident where his images were stolen.

I won’t go into the details. If you’re really interested, please read his story. I’ll just say that things I read on the internet don’t normally affect my everyday life, but his story has changed my actions.

I should also fill you in on my own beliefs about copyright and the internet. I’m very liberal leaning when it comes to images on the internet. I believe if an image is available for download through whatever site, an INDIVIDUAL should have the right to download the photo, make a print or use the photo in any non-commercial manner they choose. At this stage in the game, photographers should have enough knowledge to understand that anyone with a first-grade knowledge of computers could potentially download pictures easily. There’s a variety of measures one can take to prevent this. Everything from flash slideshows to Web sites that automatically add watermarks. If you can’t figure out how to protect those images from being downloaded, you should not post them.

This does not mean I believe a company could take an image and use it to sell products and not compensate the photographer. I think the capitalization of the word individual above should have stressed that point. My photos are meant for individual use, not commercial. If a company would like to buy an image and use it I would be more than happy to discuss prices and possibilities.

I also hate watermarks with a passion. My photojournalism teacher taught me to never let designers add text to my photos without approval, so why would I add text to them on my own? That being said, I’ve had to reevaluate my stance on them after reading Kevin’s post. They have become a necessary evil for myself.

The gut-wrenching feeling I had after reading it probably can’t be any comparison to Kevin’s feelings, but instead of waiting for something like this to happen to me I’ve taken necessary precautions to prevent it. I don’t consider myself a photographer on his level yet, but someday I hope to be and I think taking these steps right now will prevent complications in the future.

Here are the measures I’ve taken:

• Image downsizing
• Watermark usage
• Full caption info
• Less frequent uploads
• A look into upgrading gear

I’m going to start downsizing all my public images posted to Flickr. Typically I post my images at full resolution because of the time factor. It takes a lot of time to resize images, place them in a seperate folder and keep it all organized. My full resolution is 10 in on the longest side of the photo at 300 dpi. All images will no more than 800 px from now on. I’ll probably also cut down on the resolution.

As I said I hate watermarks, but they’ve become a necessary evil now. I’ve already created one using my logo. I lower the opacity so it doesn’t detract as much from the image, but it just grinds my gear to even half to add one. It’s also another timely process. Luckily I’ve created a photoshop action to do this task for me, but I’m not sure how this will affect me when I change to another editing program like Apperture or Lightroom.

I’m also adding full caption info to every photo I take. There’s a lot of stuff in digital files called metadata that protects photographers in many cases. This may be the one thing that saves Kevin German. I figure the more info I add in, the better off I am, but this will require a lot more time to type it in for photos I wouldn’t normally add information for, like family portraits.

Which brings me to less frequent uploads. The time constraints are going to have a dramatic effect on the number of uploads. I basically have three extra steps now in order to post a photo, which will mean less photos and fewer posts.

The last thing I’m looking into is whether my gear is adequate enough to protect me. I haven’t found the answer yet, but I’m hoping that my cameras serial stamp files like Kevin’s 5D does. This information in the metadata can be incredibly resourceful in this situation. Lee MacKay Turner may not have covered his tracks as well as thought and hopefully Kevin receives some compensation. If my gear doesn’t provide the same features, it will definitely be a factor in choosing future cameras.

I would like to reiterate that this has nothing to do with my own clients or viewers of this site. I’m unaware of any theft and I have faith that no one has used my photos for commercial gain that I have not authorized.

If a photo is posted here, please feel free to download it. If I don’t want someone to download the image, I will add a watermark or use other means to protect it, but those without marks are fair game. And I guess if you really want to download the one with a mark and print it, you probably need the photo more than I need the money.

All of my commercial and client work will most likely have marks though because there is always the possibility that it could end up in an advertisement or something else. It’s not fair to my clients to be used in an advertisement without their permission. So don’t be offended to see my mark across your portrait. I know none of you would steal them, I’m protecting your self image.