Posts Tagged ‘photography’

“Element of Life” Calender 2013

19

Oct

2012

I have been very busy these last few weeks, making photographs of the amazing display of fall colors this year here in Germany. Unlike last year, I have been able to toss together a wall calender for the upcoming year – yes, I know, it’s hard to believe Christmas is only a mere 2 months away. Rather than randomly selecting images of my work, I went ahead and gathered 12 frames around the general theme of “Water”, hence the title of the calender: “Element of Life”.

Sample Granite Reflections Sample Firestorm

It has a bit of everything for the H2O aficionado. High alpine lakes, waterfalls, coastlines in the US and Italy, old sheds in front of the Karwendel massif in Bavaria, Germany and more. Above you’ll find two sample spreads of some of my best selling images included in this calender and below, a selection of all 12 photographs in the calender.

Selection of images

The wall calender is approximately 11.7 x 16.5 inches and printed on 200gsm paper with a satin finish. I decided to make it available through Red Bubble, which has experience in calender printing for many, many years and is known for its high-quality service and beautiful printed products. I prefer to go this route, rather than printing and shipping the calenders myself; as I want to make sure this calender’s turnaround time is low, making it ship timely, all while keeping shipping costs low.

That said, it is available through Red Bubble for $29.90 or 22.99 Euro, respectively.

Besides making a perfect wall decoration for your home or the bland walls of your office, this calender would also make a great Holiday gift for your friends who might enjoy hiking, fishing, camping or maybe just honor skillfully crafted photography. ๐Ÿ˜‰ Your turn!

(A last side note, new images will be released soon.)

The Real Value of Your Photography

26

Aug

2012

It’s nothing new in the world of photography to receive requests from hundreds of people over the course of a year if they are allowed use your image for free on various projects. While for the novice, this might be flattering, for any even halfway serious photographer it’s the worst kind of request. "Well, aren't you glad I asked and didn't just steal it? You just have to give it to me." — No, I don’t.

Honestly, I am actually more insulted when they ask to use an image for free than when just taking it. That way, I would at least have gotten a settlement claim out of it.

From time to time, a company or advertising agency licenses an image by going through the whole process with the required professionalism we photographers are thankful for. Clear terms, fair compensation for our work. Both sides happy. Very easy.

Apparently, this method proves to be rare, even to the largest companies out there… but read on.

I was recently asked by the [company’s product] OS Partnerships & Business Development team to license my image “Firestorm” to use in their upcoming OS update as a wallpaper choice and later on, in the same ways, in the [company’s product] browser and promotional material. I was beyond excited, not because of a huge check I saw in my near future but for such a large company recognizing my work. A company I trust with my daily online searches, personal data and much more; the company that probably knows more about me than I’d like to.

Fast forward to the licensing agreement I was asked to sign: NO COMPENSATION! Way to go, [company]. While I didn’t plan on retiring after licensing an image with [company], I was expecting at least a fair amount of compensation for a “Give us your image and we do whatever the f**k we want” kind of license.

After some serious consideration and various attempts, I could restrain myself and instead wrote a, what I think to be, moderate reply stating the following:

Dear Mrs. ___________,

I am not willing to accept the licensing agreement under the terms stated.

First off, when did [company] become a charitable organization?
Last time I checked, [company]'s yearly profit for the financial year 2011 was roughly US$ 10 billion with its stock price currently being the third highest in history. [Company] is not a small family owned business thinking everything on the internet is free. They should know better. Licensing images for wallpaper use always involves compensation. Apple, as well as Microsoft, paid the photographers for wallpapers they used in their operating systems well. (http://www.petapixel.com/2012/08/03/the-most-viewed-photo-of-all-time/ and http://www.petapixel.com/2010/04/06/the-photographers-behind-the-wallpapers/)

Why is [company] trying to claim usage rights without paying a fair amount?

I will not let my image go to a multi-million dollar S&P500 company for free. After all, it was you who approached me to license and use my photo in your browser operating system and possibly more than that, not vice versa.

[My licensing terms inserted here.]

In all honesty, would you be willing to work for free? Well, I certainly won't. Here's some further reading material, covering this exact situation: http://photoprofessionals.wordpress.com/

Looking forward to hearing back from you.

To me, it doesn’t come as a surprise I haven’t heard back from them and quite honestly, I don’t expect any kind of answer. The licensing contract they sent was a slap in the face of any photographer.

I ask you, my dear readers (who didn’t have a lot to read from me lately — sorry for that), would you be willing to work for free? Disregarding the industry. I blackened out the company’s name as I do not want start a bashing campaign or anything. I just needed to vent, inform people that even the largest tech companies out there with multi-billion dollar profits do NOT value the work of photographers.

That said, don’t sell yourself short. If I have learned one thing over the years, this is it.
I’d rather have no money in my pockets than knowing someone is falsely promoting their product with my image without paying a fair amount. No exorbitant high amount, a fair compensation.

Thanks for reading my ramblings and feel free to share with your friends, amateur and professional photographers alike, your grandma who might get a kick out of this or the advertising agency of your choice.

David

Summer Update: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

03

Oct

2011

Without further ado, I am back in the saddle again after what seems like a terrible long late spring and summer break and before I even realized, the fall season starts to kick in with some really nice days for us here in Germany.

Last week I was finally able to catch a sunrise over the Ore Mountain ridges with a little fog settling in the valleys below, becoming illuminated by the wonderful warm sunlight hitting just the top layers and creating a somewhat mysterious atmosphere.

Kingdom of Light

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Then, I am on to share another shot from Germany taken some months ago at one of my favorite spots for lupines in the whole region. This year, the flowers were not as abundant as in the previous years but the sky was certainly one of the best I have ever seen here. Enjoy.

Ablaze

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Now for the bad and ugly and back to the good. An odyssey in the customer service industry in Germany.

Many of you know, as a landscape photographer, your shooting and well-feeling in the field, stands and falls with your gear and we’re not talking about cameras and lenses here, but rather hard- and soft-shell jackets and pants, water-proof boots, etc. Either way, I was pretty disappointed in recently acquired gear, two hardshell jackets to name it, that literally failed on the first time wearing them.

I contacted the manufacturer, who, in the US, is known for the best of the best in customer service, but apparently, things move at a different speed here in Germany and my experience was far off of pleasant. I honestly did not expect them to send two new jackets out my way but at least some sort of apology with the request to send the jackets in for inspection of the matter or anything in this direction, but not so, instead they send me the following lines back. “Of course it is always a pity if a beloved product doesn’t function the way it used to.” What? Excuse me? Did you just say beloved product? I am really sorry, but I didn’t have time to enjoy said product(s) at all because they failed miserably the first time out in the field.

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Long story short, I contacted the online retailer where I got both jackets and this time, I was more than pleased and received more than I ever expected after the first experience with the manufacturer. Not only they offered me to send me in the gear at no cost, picked up from my doorstep, the communication was super friendly and I knew at any point what was going on, where my gear has headed, etc. They handled the matter to my fullest satisfaction, but now you need to know who I was so pleased to deal with, huh?

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bergfreunde logo

bergfreunde.de is where it’s at, folks. At least if you want to shop for outdoor gear in Germany.

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For recommendations on where to buy your gear, please refer to the links section of my website. Thanks for letting me rant. Oh wait, this is MY blog. Haha!

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I know I said this in the past and failed, but it won’t be too long till the next update.

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Dodge and Burn โ€“ A Darkroom Technique Digitalized

26

Apr

2011

This is going to be my first written tutorial ever, so please bear with me. I will try to keep this short, fun (How fun can it be to sit in front of a screen instead of being out shooting?) and informative, even though that aspect might not lie in my hands as I don’t know your skill level, after all.

Dodging and burning an image, in other terms, lightening and darkening pixels has been around since the dark age of film photography โ€“ just without the pixels though. One person who brought dodge/burn to the next level and perfected the craft was certainly Ansel Adams. Without wanting to get too much into the history of photography, this technique has been around for long and will continue to be so and for good reason.

But all that aside, let’s get down to business. As you might have heard, Adobe Photoshop has specific tools for those actions (Shortcuts โ€“ Mac/PC: “O” [“Shift” + “O”]), but while using those tools on a layer of pixels gets the job done, it is not advisable to do so. Working directly on your image and not an adjustment layer of any kind will in the long term degrade the quality of your work. Think of the following situation, you worked for hours on a scene, improving, tweaking and refining. You save your work, get it printed and then realize you dodged certain areas too much or too little, all the tweaking you did introduced noise, artifacts or halos where dark edges stand against a bright ground, which was not noticeable on the screen but now becomes problematic in print; but you cannot simply go back and alter the adjustments as you worked directly on your image layer. All the effort you put in, all of a sudden, becomes useless and you need to start off another Photoshop session.

A non-destructive workflow is the magic word here and I am sure you have heard about it but were never too sure what it involved. While this is not my topic for this tutorial, please check out Sean Bagshaw’s thoughtful post on the PhotoCascadia blog, where he shares deep and helpful insights in his processing workflow: http://photocascadia.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/is-your-processing-workflow-non-destructive/.

So how can I make use of this technique for dodging and burning? Please read on. The basic idea is to “outsource” the technique from the pixel layer to an adjustment layer that can be altered whenever you open your PSD or TIFF file.

First thing we need to do is to create a new layer and fill it with 50% gray.
To do this, hold “Shift” + “Command” + “Option” + “N” on a Mac and “Shift” + “Ctrl” + “Alt” + “N” on a PC; which will create a new layer on top of the current layer you are working on.
Then, go to Edit > Fill (or use the shortcuts: “Shift + “Delete” on a Mac / “Shift + Backspace” on a PC) which will open the Fill dialog box. Set the “Use”-option to 50% gray, blending mode normal and opacity to 100%, as shown below.

Fill options

We’re almost done. Last thing we need to do, is to set the blend mode of the dodge and burn layer to soft light and we’re good to go.

To save you some time, I have created a Photoshop action for you to download. Just read on, the download link will be found at the end of this tutorial.

But how does it work? Who is familiar with the blend modes in Photoshop knows that the soft light blending mode will proportionally highlight or darken the layer underneath by the amount it is lighter or darker than 50% gray. That said, painting white on the dodge and burn layer will highlight the portion (dodge) while painting over it, while black will darken (burn) the part of the image. All this can be revoked by painting over the layer with 50% gray set as you brush color. Fairly easy, huh?

Results? You asked for them. Here is a recently reprocessed image from Mesa Arch in Canyonlands NP, Utah. I used a dodge and burn layers to highlight some of the foreground rocks that were touched by the presence of the rising sun but still felt a little too dark and to darken the sunbeam for a more aesthetic appeal, as well as light dodging and burning to even out the exposure.


Final image: (Mouseover for the pre-dodge and burn image!)
Solar Explosion - Mesa Arch, Canyonlands NP


Dodge and burn layer:
dodge burn layer




Download PDF of this tutorial Download Photoshop action


My favorites of 2010 – Happy New Year everyone!

02

Jan

2011

Whoa, it seems like yesterday that I wished a Happy New Year… wait. It was yesterday. Ugh, never mind. So many things happened in 2010, the year flew by like monarch butterflies over the state of California and I thoroughly enjoyed the time spent in the field, photographing in the jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring locations in the western US, namely Yosemite National Park, Arches and Canyonlands NP in Utah, the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon and a few lesser known places on the way, but see for yourself.

Without further blah blah, here are my favorite 5 images of the last year.


1. “Granite Reflections” – Yosemite National Park, California

The Death Hike, Cathedral Peak, Yosemite -- Granite Reflections

Cathedral Peak majestically towers over Upper Cathedral Lake high in the Sierra and a lesser visited area in the Yosemite National Park, California. Read the story behind the ascent here or by clicking the image above.



2. “Defiance Falls” – Columbia River Gorge, Oregon

Defiance Falls

The official name of this little known jewel in the Columbia River Gorge is Lancaster Falls, named after Samuel C. Lancaster, an engineer responsible for the construction of much of the original Columbia River Gorge Highway. (Which is an awesome drive by the way!)



3. “Captain’s Point” – Cape Kiwanda, Oregon

Captain's Point

A beautiful soft and warm evening light kisses the sandstone formations of Cape Kiwanda on the Oregon coast near Pacific City while the raging surf shapes the ever-changing cliffs.



4. “Rising Dawn” – Convict Lake, California

Early Morning Crime Scene

Stormy rain clouds are pushing over the ridge of Mt. Laurel at Convict Lake, California; lit by the rising sun over the Eastern Sierra Nevada.



5. “Firestorm” – Natural Bridges State Park, California

Firestorm

A rare colorful sunset during the late summer season in California. Usually the beaches in Northern California are covered in a thick marine layer which blankets the coast like an impenetrable coat, suffocating all chances of possible color. With a little luck and a lot of patience, the spectacular sunset eventually happened, accompanied by lit up rain showers.


Last but not least, I want to thank you all for the support throughout the year. I resolve to post more in 2011, spend even more time in the field, explore new places, offer a better experience when browsing and shopping for images on my website (reads: a major upgrade is in the works) and buy more of the Cialis and Rolex watches I am offered every day. Thanks Spammers. I love you too.

Laced In Frost (Firework Edition)

That said, enjoy “Laced in Frost”. My last image of the past year taken on December 30th; complete with hoarfrost covered branches, steam rising from the river and a little pink magic; brings 2010 to a worthy end. Here’s to a great Twenty-Eleven y’all!

David