Dominic's Photography Posts

Attorney Ed Greenberg on Copyright, Model Releases, and Shooting in Public

Dominic — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:04:00 PDT

This ought to be interesting for all you photographers out there.

Scott Kelby asked Attorney Ed Greenberg (who has over 30 years of experience on the topic) about copyright, model releases and shooting in public.

The result is two 10-minute video clips that you can watch here.

I highly recommend taking a look - there’s some really good information in there.

Photography

Dominic — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 23:35:00 PDT

It feels good to be shooting again.

Height adjustable desk

Dominic — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:37:00 PDT

I’m vaguely entertaining the idea of getting a new desk as part of moving to my new house.

Through some random occurrence on the internet, I came across these guys, who have manual and electrically-adjustable desks, in heights from about 25” to 50-some”.

Having just contacted Rockford (the local distributor) today to get price information, I came across this link in my RSS reader, not 30 minutes later….

Even though I don’t shoot film, it looks pretty sweet.

Playing catch-up

Dominic — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:47:00 PDT

I am sorry, dear readers, for having neglected you as I have for the last few weeks.

Life has been rather busy and eventful - so it’s been difficult to find ways to express everything in a concise manner, without taking to run-on sentences, excessive blather, et cetera.

(Blah, blah, stop avoiding the subject, Dom)

Fine, fine.

Here goes:

I am getting closer on the house purchase. Against all odds, the government and the banks decided to approve my financing. After 10am tomorrow (Tuesday) I’ll have a house. My very own house.)

I spent an evening a few weeks ago with some fellow photographers making images. Surprisingly enough, the image I like the most, didn’t get popular. Another one did instead. Strange.

I was coerced to attend a wedding for Memorial Weekend (under duress.) Nah, it wasn’t really that bad, just hot, humid and sweaty. All ingredients in a Texas summer wedding. I happened to take some photographs while there, carefully avoiding upsetting the photographer they had hired. I think I did well— we ended up exchanging business cards and lighting/equipment tips at the end of the day.

In my own infinite wisdom, I spent Memorial Day outside in the heat sweating while looking for small hidden containers. This is also known as geocaching, and apparently a dangerous summer sport in Texas. (I spent the evening recovering from dehydration and heat exhaustion. (Despite having drank water - apparently not enough.)

Did I mention I’m closing on my house tomorrow?

(Yes, you did.)

I spent this last Saturday floating down the Guadalupe river in an inner tube. Being a very common Texas recreational activity, it was much fun. On the downside, I did lose my sunglasses— on the bright side, they weren’t my expensive prescription ones.

I did bring a camera on this trip, but it wasn’t without it’s own problems. The LCD on the back was broken (effectively shooting blind), and we briefly lost the camera + photos toward the end of the trip. I’ll let y’all know when those photos are up.

Dunvegan Keep

Dominic — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:42:00 PDT

And now, dear readers, we interrupt the (apparently) usual house buying conversation with some photography news.

Last weekend, 25+ photographers and myself descended upon a location in the far reaches of south Austin known as Dunvegan Keep.

A gentleman took his rather large backyard and converted it into some prime sort-of medieval themed photography backdrop. There’s all sorts of gorgeous things to shoot people infront of, behind, through and in.

The day of shooting was a success - I spent the majority of the time experimenting with natural light - diffusers, reflectors and several other tricks - and had a great time.

As did the other photographers, from what I’ve heard.

Edit: You can see the rest of the photos here.

Late night photo shoot

Dominic — Sun, 04 May 2008 22:53:00 PDT

“You know it’s a good photo shoot when the cops show up…”

Those were the fabled words after Saturday evening’s mini-shoot with Heather and Jordan. Turns out that 3 people standing around with umbrellas and stuff look suspicious enough to warrant the cops stop by to check it out.

Actually, someone called 911, the cops showed, and I had a conversation with a very nice public servant.

We were doing nothing wrong, not trespassing, and when I asked if we needed to leave, he sort-of shrugged his shoulders and indicated that he did not care.

All in a days work, I say.

Projects

Dominic — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 23:52:00 PDT

Dear blog readers,

It occurred to me a while back that I should make another attempt at engaging in a photography project of some kind.

Gordon has hopped onto the SoFoBoMo bandwagon (not a bad idea), and it got me thinking. Despite this thinking, I’ve been on the fence about actually doing a project like SoFoBoMo (publish a photo book in a month).

Earlier this week I spoke with several photographer friends of mine, and they all thought that not only are “projects” a good idea, in that they keep you shooting when you might not be “in the groove” (as I appear to be presently), but they also help you progress and learn things, be it lighting, composition, networking, courting customers or what have you.

So here goes my attempt at an elevator pitch:

Hi, I’m Dominic, and I’m a photographer. I’m currently working on a project where I take recurring photographs of on a daily or semi-daily basis, and plan on putting the photographs together as a book when I’m done.

I’m mostly doing this for my own sake, practice and the experience. It’s also part of a challenge (to myself) to produce a photo book (coffee table book) in about a month.

I still need to come up with a quick schpiel on what a model release is, and some good reasons for why they should sign one.

Anyway, here’s to hoping I get through this, and for several other future ideas.

Website redesign

Dominic — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:12:00 PDT

As those of you who stop in here from time to time may have noticed, my website has gotten quite the face lift.

I’ve spent the last week or so working on a new layout and design for the more photography-oriented site - I am still filling in some content, but over the next few days things should fill up the way I want them.

For those of you who are wondering why I did this - I’m considering focusing more of my energy into developing a photography business (yes, I know - along with the other hordes out there) and I wanted things to look a bit more professional.

Some details: Save for the blog, everything else is hand-written using vi (unix text editor) - no IDE was used for any part of this.

I spent countless hours tweaking the CSS for a cohesive design but I think it worked out pretty well in the end.

Yay.

Food Network

Dominic — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:21:00 PDT

After the long photo shoot Sunday evening, I got in a conversation with one of our models, Zion. She was looking for a photographer to help her take a few shots for a show on the Food Network that she was going to be on.

They needed several shots of her ordering take-out, eating take-out and relaxing at home, to be interjected into the show when it airs.

The time I spent on this shoot Monday evening was great education - it made me think very in-depth about lighting, composition, how to frame shots, how to get creative in a small space (her apartment wasn’t very spacious).

All in all, I had a great time, despite being pretty tired from the day before.

Then again, I really can’t complain, afterall my photographs will be shows on the Food Network. :)

Model Photography

Dominic — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:48:00 PDT

Last Sunday, myself and 46 other photographers from the Austin Strobist flickr group got together for several hours of ~~chaos~~ shooting.

We had pooled our money and rented a swank downtown nightclub, Vicci for 5 hours.

We divided into 4 teams, each with approx. 10-12 photographers. We then rotated through the lighting setups and the models.

I was lead for team #4, and we started with shooting Zion - a model I’ve worked with before, who is great fun to work with. Full of energy, and always ready to laugh.

Next up were Carole and Garrett, a modeling couple here in town. They were great to work with, you got some more freedom in composition and posing, since you had two people to work with. I actually spent a few extra minutes after shooting with them to get a shot I’d had in mind:

The third model we shot was Michelle, a new transplant to Austin. She’s originally from Brazil and moved here less than a month ago.

The fourth model we shot with was Jessa - she’s been to the Strobist meets in the past. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any good shots from the shoot with her - we were experimenting with the lighting and when I reviewed my photos afterwards, I wasn’t happy with any of them.

5-6 hours of hectic creativity later, we all ended up going to Manuels (sp?) downtown for some dinner.

Much fun was had by all.