Microstock Photography

Micro-Stock – Still Alive!

admin — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:47:34 +0000

We will be doing a round-up of the changes in the microstock photo industry over the last year in the next month.

As equipment continues to get better and cheaper competition has increased and of course we have seen consolidation in the marketplace.

Stay tuned for an update in the near future from us!

Micro Winter Tips

Snow — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:10:33 +0000

The trick to grabbing great shots in winter is finding the plants that open up gratefully on a warm day after a chilly set of mornings. These plants are moistured up and ready to release all their full tones for the birds and the bees, so to speak. Make sure the highest point of light is toplit and background infills keep foreground subject focus sharp.

Good weather allows for so mnay eye opening shortcuts the sun and the weather are practically doing the work for you. The autoflex or smart selection tool will adjust light setting if you let it, or you can restrict light fill to test the integrity of your settings. You can pick the best one in the editing stages.

I took this picture as part of a slideshow I am making for a nursing home near where I live. When I have the whole thing done, someone lying in bed feeling awful can enjoy the bright colors and sunny fruits of nature.

Micro CCD 101

Snow — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 04:30:09 +0000

The editing decisions you make when using photo editing software like Photoshop can only work as well as the basic picture that was taken. If there was too little light the contrast will stay low. If there was too much aperture in the lens, the compass will be too wide for the telephoto shot. If there is not enough resolution no amount of resampling will save a picture that might have benefited from some hands-on adjustment at the point of shooting.

You’ll end up cropping the shot to elide the problem. Window glare in the above shot was a problem before editing. Reducible white glare points can be difficult to integrate against variable backgrounds. Look at the above image andÂ see the challenge: glare from the labels and store environment cuts visual definition of the subject. The wine names with CCD adjustment would have shown legibly.

It’s my view that most people who own even high grade cameras don’t know how to use the basic settings or what they mean. It’s also my view that since about 15 minutes of training would clear all this up, micro stockers in particular need to master the electronic CCD settings on their digital camera.

Knowing when to change the settings and how to do so could save a money making shot, and save headaches in the editing room. Being able to navigate these at the precise time the shot makes itself available is the micro stocker’s gift. The technical part of knowing when to alter the settings (and change them back) is up to you.

This means doing your homework. Examine your owner’s manual and if it is unclear or not usable, then go online search for user forums for you camera model. All kinds of good questions can be answered there, including where is the best electronic setting tutorial for model “x”.

Changing white balance is important because changing this setting in unusual or indoor light is occasionally necessary. If you favor a lens setting for certain shots that doesn’t accord with conventional picture taking, without changing the white balance you could be in for a lot of noise and reddish hues on the white you do get. Learn to adjust white balance.

Default settings were installed for the digital camera with the broadest possible usage in mind, which is why they don’t work on some specialized shots. Micro stock work may take on a sophistication you are not aware of. Many digital camera owners work within the limitations of the automatic settings, shrugging off bad pictures as “collateral damage”. But the learning curve of the micro stock photographer keeps going up. The window of analysis for each shot and the corresponding feedback will form a tighter and more options-rich loop from shooting to editing than the average shutterbug.

If you are starting to feel limited, consider borrowing a camera with more hands-on manual control. Work with the lenses and take pictures extending focal length and aperture manually. If you feel it’s too much work, feel affirmed in your choice of a SLR digital camera, but if it feels more intuitive than your present camera, you might be in for a change.The challenge then will be to decide between cameras for photo walkabouts, or take both of them out. Now, at last, do you understand the need for a special camera bag or backpack?

Micro California

Snow — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:42:07 +0000

Let’s face it, California is a photographic genre all its own. TheÂ beaches, the people, the clothing, the body jewelry, the texting and the outrageous lifestyle extremes. California is rich in natural resources, consumer extremes, undiscovered coastline and a mecca for artists and shorts-wearing billionaires who surf. California is a great theme for pictures.
The T-shirt above is an example of the kind of knee-jerk cynicism slacker fashions have gone. The shirt wears a ribbon stripe of each one of the major athletic shoe manufacturer logos, as if from one of the popular t-shirts everybody wears. This shirt is not only a stunning graphic combination, but cleverly avoids using any of the brand names fully (enough to get sued). Roving some of the more avante garde neighborhoods and college campuses yields some interesting ideas.

Something is always happening in California, and if you can get close to this physical location the sky is the limit image-wise. This kind of shot depends on being in the right place at the right time. Maybe the shirt wouldn’t have been in the window next week, or I would have walked on the other side of the street. Great shots can’t happen for people who don’t get out with their cameras. But there are many other California image markets than fashion. The home design trends borrow so heavily from the 1950′s and 1960′s actual pieces from those eras fit in with homes designed as lately as this year.

California cooking and cuisine and home design and architecture are hot image markets. Recipes and serving ideas, especially those with Mexican flair, are going to be featured. With the holidays coming up, turkey recipes and cookery will be hot. Tex-Mex burritos, turkey burritos with hot sauce, and chipotle turkey will be on the menu.

California real estate has always been a hot market, and in this realty downturn home design ideas to make a property look as if it is worth more are invaluable. California is a curious mix of zen micro peace on a modest budget and rococo vintage at the deluxe end, The art scene and the theatre and drama world is a whole different ball of wax.

Micro Shoot Repair Notes-Miranda Otto

Snow — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:15:21 +0000

I am writing today to share some notes on some editing I have had to do on portrait photography. Working with commercial images would seem to be easy. Often the pictures taken in a given photo shoot are merely fodder for later retouching. But rarely does published photo work need micro editor resampling and re-editing.

This means whatever photo grab takes place on a given day is what the photo editors for the rest of creation have to work with. The stylists and makeup artists should keep in mind the end sum is not just that day’s effects. Bland image fodder can be fixed. Mistakes take work. But all too often people forget that.

The challenge came when one of the images was of Mirando Otto from an Elle photo shoot shot some months or years after the movie’s tremendous success. Press photos for the films colored collector cards, games, costume collectibles packaging, figurines and websites.

The stylists had obvious realized that Otto’s coloring had not benefited from the washed out platinum hair and all pale makeup in the film. They may not have realized thatÂ asymmetric characteristics of Otto’s face were even out in the film, rendering her face flat and uninteresting in many scenes. The fantasy hair and plain bodice dresses that looked stunning on Cate Blanchett and Liv Tyler didn’t work on Otto.

As a Tolkien fan, I can say that a lot of the Eowyn photography was unsuccessful in part because the actress was bleached of the reddish strawberry color that made her so attractive. The reddish hair and strawberry saturation clashed with the other images, but I tried to see what I could do. See her comparatively brilliant styling in the abc Tv show Cashmere Mafia.

As I worked with the image from the Elle shoot, I was frustrated by some of attempts at “photography” the stylists and others had attempted. The relationship between the art of photography and the makeup and art direction was missing, But I knew I was looking at the best shots available.

For a beauty magazine, the makeup was too harsh for the fantasy theme. Otto’s eyes look so puffy and unrecessed she looks like a dead ringer for Jennifer Ehle, another actress best known for the classic “Pride and Prejudice” with Colin Firth. This picture is reversed, not Otto’s best side.

The back shadow that would have made Otto look better had been robbed by strange dead on colored lighting, which was wasted on the props. Any examination of the LOTR craft, which the shoot was so obviously trying to mimic, would have yielded a less 20th century seamed dress, a less dead-on physical stance, and a lighting effect more in keeping with the epic dread of the piece.

The Elle shoot of Otto simply pointed out her physical flaws. But the blurred flyaway hair on one side of her face, when the other side and top of her head was carefully arranged, looks horrible.

And a weirder attempt to arrange her hair so one side of her face was exposed to light missed its mark. This might have been an attempt to highlight Otto’s cheekbones, but the flattering shadow created by a fall of hair was missing. Instead, a weird pocket of unrelieved bright light shone directly downward and from the back, making Otto’s face more moonish and less distinct.

Bright light shining against the side of her face was pointed directly at the camera, which reflected the shine and did not flatter the actress.

Furthermore, Otto’s defining hair was overly tinted orange bronze. The poufs of hair were styled in perfect “mice” from a period far removed from the fantasy era depicted. This emphasized her square jaw, an even more unflattering style. Worse, the utter absence of a neckline from the dress was the worst possible choice, from a fashion magazine that presumably knew how to dress women!!

This is a lesson in what to avoid when doing up close portrait or fashion photography. The bounce of light off her cheekbone hollow directs lights in the one place an actress longs for dramatic shadow!!!

Link:

http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Miranda-Wallpaper-eowyn-602344_1024_768.jpg

Otto’s best look from the LOTR movies is the dark green dress and also the battle suit of armor that gives a constructed collar and detail to her chest and square shoulders that flatters her square jaw instead of drawing attention to it. Even a rich purple dress in the Two Towers has a shoulder collar that gives an elegance to this character not seen in other scenes.

But not here. Round swirls of hair only make her face look square, flat, and pale, and undefined in a picture full of tinted bright color. What an error and what a waste of an opportunity. The lighting flattened her face and her brow bones had no definition at all, creating an undefined facial dimensionality to a formal portrait!

And what a strange echo of the drabbing down mistakes in styling and art direction for Otto in LOTR that resulted in a lot of Otto’s scenes being cut. The extended Lord of the Rings Return of the King version shows many scenes with Otto that might have been successful, but the dramatic effect was robbed by her colorless net effect. The brown dress and pale blue underdress rob her in every scene of color, with platinum hair making her skin look even worse. This character, Eowyn, is supposed to be stunningly beautiful! Not washed out and indistinct.

The color choice for the Elle shoot dress is strange. The bright white dress that throws light into Otto’s face from all the LOTR publicity should have been a good example, not a lustrous dead oyster satin that detracts from skin. Otto’s features get lost in the lighting where the stark colors get exaggerated.

Â In contrast, Liv Tyler was clothed almost all the LOTR movies long in faded blue and dark red and pink velvet and velours which made her skin alive with flattering tones and comparatively smooth texture.

The clothes of the Elle shoot were not a help. The flat oyster satin cut low with no relief against the white skin of Otto’s midriff made the same mistake the pale silk of the LOTR film did, it robbed the skin of any flesh tone. Next to the brilliant bronze of the hair and dark eyed effect of the shot, this was a mistake. Necklace, people. Necklace.

Worse, a patterned graphic overlay on top of the tree Otto was posed against made a further remove from an awkward reality. Dressing up a flawed shot with an exterior graphic is a complete error in this case. Is the in Otto’s eyes patience, or merely suppressed fury?

I did what I could, coloring the shadows into the eyelid. You know you are in trouble when the mid shadows from the eye crease are the same hue as the mid shadows and the dark lid pocket of the other eye crease. One eye is always a darker tone due to natural shadow cast. This is beginning portrait lighting 101, people.

Otto, a character actress with a square face and strong jaw, is lit like Angelina Jolie or Megan Fox. Otto doesn’t need the light infill, and the emphasis on the props is distracting and a wasted effort. The photo editor owes Otto a drink.

I killed the sidelight and the bright rearward light coming off Otto’s neck. Why a fashion magazine would highlight the very feature an actress grows long hair to hide is unclear. I shudder to think what photos got lost in the bin.

The dead area on the other side of head from the brilliant poufs got filled in by a copy and flip of the top of her head section rounds reduced in size. Highlighting the neck and jawbone while leaving the roots of hair flat on one side and brilliant orange on the other is just weird. I left the mirror image so blog readers can see what changes were made.

Micro Camera Shopping Focus

Snow — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 03:50:18 +0000

Digital flash features were designed to give flexibility to the built-in flash that trapped photographers in a miasma of overlighting and red-eye image batches, or dark shadowy mysteries. A modern camera today will have a motorized zoom lens. This feature ironically costs battery life to run. Feeding a lens motor may cost you ideal photographic windows of opportunity.

If you are more comfortable performing lens focusing yourself, look at some old-school DLR cameras. The hype surrounding the DSLRs are principally to give nontrained people a more hobbyist feeling when using that camera. This is a gross misnomer, since someone who can’t benefit from the custom requirements of using a SLR is hardly likely to extract full value from a camera that concentrates on skills they don’t have.

Flash coverage is another concept that escapes many modern camera buyers. The one size fits all motif is a nonstarter. Too many variable setups in the picture taking occur. Unless the camera buyer is a seasoned studio expert capable of figuring distance and focal lengths in their head. That’s a lot of unnecessary algebra for the casual camera customer. But for the professional photographer, these settings will need to be fine tuned.

But on an autofocus of preset motorized zoom, unless you have studio setups fixed at the proper distances these settings will need to be manually adjusted in the interface. These settings will depend on speed and distance from subject, and type of subject. A fixed portrait head shot will need a different composition framework than a landscape of waterfall at high speed.

The complication of the motor is the timer and the electronic efficiency of the chip driving the motor while recording the picture. And one way to improve take is to use digital lens settingswith creative use of the filter, which can offer some effects that compliment lens settings. At the optical level all cameras are installed with factory presets of the motorized zoom lens. This may not suit every user, but few ever tinker with it.

Horrors, if you borrowed a camera from someone and edited their lens settings, unless you knew exactly what all their presets (and subsequent manipulations) to the factory defaults were, you’d be committing the technical foul of all time.

One way to soften the restrictions between hard fixed almsotAnd this is a feature not many people know to ask for when shopping for a digital camera. Many of the flashy custom zoom settings featured as ranges in the product profiles of the sales listing. You may actually never use more than 30% of them.

One practice tryout a savvy camera buyer of today must give any camera they buy is the test where they pick up the camera and manually shoot a few pictures. If the zoom does not answer well to intuitive play of a button or setting wheel, get another camera.

This feature is too important to be a second set of decision trees when photo grabbing or conducting an impromptu walkabout. The microstock photographer’s time and mind should be spent assessing the distance and light bouncing off the subject and intended effect, not doing mental geometry. But professional photographers do it all the time to maximize yield for their photographic forays.

Micro Gap Explained

Snow — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:03:08 +0000

Ever see a mountain of potential in your image and then show it to others, and the reaction underwhelms you? Above is a small image groomed for an article on fast food, dining, or recession era economy. But some people just see…nothing.

Here are 5 reasons why the underwhelming keeps happening.

1. Too Much, Too Soon.

Getting the whole shot in to the camera is half the fun, but a shot densely packed with objects just isn’t fun or interesting to some people. Concentrate on a certain element or tableaus within the shot. Crop to make this the entire subject of the shot. Sharpen and edge in a contrasting color, fuzzing the background or bringing up the color as needed.

Â 2. Artsy-Fartsy

Sure, it’s harsh phrase to throw around. But sometimes photographers can get so intensely caught up on a moment of pure natural drama or color emotion they lose touch with what a first time observer sees. Is there a delicacy about the flower? Is there a rarity about the natural happening, or does the clarity of the shot of some shape or shadow make it interesting?

Â 3. Wish You Were HereÂ

Everybody knows what these pictures are for. The brag value is high. I went to so and so and frolicked in the sun, on the beach, on the slopes, in the jet, with the rock stars, movie stars, wrestling stars, whomever. These pictures belong on your Facebook page or your I-phone or your desktop. Not in your online gallery.

4. Media High

There are many clever and cute ways to market your images, sharpeners and filters among them.But a comic book version of something cool or a storyboarded action scene just doesn’t travel well to some demographics even when packaged perfectly. Promote images only unless you have a media savvy audience.Â Â

Â Â Â 5. What Would You Pay For This?

With a cash paying market for your photography, the concept of micro stock pictures falls flat.Â if you constantly show pictures in all ranges for those people with no use for them, the concept of monetizing them dies away. The caliber of a micro stock shot is its appeal for a buyer to use, not appreciate.

The goal of altruistic beauty in any art field is a constant, and photography is no different. But only people who publish websites, organize page layouts, build color wheels for palettes of sites or tint pages and blocks can know the utility of your shot. Look to a practical feedback audience to make sure you are getting the critical support you need.

Micro Contrast Composition

Snow — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 04:12:29 +0000

Having said what I can about seasonal photography, opportunistic seasonal decoration capture, and holiday image grabbing, now we come to the part of the show when we discuss composition against “type”. Whereas the eye might skip over a fully thematic image composition, contrasts can create interest and spark a reaction.

Review the above image of Autumn seasonal objects arrayed on a kitchen counter. It should be evidently immediately that the objects all work from the warm Autumn palette of browns, oranges, rich dark reds and mauves. Look at the background. These objects have been purposely organized against a cool texture of smooth tile and cool pink and glass inserts.

Now look again. The ceramic glass pumpkins pick up the same texture as the aqua glass tile inserts in the counter top. The tomato red jumps out against the pink background, yet the purple and blue red laves and stems of the vines don’t look as disharmonized as they would with no other pink blue tones present.

Practice using this method to bring out the most in your subjects with limited time or space to photograph them. The visual statement is organized, confident, and clean looking with no artifacts. This image could be used for tags like housewares, home, kitchen, Fall, autumn, winter, plenty, Thanksgiving, pumpkin, design, and decoration. Probably more keywords apply as well.

Get skilled using your flair for ad hoc composition when confronted with limited interior space choices and work with texture and color in a way that makes your low cost legal images distinct, not “blah”. One day this technique will jump right out and slap your viewers with a image that makes your micro stock career. Depend on it!

Micro Holiday Photo Op

Snow — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 03:15:12 +0000

If you are reading this, turn off the computer grab your camera and go outside. There are infinite opportunities to capture the magic of Halloween and the decorations will only be up for another day or so. Get thee to the stores or get a snap of that neighbor’s dog dressed up as a vampire. Next year’s micro stock Halloween holiday market will want these snaps!

Micro Color Bursts

Snow — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:24:18 +0000

Find color where it is hidden. Look inside new areas to find utility and subject matter while providing color and interest. This image was taken from the back of a industry truck, while shooting a movie. The cable and cords must have some exact function, and some reason the colors are all different. This is what makes this picture interesting.

Finding topicality in subject matter in not easy because it begs the question of what a random viewer of the image would think. Is this the picture of the back of a truck? Sometimes access can be rare enough that the mere vantage point can mean a new vista on a formerly unknown scene for the image viewer. Photography works well to do this for remote audiences.

The light and composition of this image demand an understanding of the film industry. Every day in my city of Burbank trucks like this might be parked anywhere, a phalanx of Hollywood glamor shorn of its excitement and reduced to its lowest common denominator of labor. The incidence of a film shoot or a television setup incites onlookers to glimpse the glamor and mney possible from participating in this industry.

How is this topical to a micro stock usage? There is so much money to be made on the business side of the industry that many companies local to me exist only to service the making of films well beyond the initial funding. Union labor, underground cinema, guerrilla filmmaking, and location shooting might be good catchphrases to use to catalog this image.

Many websites from movie cameras to introduction to production accounting to script and screenwriting classes might use this image to promote the movie industry. Many industries are all about access and photography is a major way to cement pictorial prof of an instance of access at the very least. The temptation of this access related to text is what draws the viewer.

But most pictures of this type of vantage point might not look this colorful. they would look dull if the passerby could get a clear shot of such expensive equipment at all. This image, however, is much kinder on the eyes and would furnish a colorful relief photo to explanatory text describing the shooting or production required for that day’s filming.

Keep your eyes out when on photo walkabout for hidden vantage points and unusual vistas that furnish a colorful view on a industry or commercial venture. The generic application of these photos and images online and in printed media can be another profit stream fromyour gallery of low cost legal images.

Microstock Photography

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