When the time comes to go Pro as Photographer

At some point in our photographic lives, the idea of going pro crosses our minds (specially at those times when the office space starts to feel claustrophobic). But how and where to start?

In this episode we bring you the "adventure" of our guest Neil Creek and his move from a photography enthusiast to a full time professional. We discuss why he decided it was the time to go pro, the problems he’s facing and how he is surpassing them. Neil explains his choices for the beginning of his career and gives a few advices for anyone wanting to thread on his steps.

Iyou have any questions for Neil, make sure you send us a comment and we’ll pass it on to him and keep the information flowing.

And as always, we have to thank all our listeners for all the great feedback, interaction and reviews. You make all of this worth it.

Show Notes

News segment

• Kodachrome goes bye bye…
• PDN Virtual Trade show on demand
• Home (movie) is still available online in spite of previous announced deadline of June 14
• Lightroom 2.4 is out
• Flickr as an interior decorator tool
• The Chris Anderson Plagiarism Controversy
• @photojack is running a poll on who to interview in future Toginars
• Jim’s Photo Tours and Workshops

Going Pro, with Neil Creek

• Neil’s main site
• Free Wallpapers
• Neil on twitter

Selected from the Web

• Neil: Digital Photography School
• Brian: Photojojo’s Guide to Kodachrome
• Jim: getMETAsmart ; Metadata, Photography and Workflow for the Web
• Antonio: Amazing Planet - Filip Kulisev Photography

Questions from our listeners: tripods, assignments, Lightroom and much more…

In the past weeks we have been receiving some questions from our listeners but, usually due to time constrains, we have not been able to provide suitable answers. So, #32 was reserved just for that.

If you have any photography related questions, please feel free to drop them on a comment, contact us using our contact form, email us directly using photonetcast ((at)) photonetcast.com or, why not, follow the show on twitter and send your questions there (can you do it in 140 characters or less?).

Here is the list of questions we answer today:

Jonas Hakins

"I’ve recently upgraded from a P&S to a dSLR. I’ve read much about using tripods to increase sharpness in photos and I was thinking about getting me one. Any advice? Carbon or normal? And what about the heads? Ballhead or plate? Help!!!

Also, I’m thinking that going around always carrying a tripod might not be the best solution. Just the idea of for every photo having to setup the tripod is enough to put me off. What do you guys think about this? Do you always use tripods?

And keep up the great work with the podcast. Cheers."

Fiona Brooks

"Hi. I’m specializing in interior decoration photography and I was interested on your thoughts about giving up your rights on assignments. In the past months I was contacted by at least 3 publishers that wanted me to do some assignment work for them, mostly decoration products and furniture, but on the condition that all the copyrights revert to them on payment. It bugs me that some of these photos could, later on, be sold as stock to other companies. What is the standard nowadays?"

Rolf Kalrsson

"I group my photos per year when importing to Lightroom (and on the PC). I let Lightroom create a folder with the date the photo was taken when importing. Lightroom has created two folders named 2009. On the PC there is only one. When I drag a folder, say 2009-01-01 from one of the 2009 folders to the other, Lightroom says that it already exists. How can I correct this problem without removing the photos and re-importing them. I have already adjusted the photos so I don’t want to re-do that. I would be grateful for your help. Many thanks in advance. /Rolf"

Dave Hook

"I’m not sure if you’ve ever mentioned it or not on one of your earlier shows, but now that you’ve reached the one year anniversary, I was wondering how did the four of you start getting together? It appears that you are all from different locations.

Thanks,
Dave"

Michael

"It would be informative if, at the beginning of each podcast, each of you discussed the last shoot you’d done."

Peter Perez

"Hi guys. First of all I want to congratulate you on your first year of PhotoNetCast. It’s one of the photo podcasts I never find boring. I have a question that you might help me with: I’m thinking about getting one of those Wacom tablets for precision editing inside LR or PS. Although not overly expensive, I’m still in doubt if the money would not be better employed on some other gear like a new lens. Have you used one, and if so, do you recommend it? Looking forward to get many more episodes of PNC."

Mary Jones

"Quick question that you might answer on the show. I’ve upgraded from Adobe bridge to Lightroom (in part due to your recommendations) and now I have the option of storing my files as raw data, tiff or dng. While tiff or dng may sound like a good idea, the amount of storage needed for these huge files makes it almost colossal. Are they really needed or should I just go with the old jpeg? Thanks for your nice conversations"

Makingpixels

"I have a tendency of rejecting a lot of images that others like. How do you stop from being so critical of your own work."

Many thanks to everyone who contributed to this show.

Do you like the show and think that we provide some value?  Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

Show Notes

Tripods and Heads: The Ultimate Ballhead Guide

Selected from the Web

• Brian: Studio @ Home Series
• Martin: What not to do in Photoshop (Ardis-Creative.com)
• Antonio: HOME - Yann Arthus-Bertrand (also on youtube)

The World of Stock Photography and the different Licensing Models, with David Sanger and Rich Legg

When choosing your path into commercial photography, and in particular stock photography, it’s wise to define your business model and know exactly what each of the different approaches will pay off, having into account your style of photography, the market (or niche) you’re trying to break into, and even the investments your prepared to make, whether time or financial.

In this episode we have the pleasure of having with us Rich Legg (@leggnet), a well-known iStockphoto contributor and big name (although he doesn’t want to admit it) in the microstock field, and David Sanger (@davidsanger), an achieved and outstanding travel photographer and Getty Images contributor.

Our guests takes into the inside of the life of a stock photographer (microstock and traditional) and discuss at length their current business models and their reasons for choosing them, advantages and disadvantages, marketing their photography, licensing photography on a Royalty Free (RF) or Rights-Managed manner, amongst other things on what was a great conversation.

And if we have any questions regarding any of the topics approached, please feel free to drop them on the comments sections as both Rich and David will probably take a few minutes to try to develop further on them.

We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did and again we have to thank David and Rich for their prompt willingness to join us on PhotoNetCast.

Show Notes

News

• 3 new Sony entry-level dSLR
• DSLR REmote: iPhone App from OnOne
• Pentax K-7 

Selected from the Web

• Martin: Suddenly by Magnus Engsfors
• Antonio: 15 Astonishing World War 2 Photos that Bomb your senses
• Jim: Photography, Video and Visual Journal
• Brian: Shake Your Tree Today

On a personal note, the PhotoNetCast Crew wants to whish a fast and healthy recovery to Bengt Båvegård (paradox66 on Twitter) from Bild och foto, a colleague photographer, blogger and PhotoNetCast listener. Get well soon.

After one year of PhotoNetCast, and probably too much neglect, we finally decided to open the drawer where we store all the makeup kit and work on a new visual for the show’s blog.

Although a podcast is more about the audio than the site itself, we feel it’s important to project a good front image for anyone looking for new photography podcasts on the web, and for all our listeners that visit us looking for the show notes or wanting to look at the photos we select for the photo critique segments.

So, if you’re reading this on a feed reader, please head on to Photonetcast.com and take a look at the new layout. As with everything on the show, we’d be grateful if you can take a few minutes and tell us what you think about the new layout.

Still regarding this, an idea that as been mentioned behind the scenes a few times is a change in the album cover art for the show, so if sometime in the future you see a new PhotoNetCast logo, don’t be surprised. Meanwhile, if you have some ideas on what makes a good cover art for a photography podcast, let us know.

The Free-conomics and how Sharing Photography Works plays with your Business Model

In this show we address a topic that has been and will still fuel intense debates: How can one fit sharing photography works online, and even allowing free non-commercial use, into a business model.

We make some comparisons between photography and the music industry, and how photographers need to deal with the new reality on the web. We look into the benefits and drawbacks, and how the "free-model" can be used to leverage other sources of income.

This was our longest episode so far, but we hope that you take the time to listen to it, and maybe with our discussion we were able to provide some points of view that helps you define your business model.

Enjoy PhotoNetCast #30.

Show Notes

News

• Follow @PhotoNetCast on Twitter for the latest news on our photography podcast
• Polaroid announces Polaroid Two
• Polaroid 1979 commercial
• Polaroid 1981 commercial
• Canon Rebates May 3rd - July 11th
• SEO Kit for the Photographer

Free-conomics and Photography: Does it work?

• Record Deals and The Future of Music with Don Passman
• Music Lessons
• Radiohead Shocks Record Industry
• Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business - Chris Anderson - Wired Magazine
• The end of the free lunch—again - The Economist (courtesy of Finding a Better Business Model - APhotoEditor)
• 1,000 True Fans
• Does Ctein Have 100 ‘True Fans’?

Selected from the Web

• Brian: Symmetry - A User’s Guide
• Antonio: Sony World Photography Awards 2009
• Jim: Pro-Imaging announces the Bill of Rights Supporters Group
• Martin: Wall Street Journal: Pictures Of The Day

As we’ve been hinting in past episodes, we intend to release some shows in which we choose photos submitted by our listeners to be critiqued.

We are planning to release these segments intercalated with our regular episodes, making it one PhotoNetCast a week, something that some listeners have requested.

This is an experimental segment and we are looking forward to your feedback with suggestions on how we could improve it. If you have any ideas that we could implement, please tell us something about it.

Photo Critique #1

The image submitted by our listener chosen for the main critique: "untitled" by Georgios Karamanis.

Photo Highlights

Martin:	Brian:
Antonio:	Jim:

Behind the scenes of the show we are always trying to know more about our listeners and figure out new ways for interaction. Of course that not all the listeners have the same equipments and it makes it hard for us to generalize and try to include new features that would only be available to a group of listeners and not to others.

So, help us out by dropping your vote on the poll.

Thanks for your vote.

Travel Photography

In this episode that, if no one has noticed yet, marks the 1 year anniversary of PhotoNetCast, we start by talking about what expectations we had (or not) for the show and how we have met them. It has been quite the ride, all the learning process of everything that is related to podcast production, the effort to plan and edit the shows and have them up in a timely manner, and of course, all the great great discussions we had, including the ones that don’t make it to the final cut. The feedback from you, our audience, has been phenomenal and just that makes up for all the efforts. With every episode our listeners’ numbers keep rising, we have pushed an enormous amount of data, and my feeling is that our discussions are getting more dynamic and getting better. Thank you all for your support and for continuing downloading PhotoNetCast.

On the subject of Travel Photography, we discuss some topics that are important while planning the trip, from what gear to take and logistic considerations to equipment insurance, to what to do while you are on-site, including maintenance of the equipment. The laws and cultural aspects of your target destination is also something you should have in mind. And what about some discussion on how to be creative and original with your travel photography, whether you are doing it for business or fun? Yeap, we have it.

As always, comments are welcome. And if you have any questions you’d like us to approach on the show, feel free to send them in.

Enjoy the show.

Do you like the show and think that we provide some value?  Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

Show Notes

News

• New podcast about photography legal issues: PhotoLegal
• First Magazine cover shot with a video camera - Esquire
• Adobe launches Photoshop Marketplace
• XIX TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) Awards 2009

Travel Photography

• Basic Travel Photography
• Travel Photography gear
• 10 tips for taking extraordinary Travel Photos
• 10 Tips when using dSLRs in High Humidity
• Travel photography Tips
• GorillaPod

Selected From the Web

• Martin: Photo that made me crazy yesterday
• Jim: State of the SLR Market -2009; 241543903 (David Horvitz) Flickr
• Antonio: A People in Despair: Haiti’s year without mercy
• Brian: The Lazy Rule of Thirds

HDR Photography

HDR imagery has been a popular trend since a few years. We have with us Dave Wilson to help us explore HDR imagery, including his workflow on the technique, from the capture to tone mapping and further processing. We also discuss the value of the technique in today’s imagery and how it can, at some point, be overused and “abused”. For anyone wanting to start using the technique, this is definitely a must-listen discussion. And as always, we also look at how to apply the technique with film.

As always, if you have any questions or comments regarding the show feel free to share them. And if you have any photography related questions that you’d like us to answer on the show just use the contact form or send them to photonetcast _at_ photonetcast.com.

Show Notes

Intro News

• Silver Efex Pro plug-in for LR2
• Life.com makes a comeback in partnership with Getty with… free photos.
• Online=Free? (Vincent Laforet’s opinion)

HDR Photography

• Our Guest: Dave Wilson
• HDR Notes for PhotoNetCast Listeners
• HDR Tutorial: How to create ‘High Dynamic Range’ images using Photomatix
• HDR Imaging (Wikipedia)
• The Future of Digital Imaging - High Dynamic Range Photography

Selected From the Web

• Dave: Stuck in Customs (Trey Ratcliff); Craig Hickman’s "cameraDemo"
• Martin: Seth Godin: The Power Of A Tiny Picture
• Antonio: Allan Babbitt
• Brian: 43 Photography Hacks, Mods, and DIY Projects

The New Segment

We are opening a new segment on PhotoNetCast in which we intend to critique some of our listeners’ photos. Check how you can submit your images for critique.

It has happened to me several times that someone asks for a critique on a certain photo or portfolio, and I’m sure this has happened to everyone else here at PhotoNetCast. Getting other people’s opinions on your work is a great way to improve photographically: you get to know what others feel about your images without the emotional attachment that you have towards your own work. While I usually gladly share my thoughts, I feel that it would be good if more than one person could benefit from the photo critiques.

If you’ve listened to our episode 26 you know what I’m hinting at here. Basically, we are opening a new segment on PhotoNetCast in which we will critique a certain photo (or more, depending on time) submitted  by one of our listeners.

How will it work?

Basically, what we have planned is to release these segments as individual episodes intercalated with our regular episodes. Hopefully, these episodes will be shorter than usual, and if we have a good volume of contributions from the PhotoNetCast community, you’ll have something to listen from us every week (something that our listeners have been asking for some time).

We will provide honest critiques, looking at the good and the bad of your photos, and we’ll try to give suggestions on how they could be improved. Together with the release of the episodes, the photos in question will be published here on the blog so that all our listeners can follow the conversation. During these conversations, we’ll probably approach different topics regarding composition rules, exposure, depths of field, etc. so we believe this will provide value for everyone.

For now the theme is open, but it is possible that we will release certain topics for you to submit to in the future.

How to submit your photos?

If you have a photo (or more than one) that you’d like us to critique on the show, here is how you can send it to us:

Flickr - If you want your submissions to be seen by everyone (whether they end up in critique or not), the best way is just to add your work to our just-created PhotoNetCast group on Flickr.

Email - Alternatively you can send us an email at photonetcast _at_ photonetcast.com (or use our contact form) with a link to wherever your photo is located on the web. If the photo is not published anywhere on the web, feel free to attach it in the email.

And that’s it.

Please note: By submitting your photos you accept that, if your photo is chosen to be critiqued, you give us permission to post it here on the blog in a low resolution format. The photo will be linked to its page on Flickr or wherever you have it on the web.

Anything else?

Nope. This is it. Besides any value you might take from it, we hope you’ll enjoy this new segment of PhotoNetCast, your photography podcast.

As always, any comments and ideas are very much appreciated.

Going Beyond your Comfort Zone in Photography

What is it with us that after we have learned how to do something in a certain way we tend to stick to it and it becomes harder to break out?

While it might make some sense, this way of thinking is also a learning stopper. The more time you take to photograph always in the same way, the more harder it will become to go out, break your habits and learn new things.

From Wikipedia:

“One’s comfort zone refers to the set of environments and behaviors with which one is comfortable, without creating a sense of risk.”

And applying this to photography:

“Thirty-six satisfactory exposures on a roll means a photographer is not trying anything new.” – Freeman Patternson

In this episode we discuss how important it is for a photographer to always be a step ahead of the comfort zone and staying on that edge where there is no fear of experimenting and failing, because learning just comes that way.

We are also opening a new segment on the show in which we ask you to submit your photos that you’d like us to critique. Some more details on this to come on a future post, but if you listen to this show you’ll get a pretty good idea of what we are talking about. We’re waiting for your submissions…

Enjoy the show…

Do you like the show and think that we provide some value?  Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

And as always, your thoughts are more than welcome.

Show Notes

Intro and News

• Brian just got hold of the new Kodak’s Ektar 100. If you’re interested in film photography stay tuned to Brian’s blog.
• Jim has recently reviewed the service by Borrowlenses.com. He’s also pushing a giveaway in which his readers can win a full week with Borrowlenses’ equipment. Give it a try.
• Canon launches a new upper-entry level camera. The Canon EOS 500D / Rebel T1i.

Selected from the Web

• Brian: Tax Tips for Part-Time Photographers
• Martin: Furiouxr (Kirk Hille)
• Antonio: High-speed photographs by Alan Sailer; Alan Sailer on Flickr
• Jim: Photography Websites: What Buyers Want: The Video; 4amProject; The Eyes of Kenya

Listener Feedback

Tiago Valente suggested a Wordpress template for wedding photographers, the Kertesz. It’s not free but might be worth a look.

Best Practices for you Photography Site

Ok, you are a great photographer and you have a great body of work… And now what? In episode 13 we discussed some of the marketing approaches you may take to let your work be know, and one of the biggest items on the list was a photography site in which your images are displayed and, if you so wish, sold. But not all photography sites are the same in terms of pleasantness and functionality, and thinking about your business model and re-structuring your site to better serve it is worth the time investment.

In this episode we discuss some of the “best practices” you should follow for your photography site regarding the specific audience you intend to target.

Do you like the show and think that we provide some value?  Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

Show Notes

News

• PMA 2009 – Digital Camera Review
• PMA 2009 – DPReview.com
• New 35mm Kodak Cameras
• David Ziser’s Digital Wakeup Call (and a $20 discount)
• Flickr Collection on Getty (Press release)

Best Practices for Photography websites

• PhotoShelter’s survey
• Photoshelter’s "Killer Websites" Webinar
• Displaying Images in Photoblogs & Galleries
• 10 Tips for Designing Photoblogs

Selected from the Web

• Jim: Was Caravaggio the first photographer?; Shepard Fairey and the democracy of images
• Brian: Develop Film with Coffee and Vitamin C
• Martin: Gerard Laurenceau (Photographer)
• Antonio: 15 Beautiful Microscopic Images from Inside the Human Body

Since the first episodes of PhotoNetCast, once in a while, I get email from listeners asking me how do we produce the show and what equipment do we use (hopefully because the show sounds good). I always try to answer as best as I can, but I feel like I’m repeating myself. So, while I understand that this is not directly photography-related and might not interest all of you, it will be a point that I can direct listeners to whenever these questions come up. And after all, it’s no big secret… Also, it seems that there is not much information on how to setup the equipment that I’m now using for the purpose of podcasting. I hope this will help there as well.

Of course that our system may not be the best one (I’m sure it is not) but it has been a learning process since the beginning and so far it’s working well for us. So, here we go…

The conference call

As you are aware, we are four photographers located at four different geographical locations. While “one-man-shows” do not have to deal with this, we do. All our conversations are done with what is probably one of the most used applications for VoIP and conference calls: Skype.

To record the conversations from Skype, we use Pamela. This little piece of software is able to record incoming and outgoing sound on two different channels of a wav file which makes it ideal for editing. Up to episode #20, this was our only way to record the show. This has recently changed and we now have a different way to record the conversations (more bellow), but this system is still used as a backup recording, just in case…

The podcasting equipment

As I mentioned above, I’ve upgraded some of my equipment and I believe the difference was quite noticeable after episode #21. Until then, the four of us were using headsets with microphones and we never got any big complains about the quality. In fact, both Brian and Martin are still using them and they sound great (Brian is using the Cyber Acoustics AC-840 and Martin uses the Hama HS-400). It’s proof that a podcast can indeed be produced with an extremely low budget.

And this is what my setup looks like after the upgrade.

I know that Jim has also upgraded his gear in order to improve his sound both for PhotoNetCast and EXIF and Beyond and he is now using a Blue Bluebird microphone attached to an Icicle USB preamp.

As for my side, this is what you see in the image above (besides the laptop, the colorimeter, the hard drives, etc.):

• Behringer Xenyx 1002FX mixer
• Behringer B-2 Pro microphone
• Roland Edirol UA-1EX USB audio interface
• Audio-Technica ATH-M20 headphones

And what do I do with all this mess to record the show?

Recording PhotoNetCast

So many knobs, so many cables…

One of the big “fights” that podcasters have while using a mixer and Skype to record shows is that the incoming sound from Skype needs to go into the mixer and the outgoing sound from the microphone connected to the mixer needs to go into Skype. One problem with this is that usually creates a very ugly feedback loop with co-hosts listening to themselves (usually with some delay) and makes the recording impossible.

I’ve figured out a way to bypass this problem and at the same time allowing me to use a third-party application (such as Adobe Audition or Audacity) to record directly the output from the mixer to two separate channels and still keeping Pamela recording as backup.

The setup is hard to explain, but I’ll try.

Let’s start with the mixer. The left column is what controls my microphone. I won’t go into levels and gain (if you want a good explanation of how this works, listen to Podcasters Emporium 11) nor into equalization settings. Two things you should note is that the microphone is completely panned to the left and the aux knob (the red one) is not completely off but outputting just slightly.

The next column is the sound coming in from Skype (yellow line connects the headset output from the laptop into this mixer input). This one is completely panned to the right and aux knob is off.

On the top of the third column (and unrelated to it) is the aux-bus out, which is outputting the sound from my microphone (remember the red knob turned up just slightly on the microphone? This is where that sound goes). This is connected to the mic-in on the laptop (gold line) and allows my co-hosts to listen to me (and not themselves avoiding that feedback loop I mentioned before). It is not used for the main recording.

On top of the fourth column is the headphones output which allows me to listen to myself and the sound coming from Skype.

Over on the right is the main mixer output. My sound and the sound from Skype are separated into left and right channels (remember the panning to the left on my microphone and  to the right on the Skype sound?). These are connected to the USB interface (red and blue lines) which then connects to the laptop. The advantage of having such a USB interface is that the computer recognizes it almost as a separate sound card. This way I can have Skype using the laptop sound card (with incoming and outgoing sounds flowing through the normal mic and headset plugs) and the recording third-party software using the USB interface and recording what comes out of the mixer (both my voice and my co-hosts’), equalized and ready to go. I pan my sound to the left and Skype sound to the right so that I can record into the same track my voice in one channel and my co-hosts’ in the other which, again, is perfect for editing.

I told you it was hard to explain…

Editing and Publishing the Show

If everything went well, I now have two WAV files: one from the main recording and a second one from the backup recording. Hopefully I have to use only the first.

The editing consists of cutting out the things that you shouldn’t really be listening to(some are ending up as outtakes at the end of the show) like some middle show conversation, me loosing the train of thought, silent patches, Martin one of us dropping off the call, too many ahhh hmmm and the like, etc. The intro and outro clips and bumpers are also added at this stage, usually everything into different tracks.

The next step is mixing all the tracks and channels into a single mono track (second track on the image above). To give consistency to the sound levels, the track goes into a compression algorithm which amplifies the lowest volumes and decreases the loudest ones. A normalization step goes next to amplify as much as possible without clipping the sound. The final version of the WAV file is now ready.

Next, the WAV is converted to mp3 (64kbs mono), the file is tagged, uploaded to the server and the corresponding blog post is written. It all ends around 4+ hours later by hitting the Publish button.

And that is it. Listening to the show is your part of the job (and writing some iTunes reviews also).

I know that I went into probably too much detail on this one, but one of my aims was really to get out some more technical details to anyone wanting to use the same setup. And at least, now you know almost everything that is going on (at least on my side) to produce PhotoNetCast.

As always, if you have any questions or are curious about any further details, just ask. I’ll do my best to explain.

On the last episode of PhotoNetCast we discussed the utility of photography filters in the digital age. We know that different uses and works require different filters and the style of the photographers also plays a big role in which filters to use. While shooting film probably requires a bigger and more diverse collection of filters, some filters can (should?) be used in digital work.

So, here is our next poll…

We’ve listed the more common categories of filters but there might be more. So, choose all the filters you use and if you use any other filters that are not listed, feel free to add an answer in the comments bellow.

Thanks for your input.

Filters in the Digital Age

One week later than usual (my fault), PhotoNetCast is back. This time we go into the latest mass copyright infringement: how memes are encouraging image theft on Facebook and Flickr. Also, we answer a question by one of our listeners regarding the use of filters to improve digital photography: are they still worth it? And what a great discussion with very dissonating opinions this was. This and more, on PhotoNetCast #24.

Want to help PhotoNetCast? Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

Show Notes

News

Metropolitan police federation show support for photographers

Nikon price increase

Flickr group uses photos for project = Fair use?

Filters in the digital Age

How to use camera filters for photography

Let’s paint the world

Photo filters for black and white photography

Black and white filters FAQ

Filter options for digital cameras

Filters for digital cameras

Minimize the costs of a smash

Cokin

Selected from the Web

Martin: Why Lenses are the real key to stunning photos

Brian: Edit My Photo Project

Antonio: Transform (Zack Arias)

Jim: Facebook Terms of Use Update; Shepard Fairey: Inspiration Or Infringement?

Photographers’ Rights and the new UK Counter-Terrorism Act 2008

On February 16th, a new Counter-Terrorism Act will start being enforced in the UK. This Act is, to a certain extent, an amendment to the existing Terrorism Act of 2000.

One of the sections that most clearly affects photographers is section 76 of the new Counter-Terrorism Act:

Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert—

“58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who—

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—

(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,

(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or

(iii) a constable,

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.

(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable—

(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine, or to both;

 

How this new law will affect UK photographers is still an open question and we’ll probably only start seeing reports some time after February 16th.

To help us with this discussion, we had Phill Price and Darren Hector, two London-based photographers who attended a meeting on February 4th that brought together members of the British Press Photographer’s Association, the British Journal of Photography and the Metropolitan Police.

And if you’re in London, on February 16th in the morning (when this law starts to be enforced), a group of photographers is going to head on to the Scotland Yard’s HQ and… well… take photographs.

Want to help PhotoNetCast? Write a small review on the iTunes store. If you do, please come back and write us a comment so that we can properly credit you on the show. Thanks.

Show Notes

Links

• London Calling Photographers site
• London Calling Photographers Law meeting
• Terrorism Act 2000 (interesting section 58)
• Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (interesting section 76)
• Counter-Terrorism Bill clause 83 reminder - chilling effect on reporting or speculation about military or intelligence service or police personnel ?

Defining goals for your photography

In an episode that probably steered a little away from the originally intended, we approach the science of setting photographic goals. In a path that can be frustrating for anyone, knowing how to plan your photographic career, whether on a professional or enthusiast level, can be one of the main time and personal investments you’ll ever do. But remember, keeping the fun in what you do should probably be always your main photographic goal. If we managed to provide some help, then our own goal with this episode has been achieved.

Want to help PhotoNetCast? Write a small review on the iTunes store. Thanks.

Show Notes

Intro and News

• Martin’s daughter, Enna, and his baby photography
• Amazing Nature Photo - What are the Odds? A Billion to 1?
• Brian’s Epic Edits Weblog Birthday Giveaway
• Brian’s new e-book… it’s free, so go and take it
• Service Notice: EOS 5D: Main Mirror Detachment

Goal Setting in Photography

• Why Set Your Photography Goals? (Or are you waiting for them to knock on your door?)
• Why Set Your Photography Goals? (Or are you waiting for them to knock on your door?) part II
• Photography Goals
• Goals and Photography
• How to Set Good Artistic Goals for 2009

Selected from the Web

• Martin: Just talkin
• Jim: Nailed ‘Em - Amtrak Photographer
• Brian: Encounters at the Photographers’ Rights Protest in LA
• António: The World’s Longest Exposures; Gizmodo IMterview: Jonathon Keats

The Flickr/Getty Images Partnership

In July 2008 Flickr announced that they would start a partnership with Getty Images in order to ease the process of creating a Flickr Collection on Getty containing only images from Flickr users. This move, either by Flickr or Getty, generated quite a buzz in the stock photography world. On January 21, Flickr made a second announcement stating that invitations to Flickr users to start submitting the “chosen” images to Getty were being sent en masse.

What does this all mean to photographers, either pros or amateurs, and specially to those that are not so much into the photography business and want to get a foot on the door?

In this episode we try to approach the issues and look at the pros and cons of accepting such invitations.

Jim published on his blog his own view where he mentions that he is not going to accept the Flickr/Getty invitations. To provide some balance to the discussion, we have the pleasure of having as guest Dave Wilson, a serious amateur who wants to start monetizing his work and sees the Flickr/Getty invitations a good opportunity.

NOTE: While the show was being edited we got a reply from Getty mentioning that they would probably be interested in having someone on a future show. Let’s see where it leads and if we are able to having someone from inside addressing some of our questions.

We have a poll open asking whether you’ll take the Flickr Getty invitation if you get it. Don’t forget to vote.

And again, a big thanks to Dave for having joined us. You can also follow him on twitter.

For now, enjoy the show…

Want to help PhotoNetCast? Write a small review on iTunes. Thanks.

Show Notes

Links mentioned

Discussion group on Flickr

FAQ on Flickr

The Road To Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions: Getty Images Buys JupiterImages

Karma’s a (rhymes with witch)

There’s a sucker born every minute - Getty Images For Sale!

BusinessWeak - Amateur vs. Pros?

Getty Web Use (now discontinued)

Once You License Your Work with Creative Commons, the Cat’s Out of the Bag

The second round of invitations to Flickr users to participate in the Flickr Collection at Getty Images started earlier today. As usual with something like this, the buzz around the interwebs is immense, and heated opinions are popping out everywhere. Some Flickr users are more than excited about accepting the invitations to submit their images while others are more reluctant.

On our side here at PhotoNetCast, Jim already publically announced that he’s passing on the invite.

And what about you? Did you get an invite? If so, will you take the opportunity or not?

That’s our next poll…

n

If you want to expand your answer, feel free to use the comments section.

After more delay than expected and after a fight with editing and processing, here it is the latest PhotoNetcast.

On episode 18 we mentioned that we would approach the “buying used equipment” subject. With everyone (ok, almost everyone) running a tight budget, used equipment can be a great way to upgrade your photographic inventory. But not only that, sometimes used equipment is the only way to get items that are not in production anymore.

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect with this approach and there are some risks involved. We discuss some of the things you should be aware when buying used equipment and how you can make the best out of your investment.

As always, your feedback is very much appreciated. If you have any other recommendations for online (or offline) locations for buying used equipment, make sure you let us know.

And if you can spare a few minutes, a review on PhotoNetCast on the iTunes store would be great.

Thanks for your support.

Show notes

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II firmware update cures ‘black dot’ ailment

• JPG Magazine says goodbye

• 5 tips for acquiring old cameras

• Your guide to buying old film cameras

• Checklist before you buy used cameras and lenses on ebay

• What’s your newest inspiration?

• www.keh.com

• www.bhphotovideo.com/

• resellerratings.com

• ozcamera.com/

Selected from the Web

Martin: The Commons (on flickr)—>Search it

Jim: DIY Bokeh

Brian: The Sky in Motion

Antonio: Proper Sensor cleaning

After much delay, mainly due to the hectic holiday season, here it is. The winner of our Lightroom contest:

Heymo Vehse

Congratulations! You just cashed in a copy of Lightroom 2…

We’d like to thank everyone who participated and, of course, Tom Hogarty and Adobe.

If you didn’t win, maybe next time. And next time is already on the next PhotoNetCast. So, stay tuned.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

On the last show we mentioned that #19 would be all about buying used equipment. But the opportunity to talk about the Canon 5D Mark II with people that actually have used it was too good to pass. And besides that we know this is a camera that is sought by many of our listeners.

So, on this episode we have the pleasure of having with us Rich Legg and Phill Price to share with us their experiences with the 5D’ II.

No giveaway on this one… We didn’t manage to convince Rich to gracefully donate his 5D’ II to one of our listeners.

Our thanks go to both Rich and Phill for their availability to be on the show. It was too late in the day for Rich and too early in the day for Phill, but their effort is appreciated. Thanks guys.

And in the last PhotoNetCast of 2008 we would like to thank everyone of our listeners. Without your support and your presence on that side, PhotoNetCast would not continue to exist.

Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year…

Show Notes

Canon EOS 5D Mark II

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II: 21MP and HD movies
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II Hands-on Preview
• Tokyo reality (video)
• Canon 5D MKII Pre-Preview
• Sample EOS 5D Mark II Video: Reverie
• 14 days with a Canon 5D Mark II
• Canon 5D Mark II early bug reports : Black-Spot Artifacts

Selected from the Web

• Jim: LR2/Mogrify
• Martin: Big Picture: The Hajj
• Brian: Neil Creek: On the road to full-time photography
• Antonio: Days with my father - Philip Toledano

On our episode #17 we started a giveaway of ATP Electronics products, namely 1 ATP Photofinder Mini, 3 4Gb SDHD cards and 5 1Gb SD cards.

The participation was great, and now that the deadline has passed, it’s time to announce the winners. Unfortunately we don’t have a prize for everyone, but with 9 different products and a random draw your chances were not so bad.

I’m sure that we can’t get the stuff to the winners before Christmas, but at least they’ll know what they’ve won. Thanks to all who sent entries.

Giveaway Winners

     ATP Photofinder Mini

• Rory Wallwork

     4Gb SDHD cards

• Doug McGregor
• Stefan Weisshaar
• Anthony Skelton

     1Gb SD cards

• Deniss Saksa
• Conner Downey
• Jake Brooks
• Angela Byers
• Andrew M

Congratulations to the winners. We’ll be contacting you by email soon. Now if only the winners would be kind enough to write us a review on iTunes…

And if you didn’t win anything this time, stay tuned… A copy of Lightroom 2 is already up for grabs and we have more to come.

What you wrote

For this contest we asked you to write a few words on how a geotagging device would improve your photographic experience… Here is what the winners wrote.

Rory Wallwork

"As an aspiring landscape photographer, it’s quite necessary to travel a lot to get a large variety of images. So geotagging my images would help me immensely! I take so many pictures, that often I can’t remember where I took what. This would be the perfect addition to my gear. Thanks for the opportunity!!"

Doug McGregor

"No question … I’m accumulating thousands of photos and would really like to remember where I have taken them all, especially to share the location with other photographers."

Stefan Weisshaar

"In my case geotagging would help to organize my photos shot during my tours. This will help the placement on google earth!
Greets and thanks for the organizers of photonetcast, you are doing a great job"

Anthony Skelton

Blog post

Deniss Saksa

"(…) For improving my photography, it’s simple:
*sometimes I discover a good location for shooting when I don’t have all my gear with me. Using ATP PhotoFinder I could snap a picture of it and have it on the map so that I can find this location later based on the image and map.
* travel photos will benefit from the ability to put them on the map of the visited place.
In two words ATP PhotoFinder helps to bind images with places and if you take lots of images in different places (or just have bad memory) you definitely should get one."

Conner Downey

"Geotagging would help my photography immensely because I’m always wondering where I was when I made a shot and cannot for the life of me remember. I always want to go back and try something new or maybe let my friends and fellow photographers check it out and have a go at it. I am always traveling so I want to be able to visit a place I randomly stumbled upon again as well."

Jake Brooks

"I would be so excited to get a geotagging unit for my camera. I’m studying photography and technology in college, and next semester I’m doing an independent project working on my colleges wiki and setting up a map of the campus that anyone can add information too and view. I’m looking at “egalitarian” mapping more in depth. It would be really awesome If I could combine that with my photography studies. I also work with ecology teachers sometimes, and with a geotagging unit, it would be possible to photograph plant communities, and use the geodata to place it on a GIS map with bedrock, temperature, etc and look at the ecological effects much easier. lastly, it would just be really cool to have geographic info when i’m travelling and taking pictures. So yes please sign me up for the sweepstakes."

Angela Byers

"How would geotagging help my photography? I might actually remember WHERE I took my photographs at!! I have people ask me where some of my photographs are taken at (and since I have no sense of Route Direction - I’m very visually oriented!) I can’t explain WHERE I actually was (if I can remember what city is was in in the first place!!"

Andrew M

"(…) geotagging would help me immensely when I’m post-sorting ski race photos, as I don’t always have an accurate location I’ve shot from when I’m shooting a race, as words do not always do a riverbank location justice!
When traveling, it would be great for being able to auto-tag a location, especially for those candid shots that we fire off out train windows, or from a boat in the middle of a lake, where you may one day want to go back to re-capture the moment with more attention to detail…
keep up the great work with the podcast guys!"

Interview with Tom Hogarty, product manager for Lightroom

As we had announced before, in this episode we had the pleasure of having with us Tom Hogarty, product manager for Lightroom. The conversation was good and we had the opportunity to take a closer look at one of the favorite applications for photographers. There is so much "behind the scenes" going on with this software, and so much that we could have talked about, that we could have gone for a much longer time but time, as always, is limited.

Of course, we would like to thank Tom for his availability to join the show and all our listeners who have sent questions for Tom. If we forgot some, we’re sorry, but I believe we covered everything you sent our way.

For now, on with the show…

And a new giveaway - Copy of Lightroom 2

Adobe was gracious enough to provide us with a copy of Lightroom 2 to giveaway on the show to one of our listeners. If you still haven’t tried the software this is a great opportunity, not to mention the $299 value.

Deadline:  December 17th, 2008 - 2pm PST

How to participate: For this giveaway we came up with two different ways for you to participate.

1. You can write a few lines on your blog about your workflow and how Lightroom changed/would change it. Link to this post so we can track it. This will count as 2 entries for the random drawing.

2. Don’t have a blog? No problem. Just leave us a comment on this post answering the same question. This will count as 1 entry for the draw.

Easy for the value, no? In either case, make sure that we have a way to contact you afterwards (use a valid email address).

If you don’t win but still want to try the software to see if it’s right for you, don’t forget that you can download a 30-day trial version of Lightroom.

Show Notes

Some links mentioned during the interview

Adobe Lightroom 2

LR2/Mogrify - Watermarks

Adobe Exchange - Lightroom

60% of Photoshop Users are PIRATES!

4 Quick Ways to Boost Lightroom 2 Performance

Adobe TV

Tom’s blog at Adobe

Selected from the Web

• Brian: PresetsHeaven
• Jim: Lightroom Presets. The Ultimate Free List, Constrained Cropping in Photoshop
• Antonio: LIFE Photo Archive available on Google Image Search

If you’d like to listen more about Geotagging in reply to our last episode, and much more, there’s a new photography podcast out there, the Subject, Composition and Light podcast . Try it…

If you’ve been following PhotoNetCast you know that one application that we usually recommend is Lightroom.

Now we have the opportunity to find out more about this fantastic piece of software from Adobe: Tom Hogarty, product manager for Lightroom, will be joining us on one of the next episodes of PhotoNetCast.

And we know that we are not the only ones curious to know more about LR. So, if you have any questions regarding the product, please feel free to send them our way we’ll try to get Tom answering them on the show.

As always,  you can use the comments section, our contact form, the voice messaging widget or even record your questions as mp3 and send them to photonetcast (at)photonetcast (dot) com. But be fast, the recording will probably happen in the middle of the next week.

We understand that the length of the show is also time that you have to invest in listening to it. But it’s a very fine balance: on one hand we want to deliver the information in a clear and relaxed way without being restrained by time (something that from my experience in radio shows, for example, it’s not always possible) and on the other hand we don’t want to "steal" too much of your time.

To help us define the correct length for each show, we asked you about it.

And here are the results…

What do we conclude from these data?

Did I sound too much like the scientist in the headline?

We are currently aiming for the duration of each show to be between the 45 and the 60 minute mark. It seems that about 70% of you agree with it.

Sometimes, especially when we have guests on the show, it’s hard to cut the interviews, and this should actually be my job, but normally the conversation is flowing so well that we don’t even realize how much time we’re taking, but we’ll make an effort.

In any case, we’d like to thank everyone who participated on the poll. We hope that the show doesn’t feel much like a sluggish block of wasted time on your mp3 player and that you keep looking forward for it every two weeks. We know we do.

As always, if you have comments that could help us improve the show, use the comment section or contact us directly through the contact form. Any feedback is appreciated.

Geotagging revisited - Interview with the developers of Photofinder Mini

On PhotoNetCast #5 we approached the subject of geotagging. We had some concerns regarding the technology and usefulness of inserting location tags into the images. Now, after the launch of Photofinder Mini, we invited the developers, ATP Electronics, to give us some more insights into how geotagging works and what is innovative about their product.

I’ve reviewed their product on Words:irrational in which I go into detail my hands-on approach to their geotagging unit and having them on the show was a good opportunity to address some of the findings I describe, and to give some information on the behind-the-scenes functionality of geotagging for anyone considering it.

For now, enjoy the show… and don’t forget to participate in our giveaway.

Product Giveaway

ATP Electronics has been gracious enough to provide us with some of their products for a contest here at PhotoNetCast.

So, we have for our listeners a bundle of ATP Electronics’ products valued at about US$250.

• 1x Photofinder Mini GPS tagging unit
• 3x 4Gb SDHC cards
• 5x 1Gb SD cards

How to participate

First you need to go to the Photofinder Mini site and note the two main colors of the ATP Electronics logo.

If you have a blog, we ask you to write a few lines on how geotagging would improve your photographic experience and link to this show episode (make sure the trackback is showing up on our comment list). Include also the two colors of the ATP Electronics logo.

If you don’t have a blog, use our contact form and, likewise, write us a few lines on how geotagging would improve your photography, and the answer to the logo colors question.

Prize winners will be selected randomly from all participants with the correct answer.

If you are one of the winners, we’ll contact you to ask for your address, so please use a valid email.

Deadline is December 7th, 10pm PST.

Show Notes

Interview with ATP Electronics developers

• ATP Photofinder Mini - Reinventing Geotagging (Product Review)
• ATP Phtofinder Mini
• Geotagging - Is it worth it?

Selected from the Web

• Brian: RED Modular Camera Innovations
• Martin: New York in Black & White
• Antonio: Photographer offers divorce albums
• Jim: Pictures Taken At Just The Right Angle, Greener Photography

Interview with Troy Paiva, exploring the desert night

It’s another episode of PhotoNetCast, and this time we have the pleasure of having as guest a photographer for whom daylight doesn’t mean much - Troy Paiva.

When Troy started photographing, the night was the time that most grabbed his attention and today, 19 years later, he his a master of night photography. But not only that, he developed a surrealistic style that became his signature.

During the interview we discussed how it all started and progressed to the development of a body of work that has been seen in many exhibitions and led to the publication of Lost America and Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration.

Troy also drops a few tips on how to start with night photography and light painting for all those thinking about it. And speaking of how to, his photography technique is well described and explained on his site.

Troy’s work can be seen on his Flickr stream and on his sites Lost America and Troy Paiva Photography.

Show Notes

Interview with Troy Paiva

• Book Review - Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration
• Lost America
• Troy Paiva Photography

Selected from the Web

• Brian: In Harm’s Way: War Photographers (and on the CW website )
• Antonio: More Videos from the 5D MKii (via Stefan Neuweger)
• Jim: State Laws on Polling Place Photography - Center for Citizen Media (via Gary Crabbe )

Since the first episodes of PhotoNetCast we had listeners telling us that the show is too long, and listeners telling us that we should take the time we need.

We have been quite liberal with the duration of the show and usually let the conversation flow. Having four people with different ideas to share results in shows of around one hour. We understand that not everyone has one hour to spend on a single podcast. And while this probably applies more to listeners that listen to the show directly on the web site, it’s everyone’s time.

So, it’s time for you to help us shape the show. Tell us what you think would be the perfect length for PhotoNetCast and we’ll try to adapt the show.

n

Buying your first dSLR

This is a question that surely many of you have been through and many listeners coming from point & shoot cameras have.

If you’re planning to upgrade to a dSLR there are a few points that you should consider, from camera brand to camera features. Just don’t get too caught up with the technology talk. Many of the cameras on the market have enough features and enough capacity to keep you company for some years. Get it now and get creative.

Show Notes

Links:

• How To Buy Your First Digital SLR Camera
• How to buy your first Digital SLR camera
• How to Choose a DSLR Camera
• 5 Tips on What to Look for When Buying a Digital SLR Camera
• How to Frak Your Next Digital Camera Purchase

Selected from the Web

• Antonio: Orphan Works Panel Discussion
• Martin: Riding with Remotes
• Jim: Earth from Above - The Big Picture, Yann Arthus-Bertrand
• Brian: A Really Big Film Camera

Photokina 2008

As probably most of you were aware, Photokina, the world’s largest photography and imaging trade fair, happened between September 23 and September 28 in Cologne, Germany.

Me and Martin were there for a quick visit and we wanted to bring you some of the feeling of Photokina. Jim also joined us on the show to ask a few questions that someone not visiting might have.

If you didn’t have the opportunity to visit Cologne this year, schedule in your calendar, Photokina 2010 - September 28 to October 3, 2010.

Show Notes

Links:

• Photokina photos posted on Flickr
• Lomography at Photokina
• Official report - Photokina 2008

Photo Management and Marketing

In this episode we answer two questions by our listeners Andrew Morris and Mark Fuller. The first one concerns something that we had already approached on PhotoNetCast #3: organizing your photos. We go more into detail on the software we use to catalog our images (2 Lightroom users, 2 Bridge users, who wins this one?). Mark asks us for some tips on how to start marketing your photos and score a few sales. Basic advice is here, from starting your own web site to possible approaches to your clients. And, as always, our episode feature with another 4 great links.

If you have any more advice for our listeners, both on which software Andrew should choose and how Mark can start marketing his work, please feel free to share your ideas.

Show Notes

Organizing your photos

Links:

• IView Media
• ACDSee Pro 2
• Adobe Lightroom 2
• 3 Reasons why I refuse to use Lightroom
• Lightroom users address concerns with software
• Your guide to Adobe Bridge importing

Marketing your Photography

Links:

• How to Market your photography without really trying
• Market your photography business
• How to market photography
• How to market yourself has a freelancer
• How to market yourself
• Sell your photos by giving them away for free
• 37 Paid gigs that are only a phone call away

Selected from the Web

• Martin: Gregory Crewdson (+ video)
• Antonio: Angola’s Lost Children - Stéphane Lehr
• Brian: Chase Jarvis Raw: Kung Fu
• Jim: In The Zone? - Graf Nature Photography; Reverie Canon 5D Mark II Video - Vincent Laforet

The Annual 2008 Podcast awards are open for nominations. Since the past September 15th, podcast producers and listeners can nominate their favorite podcasts in one of 22 different categories. This nomination process will go until September 30th. After the nominations are over, the voting will begin.

If you like PhotoNetCast and want to support our efforts, it would be great if you can go to PodcastAwards.com and nominate PhotoNetCast into the Culture/Arts category. You can also click on the sidebar badge to go to the site.

We’ll tell you something more about this when nominations are over and the voting process begins.

If for nothing else, it will be a great way to get to know other podcasts that may be of interest.

Thank you very much for your efforts.

What’s the Future of Stock Photography?

And it’s time for another dose of your audio photography. In the beginning of this episode Brian tells us more about his recent adventures on increasing hard disk space for his photos. It’s something that from time to time we all have to go through and Brian gives a few tips on how to avoid problems in the process.

Due to the recent announcement that Photoshelter Collection will go offline on the next October 10 and Corbis reducing on employees, we decided to share a few thoughts on stock photography. Is the future just really microstock?

And as always, our regular episode feature with another four great articles.

Thanks to all our listeners…

Enjoy the show.

Show Notes

Increasing hard drive space, Brian Auer style

Some of the companies selling products make it easy to increase drive space and keep redundant backups:

• Data Robotics
• Western Digital
• LaCie
• Buffalo Technology

Future of Stock

• Photoshelter Collection is closing - official statement
• and Corbis cuts jobs

Selected from the Web

• Jim: A New Project: Songs For Eating And Drinking, Songs For Eating And Drinking: Arthur & Yu
• Brian: Nikon D3 Shutter Release in Super Slow Motion
• Martin: DPS : Forum member in the spotlitght : Japaslavian, On Flickr
• Antonio: Street Photography for the purist, by Chris Weeks

Long gone are the days when, at least for the average user, a good percentage of the photos taken would actually be printed.

The process of dropping a film to be developed and getting back prints of every exposure or at least a contact sheet and then choosing some to be printed is forgotten in the digital age.

Even for film shooters, nowadays, it’s a common procedure to get just the film developed and later digitalized for processing.

So, what we want to know is, what percentage of your photos, whether digitalized from film or taken with your digital camera actually end up in print. To make it more realistic, don’t count the duds and exposures that you immediately reject.

From the photographs that you consider picks, what is the percentage that you actually see on paper, either printed by you or in a lab?

Zoriah - War photographer

As we announced earlier, we managed to schedule some time with war photographer Zoriah.

To be able to better follow the conversation, we’d encourage you to visit his site at Zoriah.com and take a look at his portfolio and his stories.

In our conversation, Zoriah shares how he decided to become a photojournalist and later on started covering some of the major war locations and how it affected his life. We also discussed the events that brought him and his work to the eyes of the world in the middle of controversy.

As always, comments on the show are welcome.

Great work Zoriah, and thanks again for your time. It was an honor to have you on the show.

Show Notes

Interview with Zoriah

Links:

• Kevin Carter
• Kevin Carter’s suicide
• Baghdad reporter publishes video

Thanks go also to the wolf brigade and Olivier for their questions.

Selected from the Web

Jim: Stranger Photos Have Happened

Brian: Before I Die I Want To…

Antonio: Joe McNally talks about "The Moment it Clicks" at Google

For some time now we have been discussing the possibility of bringing Zoriah on the show (basically since Brian noted a New Your Times piece on him, back in our episode 9). We didn’t want to mention anything in our last episode simply because nothing was set yet, but now, although everything could change at the last minute due to Zoriah’s location and work, it seems that things are looking bright and we managed to "grab" a slot of his time.

For those not familiar with the name, Zoriah is an award-winning photojournalist specialized in documenting human crisis in developing countries and has dedicated most of his recent time to document the war in Iraq.

I won’t go much into his background or current projects (I’m sure we’ll go into it on the show) but if you’re interested in knowing a bit more about this fantastic photographer and his work, go to his web site at Zoriah.com or read Brian’s post about Zoriah. The article that Brian mentioned in PhotoNetCast #9 is also worth a read.

We are not going to stream live the recording of the show, so there is no possibility for  you to interact with our guest while we record. But, if you have any questions about him or his work that you’d like him to answer, we would appreciate if you could drop them in the comments section, use our voice mail widget or just email them to us using our contact form. It would be great to have as many questions from our listeners as possible to further improve what I’m sure will be a great conversation. The show is scheduled to be recorded during the next weekend, so that gives you still a few days.

Looking forward to read what you have to say…

Photo credits and copyright: Zoriah Miller

It’s all about Books

Following our last episode about Inspiration in Photography, and since one of our major recommendations to boost your creativity was to look and study the work of other photographers, we decided to bring you a list of books that we can recommend.

Whether on the artistic side or going more into the technical perspective, we’re sure you will benefit from the list. Note that the list is by no means complete. There are many other books that are extremely good and our own collections are always growing, and we can’t stop emphasizing the importance of always using books to study the work of published photographers.

If you have any books that you can recommend, please feel free to post in the comments and share them with us and everyone else.

Also, more to the end of the show, Martin goes more into detail about his work and how he decided to go pro.

On a small side note, the show is being released one day after what was planned. I’m sorry for this.

Show Notes

Our list of recommended books

Artistic

• Century: a History in Photographs, Bruce Bernard
• Icons of Jazz, Dave Gelly
• Night Vision: The Art of Urban Exploration, Troy Paiva (Brian’s review)
• Burning New York, James & Karla Murray
• Examples the Making of 40 Photographs, Ansel Adams
• Edge of the Earth Corner of the Sky, Art Wolf
• A Retrospective, Galen Rowell
• Snaps, Elliot Erwitt
• "In Wildness…", Eliot Porter

Technical

• The Photographer’s Handbook, John Hedgecoe
• Black & White Photography in the Digital Age, Tony Worobiec & Ray Spence
• Complete Digital Photography, Ben Long
• A Comprehensive Guide to Digital Black & White, John Clements
• Black & White : Architecture, Terry Hope

Selected from the Web:

• Jim: Capturing Creativity, via Graf Nature Photography
• Antonio: Photo Shoot in 180 seconds
• Brian: Faces of Beijing Photo Essay & Images of Beijing: food, faces and Yao by Kris Krug
• Martin: Top 10 Wedding Photographers 2008

Inspiration

As in with every other form of art, photography requires a high amount of creativity.The problem is that the "creativity fountain" sometimes dries up.

If you want to be prolific in photography, searching for new sources of inspiration is a must. New angles, new approaches, anything that will get those creative juices flowing again.

In this episode of PhotoNetCast we address this issue and discuss our own ways in the quest for perpetual inspiration.

And sometimes the answer is just in front of us…

We hope you enjoy the show… Try counting the number of times the word inspiration is used

What is your main source of inspiration in photography? Similar to ours or different approaches?

Show Notes

Here are the links we mention on the show.

Inspiration

Links:

• My Top 5 Sources of Inspiration in Photography
• Source Of Inspiration: Gratitude
• Sources of inspiration for your photography
• 25 Ways to Jump Start Photography Inspiration
• Finding Inspiration
• 60 Sources of Inspiration for Photography
• 5 Ways to Spark Your Inspiration
• Inspired Photography

Books:

• Richard Misrach: Golden Gate

Podcasts:

• EXIF and Beyond: Guy Tal
• NPR’s Fresh Air
• LensWork podcast

Selected from the Web:

• Brian: 4000 U.S. Deaths, and a Handful of Images
• Jim: Picturing Excess: Chris Jordan
• Antonio: "…More than 1000 words" trailer; Making of; Ziv Koren

About one month ago we asked you what level of editing and processing was acceptable in photography.

One week after we opened the poll we talked about some preliminary results. At the time 47 of you had voted and things were looking like photography should allow for complete creativity freedom in the edition process.

After one month and 144 votes, the results changed quite a bit with "Anything needed, as long as the final result still resembles a photo" assuming clear leadership.

Here are the final results of our poll:

We want to thank all of you who participated.

As a final question, if you voted after listening to the podcast episode, did our discussion influence your vote?

Let the comments begin…

Participating in photo competitions is one of the many ways photographers have to get their work out there. Choosing the right images, the right title, the right print and of course, the right contest can overwhelm even the most experienced photographer. But besides the exposure, participating in photo competitions can also improve you as a photographer.

In this show we welcome David Ziser, a professional photographer with many competitions on his belt, as a participant and judge, to share some of his experience and tips.

As usual, the show got longer than we expected but it’s worth it.

Please feel free to leave us your feedback and if you enjoy the discussion, why not going to David’s site and telling him that also.

Thanks for listening.

Show Notes

Lots of reading today…

Photo Competitions

Links:

• How to win photography competitions
• Photography Contests
• Photo competitions - Judging the art
• How the rights to your photo are being hijacked through photo contests & Social Media
• The Bill of Rights for Photography Competitions
• The Rights On List
• The Rights Off List
• Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson
• How to Win Photo Competitions - Tips You Must Know
• Critique Boutique
• You be the Judge
• Photography Contests
• Photo Competitions Blog
• Current Photo Contests
• The Art List
• Art Show

David talks about his work

• Digital Pro Talk
• David Ziser (workshops)
• Fine Art PhotoBlog

Selected from the Web

• Brian: 10 Things I Hate About Film
• Martin: Matt Stuart
• Jim: Getty and Flickr: What Just Happened?, How Getty Is Killing the Stock Photo Industry, The Curious Case of Getty and Flickr
• Antonio: Light Painting (author’s site)
• David: What’s Right with the World

Now let’s bring digital into the scene…

From one captured image is now possible to create, within seconds, a multitude of different photos just with a few clicks of the mouse.

For the purists, a deadly photographic sin. For others, an opportunity for explosive creativity.

How far can an image be edited and processed and still be considered photography? And in which situations can an altered image be used?

In this episode of PhotoNetCast we discuss this, and more.

As usual, feel free to leave your comments on the show. You can also drop us a voice message (check the sidebar) or contact us using our contact form. In case you stumble upon something you’d like us to discuss, just tag it on del.icio.us with for:photonetcast.

Tell you family and friends about PhotoNetCast and, if you can spare a few seconds, write a review about PhotoNetCast on iTunes.

Thanks.

Show Notes

Editing and Processing in Photography

Links:

• My Photo Editing Code of Ethics
• Evolution of a Photo
• Avoid Over-Processing by Cleansing Your Visual Palate
• Look Ma, No Photoshop
• Fine art photography or Digital art. Are the borders clear?
• 28 Ways to Interpret a Photo
• One Image - 17 Amazing Interpretations
• Calling Photoshoppers - The Results
• Ethics of Photography: Career Suicide by Photoshop
• Photoshop disasters
• Jerry Uelsmann
• Digital Double Exposures: Blasphemy or No Big Deal?
• Digital Double Exposures: The Poll
• Why I Hate HDR: Photo Technology Porn

Selected from the Web

• Brian: Zoriah: Photojournalist
• Jim: PixChannel - What Makes Photographers Click
• Martin: Lightmark Photography
• Antonio: Photography is not a crime - It’s a First Amendment right

This is another of those gray areas in photography.

With the proliferation of digital cameras and better and more powerful processing software, the definition of photography is changing. Everyone has it’s own view of what is acceptable or not in digital photography processing.

Should photos be processed at all, or is it ok to process them in any way possible to better represent the view of the photographer? Can it still be called photography?

Since we are going to address this issue on the next episode of PhotoNetCast, we’d like to have your input. Please vote in the poll bellow or in our sidebar.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

If you’d like to further expand your thoughts on the subject, or none of the options really represents your opinion, please feel free to use the comments section. Your views are appreciated.

We are going to record in about one week’s time, so if you want your comment discussed in the show, you’ll have to participate as soon as possible.

And if you like the show, don’t forget to help us spread the word. Thanks.

One of the most interesting discussions going around the photography world is the differences between shooting analog or digital. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and in this episode we dwell into this discussion and share some of our thoughts on the issue.

In my opinion, this is one of the best episodes we have released so far, mainly due to the healthy discussion that came out. It was good and got long, so only one main topic for today.

Is analog photography dead? We don’t think so, but listen to the show and take your side.

Also, we tried to (again) improve the sound quality of the podcast. How is it working for you? Did you notice any improvements? Please tell us something about it.

We hope you enjoy it and, as always, we’d like to know your opinions on the subject. Do you shoot mainly film or digital? What influences your decision? Share your thoughts with us and help the discussion grow.

Show Notes

Thoughts on Analog and Digital Photography

Links

• Are digital Cameras destroying photography?
• Is analog photography dead?
• Old and New Photography
• What would Ansel Adams do?
• film photography: 5 things I really miss
• Essentials for Film
• Advantages and Disadvantages of Film and Digital
• 1-Year Cost Comparison for Film vs. Digital
• The SLR Camera: Then and Now
• Ten Reasons to Love Cross Processed Film

Selected from the Web

Links

• Brian: Brent Stirton: Photojournalist
• Jim: Who is Stealing your Photos Online?; EXIF and Beyond: Leila Boujnane
• Martin: Landscapes : The 5 Big Questions
• Antonio: Running the numbers - An American Self-Portrait

Before going into the results, we’d like to express our thanks to all of you who voted. The participation was great…

So, from the 127 votes:

The biggest piece of the pie goes for the Serious Hobbyists (47%), followed by Enthusiasts, Semi-Pros, Beginners and Pros with 25%, 17%, 9% and 2%, respectively.

These results confirm our assumption of whom our listeners are and probably the biggest surprise was the low number of Professional photographers listening to the show… or maybe not.

In any case, thanks again for your participation.

In the next days episode #6 will be released (what a good discussion we had on this one). After that, a new poll will be open.

For now, share your thoughts about these results on the comments sections bellow. Is our content matching our audience or not really?

If you’re new around, don’t forget to point your podcatcher of choice to our feed to receive the latest episodes as soon as they come out.

See you on the other side of the microphone…

Thanks to all that left comments on the previous show and to all that are participating in our poll, it’s a great help for us. The poll will be open for a few more days, just in case you haven’t cast your vote. Afterwards, a new one will come…

Going into the technical side, we tried to improve the sound quality and, although I feel it’s better than the previous episodes, we’d like your feedback on this. Do you notice some improvements?

Before going into the show notes, one of the topics that we are going to discuss on the next show is Analog vs. Digital Photography. I know that this can be a controversial topic and I’m sure you have your opinions on the advantages and disadvantages of each. Which one do you use and prefer and why? Use the contact form or leave us a voice message. We’d much appreciate your input on this.

And now to the show…

Show Notes

Pros and Cons of Geotagging

The subject of Geotagging is popping up more and more. But is it worth the effort? To whom does it provide value? Listen to what we have to say on this.

Links:

• How to Geotag images?
• Geotagging, is it worth it?
• Revealing the Location of Your Photography Through GPS Coordinates & EXIF Metadata
• Still on Geotagging
• Auto geotagging with GPS CF card
• Eye-Fi Explore
• GPS devices

Traditional versus Online Photography Shops

With the increased convenience and often lower prices, online shops are one of the primary locations to look for new photographic equipment. But the traditional shops can still compete, mainly by offering something that online shops will never be able to: personal service.

Links:

• 16 Steps in answering customer inquiry

Selected from the Web

• Jim: Green Photographic Papers; Graf Nature Photography
• Brian: Photographers Stand Up For Their Rights (NPRD Flickr Group)
• Martin: Bert Stephanie - Confessions #7
• Antonio: Free is Killing Me

Keeping your photos safe with regular backups and Embarrassing Moments

After three attempts we finally managed to release a show a little bit shorter. This is probably the length we are going to aim at on future episodes. What do you think? It’s too long still or good enough?

On today’s show we cover the backup procedure each of us uses and share some embarrassing moments / newbie mistakes we made in the field. We hope you like it.

And although we don’t mention it in the show, we have an open poll. We’d like to know a little more about your level in photography. This will help us plan what topics to cover on future episodes.

Also, there is a new way for you to interact with us besides the comments, email or voice messages. Let’s say that you are going through your regular blog posts and read something that interests you and you’d like for us to discuss in the show or at least share our point of view. Bookmark it on del.icio.us with the tag for:photonetcast and we’ll see it for sure.

And now, on with the show…

Show Notes

Backup your Photos

If you remember the last show, we were discussing how to organize your photos and ended the discussion before going into backups. In this show we go right into it and share our way of doing regular backups and what we do to prevent loss of files, even if something goes wrong with the drives.

Links:

• Digital Workflow: Preserve those captures
• Backup your work on the road
• 5 steps to securing your data
• Working the Flow
• Lightroom Podcast 5

Embarrassing moments / Mistakes on the field

Every photographer has, at some time or other, made mistakes that are typical of beginners. In this segment we share your own stories. We wanted to make it funny, but beyond that, we wanted to alert you to some errors that you can easily prevent. We’ve made them so that you don’t have to (well, not really, but you can always keep them in mind).

Selected from the Web

Links:

• Jim: Word Press Photo Award - Photographer Interviews
• Martin: Joe McNally Desert Shoot
• Brian: Studio Equipment Guide
• Antonio: Digital frame shows pics of your pet while holding its ashes

Here at PhotoNetCast we have been amazed at how good and welcome our show has been received. It’s extremely satisfying and motivating for us, and keeps us on track to bring you the show on time and with useful content.

But we would like to know a little more about the person on the other side of the line (you).

And so, we have the first PhotoNetCast listener poll up and waiting for your votes.

What is your level in Photography?

Are you a professional photographer? Maybe a serious hobbyist? Or are you just starting with photography?

The answers will provide us with some information and help us decide on what kind of discussions we’ll get you on the next episodes, as well as what kind of listener projects we can come up with for you to participate in.

So, please use the form bellow or on the sidebar to tell us a bit more about your level in photography…

We thank you for your effort.

P.S.: PhotoNetCast #4 is in the bag and it will be released on Monday, May 26. Great show this one, so don’t forget to come back and listen to it or subscribe to our feed so you get it as soon as it is out.

Blogging & Photography and Organizing your Photos

These are the topics that we cover in the third episode of PhotoNetCast.

We hope that you didn’t suffer much waiting for your next dose of audio photography, and here it is.

First of all we’d like to thank all of you who gave us a huge dose of motivation by listening to the show. It was a great feeling to see the downloads numbers going up and the comments pouring in. It’s really appreciated.

There is that little thing with the show length. We promised that we would make them shorter (and we did) but we still are not sure if the show is still too long. Any comments on that are very much welcome.

Also, as you’ll listen, we got going with the photo organization topic and we had to stop just on the backup phase. It’s a huge topic by itself and we want to cover it on #4. But we’d also like to have your participation: what are the best ways to keep your photo safe, your workflow ideas, etc. So, the ball is on your field now. Tell us what you think and besides the comments and the contact form, why not grab your phone and really "tell" us what you think. This goes for any other topic you’d like to see discussed as well.

Enjoy the show…

Show Notes

Blogging & Photography

We share our experience on both fields and discuss the importance of blogging and being involved in the scene on the learning curve of photography.

Links:

• The Building Blocks of Success in Blogging and Photography
• Why you should write about photography (in German)

Organizing your Photos

It can be a nightmare if suddenly you notice that you have tens of thousands of photos and they aren’t that useful since it takes you hours to find the one you want. Better sooner than later is to find an organization system that works for you, whether using photo management software of any other process. We discuss our systems and how they have been working for us. And then we drift and end up taking about prints… the beauty of conversation.

Links:

• 10 Free Photo Managing Software you should at least know
• Organizing Photos with Aperture
• Organizing Photos with EasyShare
• Your Complete Guide to Adobe Bridge
• Organize: Getting to Grips with Image Management

Selected from the Web

Links:

• Brian: Freedom of Speech Photography Video
• Jim: Speedlinks - 05/06/08 - Orphan Works Edition
• Jim: Exif and Beyond Podcast: Gary Crabble Interview
• Martin: Lightmeter, you’re dead to me
• Antonio: Visions of Rock Podcast feat. Bryan Adams

Topics for this show:

• Photographers or terrorists…

• Video on Flickr

• Protecting your online images from theft

And the second one is now here.

If you want to give us some feedback, go ahead, drop us a comment bellow or leave us a voice message. We appreciate it.

And enjoy…

Show Notes:

Photographers or terrorists

Once in a while we hear stories of photographers and authorities clashing on security-related issues. A case of mistaken identity perhaps…

We discuss this issue and share our stories with you.

Links:

• Innocent Photographer or terrorist?
• Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection
• The Legal Landscape of Street Shooting
• How to shoot photographs like a terrorist

Video on Flickr

Is it a good or bad thing? Will it remove the focus from photography? Listen to what we have to say.

Links:

• Video on Flickr
• Anti-Video Sentiment among Flickr users growing
• "No Video on Flickr" group
• Flickr anti-video show
• Flickr Video: a good thing?

Protecting your online images from theft

It’s also a recurring topic the fact that images published online sometimes are used for very different purposes than intended and without author knowledge or compensation.

But some things can be done to, if not prevent it completely, at least minimize it.

Links:

• Creative Commons: a great concept, I’ll never employ
• Creative Commons: a great concept I’ll continue to employ
• Wall Street Journal lifted my image
• Tips and techniques to protect images on the internet

And the first episode of PhotoNetCast is now available for your listening pleasure.

As always, we’d love to hear from you. Whether you want to comment on the show or suggest topics that you’d like to hear discussed, any feedback is most valuable to us.

Want to get more funky? Leave us a voice comment… The widget on the sidebar allows you to record a message directly from your phone.

Show Notes:

In this brief introductory episode, we share with you who we are, what is our relationship with Photography and why we are joining efforts to bring you PhotoNetCast.

As noted in the show, you can follow PhotoNetCast directly in this site or through any of the RSS feeds. We recommend iTunes to always have the latest episodes directly sent to your computer.

PhotoNetCast thanks PodcastThemes for providing the theme music.

Following an idea that the podcast market on Digital Photography is currently too focused on content created by single individuals, and that there is a need for a space in which Photography is discussed between people in the industry, in a dynamic and relaxed way, PhotoNetCast was created.

Antonio Marques (Words: irrational), Martin Gommel (Kwerfeldein), Jim Goldstein (JMG-Galleries) and Brian Auer (Epic Edits) came together and share their knowledge and opinions on topics that concern beginners and advanced photographers alike.

We hope that our efforts are well accepted by the photography community (you), and that besides the entertainment factor, we can bring you topics that prove to be also educational.

Every two weeks we are here, and hope to find you on that side of the headphones.