Shadow69 Photography

2013-09-03T17:03:00.001+02:00

Another one of mine for those addicted to taking selfies
A Guide To Taking A Successful Selfie

One of my articles

2013-08-29T19:09:00.004+02:00

One of my articles that was bought by Dreamstime and published on the web:
Travelling in Imagery

Simple is not easy

2012-11-07T18:52:00.004+01:00

“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.” – Steve Jobs

No, this is not going to be a blog about sayings by the late Steve Jobs. It just happens to reflect very well the reaction I had (eventually) upon seeing a sample of photographs taken by Paul Caponigro. The pictures I was looking at were mostly still life or landscapes, and I am ashamed to say that upon a superficial glance, I was inclined to dismiss them as simple shots that just about anyone could have taken, myself included. Nevertheless, it demanded somewhat of an effort to stop looking at those images.

A devastating thought arrived to crush my original sentiment. My first instinct to label the prints as simplistic and within the grasp of even a buffoon such as me was not just naïve but was in fact incredibly self-delusional. The fact was that I had not taken a single photograph even remotely resembling anything like them.

I began to realize that though the composition may appear to be fairly straightforward, a lot of thought must have gone into placing each item in the viewfinder just so. After all, over a million people visit the Stonehenge every year, and God alone knows how many rolls of film or digital sensors have been exposed to the sights afforded at that location, and yet just how many of these images could arrest my attention in such a manner.

Going through, what, I am certain was a carefully nuanced and well thought out process to produce something that reveals only extreme simplicity, Mr Caponigro captivated my imagination to the extent that I am now punching up a keyboard in an amateurish attempt to pay homage to his stellar work. And believe me that is quite an accomplishment considering just how lazy I am and loathe to exercise my brain cells for anything other than my personal gratification.

To all those who think of themselves as “landscape photographers”, check out his images and bang your head in despair upon the ground under his feet.

Some of my photographs have always been a mystery to me in terms of how I arrived at them…

The above line is a small part of a much longer quote by Paul Caponigro. To be honest, I didn’t really bother understanding the rest of what was said. That simple confession resonated so strongly with me that my eyes were not quite able to focus on the rest of the words.

I have to admit, I have a sneaky suspicion that there may be a huge chasm between what Mr. Caponigro intended by his words to signify and why they resounded with me. So, in the highly unlikely instance that the man himself comes across these musings, I hope he will forgive me. And if he is not inclined to do so, I wish to immediately inform him, that I am definitely not of sound mind and therefore cannot be held responsible for my acts, so undertaking any legal pursuits against me shall be of no utility (especially as I do not possess much of anything that is of any great worth, so it will not even cover the shark bait).

Looking at photographs produced by others, I continuously find myself challenged as to whether or not I would have been able to deliver the same results. Certainly this is often the case with regards to the artistic vision that leads to the result. Would I have considered a certain pose, or a particular composition? Would I have been pleased by the way the shadows fell or would I have looked for a different light?

Recently, I have had a chance to go over some photographs I took several years ago. And yet again, I find that I am continuously intrigued by the process that I went through at the time to arrive at one image or another.

After the passage of time, I sometimes find myself at a complete loss to explain what I was attempting to demonstrate in a particular image. But at other times, I find myself fascinated by the reasoning behind certain images. Why did I decide to choose a certain depth of field, or a particular angle? Sometimes, I wonder why I decided to boost the contrast here and not there. Why did I attempt to convey the scene this way or that? Was there something I missed the moment I tripped the shutter that may have added a je ne sais quoi to the overall atmosphere of the image?

I suppose such musing may appear to denote a certain incertitude as to my abilities with a camera. On the other hand they may simply be read as a fascination with the mystery that the process of creation holds for me. It is only by asking such questions measure our progression. Oceans may yet have countless mysteries to yield and space may well be the final frontier, but I am still continuously perplexed by my own inexplicable need to create (or my inability to do so).

The key is to not let the camera, which depicts nature in so much detail, reveal just what the eye picks up, but what the heart picks up as well.

Aha, therein lies the rub. Maitre Caponigro now expects us to involve a dimension which apparently grants meaning to whatever is laid before us.

It is hard enough to capture what our eyes see, because as opposed to the lens and sensor, our eyes and brain are so much more adept at interpreting the world around us.

My mind is a wandering thing, and I find myself deviating from the original line of thought I was pursuing to indulge in a rant. If you are not interested, skip the next few paragraphs.

I have always found the megapixel race to be as nonsensical as the nuclear arms race. How many damn nuclear missiles do we need anyway? Wouldn’t just eight do a good enough job of destroying the world?

I mean I remember the time I printed an A3 size poster of a shot taken with my old Canon G2 compact. It came out good enough to hang on my living room wall! Why in hell’s name do I need 80MP for? OK, ok I am leaving myself open for a ton of abuse from people who will not agree, but bear with me and consider for a moment if there are not some other more desirable features you would like your next camera to provide you with.

Personally, I would just about eat a plateful of live, wriggling worms full of green yuck for something that will render the concept of HDR or exposure bracketing a moot question. OK, perhaps I would not actually eat the worms, but I would do a lot for a camera with a dynamic range that comes close to matching the ability of my eyes and my brain to adapt almost instantaneously to the light and shadows of a forest scene at high noon (imagine no more rejections because of blown highlights or clipped shadows).

OK, done with the detour, back on the main road again.

I cling tenaciously to the notion that any successful artistic endeavor must demonstrate an essence of whatever is depicted. So how does one represent something that cannot be seen, touched, smelt or tasted no matter what the medium?

The more I think about this, the more I realize that taking a photograph is not the instant gratification of aiming the lens at something and pressing down on a button. In the end, and many may disagree with me here (how dare you), it comes down to the careful and considered composition of the image. Oh how simplistic that sounds.

But a successful composition involves a lot more than just the rules of thirds or filling the frame with the principal subject.

I am reminded of a story told to me by one of my literature professors of an author who was obsessed with perfection. He never completed a novel. In fact, he never got past the first sentence. He would endlessly fiddle with the one phrase trying to refine the vocabulary and structure to his everlasting disappointment.

A truly successful composition tells a story. The challenge is really in deciding what should be part of the composition and carefully selecting the elements that are important to the plot. And then placing those elements so that there is a narrative that gradually unfolds: a beginning that entices, a middle that captivates and an end that satisfies (or alternatively leaves the viewer wanting more).

It is one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like, it's another thing to make a portrait of who they are.

Aha, find someone with an expressive face then, or someone who has managed to master the art of faking sincerity. Zoom in really close and keep the focus on the eyes razor sharp. Easy, right?

Except it really isn’t, is it?

Take me for example. Most of the people, who think they know me, persist in the belief that I am a kind, intelligent, multi-dimensional and caring person with a delightful sense of humour (more fools they). And yet, every time I appear in a photograph, it is invariably the portrait of a sulky, angry, mean, frustrated and humourless misanthrope.

So who is right? If a subject is uncomfortable sitting for a portrait all the technical prowess in the world may not render justice to the real person. It is the photographer’s duty to make the model feel comfortable and relaxed. But even my self-portraits depict me to be a most surly specimen of the human race. Considering that the images that feature yours truly that I am particularly attached to are the ones that I took myself, I am certain that the pictures that I take of myself are indeed quite successful and am quite prepared to accept that I am an entirely despicable person (rather that than disparage my lofty ambitions with the camera).

Work incessantly, cultivate discrimination, gather freedom from your own hard-earned results. Disregard successes but go back for help in an immediate problem. The possibility of discovery is everywhere. Freedom from your own work allows for intuition that draws from all your experience and perception but goes beyond it.

Even by my standards I seem to have suffered an excessive bout of verbal diarrhea, and the unease is certainly not helped by the sneaky suspicion that I have not said much of substance. So I have convinced myself that I should just shut my gob and leave it at that.

Ah, but I must have the last word, so I shall leave you with just one thought concerning the quote above. We do indeed learn more from our failures than our successes. The warm glow of a victory washes away the aches of the hard toil that led to it and erases its memory so that we forget to reflect upon the reasons behind the accomplishment. And though failure may bring with it some despondency, it also brings with it a greater opportunity for future reward. After mourning the loss, it is a chance to consider the mishap and gain wisdom. And we must thereafter practice that wisdom to the point that it becomes such a part of our intuition that we no longer even realize all the thought and work that goes into a portrait that captures “what the heart picks up”.

Thank you for your indulgence. If you enjoyed this blog or like my portfolio, please visit my Facebook page Shadow69 Photography and click on “Like” to show your appreciation and support.

Microstock Agencies Review - Part 1

2012-10-20T16:26:00.000+02:00

A brief overview of some of the microstock agencies I have signed up with. A few words of warning first:

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GET RICH OVERNIGHT SELLING PHOTOS ON MICROSTOCK AGENCIES. Keep your expectations realistic. Everyone is reporting that earnings from microstock are declining, partly because of all the competition and partly because agencies keep cutting prices and commissions paid to contributors.

If you rely on microstock for your living expenses, then you will need to invest a significant amount of resources (it isn’t just about the camera, but also lighting, models, post-processing, key wording, marketing, technique and ability) to stand any chance of earning a decent amount. There are people out there who have created huge organizations to be able to live off of microstock, and you will need to match their “mass production factories” to stand any chance of earning a reasonable amount.

Every agency seems to have their own specific audience, and just because 5 other agencies have accepted a picture doesn’t necessarily mean that others will. This doesn’t mean that the picture is bad, just that it is perhaps not suited to the site in question. Unless you rely entirely on microstock for your income, best not to let the rejections get to you.

Microstock may take up a lot of your time. Especially if you have a large portfolio you want to upload. Best thing to do is to enter as much information as possible as IPTC and then FTP the files. Even then some sites may require you to spend time on preparing the images (e.g. assigning categories) before the actual submission for review and that takes time.

You need to keep feeding the beast. With tens of thousands of contributors and several millions of photos, it is easy for your work to get lost. There isn’t much you can do about it other than trying to beef up your portfolio as much as possible. Upload regularly, keep your portfolio fresh and varied. The more pictures you have and the greater the range of subjects, the better the chances that someone will find yours when searching.

Exclusivity is baloney. I used to be exclusive, and more out of indolence than anything else, was convinced that it was the right thing for me. I gave up on exclusivity because I realized that just one agency is never going to give me enough exposure. As I said above, each agency has its own customer base. If your images are not spread across a wide spectrum of potential buyers, you are losing out on possible sales. Agencies often say that exclusive contributors are better protected and make more money. This is not absolutely true. You may get a slightly higher percentage of the sale value, but you may also be missing out on a whole different customer base. I don’t believe that the difference in the non-exclusive and exclusive commission rate always makes up for it.

In terms of protection against theft of images, I never experienced any advantages during my time as an exclusive contributor. The times I reported an unauthorized use of my images (published on websites with the agency watermark), the agency sent an email to the site owner requesting that they either remove the image or legally purchase it and then promptly forgot about it. When I followed up with the agency months later, I was informed that they had done all they could and if I wished to pursue it further I was on my own!!

Pick the agencies you sign up with this carefully. Many agencies have come and disappeared, so you need to make sure you are not wasting your time. You will end up spending a huge amount of time post-processing, key wording and submitting images.

Some agencies are worth it because of how well known they are and their already established customer base (iStock, Shutterstock, Dreamstime are prime examples). Others are easy to upload to and don’t require much effort (e.g. don’t require you to provide additional information if they can read IPTC data or if they provide bulk edit functionality). So weigh the pros and cons before investing too much time. I signed up with quite a few agencies and later on stopped submitting to some of them because I wasn’t convinced that they were going to do much for me, but in the meantime I had already wasted a couple of months.

Here are some of the agencies I am currently signed up with. I’ll include my referral links, so if you do sign-up with any of them, I would appreciate it if you would use my reference.

Shutterstock

http://submit.shutterstock.com/?ref=1049062

Seriously consider joining this one. Payouts can be set to be made by Paypal or Moneybookers once the earnings hit $75.

There is a contributor test, where at least 7 of 10 photos need to pass the review. But once that is done, I think the reviews are fair and they don’t have the silly “similar” policy which seems to get on everyone’s nerves at another site.

Reviews take around a week, which is just about the average time for most sites.

Shutterstock is the daddy of all subscription sites. Mostly you will be making $0.25 a sale. Once in a while you will get a credit sale, but that can be fairly rare, so you might feel a bit frustrated. Especially when you may make more for a subscription sale on some other agencies. The key difference is the huge customer base at Shutterstock. In theory the small commission is supposed to be compensated by the volume of downloads (because of the low prices, buyers may buy huge volumes of images). Shutterstock is rated number 1 amongst contributors for revenue.

Shutterstock has been around a long time and is very popular with contributors. So competition is huge. However, Shutterstock do seem to favour newly uploaded material in the search algorithm, so there is a good chance that you will start selling almost immediately.

Fotolia

This one is a tough one, and I really am in two minds about it. Fotolia is considered to be one of the top four microstock agencies in terms of earnings for contributors. And though I have had a few sales there, they are nothing that made me jump around for joy. I have heard that sales are tanking for nearly everyone and to top it off they are quite aggressive about slashing commissions for contributors.

Reviews are lightning fast. In every single case my images have been reviewed within two hours. It’s almost as if they have an army of reviewers sitting there ready to pounce on the images the second they are submitted. The downside is that the reviews seem to be very unreasonable. It’s almost as if they have a rule that regardless of quality they must reject 80-90% of my submissions. I have seen a lot of complaints from other contributors to that effect as well. They also do not provide any specific reasons for the rejections, so you are left scratching your head in an attempt to figure out what exactly they think is wrong with the picture (it is not doing anything at all for my bald spot).

Also, I find the submission process a little annoying. Apart from assigning categories, you need to take care about the sequence of keywords. It seems that the first 7 or 8 keywords are given priority, so either you must ensure that they are appropriately sequenced when you enter them as IPTC or you need to reorder them prior to submitting or once they have been accepted.

Fotolia do not accept Editorial images.

Personally, I don’t hold out much hope for either a huge amount of sales or a drastic increase in my on-line portfolio there. But, for the moment I am continuing to submit there because of their ranking in the microstock world (I’m a sheep. Baaaaa) rather than because of any personal conviction.

They also seem to have a very bad reputation amongst contributors for underhandedness. While every agency changes their terms and conditions (especially relating to commissions paid to contributors), Fotolia in particular seems to get extremely bad press about it. I haven’t been with them long enough to experience this myself so can’t give any opinions, just thought it may be worth mentioning as a warning.

Dreamstime
http://www.dreamstime.com/res176210-stock-pictures

Dreamstime is also considered to be one of the top 4 earners for contributors. This was the very first agency I joined back in 2006 as an exclusive and really learned a lot from them about stock photography. Out of loyalty, I stayed exclusive for a lot longer than I probably should have. I understand that they have to run a business and therefore must do what they think brings in the money for them, but I do think that perhaps exclusive contributors should be treated a little better than non-exclusive contributors (and this goes for any agency, not just DT).

Review times are taking longer than before, which is an annoyance for the photographers on the site (possibly could mean that they are not investing in the business by hiring more reviewers). I have at times had reviews pending for more than two weeks. This can be especially annoying for editorial submissions related to recent events. They claim that news related images are reviewed faster than normal submissions but I have had cases where they took 3 or more days and I am sure that other contributors submitting to other microstock agencies managed to get images related to the same event them out in the market before I did on DT.

Reviews do seem to be somewhat inconsistent at times. But, even though, I have had an occasional run-in with the “head honcho”, support is still very helpful in providing very specific feedback about refusals if you ask them politely. Though, I think, nowadays they might not answer every query due to the larger volume of submissions.

They have implemented a “no-similars” policy meaning that if they feel you have too many photographs from one photo session or too many images of a particular subject in your portfolio already, they will be rejected regardless of quality. Though how much is “too many” no one seems to want to say. I have found that sometimes they are not willing to accept more than one photograph of a subject, but at other times four can slip past. This has had some photographers up in arms as they feel that this is used very subjectively and is frequently abused. I don’t get riled up about this anymore since I gave up exclusivity as there are plenty of other sites that will accept what DT decides it doesn’t need.

For contributors, there is a rather attractive feature whereby pictures get upgraded to higher levels the more they sell, thereby increasing their price (hence not such a great feature for buyers perhaps) and also the commission.

Payout is at $100 via Paypal or Moneybookers.

123RF
http://www.123rf.com/#samihaqq

Very easy place to upload to. Just FTP the images, import them on the site and if you have already entered your title, description and keywords you don’t need to do anything else. They will just go straight through for review.

Review times are about 4-5 days for RF, 1 day for editorial and seem to be fairly reasonable. I haven’t had a lot of rejections from them.

Sales, so far, have been fairly slow for me, but they are considered as number 5 in the top microstock agencies ranking, so it’s probably worth having a go there. Payouts can be received via Paypal once earnings hit $50 or Moneybookers once they hit $100).

Portfolio size does seem to matter in search placement so try and get as many images on there as fast as possible.

BigStockPhoto
http://www.bigstockphoto.com/?refid=47qYSH4uyb

This is a pleasant enough site. Sales have not really taken off yet for me, but for some strange reason I have big hopes for this one and I can’t really think of any big reason not to recommend this site to contributors.

Review times are pretty fast. Generally my submissions are reviewed within two days, though I have seen other contributors occasionally complain about delays. And even though at the beginning I had trouble understanding the reasons for some refusals, I now think that the refusals are fairly reasonable and don’t get upset about them anymore.

Once, I contacted their live support via the chat and found them to be very responsive, polite and helpful.

Payout is at $30 via Paypal or Moneybookers.

DepositPhotos

http://depositphotos.com/?ref=1585384

I do like this site a lot, primarily because it is very easy to use.

They make it particularly easy to copy image attributes for new images from those already submitted.

Review times seem to average about a week (sometimes shorter, sometimes longer). Reviews seem to be very unpredictable and vacillate between being really tough and really easy. In general, I have learnt that reviewing is very subjective, and depends more on the reviewer than the agency, and as you can’t really control who ends up reviewing your submissions it is often a matter of luck.

I think it is worth contributing here, as they are generally viewed as a solid agency with a lot of potential. They are currently situated around the middle of the top ten microstock agencies.

Payouts are via Paypal or Moneybookers at $50.

CanStockPhoto

http://www.canstockphoto.com?r=171207

Reviews are reasonably easy and on average take a little more than a week. General consensus amongst contributors currently seems to place them in the bottom half of the top ten microstock agencies for sales. They have to compete with some agencies much bigger than them and need to be very aggressive in their marketing.

Payouts are via Paypal ($50) or Moneybookers ($100).

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That's it for now. I’ll do another little blog on some of the other agencies I am a contributor at, but either I don’t feel they hold out much promise, or I have only joined them very recently so can’t really give much of an opinion on them.

If you have any questions, drop me a message and I’ll be happy to reply if I have the answers.

Please visit and like Shadow69 Photography on Facebook if you are on there. Many thanks for your indulgence.

A beginning and an end (or maybe not)

2012-10-15T20:00:00.000+02:00

In the dark, uncivilized and bleak days before the advent of digital photography, I bought myself a Minolta SLR camera (don’t remember the model, don’t think I really paid that much attention) and a couple of lenses with the firm intention of learning how to create hard-hitting edgy photographs. It was highly ambitious considering that I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing.

If ignorance truly is bliss, then I must have been the happiest of all want to be photographers. Actually, I must have been living in Eden before Adam and Eve went and spoilt it for everyone.

The only thing on the camera that I thought I understood was the button I had to push to take an exposure (not that I knew what an exposure was, to me it was just press the button, magic happens and someone’s soul is captured on a thin strip of something or the other made of chemicals). At least that was the only thing on the camera I was really interested in.

F-numbers were a complete mystery to me. Luckily I can’t remember what I thought they were for, or else I would probably have to jump off a bridge just to preserve what tiny iota of dignity that may be spared me. But I do know that I had absolutely no idea what aperture and field of depth were, so it is highly unlikely that I was anywhere close to being right about the explanation for their presence.

I happily bought a couple of rolls of Ilford ISO 400 film. And if there was any rhyme or reason as to that acquisition, it was definitely not because of a deep understanding of photography or of film. I think I must have heard someone mention, sometime, that Ilford was great film and that the higher the ISO the faster the film. What exactly was meant by a fast film? I had no idea. Worse still, I had no inclination to find out either.

Today, I would like to be gracious and forgive myself for being such a glorious idiot and just allocate the blame for my ignorance on my impetuous youth.

It took me just a little over a week to finish off those two rolls of film. When I got back the prints, the results were on par with a migrating goose laying an egg in mid-flight. As I already said, I had absolutely no clue about what went into a good photograph, but I knew a huge big failure when I saw it.

For some time after that I ridiculously persisted in the belief that the camera I had invested in was a dud, or that I needed a stronger pair of spectacles.

After a while, the realization that photography may not merely be a matter of pointing the camera at something and pressing a button began to persistently hammer itself onto my consciousness. It became increasingly hard to ignore the relentless misgiving that photography might actually entail some hard work.

And so I embarked on a never-ending journey of learning about photography. F-Stops, depth-of-field, shutter speed, ISO, front lighting, back lighting, rule of thirds, leading lines… I devoured everything. Of course, every single source of my edification wagged a proverbial finger at me and informed me that the only way to learn was to do. And so I did.

I spent an absolute fortune on film, and snapped away at every opportunity I got. And yet, my results did not improve. It was almost if I was learning nothing. I was perplexed as to why this machine on which I had lavished such care remained aloof and refused to return my love. I pictured the employees at the development lab crawling on their pristine floors clutching at their sides as they desperately tried to hold them together to prevent their guts spilling out from laughing so hard. Paranoid? Me? Nah, just because I think everyone is mocking me doesn’t mean they’re not.

One day, someone asked me the exposure settings I had used for a particular photograph. I was at a complete loss as to what to reply. I couldn’t even remember Dr Alzheimer’s first name (it is Alois by the way), how the hell was I supposed to remember the f-stop and shutter speed I had dialled in for a picture taken God knows when.

So in addition to lugging around my unresponsive camera and lenses, I started carrying around a notebook to note down the settings for every exposure I made. That lasted for about 20 minutes. After five shots my discipline crumbled, the note book fell into a river. I watched it carried away on some very fast moving currents from which, much to my relief, it was never recovered.

I finally ended the development laboratory’s hilarity and my personal misery by selling off the camera and lenses to a second hand store, thus relegating photography to the huge rubbish heap of attempted and unsuccessful personal endeavours.

I’ll leave you here for now, much like in a television series, where the hero is left hanging from a cliff in a, well, cliff hanger ending, I suppose. But we all know he’ll manage to overcome his predicament and the suspense is nothing but a feeble bluff. For if he did not, what inane excuse for entertainment would we be force fed next week? And so till next time my friends...

Please visit and like Shadow69 Photography on Facebook if you are on there. Many thanks for your indulgence.

2012-09-28T17:57:00.000+02:00

Mr Callahan, meet Shadow. Shadow, pay your respects to Mr Callahan.

I love writing these blogs. Partly because I am incredibly shy and yet am still an egotistical maniac with an overwhelming propensity to volubility. Speaking for any length of time to any number of people renders me a nervous wreck. And yet holding my tongue and not saying anything would create such a huge conflict within my already demented mind that the resulting explosion could surely provide enough power to light up Times Square in New York for at least a year.

But I must say that notwithstanding the vainglorious compulsion, there is a more satisfying reason to the madness. Edification. I learn a lot by reading up on the various photographers that I feature in these ramblings. I have to admit that I was unfamiliar with most of the artists that I have talked about before embarking on this project. At times I even felt a little embarrassed at my lack of knowledge of such illustrious personalities. But, in the end, I remind myself of a lesson that I was taught by someone a lot wiser than most of the people I know. Starting out ignorant is not something to be ashamed of, staying ignorant when you have the opportunity to remedy the situation, should carry a most heavy penalty.

I taught myself photography by reading books. And after learning about exposures, field of depth, ISO, aperture, shutter speed, the most important guidance that stuck to me was to study the work of painters and other photographers. Each blog in this series is an opportunity to find a new perspective on how photographs may be taken. Very recently, I stumbled across the work of one Harry Callahan.

As a fan of Clint Eastwood (though the debacle at the recent Republican convention, has somewhat dimmed my ardour), I was already familiar with the name of Harry Callahan (“…you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?”). But to be honest, possibly the Harry Callahan that I am referring to today is a tad more instructive to aspiring photographers.

Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If a man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life. I am interested in relating the problems that affect me to some set of values that I am trying to discover and establish as being my life. I want to discover and establish them through photography.

Callahan’s photographs illustrate his words above perfectly. His work was deeply personal and his family was always a pivotal subject.

I guess, any artistic medium, is a reflection of the person using it. Whether art is used to convey a social or philosophical message or simply as an ornament to beautify ones surroundings, art captures the essence of the its creator. It is inevitable.

The end deliverable is the result of a myriad of personal decisions the artist makes throughout the creative process. The decision to highlight a particular subject and how to portray it is coloured by the prejudices of the beholder. What is attractive to one may be repulsive to another, what is of paramount importance to someone is a matter of dull trivia to the rest of the universe. The choice of particular hue of green deposited on a canvas, or the particular chord change in a song, or the selection of a particular depth of field are all personal decisions. And all personal decisions are subjective and invariably tinted by the sensibilities of the one making the decisions.

The rare occasions when my wife accompanies on a photography trek with her own camera, really help to bring this home for me. We may both snap an image of the same subject before us, but we each do it in a very different way. The angle of view that may please her may bore me, and the perspective I choose may confound her.

And yet the beauty of art is that there are no right answers but only a multitude of possible responses to what may be shared queries.

...To be a photographer, one must photograph. No amount of book learning, no checklist of seminars attended, can substitute for the simple act of making pictures. Experience is the best teacher of all. And for that, there are no guarantees that one will become an artist. Only the journey matters...

As I said before, I am a self-taught photographer. It is a habit of mine that whenever I discover an inkling of an interest within myself for a particular subject I morph into a black hole in an attempt to absorb as much information as I can about it. After having read the whole series of National Geographic Photography Field Guide books, I was absolutely certain that Cindy Crawford would be thumping on my door begging me to do a photo shoot with her (it was a toss-up between the photo session or her proposing marriage, I just thought the option involving a camera was more realistic. And if you don’t know who Cindy Crawford is… you are way too young and utterly despicable).

Theoretically, I am the perfect photographer. Every time, I imagine myself taking a photograph and applying all the knowledge I have accumulated about exposure, framing, composition and light, I never make a mistake and my image is invariably a masterpiece.

Everyone seems to say the same thing: “practice makes perfect”. Of course, if everyone says it, it must be true. Though I have a tendency to disagree because I don’t think perfection really exists. If it existed, surely someone would have already packaged it and it would be available on the internet for only $19.99.

But I can’t deny that there is no substitute for experience, and in this case that just means taking a gazillion photographs before one can even hope to call oneself a photographer.

I guess I've shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.

Gosh, he cannot be much good then, can he? What was all that nonsense about “experience” if the success rate is going to be barely 2%?

But honestly, hands up everyone who comes home having shot a 100 frames and actually submits more than 40 of the photographs. Hmmm, OK. Now everyone who has more than 10 photos from those accepted keep their hands up and everyone else put their hands down. A little less hands up now.

For those of you with your hands still up… be honest, how many of those photos would you be willing to put up on the walls of your own living room? Not so many anymore.

And for those still in the running, maybe its time to set your standards at a higher level. Personally, if I were to be brutally honest with myself (which is kind of hard to do for me, since I love myself soooooooo much), I would only get a print of 1 in 2000 pictures I take.

Experience doesn’t necessarily always translate into great results. What it does do, is provide the opportunity to make mistakes and learn from them. Or alternatively, it just provides the opportunity to make mistakes resulting in walls, ceilings and endless pillars of albums filled with mediocre photographs because self-importance clouds the eyes and the judgement.

The mystery isn't in the technique, it's in each of us.

The last quote I have chosen from Harry Callahan ties in very aptly with the first one I used and is, to me, the very essence of art. What makes art so exciting for me is that it cannot be explained by any amount of logical reasoning. It is visceral, it is magical, it is inexplicable. It just is. And what makes it, is what we as the creators of art carry within us. It is defined by who we are and in turn, to some extent, it helps define us.

The magic of art is not in the grip on the brush, or the f-stop. It is in the instinctual comfort of holding the brush in that particular way, it is in the personal vision of throwing some part of the scene out of focus.

The true fascination with art is in our innate yearning to understand life, the world, our fellow humans. And it is also the eternal desire to be understood by our peers. When it comes down to it, all we are doing is searching for some validation of our life and our very personal understanding of it by exposing to others what we cannot express using set formulae.

As always, I end with a personal request. Please, if you have enjoyed this blog or like my portfolio, please visit my Facebook page Shadow69 Photography and click on “Like” to show your appreciation and support.

I'm baaaack

2012-08-31T14:37:00.001+02:00

I haven’t written a blog for a while now. Things have been rather hectic for the last month or so. The sad thing is that I haven’t had that much time to pursue any of my interests that actually make me feel alive. The days just fuse into each other in a mundane and seemingly never-ending routine that hungrily saps my vital life force, leaving me spent and resembling an empty shell of a body. The frustration of having to face perfect incarnations of “mindlessness” and “self-importance” all day long takes such a heavy toll that there is no energy left even for the usual fantasies of flinging an envelope (with a long list of suggestions as to anatomical impossibilities that the person in front of me should indulge in) on the desk of some, mindless, self-important, unappreciative idiot and strolling away into the sunset at a leisurely pace.

Ah, but enough of the gloom. I have no intention of plunging into the dark, inky depths of the humdrum life I am obliged to suffer for the moment. Writing a blog for me has always been (and hope will forever remain) one of many exit ramps from the highway to hell.

But perhaps, the introductory paragraph was meant to serve as an excuse to explain why this piece of excessive verbose is not the usual output that springs from the overactive neurons running around in my head. Said neurons have recently been too busy plotting excruciating vengeance instead of sensibly contemplating the sayings of masters of the art of photography. So I must apologize to the followers (if there are any at all, for I have not yet become egotistical enough to take for granted that there must be) of my ramblings for the fact that they will not find any pearls of wisdom. But I do hope that, perhaps, just perhaps, someone may glean something that may be of some use to them.

Photographs are more than a depiction of a moment in time. The stories behind the moment and the emotions tied to the moment are the true value of a picture. Most of the time, the significance of an image is obvious for the subjects in the photograph, but we often tend to forget that the photographer too may have an emotional connection to the work. Self-portraiture has to be the most obvious opportunity for both these aspects to merge together.

Yesterday, the current assignment of self-portraiture at Dreamstime closed for submissions. And for once I actually participated. Work on this assignment has been one of the very rare slivers of fun that I have been able to indulge in during the past month so it is only natural that I try to prolong the sense of satisfaction for a while longer by thinking back on it.

I usually do not participate in assignments or competitions. First reason being, that I have not yet been able to imbue myself with the blind faith required to believe that my work is of sufficient caliber to stand any extensive scrutiny. Secondly, I am just plain lazy to think of a convincing or strong concept. Thirdly, even when I do get of my ample behind with an interesting idea, my glib is not of sufficient quality to persuade people to sign a release permitting me to execute my ideas and submit them for sale (I haven’t even managed to persuade my wife to offer her likeness in images for sale).

Oh, I did resist. But, for once, the creative shadow shot down the practical shadow without mercy.

When I saw this assignment, several ideas immediately popped into my head without any effort at all. So any excuses about how much it would take to conjure up an exciting concept were, de facto, not valid.

Then, the question of signing a model release found no defensible answer. Seriously, how could I justify refusing to sign my own model release? What right would I have to complain when others refused to do so, if I would not do it myself. More than anything else, it was the fear of losing the right to complain that prompted me to abandon objections in this area.

Only the strongest of all excuses remained. Am I good enough? Will anything I do pass muster with the reviewers? And once again, I found that I my very own words to be against me. The question “Why not?” popped into my head (a few years back this interrogation had been the subject of another blog of mine “The Why Not Factor" and so I surrendered.

Then it was time to tackle the practicalities of setting up the shoot. I don’t have a studio, no lighting equipment other than a Canon 580EX Speedlite flash. Ah, perfect excuse to give up.

But I do like to at least pretend to wrestle with an excuse before using it to abandon a project. So I went around the stores, asking for advice. Surprisingly, someone actually provided me with a solution and so I bought up a wireless remote flash trigger mechanism. I also bought a reflector (I am too lazy to make my own, and honestly all my previous attempts at DIY photo equipment such as light tents have been such abysmal failures that I end up spending more money than just buying an industrial model).

Then I needed space to set-up my “studio”. The stairwell in my apartment building unfortunately has huge windows that let in enormous amounts of natural light. So that seemed to be a non-starter as an excuse.

So it came to pass that one Saturday morning, I started moving chairs, tripods, and various other props to the stairwell while trying to avoid waking up my neighbours. And having only two hands, it turned out that it was all hard work. I can’t remember the number of times I had to walk that same space of two meters to get everything there, but I am sure it was the most strenuous workout I have had all year.

So having got everything where I wanted it, I started setting up the shot. I needed a stand-in for myself to make sure the focus on the camera was set right. I seem to have thrown away all my teddy bears when I turned 37 (hey, no sniggering), so didn’t really have anything that would be a passable imitation of me sitting on a chair. I did think of waking up my wife and asking her to sit in my place, but abandoned that idea fairly rapidly. Even though she is the sweetest, gentlest and most generous woman I have ever known, my wife has the capacity to transform herself into a lethal weapon of nuclear proportions if roused from her sleep before noon on a weekend.

The solution was actually rather simple once I figured out that the direction in which one faces has nothing to do with the distance between two points (how come no one ever explicitly mentions things like this in geometry class?). So I focused on the tripod head from where I would be posing and switched to manual focus to lock it in. Taking extreme care not to touch the focus ring after that, I set the camera on the tripod. P.S. Just in case you missed it that was a practical hint right there. Don’t ever say my blogs are useless again.

For the next few hours I think I must have run the distance of a marathon. At least I think I must have judging by the amount of sweat that was streaming down my back when I started to return all the equipment back to the apartment.

My set-up was fairly simple. I posed next to the window so there was natural light falling on my left side, and I set up a reflector on my right side. Unfortunately, I had omitted to consider how to set up the reflector so that it was in the correct position. In the end, I was obliged to leave the reflector on the floor leaning against a stool so that light was being angled up to my face from below. Sufficed to say it was not ideal, and the light falling on the right side of my face was perfectly out of balance from the light falling on the left side of my face. So I tried to compensate by setting up the flash. To be honest, that didn’t work so great either, as I found out later. But at the moment, the results depicted on LCD screen on the back of my camera looked pretty damn good to me. And so I happily, tried a few of my sexiest poses, mistakenly thinking that I was creating a masterpiece.

One thing I did learn is that I would make a pretty terrible actor. I would take a pose, thinking that a sly, seductive, Harrison Ford-esque smile was gracing my features and that the story being told was of a person floating in serene rapture. But when reviewing the results on the screen of my computer, I would inevitably be confronted with the face of a schizophrenic, paranoid axe-murderer. Method acting is obviously not my forte. I now have absolute proof that the only place for me, whenever there is an optical lens present, is behind it and never under any circumstances, in front of it.

Eventually, I just decided to just fool around and forget about the assignment or creating a perfect self-portrait. And it was actually a picture resulting from this larking around that ended up being accepted and not from any of the more “seriously considered” compositions.

I forgot all about perfect exposure, blown highlights or deep shadows, and held the flash in my hand out of frame and tripped the shutter. Once my eyes could see again, after having been deprived of their senses for a bit by the intensive burst of light, I curiously checked the results. And though I thought that it would never get accepted I found myself thinking that it was the best picture I had taken that morning. The overwhelming desire to just pack up and lounge on the sofa may also have had something to do with my willingness to so readily accept the result.

A few days later, after having battled with my desire to passionately throttle someone, I found some courage and a little strength to process the pictures. And with some trepidation, I put a couple of the photos on my Facebook page requesting feedback from the people who have been kind enough to show some interest in my amateurish work. I absolutely expected to be inundated by comments pointing out why the light was all wrong, and why the composition didn’t work that I was slightly taken aback with the positive comments I received.

And so, thus encouraged, I submitted (with yet more trepidation) a couple of pictures to the assignment. One of them got rejected outright for inappropriate exposure (I mean lighting balance and not indecent demonstration of parts of my anatomy. Gosh, do try picking your mind out of the gutter why don’t you. Or is that just me?).

But, for the second image, I received a very kind message from the reviewer that with a little more post-processing work the picture could be accepted. Imagine that a reviewer actually sending a personal message in a refusal to suggest specifically how to improve a submission in order for it to get accepted. And so I set about yet again to play with curves and layer masks. And so, I present to you my first assignment picture accepted by Dreamstime. Who knows if there will be another, even if there is this one will forever be a special one.

So, what have I learnt personally from all this? Maybe, “learnt” is not the right word, for I already knew, as I am sure we all do, what I think is the real moral of this looooooooong and rambling page. But, it is well worth being reminded of these things as we struggle to get through the blackness that may pervade our on-going and uphill struggles to get through each day.

ONE: “Why not?” is possibly the best reason there exists to do something (Ummmm, please do not use that as an excuse to jump off a building, or to aim a gun at someone. A minimum amount of good sense is expected from anyone asking themselves that question). Rather than finding excuses why not to try something, we should all find reasons to try something new. Sometimes, just being able to say that we tried something is enough of a reason to attempt it.

SECOND: Have fun. We all know that that we give the best of ourselves and achieve our full potential when we are having fun. Sometimes, it is just better to forget the rules and the conventional wisdom and go a little crazy. Stop worrying about what others may think, or the effort and work that needs to be put in to get something worthwhile out. Sometimes, just doing something for the heck of it is the best thing that can happen.

Please visit my Facebook page Shadow69 Photography and click on “Like” to show your appreciation and support.

Muchas gracias amigos.

My next victim Peter Adams

2012-07-25T19:15:00.000+02:00

Hello again,
Based on the reactions to the last blog (Abell concise and me ranting), it would seem that people actually enjoy it when I rant. That, however, does not seem to include my wife who has made it absolutely clear, that all my ranting must be done outside her presence or I shall in no time at all, be ranting about sleeping on the sofa with an empty stomach (ha, I’m one up on her there, I love to cook and my sofa is pretty darn comfortable).

Anyhow,I am back here again with another feeble attempt to pick some photographer’s brain. This time around it is the unfortunate Peter Adams. Let me be clear, when I say unfortunate I do not mean that Peter Adams has a troubled life or that success has eluded him. I am not at all familiar with Mr. Adams and so am in no position to make any sort of judgment on his state of affairs. I simply meant that it is unfortunate that his words should come to my attention and be used in such a crude attempt to further my personal comprehension of the art of photography and thus become the basis of my delirious ravings.

"I discovered that while many photographers think alike when it comes to equipment and chemistry, there are seldom two who agree on anything when it comes to what constitutes a good image."

Not so long ago, I was particularly irked when a majority of a batch of pictures was rejected and thus I decided to revoke my exclusive status and submit to other agencies.

It has been more or less a month since I have been submitting to different agencies, and the very first lesson this new experience has taught me is that Peter Adams is spot on with his quote above.

I know a photographer who does a lot of product photography for luxury good companies as well as fashion shoots for magazines signed up to a microstock agency and after about thirty submissions never bothered to upload again. “I just got fed up with those idiots rejecting my photos because they thought the majority of the image was out of focus. Have they even heard of depth of field? Did they even consider that it may be on purpose?” he growled at me (obviously he thought I was either an idiot or a reviewer). That is a rather easy one to address, stock is different from what he is used to doing and therefore demands different things from an image. I can absolutely understand that the aesthetic merits of an image such as composition, depth of field, subject matter are entirely subjective and are hostage to a viewer’s sensibilities.

But I was shocked to discover, that highly trained (or so one is led to believe) professionals with extensive experience in detecting such unforgivable deficiencies as noise, sensor spots, colour fringing, incorrect focus, are, in a lot of cases, unable to form a unanimous opinion.

It is simply astounding how one photograph can be accepted at five agencies and be rejected at another because they found colour fringing plaguing the image. The only explanation I can come up with is that the five agencies employ blind moles and the other one employs eagle-eyed, microscopic, electro-magnetic superheroes with the ability to meld into digital images. I have examples of similar cases for all of the issues mentioned in the paragraph above.

Surely, we are talking about objective criteria that are definable, detectable and measurable. Surely, everyone should be able to see the same amount of noise in the same area on a photograph regardless of race, colour or creed? Or perhaps not, maybe people in St-Petersburg are particularly sensitive to shades of green and red, while people in Denver are particularly offended by dark spots on a blue background. Maybe it is the water or the air?

It doesn’t really bother me anymore. Well obviously it bothers me a little otherwise this mini rant wouldn’t be here. But it doesn’t bother me to the extent which made me give up my exclusivity, because I now understand what Peter Adams knows. Show enough people a photograph and you will end up collecting fairly diverse opinions on whether it is a good photograph and even more divergent explanations as to why it is good and why it is not.

It’s quite heartening in a way, because it means that I never ever take horribly disfigured images and that no matter what if I look long enough and far enough I’ll always find someone who will be complimentary about a photograph. On the other hand, it is hardly reassuring, because there will always be the possibility that someone will find something wrong with a photograph that others have given a thumbs up to. As they say, it is hard to please all of the people all of the time.

Photography is not about cameras, gadgets and gismos. Photography is about photographers. A camera didn't make a great picture any more than a typewriter wrote a great novel.

I am beginning to wonder if photographers don’t harbour a paranoid inferiority complex. Nearly every single photographer I have found says something about how a good picture has nothing to do with the camera but rather is a reflection of the photographer’s skill in wielding the tool. In my last blog I had (at nauseating length) gone into this. Painters or carpenters don’t ever seem to need to defend their skills. Even film makers don’t seem to harp on about how it isn’t the camera that makes a great movie. So why photographers?

My current method of addressing this is now quite simple. Anytime someone comments on how wonderful my camera looks and how it must take great photographers, I just hand it over and tell them to take as many pictures as they can in 10 minutes and we’ll see how great the camera really is. Often, people end up being disappointed in the equipment without ever really considering that perhaps the ham fisted ape holding it is to blame.

Sometimes, for my own amusement I start telling them how I would shoot the scene they are aiming at. Start talking about shallow depth of field, leading lines or panning and people just tend to forget about the camera and are suddenly subject to an overwhelming desire to either reduce the number of teeth in my mouth or to avoid any photographic equipment for the next 3 months. If that doesn’t cure them of making idiotic statements about the wondrous abilities of my camera to render gorgeous beauty flawlessly, I bang them over the head with my crappy 50 mm Sigma lens (rest assured, I don’t use it any more).

Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.

As a “serious” photographer (Stop that snickering. OK, who guffawed back there?), I sometimes forget why I embarked on this journey. I end up concentrating so much on details like setting the right aperture value, getting the correct exposure, avoiding camera shake, achieving a composition without the orange rubbish bin that I forget why something compelled me to put the camera to my eye in the first place.

In the beginning, before I learned about manual or aperture priority mode, it was all so much simpler. I saw something that elicited an emotional response in me and I snapped a picture. Certainly, most of the time the picture was far from technically perfect, but it was a personal record of something that held an emotional value.

And then I started getting serious and my outlook changed. I was forever judging whatever was before me in terms of stock. Is the lighting good? Will the image come out OK? Is the subject matter commercial enough? It got quite bad at times when I would refuse to take a picture if I thought it wouldn’t be of interest to a stock agency.

One occurrence brought me the realization that perhaps I was going too far was when I got married. Of course, I was bitterly disappointed that as one of the principal stars of the event, I was not allowed to hide behind a camera. But many of our friends were more than happy to bring their cameras along and snap away as the ceremony unfolded.

Afterwards, all our friends provided us with the pictures they had taken. And while my young bride, oooh’ed and aaah’ed in genuine appreciation and gratitude at their efforts, I silently sat criticizing the exposure, framing and saturation. I was asked to put the pictures on-line to share with those who had not been able to attend the event. I only managed to do so 4 weeks afterwards because like a stubborn idiot I refused to publish any picture that I had not processed myself to recover the exposure or to boost the saturation.

I am notorious for defending my idiotic behaviour vehemently whenever I am criticized, but I hang my head in shame when I think back to those weeks. Our friends not only blessed us with their presence but also made the effort to capture the significance of the event out of generosity and the goodness of their hearts, and the Shylock that I had become could only think of casting a critical eye upon their gifts. And though my wife never said a cross word to me, I could see that she was disappointed.

A perfect picture is not one that is pin point sharp, correctly exposed, and accurately framed. It is one that brings a smile or a tear to the face of its beholder, dredges up an emotional memory, elicits a yearning or desire, helps relate to someone, or simply stirs the soul in recognition of wondrous beauty.

A technically perfect picture that does not create an emotional response is a failure.

I have since learned to stop judging everything in terms of its potential for stock, and now happily raise the camera at high noon to shoot someone playing a guitar on the street or to boost the ISO to 6400 to snap my wife dancing happily late at night. Stock is stock, photography is bliss.

Removing Dreamstime Referral Link

2012-07-14T18:27:00.000+02:00

Hello Everyone,

I have decided to remove my referral links for Dreamstime. It is pretty well explained here, but I shall just briefly summarize. My reason's are the same as Lee Torrens' (the guy who posted the above).

DreamsTime gives people who have referred photographers to them 10% of any sales made by those photographers. Sounds great doesn't it. There's just one problem. The 10% is not actually coming from DreamsTime, but from the poor referred photographers' cut. That is to say, if a photographer who used my referral id when joining DreamsTime sells a photograph for $1 (and for simplicity's sake say he/she is exclusive to DT), he/she should be getting $0.60 from that sale and I should get $0.10. But in actual fact DT are cutting the $0.10 from his/her commission and paying it to me from there, so my referral is now getting only $0.50.

I find that very unfair and dishonest.

First of all, they haven't actually done the work required to attract the photographer to their site. That was me. It is entirely to their benefit that a new photographer starts contributing to their site. They should be paying me the 10% from their own pocket and not taking it from someone else and especially not from a new recruit who just joined.

Secondly, this does not do anything for my own reputation, or peoples' trust in my recommendations. Seriously, because of this policy I now end up being the person who is taking a piece of the (already) pittance of a commission that my referral receives. I am not prepared to accept that.

I know that I am a very tiny fish in the big pond of micro stock, but that is no excuse not to do the right thing. If everyone uses that as an excuse, no one will ever do anything. So I am joining Lee in lodging a protest against this practice in the hope that it will discourage others from doing the same.

Abell Concise and Me Ranting

2012-06-29T17:42:00.001+02:00

Hello again. It has been a while since my last blog. Things have been rather hectic. But, here I am again back on the trail of discovering how to become a better photographer through the gems of wisdom imparted by some well-known masters of light.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I came across a few quotes from Sam Abell which I found to be intriguing. To be honest, I was not familiar with him before, but the fact that he has worked for the National Geographic (to my mind one of the best showcases for exquisite photography) was enough to get me hunting for examples of his work. I was not disappointed. If like me you are not familiar with his body of work, definitely check him out.

It matters little how much equipment we use; it matters much that we be masters of all we do use.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I bought a Canon 5D MkII at the beginning of the year, a few months before the MkIII made its appearance. A friend of mine teased me about it “Aren’t you behind the times a bit?”, “Wow you bought a new camera 4 years after it came out!” Actually, I wouldn’t have bought it at all if something hadn’t gone wrong with my 5D. I am not one of those who make owning the “latest and greatest must have gizmo” an objective in life. In this high speed world where nearly anything you buy is obsolete a month after you plunk down your hard-earned cash for it, I prefer the familiarity and comfort of holding on to the “devil” I know (now isn’t that a comforting thought for my wife). This never ending vicious cycle of craving the latest, biggest, best and billion feature (99% of which will most likely never actually be accessed) packed camera simply bemuses me (OK so I am easily confounded, but at least it helps me save a little money now and then).

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

But most importantly, this phenomenon only seems to help propagate that pet peeve of anyone who considers him/herself an artist or crafts-person (I am being political correct just in case).

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

How many times have you gone to a family gathering or walked around on the street with your shiny, big DSLR and telephoto zoom and had people come up to you and remark:

“Wow, that’s a really great looking camera. It must take really great pictures.”

And upon hearing that how many times have you said to yourself

“Must stay calm. Must not unleash the fist of death now. Must not forget to breath.”

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

I suppose it is only to be expected. In this consumption driven society, we are endlessly preached at and encouraged to believe that there is some technological gem that can do everything for us and do it better than us. For the previous generations it was all about making life that little bit easier: a vacuum cleaner was there to “help” clean the house, a washing machine was there to “help” you save time… But nowadays, everything seems to be there to “do it for you”. A calculator will multiply 6 by 2 for the kiddies so they don’t have to use their brains, a Xbox is there to entertain your children so you don’t have to spend any time with them, so on and so on. The list is seriously endless. Hell, there are even people sitting in some dark room who will make sure that your character gets to level 70 with all the brilliant weaponry in the “World of Warcraft”! Hello people, you paid cash to play that game for your entertainment, and now you are paying even more cash so someone else plays it for you!!!! What the bloody … (expletive censored because this blog will be converted to audio so that no one has to learn how to read).

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Ummm… sorry I forgot to take my fried pelican pills. Feeling much better now.

So yes, back to Sam Abell’s first quote. In brief, it isn’t the device you hold in your hands that makes a great picture. It is you and your skill that makes the picture. The emotional reaction you have, the details your eyes and brain focus upon, the framing that speaks to you… True creation comes not from the tool, but from the one wielding the tool. A true creator is one who works out what and how to do something using what is at hand and deducing how to break through the limitations that may be imposed by the tool. A machine, as of yet (thank God), has not been devised that can replace any of the complexities that allow the human being to be a creator.

Because photographers... think things through and... it isn't luck, and it isn't random and it isn't accidental. It isn't.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

OK,so what took me a page to rant, Sam Abell said it in one sentence. Good photography is not just the tool; it is about working out a problem. Art is also science. Photography is a set of complex equations with a ton of variables: size, speed, light, distance... It is about adding elements and subtracting elements, setting boundaries while trying to remove others. If I had known, I would have paid more attention in physics class.

A mad, keen photographer needs to get out into the world and work and make mistakes.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice… did I already mention practice? Oh did I? Ah, but did I say it enough? Don’t think so… practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice...

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

But seriously, that’s the only way any of us are going to get better. I went to a photography workshop. One of the instructors was running around snapping away with the camera like mad. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder how many times she has run this workshop? I wonder what she is going to do with the pictures. Why isn’t she bored snapping the same subjects over and over again? In my experience, curiosity has very rarely been lethal to me, so I asked. And she replied that she didn’t know what she was going to do with the pictures, it didn’t really matter but if there was a really great one, she might think of something, but otherwise it was just practice. Silly me.

Weeks later I was watching a series of YouTube videos about photography after having just relegated a whole bunch of shots taken earlier to the virtual dustbin of my computer, and the instructor’s reply came back to haunt me. I was amazed by the ability of photographer in the video to figure out what to do and take quick-fire decisions during the shoot, and was wondering how he knew what he had to do to get the shot just right. Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice… wait for it… even more practice.

Above all, it's hard learning to live with vivid mental images of scenes I cared for and failed to photograph. It is the edgy existence within me of these unmade images that is the only assurance that the best photographs are yet to be made.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Practice, practice, practice… oops sorry, was running on automatic.

Ye Gods, isn’t that one just so familiar? How many times have I arrived home with an invisible hand squeezing and twisting my guts because I had not taken a camera with me and had just seen something that I would have loved to commit to my digital memory storage (which seems to be more reliable than my organic one these days). Doom, despair, gloom, darkness, hopelessness. Ah but old Sam Abell is not so pessimistic… an opportunity missed may not be lost to him forever, but is a promise of a more glorious photograph to come. Amen.

As always, I end with a personal request. Please, if you have enjoyed this blog or like my portfolio, please visit my Facebook page Shadow69 Photography and click on “Like” to show your appreciation and support.

© Photographer: Abdul Sami Haqqani | Agency: Dreamstime.com

Cup of tea and H-C B

2012-05-04T17:24:00.000+02:00

Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.

Any photographer’s supreme ambition is to capturing the precise millisecond that tells the whole story. A picture is the freezing of time. There are no fancy mechanisms available to the photographer to fill in the viewer with the crucial backstory. There is no way to rewind the narrative in a photograph. That single frame is it; the one infinitesimal instant in the ever flowing stream of time must stand on its own and captivate its audience. It must not only tell of how that moment came to be, but must also illicit a desire to know what will be.

Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact.

A photographer’s challenge (should he/she choose to accept it) then, is not only to recognize that something is happening (or about to happen), but to capture it in such a way that its significance is instantly obvious and intriguing. Should be simple enough with a camera capable of 14 frames per second, right? I mean you are bound to get at least one frame that captures the magic instant.

Have you had a look at all the different reasons your photos may get rejected at any given agency? I should know, I must have collected all of them by now. But it comforts me to believe that even Henri-Cartier Bresson would collect a few if he were to submit to microstock agencies, though perhaps not as much as me. Not that I am comparing myself in any way to such a master as him.

Depicting the “decisive moment” as espoused by M. Bresson is not simply pressing down hard on the button and hearing a fast series of clicks. Certainly the man leaping across a puddle will be forever captured on your film or sensor, but does everything else in the frame provide significance to that leap?

The test is not only to anticipate, comprehend and technically capture an instant but to compose it so that everything in the tiny extract provides the flashback to what happened before, the context in which it is occurring now and the enticement of what the unrevealed future holds. Anything not related to the plot is a meaningless distraction and simply spoils the narrative.

In the instant that the film is exposed or the sensor is tripped, the photographer must perfectly recount the story by controlling the exposure, depth of field and the composition of his snapshot. Seriously, can I really do all that in a nanosecond? Ummmm… ok moving on then.

The difference between a good picture and a mediocre picture is a question of millimeters – small, small difference...

Composition, composition, composition. And composition yet again.

Think of movies. The special effects and stunt work may be breathtaking, but if the story isn’t gripping, the movie will tank and some Hollywood executive’s head will roll (woo hoo).

All the technical niceties in a photograph are mostly lost on the average viewer, what really grips him or her, is the story being told. Whether it is a firefighter battling against flames, a little girl crying for her mother, the steaming apple pie coming out of the oven it really is the narrative that wrests the attention of the average Joe. Blown highlights, inky dark shadows, noise are secondary. What reaches out and seizes a wandering gaze will almost inevitably be the story that is unveiled.

And later once attention has been gripped the critical eye will discern the technical flaws of execution. But without the arresting plot, it is unlikely that a technically perfect photograph is going to be noticed. (Obviously none of this applies to soulless microstock agencies who have no time to read the book but want to see eye-popping explosions instead. Just kidding).

Photography is nothing--it's life that interests me.

You just have to live and life will give you pictures.

Amen to that.

It is an illusion that photos are made with the camera… they are made with the eye, heart and head.

Indeed. I just recently so a whole series of videos on the internet where professionally renowned photographers were handed really crappy cameras (including an old Nokia phone, an iPhone 2G, but the most impressive of all was a Lego camera). It was just simply amazing how each one of the photographers just worked around the technical limitations of the material to produce really interesting and captivating pictures. No possibility to set aperture values or shutter speed? No problem, we’ll just work around it. Hmmm, the flash is weak… ok let’s do some light painting. It was an education just watching these guys, I think I learnt more about photography watching this than I have any other way in a long, long time.

Having the latest and greatest equipment with a chockfull of megapixels and high speed focusing is nice to have, but it ain’t going to make you into a great photographer in any way mate (there’s also a video with a complete novice given a brilliant Nikon DSLR, hilarious). If you don’t have the head to work out a composition or idea, or the eye to see a point of interest or the heart to feature it in a story a Canon 1D Mk IV is not going to change you into a Bresson or Ansel Adams. Don’t waste your money on a piddling camera, go buy a big powerful Ferrari and see if that will turn you into a Michael Schumacher or Fernando Alonso. Yeah, good luck with that.

Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

Some words of encouragement from the master! Oh well, at least that explains all the rejections, ha ha. But seriously… practice, practice, practice. One day it might make perfect.

Robert Adams and me

2012-05-02T17:42:00.000+02:00

Robert Adams gained prominence with his pictures that depicted how natural landscapes are transformed as civilization encroaches upon them. As a lover of the inherent beauty of the natural landscape his photographs strongly hint at the dismay he must have felt as he saw it being defaced by ever advancing human activity.

You can have a look at some of his photography here: Robert Adams The Place We Live

It is not only his pictures that captured my attention; his musings also make for some thought-provoking study. He was at some point a teacher of English, and I think this as well as his artistic consciousness, contribute greatly to his eloquence.

Part of the difficulty in trying to be both an artist and a businessperson is this: You make a picture because you have seen something beyond price; then you are to turn and assign to your record of it a cash value. If the selling is not necessarily a contradiction of the truth in the picture, it is so close to being a contradiction—and the truth is always in shades of gray--that you are worn down by the threat.

With the introduction of the revised pricing structure at Dreamstime, I have been reading with interest all the different opinions on the forum here and elsewhere. It seems to me that mostly the reactions are divided along partisan lines, those that seem to think that DT can never do any wrong and those who, no matter what, will always consider their work to be under-priced. I hasten to say that personally, I have not taken the time to either analyse the new pricing structure in detail or form an opinion on the matter. I am such a small fish in this ocean of microstock and my earnings here are so puny that I doubt it would affect me either way. Besides which, microstock photography is not the reason I picked up the camera in the first place. No matter.

The quote above from Robert Adams struck me as fairly relevant to all the never-ending brouhaha between agencies and contributors regarding pricings and commissions.

Yuri Arcurs has announced the creation of his own site to sell his stock photography. He is a rare bird in the domain of microstock that has achieved an enviable level of success. He has managed to find a commodity for which there is a demand and has successfully exploited it. Obviously, he feels that the price others put on his pictures is not appropriate and hence has decided to take the step to cut out the middle-man. There is always some discussion on whether he can be considered an artist or not, but he probably doesn’t care about what people may think. If his primary motivation at the moment is to skip merrily to the bank laughing his head off, then indeed why should he? As long as he feels his work is getting a fair price.

As photographers, we would all like to think of ourselves as artists - and business persons to boot. I don’t know if there exists a dichotomy in that. Obviously that depends on our personal definitions of art and what we believe the purpose of art is. If art is indeed “truth” then can truth have a price? Does pure art exist for its own sake or should art be created to communicate a message? Or is the purpose of art simply to entertain? Is it a commodity to be traded? The answers to these questions may help with dealing with what Mr Adams qualifies as “the threat”.

One thing is absolutely clear, I have neither the patience nor the brain power to be an effective philosopher., so I should refrain from commenting on whether an effective artist can indeed be an effective business person or vice versa. At the moment, I am neither and so am inclined to be fairly fatalistic about the going-on in the stock world.

Maybe the solution to deal with the question posed by Mr Adams is to simply decide what is more important on a personal level, the cash value or the “something beyond price”?

Me, I’m too lazy to think about it so I have rarely let it become a threat that would wear me down.

Your own photography is never enough. Every photographer who has lasted has depended on other peoples pictures too - photographs that may be public or private, serious or funny but that carry with them a reminder of community.

To me this one thought carries within it two notions. One, that everyone has been influenced to some degree or another by what people have done before. And two, no matter what, nothing or no one exists in isolation, but rather is part of something larger than itself.

One of the most frequent advices given to any one first embarking on any endeavour is to look at and learn from what has been done before. Photographers are forever recommended that they study pictures and paintings by other to learn about composition and technique. A genius is only a genius because he/she stands on the shoulders of other greats that have already done part of the work.

It is obvious, that especially as photographers we cannot live in isolation. We are dependent on what exists around us to produce our work. Whether it is nature, product, portrait, street or news photography we are obliged to interact with the world at large and be part of a community. For better or for worse, we have absolutely no choice if we wish to pursue our “passion”.

At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands before our camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect--a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known.

And as photographers, our interaction with the world defines us and in turn colours the perceptions others hold about us. What we choose to photograph and how we do it in terms of composition and technique provides a glimpse into our mind and being. Our pictures indeed become part of our life experience, of who we are and our résumé. They are the part that is most visible to the world and which allows others to (for good or for bad) define or label us.

No place is boring, if you've had a good night's sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.

Or rather a few memory cards with some available storage space. Enough said.

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A butterfly flaps it's wings...

2012-04-30T17:52:00.000+02:00

I have recently been a victim of an uninspired photographic rut which has been manifesting itself in an inability to “see” any interesting composition and an unwillingness to raise the camera to the eye. Everything seemed to bore my photographic senses and although I have been carrying the camera around with me on my strolls during the weekend, I haven’t been taking too many pictures.

I have often found that going on a shoot with others is a great way of finding inspiration. As everyone seems to look at things slightly differently or notices things that you might oversee, it is a great way to refresh your artistic vision and break out of habits that become ingrained.

A while ago, a friend came to visit me and expressed an interest in taking up photography as a hobby. We just walked around town with our cameras. His enthusiasm was quite infectious. His desire to try and take pictures of everything he saw helped me overcome my dull familiarity with the city. Whereas, normally I would have simply ignored something as commonplace, I was actually stopping and actively seeking a pleasing and interesting composition to feature it in.

Inspiration isn’t always some random quark traveling through the universe accidentally hitting the brain, most of the time it is actually about working hard to find the rare gem that reignites the desire to create something.

So, in the hopes of breaking this run of yawning indifference, I signed up for a photographic workshop. The workshop was organized at the butterfly conservatory at Kerzers (Papiliorama Kerzers) by Digital-Light.ch.

The primary objective of the workshop was really to understand and practice the principles behind “Depth of Field” and started off with our instructor explaining the parameters behind the notion. As a fairly seasoned practitioner of the art of photography (though admittedly there is still a lot to learn and am still decidedly nowhere near mastering the art yet), I found this slightly boring. But, I have to admit that I did come away with something very useful from this briefing. It was also very interesting to be reminded of how everything in photography is somehow connected.

I may be wrong, but I think most of us would probably just say something like “depth of field = aperture”. I most certainly would have, and that just illustrates why I am not quite ready to instruct photography yet. I have to say that I mostly work in aperture priority mode, so I have always thought that I was well versed in the notion of depth of field.

What was really good was that the instructor went a bit further than just explaining aperture, and rightly expanded on how focal length and the distance to the subject affect depth of field and how aperture settings have an effect on shutter speed. We were now armed with the knowledge that if we wanted to ensure getting the whole subject sharp and clear in the picture we would have to choose a small aperture, which would mean sacrificing shutter speed.

As the conservatory is indoors, it was evident that the lighting conditions were not necessarily conducive to long exposures without camera shake. Additionally, as butterflies are not very patient and very frequently refuse to hold still while you snap a shot, shutter speed is obviously fairly important factor in taking a successful and sharp image. So now we came to ISO settings, whereby we were instructed that the way to deal with the loss of shutter speed due to the small aperture was to boost our ISO settings.

We could have of course, used our tripods, but I think we were all a little reluctant to lug them around or get in the way of the other visitors and become nuisances.

In any case, we were then let loose in the conservatory with our cameras. The idea was that each one of the workshop participants would take a series of photographs for an hour or so and then come back to the instructor for a review.

My first series of photographs clearly demonstrated that while I am very well versed in the theoretical aspects of photography, I sometimes have a huge reluctance to put some of them in practice.

As someone who sells photographs on a microstock site where even the tiniest bit of noise in a picture is instantly punished by death, ummm, I meant refusal, I was fairly reluctant to go beyond ISO 400. This invariably resulted in pictures that were victim to camera shake or inadequate depth of field where perhaps one gorgeously coloured butterfly wing was perfectly sharp while the other one appeared to be out of focus.

The instructor pointed out that while my compositions were interesting, I really did need to pay attention to the shutter speed, and most of the problems in my pictures were due to this. Either I chose a very shallow depth of field because I was concerned with the shutter speed or I allowed camera shake to creep into the pictures by selecting a smaller aperture. Picture after picture I was berated for not having boosted my ISO settings. And despite my protestations he insisted that the noise could be dealt with.

In the second session, I kept my eye on the shutter speed and forced myself to go to higher ISO speeds to eliminate camera shake. I must admit that I was still fairly reluctant, and would take the same picture at different ISO settings just as a precaution. In the end, this approach ended up being very useful because during the review session, differences due to the changes in ISO speed very fairly evident. At lower ISOs, with the aperture remaining constant, I could clearly see the camera shake and when the aperture was enlarged, to keep shutter speed at a reasonable level, the lack of depth of field was obvious.

As I said, none of this was new to me. But what I did learn was that I was not always putting it in practice. Often I was just concentrating on the depth of field and selecting my aperture values without paying too much attention to the shutter speed. The result was that out of 20 pictures, 15 were unusable due to camera shake. As the instructor said, it is possible to deal with noise during post processing, but there is absolutely nothing you can do about a blurred picture, so it is better to boost the ISO to make sure the picture is sharp rather than risking camera movement or inadequate depth of field.

I have to say, that the workshop proved itself to be very useful, as since then I am practicing the theory I know diligently. Not only am I keeping an eye on the shutter speed each time I raise the camera to my eye, I also no longer have such a strong aversion to boosting the ISO all the way up to 1600 (I still can’t bring myself to go any higher though).

This workshop was a great way not only to be reminded of some of the most basic of notions for successful photography, but also to break out of my rut and meet a whole bunch of very nice people who share my passion with photography. If you live around Geneva or Lausanne, and are interested in taking photography courses I would highly recommend Digital-Light.ch. Check them out.

Arnold Newman and Photography

2012-04-17T13:45:00.001+02:00

"Although my approach has become popularly known as environmental portraiture, it only suggests a part of what I have been doing and am doing. Overlooked is that my approach is also symbolic and impressionistic or whatever label one cares to use."

So said Arnold Newman of his art in the early 1980s. I can only imagine the frustration he may have felt at being stuck with a “label”.

It strikes me as odd, that it took one man to popularize an approach that seems evident. I mean, if you are taking a portrait of someone, it is in an attempt to reveal the person as much as possible. A portrait should be a statement about who the person is and the impact he or she exerts. And what better way to do that than to capture the surroundings and the “natural habitat” of a subject.

Obviously, that is easier said than done. Simply recording Igor Stravinsky sitting at a piano may not have had the impact that Newman’s portrait exerted without the daring composition he chose. In Newman’s portrait the pianist is confined to the bottom left corner of the frame and is dwarfed by the raised lid of a grand piano which takes up the rest of the picture. It is perhaps not a composition that would obviously present itself to most photographers, who would probably tend to give their illustrious subject the “center stage” and making him dominate. Obviously, a lot of thought went into how best to portray the man and his art. To me the picture speaks not only of the Stravinsky but the passion that dominates him.

"There are no rules and regulations for perfect composition. If there were we would be able to put all the information into a computer and would come out with a masterpiece. We know that's impossible. You have to compose by the seat of your pants."

As a student I was fascinated by the concept of artificial intelligence, even though I have never been quite able to completely define “intelligence”. Is intelligence about how quickly you can learn and absorb new material? Is it about how best to deal with your environment? Is it about creation? A computer is faster and more precise when it comes to logic and calculations and potentially has limitless capacity to store information. But will a computer ever really be able to interpret the surrounding world and create something awe-inspiring? Perhaps, if it were possible to reduce all the complexities and wonders of life as mathematical equations. But is that ever likely to happen?

As an aside, if I were to be really pushed hard, I would probably end up saying that pet dogs are the most intelligent species on Earth. Think about it. They get free board and food, companionship and even manage to persuade humans to behave in the most ridiculous fashion. Hell, I know some people who will take their dogs for a walk and carry it in their arms! Ummm, and I thought that the idea was that the dog got some exercise. Are humans really all that intelligent?

That’s my little digression out of the way now.

The point Arnold makes is probably the one absolute saving grace of humankind. Humans appear to be the only species that actually creates for the sake of creation. There is absolutely no need, other than the desire to enjoy and appreciate things of beauty that humans work to create art. Certainly, some people make a pretty decent living out of their art, but on the whole there are probably simpler and less risky ways to do so (think accounting). No one is going to be able to persuade me that Van Gogh kept painting because he was convinced he was going to end up a millionaire!

The reason so many of us are not successful at our “artistic” endeavors is precisely because we cannot reduce creation to a set of rules. In photography or in painting we talk endlessly about the rule of thirds, and yet we always add the proviso “Rules are made to be broken”. I beg to differ, rules SHOULD not be made to be broken. In so called civilized society we have rules that say you must not kill, you must not steal, you must not harm others. Are these rules made to be broken? If so, why do we strive to exact punishment when these rules are broken?

In art, there are no rules. There may be guidelines or suggestions, but there are no rules because we cannot reduce the creation of art into a logical process. If art had to be created in accordance with rules, we would still be blowing coloured mud on cave walls and there would have been no Impressionism, Cubism or Pop Art.

"I am always lining things up, measuring angles, even during this interview. I'm observing the way you sit and the way you fit into the composition of the space around you."

"A photographer is always in a state of preparing himself for a given moment… we have only an instant in which to think and act."

But to even have the tiniest hope of producing art worthy of consideration (by whom?), you must let yourself be submerged by the needs of your art. In fact, you cannot even consider them as requirements imposed upon you. You simply have to live it. The process of creation is what you do all the time without even realizing it. A photographer is forever composing a picture, even when not peeping through the viewfinder. Everything a photographer looks at automatically becomes an element to be either included or excluded or placed just so in a composition, because when the moment comes there really will only be a fraction of a second to record it.

And my final two quotes from Arnold Newman require no comments, but are something that we all would do well to remind ourselves of (especially when thinking of buying the latest and greatest gizmo).

"...a lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they'll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won't do a thing for you if you don't have anything in your head or in your heart."

"We don't take pictures with our cameras. We take them with our hearts and we take them with our minds, and the camera is nothing more than a tool."

Check out some of Arnold Newman's work on:

The Arnold Newman Archive

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My uploads to Dreamstime for March 2012

2012-04-01T08:00:00.000+02:00

Latest Uploads for month of March 2012

Image copyright Sami Haqqani | Dreamstime.com

Choosing a good tripod

2012-03-30T14:27:00.006+02:00

As I just bought a new tripod today so I thought I would share with you a few tips on what to consider when choosing a tripod.

You may have spent a significant amount of cash on buying the latest and greatest camera and the thought of spending another few hundred bucks on a few aluminum sticks to hold your camera for you may not be foremost on your mind. And yet, the tripod is possibly just as critical for taking great pictures as your camera (but remember, great photography isn't so much about the equipment you use, as it is about how you use it).

Hand-holding your camera may be fine if you are taking a quick snap in the middle of the day with the sun in shinning furiously, but in order to ensure absolute sharpness you really do need to have a good sturdy tripod to make sure that you don't risk your masterpiece being spoilt by shaking hands. Taking great, noise-free pictures at night or in low-light conditions and relying on your steady hands for the long exposures is merely wishful thinking (even if your camera does boast high ISO speeds the noise levels often make the pictures unusable).

Without a good tripod you may be limiting yourself to taking a run of the mill photograph when you could avail yourself to a host of techniques to really make your pictures POP. Deliberately slowing down your shutter speed when taking pictures of rivers or waterfalls to allow for a milky flowing effect is simply not possible without a tripod. They are also invaluable when taking panoramic shots or pictures for HDR processing to make sure that everything is perfectly aligned.

Anyway, here's a few things I considered when looking at tripods to buy.

Height
I really wanted a tripod that would bring the camera up to my eye level without my having to extend the center column. Center columns always feel a little flimsy to me, and when extended fully I am almost certain that they introduce as much shake to the camera as my own hands.

Release

Surprisingly there are still a lot of tripods around that do not offer a quick release mechanism and require that the camera be screwed on directly to the tripod, which means that you waste a lot of time screwing and unscrewing. Imagine, what chaos ensues as you try to whisk the camera around to take a shot of a bird in flight just behind you. You end up wrestling with what seems like an octopus as you struggle to get its limbs under control.

So a quick-release mount is a must. Basically, you just attach a plate to the bottom of your camera and pretty much just forget about it. The plate locks into place on the tripod head, and you can connect and disconnect from the tripod with a quick flick of your finger.
Weight Rating
Your tripod has to be able to handle whatever you stick on top of it. Try and get a tripod with a weight rating double that of the "package" you are planning to use. If your camera together with the lens weighs 2kg, then make sure that the tripod has a rating of at least 4kg. My first tripod was a wimp. I basically bought it with my first digital camera (a Canon G2, gosh I am old). When I tried sticking a DSLR with a decent lens on it, the head really could not handle it and the front of the lens would painfully embark on a journey to point to the ground. Seriously, trying to take a tack sharp picture under such conditions basically amounted to the same thing as defying gravity. A losing battle.

Head
This is where your camera is going to sit and the part you are most often going to adjust to make sure your camera is exactly where you want it to make sure you get the composition required for your masterpiece. You basically have 2 choices:

Ball and socket: These allow a lot of flexibility in moving your camera around and are very smooth.
Pan and tilt: These really help to lock the camera into position and are generally cheaper. I do have to say that they are not quite as fluid to move around.

In the end it comes down to personal preference. I got a pan and tilt, mostly because that is what I am used to.

Leg Locks
Basically these count for a lot, because you don't want to waste too much precious time fiddling around with collapsing and extending legs to get the height you want. I personally like flip locking or quick release system because I feel that is just faster compared to twist action legs which I suspect are more prone to slippage. Also, I like it that I can cast a quick glance to make sure that everything is well in place with the flip-locking system rather than repeatedly twisting the legs to make sure they are not going to slip (call me paranoid if you want, I guess I am a little after all). Test the stability in the shop before buying, by extending the legs and pressing down from above. Make twisting and back-and-forth movements to see how much the legs wobble.

Center Column As I mentioned above, it is best to avoid using the center column to increase the height of the tripod to avoid any risk of instability. But I really did want to get a tripod that would allow me to deploy the center column horizontally like a boom for macro shots or to take pictures of stuff from above.

Conclusion

When looking at the prices I realized that buying a good tripod can amount to a significant investment. But it is also obvious to me that a good tripod is possibly going to last me a good ten years. After all, there isn't much that is going to change as to how a tripod works or what functionality it offers. The material used to manufacture tripods may change so that they become lighter. And from experience, I have realized that scrimping on some 20-50 bucks is not really worth it, if the picture I take ends up blurred. So a final word of advise: Don't buy cheap, flimsy tripods. It's a false economy.

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