[Egglington]

In regards to cost, I think there are a few things to consider. The first is, if you build your business up slowly it’s not going to hurt as much. In my early days I was only using a basic camera and shooting for friends in my spare time. All the money I made from that went into investing in new equipment and training, while my 9-5 job paid for all my other life costs. As time went by I continued to acquire photographic assets, while at the same time I was getting valuable experience as well. Even today besides my photography, I also make an income from graphic design and web development. By establishing myself over time I have managed to keep my current costs of doing business to things like insurance, administration and equipment maintenance. I think today, everyone wants everything instantly to run a business right now. The trick is to build yourself up slowly and ease yourself into what you love. Sometimes I have found that involved doing things you don’t love initially.

[Egglington]

To me, the digital age has taken what was a highly valued craft, and turned it into a circus. There is a lot of good work out there, and a lot of bad work, but there is one thing both the good and bad have in common – they all look the same and match styles and images already out there. I think we live in a very challenging time whereby it is impossible not to be coerced into doing what is acceptable in photography. In some ways I envy the “faux togs”, they have something a lot of professionals don’t have – they are not scared to experiment, try new things and potentially fail. In a way as professionals I think we can sometimes feel shackled to the camera and fight more for the approval from our peers then staying true to our own visions and childhood wonderment. Personally, I don’t think the digital camera format is the threat, but rather it is the influence of social media forcing photographers into conformity.

[Egglington]

Throw a 50mm prime on your camera and challenge yourself to 10 images a day. Take your camera with your everywhere you go. Each image must be different and use a different point of view. See what you can come up with.

[Egglington]

I am a big fan of this guys tutorials. He explains himself very well. http://www.youtube.com/user/snapfactory

[Egglington]

Well I hit a new point in my creative journey today. It’s 4:54am and I have been up all night evaluating myself as a photographer. The better I get at photography, the more I want to push the other way. It’s hard to explain, but I don’t feel as if my images are inspired nor with meaning, and thus I feel somewhat a failure at my craft. There is so much I want to say about myself, about my experience of the world, I struggle to shape this picture with my camera. I don’t know where I want to take it, I don’t know how to overcome my own insecurities to express myself.

[Egglington]

“Does it ever bug you that there are so many “professional” photographers out there who are so very atrocious at what they do and yet manage to pull in clients?”

Well yes and no. At the end of the day, business is far more than your skill as a photographer. A lot of successful professional photographers are very good at drawing on social connections. Unfortunately I am not so great at that. I suffer from depression and social phobia, so for me this is an instant barrier. People make me nervous at the best of times. I have already conceded that I may never be an overly successful photographer, but I am ok with that. Now I just do the odd job here and there and pass my skills onto others, but for most of the time it is just for myself. If someone likes it, then great. If not, then so be it. I think it is far more important to be honest with yourself and your work, and under no circumstances is the amount of money you make a true reflection of your technical or creative skills. So don’t feel bad. Be silently confident in your message and not your wallet.

[Egglington]

There is of course a more sinisiter possibility in this case. The good photographer may be giving the fauxtog positive feedback to give them comfidence in their work thus ensuring they will never be competiton and have the desire to improve their work. This ensures the photographer always has one above the fauxtog to lure customers. Kinda nasty I know, but it is a possible strategy.

[Egglington]

The first thing you might want to check is your white balance on some of your pictures. You could correct this in camera using one of the white balance presets when you shoot to match the lighting conditions, or better still you could set a custom white balance using your camera and a grey card depending on the camera model.

White balance can also be corrected in post editing, although is better to get it correct in camera. If you shoot RAW, programs like Lightroom will allow you to correct it after the fact.

[Egglington]

You may want to consider some stronger branding and a redesign of your website, but your photography is excellent. 🙂

[Egglington]

No music on a website please. It is not necessary and detracts from your work. I feel the same way about the animation at the top, also not necessary. Keep the site simple. Good design is about only adding what needs to be there. Your photos should do the bulk of the talking, not the website itself. By using animations and music you are taking the viewer away from the prime purpose of your website. Hope this brief comment helps. 🙂

[Egglington]

At the moment I am in my second year of my Advanced Diploma in Commercial Photography and absolutely loving it. In terms of my photography outside of that, I am trying to move away from the predictable and aim at more spontaneous and random imagery. For quite sometime now I have been aiming for technical excellence, but to be quite honest it is beginning to bore me and is not challenging me.

I have been studying a lot of the work of Max Dupain recently and love his sense of honesty in his images. Unlike so much photography out there that is retouched to perfection, Max’s work is untouched, honest and lacking the commercial perfection. This type of photography excites me since it shows the world as it really is void of all the perfect advertising imagery. As a photographer, this is a style I would like to explore more, moving into a documentary style of work.

[Egglington]

Haha! Given the amount of people who take pictures of food with their smart phone cameras, I can only begin to imagine the amount of bad food photography out there.

[Egglington]

It’s interesting reading everyone’s perspectives on what the Histogram is for as well as their thoughts on automatic exposure. This is my spin on it:

The Histogram tells me the dynamic range data of my shot and indicates whether I have my highlights or shadows properly exposed. By observing whether it is slanted to the left or the right,  I can tell whether my exposure has been weighted towards the highlights or the shadows, and I can then adjust it either by switching over to manual or using the exposure compensation dial to fine tune the image.

The histogram is very useful for me especially when I am shooting on location and I can’t view the preview screen properly. To be honest I rarely rely on the accuracy of the preview screen and always use the histogram as a checking device to ensure my image capture is exposed properly. There is no correct or incorrect histogram to look for, it just depends on what you are trying to achieve. Given I always shoot in RAW, I have quite a bit of flexibility in the image in post production.

As far as automatic exposure goes, it certainly has its place. 60% of the time I shoot in Aperture Priority. The other percentage of time I bounce between manual and Shutter Priority. It all depends on what you are trying to achieve in your shot. I find by setting it to either Shutter or Aperture priority and using the exposure compensation dial to fine tune the exposure, I can obtain the image I am aiming for without going into manual mode.

[Egglington]

Other side of the world here – Adelaide, South Australia here. 🙂

[Egglington]

Very poor business form on this photographers behalf. Although given the price they charge, you do get what you pay for. :-S And on the note of Facebook pages, I struggle to get likes or fans. 55 is not many, yet I see some fauxtogs with over 1000! Clearly I am not good enough or I am doing something wrong in the eyes of Facebook people..

[Author]

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