[MBChamberlain]

Yeah, that little article shows my inner geek a little doesn’t it. It’s actually not nearly as complicated as it looks, the text explains the progressive breakdown of the tool into its component bits, then I offer a couple conclusions on it.

Erika, I would advise against putting every image you shoot on a disc. Remember that your clients don’t know thing one about photography, they will inevitably pick the worst photo in the batch and show that to all their friends. I give my clients very limited options to choose from, this not only ensures that they fall in love with the best possible photo, but it also avoids confusing the clients. Back when I was shooting commercial I learned very quickly to pre-edit my film before I took it to the client. It is better to show the client 10 stellar images than 10 stellar images mixed in with 20 pretty good images, 20 ok images, and 50 what the heck was I thinking images. It not only serves as a sign of professionalism, but clients will assume that every photo you took was amazing, and these are the best of the best.

My culling method is as follows. I look through all the shots, and either “pick” or “reject” them out of hand. Sometimes it is technical, and I’ll toss a photo for being a half a stop over exposed or because the model turned her head slightly and killed the Rembrandt lighting effect I was going for sometimes it is for stuff like blinking, a rouge reflection, etc. Basically, if I don’t see anything that makes me want to give them another look, away they go, this eliminates 50-60 shots out of 100. I then mark all the images 3 stars out of 5 and go through them a second time. I take a little longer on each image asking up to 4 or down to 2, the twos and threes get rejected and unless it is an event when the threes get relegated to a backup list, usually stuff that will get used as filler for wedding albums and stuff like that. Eliminating another 20-30 shots. Then I go through the 4’s carefully and graduate them up to a 5 if they are really stand out as technically, emotionally, and artistically sound. This leaves me with 8-10 images on average from a shoot, and those are the only ones I shot my client. I will sometimes include a few of the fours if there is a pose or a shot or two I think the client will want to buy. This works very well for me, I can get through all the major processing for a wedding (700-1000 shots) in a little less than two hours so I can work more efficiently and devote my time to the most important images.

[MBChamberlain]

All in all, not too bad. You have a very good eye and you get really good emotions out of your subjects, which is great. On the other hand, your technical skills are definitely not up to pro level yet and your decision to go into business was a very hasty one. You are just making far too many mistakes to have the consistency to be charging.

Judging by the progress you’ve made in the last year, I’d say that if you buckle down and really learn to make the environment work for you instead of against you you’ll be up to that level in a year-18 months though.

The biggest things to work on:

Lighting: Your in studio is a little weak but coming along, Unfortunately, when you shoot outside, it looks like you just sort of put the people where you want them and pray the lighting goes your way. Sometimes it is really nice, sometimes it is downright terrible. Almost anything you can do in the studio can be done outside with nothing but the big light source in the sky, a reflector, and a little planning and ingenuity. That is how I do 99% of my outdoor work, it is limiting, but worth the effort.

Composition: in particular posing, You are not alone in this, but you can’t pose guys the same way you pose women. For example, in this photo
http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/66106_10151296421853714_1600870109_n.jpg
you’ve got him posed with a feminine head tilt and her posed with a masculine one. This is an incredibly common problem that I run into when I work with female photographers, they are just not sensitive to issues involving masculinity because men and women look at it differently. Guys should always be presented in a masculine way. There are degrees of this, when I work with male models who are naturally more feminine, I have to strike a balance between the two.
http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/432016_10151183426813714_1015714436_n.jpg
This image is a good example of this, it is an extremely feminine pose. This compounds the fact that the model is already skinny and is young enough that his features are still very soft. A lot of this you just have to use your best judgement on, but this is a common problem in your work. Also, generally speaking, no crotchflashing in photos either.

Railroad tracks: It is a violation of federal law to shoot on the railroad tracks. I know a photographer currently doing time for this offense. Please stop doing it

Color: This is all over the place. It isn’t the mix of warm and cool that you normally get in a good portfolio, it is just all over the place with the color not really complementing the subject matter, you have muted colors in happy shots, bright colors in serious shots, with no rhyme nor reason to it.

Work on those things and you’ll see a lot of improvement in very short order. You’re close enough to being there, I wouldn’t close up shop, instead I’d recommend you tell your clients that you’re going on sabbatical for a year while you take the time off to learn. Also find a high-end pro and volunteer for him or her. This will help you a lot because you’ll get regular one on one feedback from someone who can help you along.

Also read this: http://chamberlaindigital.com/bwadjustment.pdf

[MBChamberlain]

Link to my web site is on my profile… I’m off to bed now, but I’ll try to get to your image critiques in the next day or two. This will be of interest to you as a natural light photographer, all of the outdoor images in my portfolio were shot with nothing but the BLS and a reflector. It takes a very in-depth understanding of studio lighting, but you can get studio quality lighting in the field with a little extra work.

[MBChamberlain]

I applaud your understanding of the exposure triangle… you now have the exact same mastery of photography as the senior citizens who have taken my afternoon long course on taking better snapshots down at the senior center. Heck, you have the same basic understanding of photography as my 8 year old nephew, who has been able to manipulate the exposure triangle since first grade.

You garner so much confidence from all the things you think you know.You’re a second grader who looks down on the kindergartners because you’re smarter than they are. Unfortunately being a pro photographer takes a college degree (in this metaphor).

You advertise yourself as a natural light photographer, but I’d be willing to bet quid to quai that you couldn’t name the 7 basic single source lighting patterns off the top of your head. And if you can, that’s even worse, because you know them but haven’t got a clue how to make them work. I can even use your own examples. It’s been less than two weeks since you’ve posted an image with harsh shadows, and you posted over edited images TODAY. I can’t believe I even have to mention that sometimes harsh shadows are a good thing (not in those photos though).

But what really bothers me is that you came here because you wanted to be sure you weren’t a fauxtog, but now you’ve talked yourself into believing your own hype. You asked for the truth, and I gave it to you.

I know this for certain. When I look at your work from 9 months ago and your work from today, I see at most minimal improvement.

Oh, and I can’t believe I have to write this AGAIN, but:

No, it doesn’t matter what you’re missing, that does not make your time valuable. When it comes to providing a service, you cannot judge your worth by what you’d rather be doing. You can only judge the value of your time in whether or not you are giving your clients good value for their money. I don’t know what you charge, but whatever it is, it is too much. Your photography is no better exposed than a photographer who shoots on auto. Your lighting is abysmal, your composition is weak, your color is dull, your framing is poor, your direction is absent, your consistency is non-existent, and to top all of that off, you think you’re more important than your clients. I know you don’t think you do, but you see fit to charge them money, lie to them about how good their pictures look, and waste their time all at once. Your time doesn’t become valuable until you have invested in it. It takes roughly 7 years or 10,000 hours to master any skill. Photography even more, because it is a set of skills.

Are you better than the work featured on YANAP? Most of the time, yes, although you have some really really weak stuff in your portfolio. But it isn’t the 9 month thing that makes you a fauxtog in my eyes. What makes you a fauxtog is that you admit that you are not a professional, and yet you still see fit to charge people for your unprofessional, technically weak, artistically uninspired “work.”

Now, I understand that this is harsh, but I truly hope that you will take this to heart. I hate to see as much potential as you have go to waste because you can’t fathom the possibility that you’re not as good as you think you are. I assure you, you ARE a fauxtog, but you don’t have to keep being one. It’s up to you. If you decide to accept it and seek improvement, my offer to evaluate your three best photos stands.

[MBChamberlain]

Let me see if I understand the timeline correctly… You decided you wanted to start a photography business, studies for 3 months and went pro?

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but it is completely impossible to learn enough in 2 years to go pro. Most people who take a 4 year degree program and spend all of their waking time doing photography for 4 years with directed instruction barely know enough to go pro at graduation.

You’re off to a good start, and you are doing pretty good for someone who has only been shooting a year, but you have only been shooting a year. You are producing the kind of work I expect from first-year students, not a pro. My advice is to stop charging people immediately and get back to studying. Shoot your kids, shoot your friends, shoot your relatives, and give yourself time to really learn what you’re doing. Judging by the progress you’ve made in your first year, expect it to be 4 or 5 more years before you are ready to go pro.

Don’t get down on other photographers because of things you don’t think they know when the list of things you don’t know you don’t know is longer than my arm. In this case, “prime” is a term that is only used by about 60% of the photographers I know. The rest refer to them as fixed (focal length) lenses. Depending on where he or she learned their stuff, they may have only come across one of the two terms.

As to critique of your work in a specific way, there isn’t time in a forum post to evaluate an entire body of work. If you would, pick out the three best photos (in your opinion) and post direct links to them, I will be happy to offer a detailed critique of all three and let you know where  you’re doing well, and what you need to work on to start moving forward.

I know you didn’t want to hear that you are a fauxtog, but if you really want to do this, stop charging people and get ready to put in some serious work. Becoming a real photographer is completely attainable for you, so don’t give up.

[MBChamberlain]

Sharra,

Your  question about merging is valid. Merging with the head or any part of the body that makes it look inappropriate is always wrong, the body coming into contact with things in the background is a much grayer area. In this case, I don’t have a real problem with it. If I had it to shoot again, I would have set the shot up a little differently, but I don’t feel it breaks the shot in any way. The other image you mentioned was actually a sample photo I shot for a photography competition I’m in charge of. The theme was “Picasso in Four Dimensions” and I chose to use something fluid to both represent time (the fourth dimension) and to provide me with the Picasso like distortion of the features. She is actually posing behind a cascade of water.

Concerning your friend, I wasn’t actually talking about a face to face meeting, I kinda meant that you were welcome to tell him he could contact me if he’d like any help. Good passion is hard to find. I sincerely doubt your friend is a GWC. “Guy with Camera” is a derisive term for a no-talent photographer who uses his camera to get women to take their clothes off.

Passive aggressiveness is a term that get’s thrown around a lot, and it is definitely not just a Canadian thing, we Americans are plenty good at it too. The comment “Unless, of course, you feel that contributing in that way violates your business sense because you’re not being compensated for your ‘online instruction'” is the main one I considered to be a little passive aggressive. It does not, if deconstructed, say anything negative, (passive) but it is clearly meant as a challenge (aggressive). Your direct dare to post my work was much more palatable. I merely intended to point out the irony of you giving me a hard time about being harsh when you were being passive-aggressive. Most arguments have a few passive-aggressive comments creep in, especially when you are trying to be polite and get your point across. It’s not big deal, really, but I thought it was worth mentioning so that you would be aware of it.

I am very glad that we can agree to disagree. And I’m glad you can understand that I don’t make the decision to be harsh lightly, and I do it with the intention to help rather than harm. Generally speaking, I don’t do a lot of commenting online. When message boards were a new thing, you could talk photography on the boards. These days it seems like the photography boards are all about Photoshop and focused on complicated fixes for things that could be fixed in two seconds in camera, and when you post a comment to that effect, you get ignored, so I pretty much stopped. The only reason I started posting here is because I enjoy the blog, and thought I would post in the forum to help get it started. I have greatly enjoyed posting here, and I have devoted more time to some of the posts than a person with my schedule probably should, but I justify it because a couple of the posts here will be adapted into essays when I finally get by blogging engine written.

Since you’re a programmer you’ll appreciate this, I’m working on a blogging engine that is designed to be completely modular and completely customizable, i.e. it has no defined structure within the programming itself. The user defines a cascading set of HTML snippets for each datapoint which will recursively populate themselves out of the database when called, and even the datapoints themselves can be freely rearranged to meet specific output requirements. The idea is to set it up so that you can call the entire blog, where it will recursively work its way through the entire system and generate the HTML output for the whole page, or you can call the individual modules and integrate them into the page where ever you want them, allowing you to conform the blog to your existing site design for a seamless integration.

[MBChamberlain]

The lack of pride is not in their pricing, it is in the fact that they don’t ensure the quality of the prints. You know as well as I do that where you get your prints done greatly affects the look of the image. I consider it a matter of personal pride that I prep all of my images for print, choose a supplier with a color managed workflow and who uses archival materials, I UV coat any image larger than a 5×7 to maximize their longevity and when the prints come in, I inspect them, and if, for any reason, I’m not happy, they get reprinted. I provide a CD of web images that they can use for Facebook and blogs, but if it gets printed, I want to make sure that it will be up to my standards and that my work will outlast the client. This is why I would never hand a client a CD, but I do at least understand why they do.

To better explain the cost issue, here is a cost breakdown of a $2500 wedding:

$375 social security tax (including medicare and fica)
$475 federal income tax
$210 state income tax
$250 assistant pay
$150 proof set
$50 gas
$50 consumables
$295 album cost

Making my grand total after everything is said and done $695 for 20 hours of work at the reception and 20 hours of work between prep and post. Making my grand total pay per hour $17.38. And I have to pay my business expenses out of that. I don’t make a profit on the wedding itself, I only start to make money when they buy prints.

Things have changed a lot since I was starting out, no one in their right mind would have charged $500 for a wedding back in the days I was starting out. It cost you $1 every time you pushed the shutter release. If I brought 15 rolls of film for the whole wedding it would cost me $540. You did weddings at cost to get going, which meant usually charging $750 to $1000.

Yes, in an ideal world where one could hire a competent photographer for 15 hours for $500 bucks, there is nothing wrong with that. But if you do that, you’re self employed, and they’ll tax you for 40% of that, or more. After expenses you’re looking at making around $150 for your 40 hours of work. That is what most photographers do to get the word of mouth going, but once you start down that road you are going to be going along it for a long time, because people not only talk about quality, they talk about price. Everyone they talk to will be expecting a $500 wedding as well.

Faced with this reality, most photographers who consistently charge $500 for a wedding cut corners, they don’t pay taxes, they deliver unsorted and unedited images on a DVD. If they don’t, they quickly realize just why it costs thousands of dollars for a wedding.

You keep bringing up how it is “the content of the photo that is important,” so allow me to address that, if the quality of the photo was of no concern, why not just ask everyone in the audience to bring their point and shoot cameras and fire away during the wedding. It is because the quality of the photo really greatly affects how that memory is remembered. As I have stated, when I shoot a wedding or an event, I am a lot more lax in some of my technical requirements in lieu of the content of the shot. I am much more likely to pull or push a shot a stop or more to keep it because of its emotional impact. But as a photographer, if you are any kind of photographer at all, you should be at least as invested in the quality of the shot as your client is in the content. This is what you do, and they are paying you to do it. No one is perfect, you’re gonna have to deliver a few shots that are less than perfect. I usually recommend that a photographer shoot professionally for 5 years or more before attempting a wedding. They are full of moments that happen only once and last few seconds or less. If you endeavor to shoot that day for someone you should be solid and consistent enough that you can get a good shot on a moment’s notice without having to consciously think about it. The important thing in a car is that it runs, but if you’re a mechanic, it is your job to make sure it not only runs, but runs well.

As a computer programmer, you already know that file management is as personal as a fingerprint. When I deliver files I usually change the prefix and keep the four digit extension. Because almost all of my shooting is for other people, the system you describe would make it impossible for me to find anything. I can’t remember what month of what year I shot Jane Smith, let alone the day and which shoot of that day it was. I’ve worked out a system that allows me to put my fingers on any raw or processed file, with or without watermark, I’ve shot in the eight years since I started doing work with digital. I can find it by file name if they have it, date if they have that, or just by the type of shoot and the client’s name, all in a minute or less. Sounds like you’d hate my system, hundreds and hundreds of folders nested inside one another. (type of shoots(senior, family, wedding, fashion, tests, editorial, etc.), alphabetic breakdown by last name (a-e, f-j, etc.), last name of client, year and month of shoot (if more than one), folders for raw, catalogs, final export, and mastered images for both print and web, and more subfolders inside them for long shoots like weddings. Everything more than two years old are arrived with a searchable database that lets me find what disc the files are located on. I have a similar system for keeping track of negatives and prints from my film days as well.

A good system, in my option, is one that works extremely well for you, but is intuitive enough that someone else who needed to find something on your computer could. Mine are rigidly defined studio wide because I need any assistants or associate photographers that work with me to conform to those standards, but this also lets them find images if they need them.

[MBChamberlain]

Photography is, and has always been, a luxury item. That is why this business suffers so much during a recession. If $350 is two weeks pay, you don’t have any right to spend ANY money on photography if you’ve got a newborn in the house (babies are expensive). I almost cringe to say this, but at least if they splurge and go to JCPenney or Walmart they know what to expect and will at least get what they pay for.

Allow me to ask your question from the other point of view. If money is that tight for these families, is it ethical to take their money from them when a fauxtog doesn’t have the consistency to guarantee good solid work? People don’t even question this in other areas. Doesn’t everyone deserve to own a BMW? Should they be doomed to drive an old beat up Buick just because they can’t afford said BMW. If you went out and promised a BMW, took what money they had and handed them a 1/12 scale replica what would you be? The word that springs to mind is fraud.

Besides, being inexpensive does not make someone a faux. I personally see it as a lack of pride in ones own work to provide images on a CD (printing is half of the process), but that doesn’t really make someone faux either. A lot of new photographers (real ones) charge lower rates when they first go pro. And there are a LOT of fauxs who have no concept of their skill level charging big bucks. Pros run the gamut of both skill and price, there is no need to go to a faux, you will never get a better product from your faux than you will from a competent photographer in the same price range.

I have ridiculously “high standards” for photography, or at least that’s what they fauxs seem to tell me. I expect every single photos that you deliver (not take mind you, only deliver) from every single portrait session to be (before editing):

Exposed correctly
Lit well
Framed well
In focus
Artistically sound
Emotionally relevant
Makes the subject look as good or better than they do in real life.

Yep, those are my “higher standards.” I know that I am very unreasonable to demand that of anyone who calls themselves a pro. I also expect the client to get exactly what they were promised or more. And I expect the photographer to be able to make the shot they intend, not just spray and pray.

That is all I ask of others, and I don’t think that is too much, though I ask far more from myself and anyone who work directly with or for me.

Click it nailed it, before the faux boom that was exactly what new photographers, competent ones still in school, or those who shot on the side to supplement their family’s income did, gearing their work toward short, quick, lower paying gigs. Once you make the shift into full time, you have to aim your sights on higher end clients and jobs because your expenses are too high to make it on nickle and dime jobs. (A photographer has to clear $500 profit a week (or more depending on market) just to keep a decent size studio and pay the utilities on it.)

Besides, I’ll work with clients, as will most photographers, to find a way for them to get good photos at a reasonable price. They may not get everything they want, but they will get what they need. I’ve had teens from lower income families work as salesmen booking other kids from their school for sessions in order to earn the commission to pay for their shoots because they wanted me to do them. And if they do good work without grumbling about it, I’ll discount their session and pay them the difference or hook them up with bonus time or prints in appreciation of their hard work. I’ll work it out to use someone as a model for a training session.

The general rule of thumb on a wedding is that the photographer should be about 10% of the cost of the wedding less catering and open bar if applicable. Knowing this, I’ve put together a package that is affordable for almost everyone. My wedding packages range from $500 (Off season, three hours, ceremony, formals, cake, toast, and getaway) to $2500 (in season, two photographers, full coverage of rehearsal, preparations, ceremony, reception, formals, proof set, and press printed 10×10 custom designed wedding album). If I were in another market, I’d probably be charging double that for the big package, but about the same for the small one. One comes with a lot less, but either way you will get consistently good results you can count on.

To answer Sharra’s question, the difference is time, consistency, and experience. If you hire me for $500, you’ll get me for 3 hours and I’ll shoot 500 shots and deliver, in general, 150 or so, every last one of which is fit to print. If you hire me for $2500, you get me for 15-20 hours, plus a second photographer, I’ll take 1500 shots and deliver in the neighborhood of 300 or so shots every last one of which is fit to print. This also takes out the guesswork as to what the best pictures are.

If you hire Joe Smoe down the street who “has a really nice camera” and “takes nice pictures” you might get him for 20 hours for $500 bucks. He’ll shoot 4000 shots, dump them onto a DVD, unedited and sight unseen, and hand them to you. You’ll have to sort through hundreds of out of focus, badly exposed, and generally abysmal pictures trying to hunt out the 100 that are decent, then look through those hoping and praying that there is one in there that is worth making an 8×10 of for Grandma to hang up with the pictures from the other grandchildren’s weddings. I know this because I’ve had dozens of couples that I know personally come to me begging me to help them fix the photos taken by hack fauxtogs that were offering “so much more for the money.”

[MBChamberlain]

Yes, better in terms of composition. You could have cropped down to just the two guys sitting at the table, the out of focus person doesn’t add anything to the shot.

Concerning the focusing issue check your diopter, it’s easy to jog it and that will throw off your focus. It won’t affect your autofocus, but depending on how you’re setting up to fine-tune your autofocus it could affect how you’re determining your settings. Also, double check that your positive and negative adjustments aren’t backwards. Center it, then crank it all the way to one side or another to double check that you don’t have the positive and negative adjustments go the way you think they do. The first time I adjusted my AF, the directions I used didn’t specify which way was positive or negative, and my first guess was wrong.

[MBChamberlain]

Hello Sharra,

I admit I was momentarily confused by your request for a link to my work, but then I took a look at my own profile and discovered that the link to my website I provided when I signed up is not listed there. It had been my understanding that anybody who wanted to could go look at my work, and for that oversight I must apologize. The sarcasm and passive-aggressive asides, though, are not appreciated.

Before I post the link, however, I wanted to answer a couple of your points in order to correct a couple of misconceptions you seem to have about me. First off, I completely understand that there are times that the memory of the event is more important than the quality of the photograph. But for me, this only applies to event photography, as a result, I only evaluate images that are portraits, group shots and the like (this includes on the fly portraits taken at events). There is no way I’m going to throw away the shot of the bride’s grandmother giving her great grandmother’s handkerchief to use as the “something old”  if it is remotely possible to tell that is what is happening. That memory is too precious to throw away because the focus is a little off.

I have said several times that what I know constitutes a very small percentage of what there is to know about portraiture, and even less if we consider all forms of photography. I have also stated that I learn something from every shoot I do. Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about from my own experience. When I went pro, I was lucky to be noticed by someone who had connections and was hired into a staff photography position, as a result, I spent 20 years working almost exclusively with professional talent. When I retired, and the burnout had subsided a bit, I started making moves toward building a new portfolio for a little local studio I wanted to start up. I could not use my existing work because, one, it technically didn’t belong to me and, two, it would be a misrepresentation of my work when I was trying to attract clients who didn’t have $10,000 budgets for a single shoot.

When I scheduled my first test shoot, I realized in minutes that I had completely forgotten how to get a good pose  out of someone who didn’t know how to model. After that realization, in spite of all my experience, I didn’t shoot for a paying client for almost a year. That single gap in my skill set was enough to make my work unacceptable, and as a result, I could not in good conscience charge for it. Today, I’m still not quite up to where I’d like to be, and as that bar is constantly rising, I know I never will be, but at least I know without a doubt that when one of my clients hires me, they will get more than their money’s worth and I can go to bed with a clear conscience.

Likewise, I do not demand anything approaching perfection in a professional. All I ask is that they know their craft well enough to be able to promise consistent, quality work that is worth their client’s time and money. Admittedly my standard for quality is high, but I have met very few photographers with 5 years experience that couldn’t live up to them, and very few with 3 years that could.

That being said, please feel free to check out my not perfect, but pretty darn professional fashion gallery.

Now, on to the main crux of your concerns.

Let us separate for a moment, my harsh words and the one thing that really gets me “hot under the collar.” I never get mad at anyone for lack of photographic skill or knowledge. The only thing in photography that gets me riled up is when people take advantage of their clients ignorance and use it to steal from them. There are many things about photography that are debatable, but this is the one issue that I am confident that there is a single right answer to. The details can be debated, what constitutes good work, what constitutes money’s worth, but at its core, every working photography has a responsibility to actually, honestly give their client exactly what they are told they are going to get. To do any less is dishonest. Were it possible to establish a legal definition, it would fall under the category of theft by fraud. My sense of justice makes my blood boil when I see a person knowingly take advantage of another, and you are absolutely right, my response is definitely corrective, rather than constructive.

In all other instances I completely understand your points, there are definitely gentler ways of going about this. I will attempt to explain my reasons for approaching things the way I do, but I will not apologize for them, because I do believe that it is best to do it this way. Please understand that when I dress someone down, I do it out of a sincere desire to help them and see them grow, not out of any kind of ego or “maliciousness.”

You yourself admit that some people have their heads in the clouds. From my point of view, believing that work that wouldn’t muster a passing grade in a high-school photography class is worthy of charging a client good money for is having one’s head in the clouds. And let me be perfectly frank. I’ve had real clients (i.e. clients that I do not know at all prior to their hiring me). I’ve had real clients that were unhappy. Believe me, nothing I say even compares to what you’ll get from a pissed off client. I’ve avoided a lot of this by working in commercial photography my whole career, but my mentor had his tires slashed and car keyed by the overzealous brother of one of his clients.

I have posted 5 reviews on this site, three were positive and constructive from the get go, two were harsh in the attempt to rattle the posters into reevaluating their skill. (Plus one that was a rant on treating women with respect and dignity when you shoot them, but that wasn’t really about the photography, so I won’t include that here.) I don’t dislike posters who rushed into business, I don’t even blame them, I can see how alluring becoming a fauxtog must be: praise and respect from your peers, the promise of an easy income doing something you enjoy, the prestige of being an artist. When you talk about my comments being a passion killer, is this the passion you are referring to? This is false passion. Puppy love for a hobby when naïveté has not yet allowed them to know the true nature of the world that “love” must survive. This is already going to be squashed at the first glimpse of the real world, and so I take little concern for it. True passion, the kind I talk about when I talk about passion, is not the mere dream of the gold medal, it is the passion that gets someone out of bed to practice every morning at 4am for 10 years. True passion is undeterred by such mundane things as criticism, pain, or hard work. You could fill a book with the stories of people who used to be photographers, or who used to want to be a photographer, but in almost every single one of their stories there would be one recurring theme. It was just too hard.

I understand the anger in their reactions, I even expect it. I was furious the first time I got a real, honest, unbiased review of my work. But through the emerald eyes of hindsight, I now see that it was that moment of pain that made it possible for all the growth that followed. You accuse me of cyber-bullying, of being malicious. That implies that it is my intention to tear them down. Indeed, if my intent were to get some ego boost or malicious pleasure, it would be far more effective to let them go and watch them eventually fail. There is no result of my words that is worse than letting them continue unawares, on the contrary, it is possible that a kind word would only boost their confidence in their ignorance and speed them on toward destruction. Truth offered frankly is more painful, but less damaging than a lie spoken in kindness.

You talk of giving general answers to their request for a general review. If they ask no questions, the best I can do is point out areas to study further. I do not say, “your lighting sucks” I say “you need to work on your lighting” and I admonish them to go out and find the answers. If offered a single image, the type of detailed review you refer to would be possible, but the space required to give a comprehensive review to someone’s portfolio is in the order of hundreds of pages then going on to offer remedies with full explanations would quadruple that. And besides, that type of review is best provided by an experienced mentor in small digestible chunks. Unless you happen to live within a stone’s throw of Winston-Salem, NC, I really can’t help you there. (not to mention I have three photographers I’m mentoring already)

Constructive criticism is only useful if the foundations you are building on are solid.

To tie this in some way back to this thread, I will point out that I am fully aware my reaction was much harsher on Kylie than it has been on others. Even though she assures me this isn’t true, I still question if she posted that her pictures were not paid for in an attempt to garner praise and avoid criticism. She has indeed failed to answer the simple question that would dispel this belief. What purpose was there in posting that comment and not mentioning that she is in business if not for the reason I’ve stated? But, even if all that was true, I realize that I was overly harsh in her case. I felt that she had not only taken advantage of her clients (which she most definitely had, if it was knowingly is debatable), but that she had lied to us about it, and as such, my usual wroth for those taking advantage of someone was compounded by the dishonestly. You do not need to tell me this again as though I am unaware, and besides I have apologized for it and explained my intentions to her.

I also want to add one note to dispel the misconception you seem to have concerning price and photography. Fauxtogs are a fairly recent phenomenon and photography survived quite well without them, and people didn’t go without pictures of their important events. Every good photographer that I know will work with any client to get them something in their price range, they will even recommend a photographer who does decent work who is less expensive if need be. A real pro’s goal is always client oriented. I will work with someone to build a package that fits their budget, no, they won’t get the super-mega-ultra-deluxe package of awesomeness, but they will get me long enough to get what they need. They can earn money toward their package by referring other clients. If all else fails, in my studio, if they still can’t afford me, they can hire one of the photographers I am mentoring, even though they are not up to scratch to do it on their own yet, I supervise the shoot, check the output and advise the photographer as he or she goes, shoot a little coverage if necessary, essentially acting as insurance for a photographer who isn’t ready to fly solo yet.

Incidentally, if my writing really does remind you of your friend, I would very much like to meet him and see his work. If he has anything remotely like the passion that I do for photography, he must have developer in his blood and he probably needs to be shooting, I’d love to give him help in closing that gap from experienced amateur to pro if he’d like to make that transition.

[MBChamberlain]

Ahh, I didn’t explain that well, the two layers are not independent, they are usually on one piece of glass. The stepdown ring is because they don’t make a 62mm version, so they include a stepdown ring for those who are using a 62mm lens. The UV haze filter actually has very little affect on most photos. All it really does is prevent the UV light from hitting the sensor, which will affect your colors slightly if it does.

I leave a UV filter on all of my lenses at all times. More than once, I’ve been out shooting on location and either my camera has slipped, or something has hit the front of the lens. That extra layer of glass will protect the actual lens elements from damage. On average, I break a UV filter shooting on location about once every 3 years or so, usually when I’m shooting somewhere where things might end up flying in my direction, like a sporting event or when I’m shooting climbers and little rocks get knocked off and hit the lens. So over 30 years, that would be 10 damaged lenses, since a UV filter usually runs about $10, my investment in the UV filters has definitely payed for itself a hundred times over. (Once I had an assistant trip over the corner of a tripod and knock the camera with it’s $3000 lens right onto its face. but the rock it landed on only broke the UV filter and the lens was fine.) The main time this will be a problem is when you are shooting at or around sunset, the flat glass on the front of the lens will increase lens flare under certain conditions, if you’re getting weird flares, check the UV filter first.

Most of the massive numbers of filters you needed for film are no longer necessary thanks to the ability for the camera to white balance. The ones I have listed are about the only ones you’ll really need, anything else can be done with more accuracy in post production anyway. When you’re shooting digital for black and white, don’t use the black and white adjustment in Photoshop or the converter in camera raw or Lightroom. They suck. Use the channel mixer. In addition to the presets for various color filters. Here are a couple of presets I use for shooting people. (RGB sliders with monochrome checked. I don’t adjust the constant) These are starting points, and almost always can use a little adjustment, they won’t work at all on some images.

Portraiture and most candids: 60, 90, -40
If the person is wearing yellow: 30, 90, -10

Use ad adjustment layer and then dodge and burn on the underlying layer and you’ll get great detail out of the highlights as well.

[MBChamberlain]

For crying out loud! This is not productive in the slightest. Getting riled up and losing your temper just doesn’t get anyone anywhere at this point.

Malula, I completely understand. You definitely didn’t hear what you thought you’d hear, and you didn’t like what I and others had to say. You are allowed to be upset and even to get a little angry at us. I again apologize for the harshness with which I had to approach you, but I’ve been teaching long enough to know that it is usually necessary to start the constructive criticism with the criticism. This is often the only way to break through a person’s perception of their own work so that you can start to construct. I know it’s painful, it was painful when I was dressed down for the first time by my mentor. I even feel like a jerk every time I do it, but I just have to keep reminding myself that it is all for the best. It also tells me if the person is teachable, and if not, I know not to waste my time. I have yet to meet a good photographer who did not view their own work as complete and utter garbage. I know all that I have said is hard to hear, but I can assure you that it is also true. It is my sincere hope that once you’ve had a little time to cool down, you will take it to heart, although it is unpleasant, that pain is a necessary step toward being a better photographer.

IFH, please learn to control your temper better. There is no reason to react in anger to anything anyone has said. Many of the people who post here looking for critique have never had an honest evaluation of their work before. It is easy to accept positive reinforcement, but the natural reaction to negative feedback is “and who do you think you are.” To react in anger to these situations cheapens you. If you react in anger, others will get angry in return, and that is counterproductive. The only person on this thread who has good reason to get angry is Kylie, you should expect it and you should expect her to lash out a little, and you reacting in anger will only make the situation work. Once a little time has passed, she will cool down and take things to heart, the shell of defensiveness will crumble and hopefully she will move on to better things in her photography. If it is our desire to help her, that should be our goal. Fueling the fire of anger in her will only temper her defensiveness and create an impenetrable shell that will not only make her immune to criticism in the future, it will wall her in and make it impossible for her to grow beyond it.

Stef, that is true to a point. Success as a photographer depends on two things, photographic skill and business savvy. It will forever be the case that those with savvy will surpass those of equal, and to the extent of that savvy, greater skill. However, business skill can only get one so far. Success attracts higher level clients, and higher level clients have higher standards. These standards can only be accounted for by photographic skill. So there is a ceiling for those who rely on their business skill to propel them upward. This is one of the great burdens for many photographers, they are artists and have little concern for the minutia of day to day business. This is one of the most common complaints I hear from other photographers, but I find it moot. Like most skills, business savvy is learnable, though it tends to run contrary to the artist’s natural tendencies. Or you can always go the route that I have taken, I have a guy who is great at business as a silent partner. I do the creative stuff, he handles the business stuff, and we both profit from it.

[MBChamberlain]

How familiar are you with using a CPL filter (circular polarization)? I couldn’t tell that you were using one, which makes me suspect that you are not terribly familiar with their use, so here are some tips on using it effectively. My apologies if you already know this and I’m being redundant.

It is not uncommon for the packaging not to explain how they work, so I run into a lot of photographers who don’t know. Remember that there are two layers in a CPL, the first is a linear polarizer, this is the workhorse, it limits the angle that light can enter the lens, reducing reflection primarily. The second layer is the circular polarization layer that circularizes the polarized light so that it will be readable by the camera’s sensors and electronics (like the metering). The linear layer rotates freely to allow you to fine tune that angle. Any time you rotate the camera, change the angle, sneeze, whatever, you have to adjust that ring to get the perfect polarization. At the wrong angle, it can actually increase the reflection and detract from the image.

ND filters are neutral density filters. All they do is reduce the light entering the lens without changing its properties at any part of the visible spectrum. The practical upshot is that you can use lower-light settings on daylight scenes. If you get them you’ll want a 1, 2, and 4 stop filter (these can be purchased as a set). Maybe an 8 later if you need one.

[MBChamberlain]

I will preface my comments with the disclaimer that I am not a nature photographer by any stretch of the imagination.

All in all, your work shows a lot of promise. You clearly have a good eye and talent for nature work. You have a lot of technical work ahead of you to really master the art, but you are off to a very good start.

A few general pointers about photography in general.

You will get the best results when you photograph subjects with a similar dynamic range as the medium. For example, trying to shoot the sky and the shade in the same shot will result in either dark shadows or blown out skies.

Invest in a few filters. The biggies for nature work are the UV Haze filter, Circular polarize, and a set of ND filters. A split ND wouldn’t do you wrong either. Since you shoot a lot more wide angle, buy filters a little bigger than your lens and get a step down ring so that the edges of the filter stack won’t vignette the image. The CPL filter is probably most important for the work you do.

When shooting landscapes, you really can’t trust the meter reading you’re getting from the camera’s meter. I’m pretty sure this is part of the problem you are having with incorrect exposures. Try to find an inexpensive light meter that will do incidence metering. Point this at the sun and you’ll get a much more accurate reading.

Also, landscapes are an area where a little post-processing does a lot of good. Shoot raw, process out as a 16 bit image, and get to know the dodge and burn tools like the back of your hand. Be subtle, but also limit yourself to darkroom techniques, they are really all you need.

I agree with stef about the portraits you posted (although neither is what I would consider a portrait, more of a group snapshot) the first is much better composed. I would advise that you not shy away from shooting people at church events and the like, but it is clear to me you enjoy nature photography far more, so you should cultivate the skill set used by a nature photographer. You have more talent in that area anyway, and I would be afraid that if you devoted all the time and effort it takes to master portrait photography, your nature work would suffer from the lack of attention and that would be a shame.

Over all, great work so far, I’m sure you’ll do very well.

Study hard!

[MBChamberlain]

First off, I am glad to know that you didn’t come here for that, but I hope you can understand why it came across that way.

Your question about charging is a good one, let me try to explain. You are dealing with two different issues, both of which have a lot in common.

Photographers complain about newbies who don’t charge for their work and market themselves as a viable alternative to a professional. This is an issue of presentation. People who do this basically undercut experienced photographers and dilute the market. This is a problem because they usually forget to tell people that they are just learning. You shouldn’t ask anyone to use you instead of a professional photographer free or otherwise, until you are good enough to be a professional photographer.When you are learning, you need to TELL people you are learning. It’s truth in packaging, and that is what people are complaining about. For example, ask your family member to trust you to shoot their wedding just because you’re learning and you won’t charge them = bad, mostly for the client, and a little for the photographer — ask if you can shoot at the wedding in addition to the photographer they actually hire = good, because they will still get good pictures even if you completely bomb the shoot, this also takes the pressure and stress off of you (but check with the photographer first, and defer to them, some photographers do not allow this because they have a job to do and it’s difficult to do it if there is someone getting in the way).

The second complaint is similar, but slightly different. This is what I was discussing before, so I won’t go into it length. But there is a big difference between undercutting to get the work when you offer a comparable product, it is something completely difficult to undercut to get the work when you’re not offering them nearly as much in return but tell them they are getting the same thing. When someone hires me, I am offering them something that you just plain can’t, I’m offering them 20 years of professional experience (32 if you include my training and apprenticeship). I sum that up in the word “professional” and if another photographer comes in and use the term “professional” to represent your whole 1 year of training. A client who doesn’t understand photography sees “professional who charges $50” and “professional who charges $250.” This one is tricky, because as a businessman, it does not bother me that you are siphoning off all the cheep clients. I set my prices a little on the high side anyway because I find that it attracts a higher quality clientele and that clients are a lot easier to deal with when they have a little more invested in the process. But it does bother me as a photographer because I believe that any client who pays good money for a ticket deserves to get a seat for the game, not a practice.

Now, as to your time being worth something… I understand why you feel this way, but let me try to explain this. Due you to you being international, I don’t know about your familiarity with middle American literature, but this is what I like to call Tom Sawyer Syndrome. There is a scene in the book, “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” where Tom Sawyer tricks all of the kids in the town into thinking that whitewashing a fence is the most exciting privilege in the world, and proceeds to charge them for doing his chores. If you are still learning, sorry to be frank, but your time isn’t worth a damn thing. There is one simple truth you need to keep in mind. They are doing more for you than you are doing for them. They need pictures, but they can go to anyone they want to get them done. If you are honest with them, they know that you are not a professional, and as such, they are taking a risk by letting you do their pictures. Will you reward them for taking that chance on you by charging them for it? Of course not. They are getting pictures, you are getting experience, this is a fair exchange. To ask them to pay you money for the privileged of doing you a favor is using them. If the pictures turn out and they are happy with them, everybody wins, and if the pictures don’t turn out, no one has lost anything, the option of hiring a professional is still open to them.

I worked for five years after my training before I went pro and in that time I never once charged a client. I was willing to accept a tip if they offered it, but never until after they had seen their photos, I made sure they knew full well that they didn’t owe me a thing, and if they insisted on paying me, I never allowed them to tip more than the cost of film and processing. There is nothing wrong with that, if they are thrilled, since you don’t have film and processing costs let them reimburse your petrol. But let it be their decision. This is actually my best advice for knowing when you’re ready to start charging. Do the work for them for free (just the cost of time) and when 90% of your clients are happy enough with the work that they insist on paying you once they have seen the finished results, even though they don’t have to, you are giving your clients enough value to go pro.

Your time isn’t worth anything until you’ve invested in it. On the road to being a professional, you have to go through the stage where you aren’t giving them any value for their time and should probably be paying them for their time, to providing them with a small compensation for their time (where you are now), to being worth the time they are investing in you, to the point where they are getting enough more than their time is worth.

The most important thing to remember in all of this is that when you shoot for someone, it isn’t about you in the slightest, it is about them. To be a good photographer, you have to remember to always to right by your clients.

I hope this has helped you to understand where we are coming from?

[Author]

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