Technical tips

Oct
02

News on Lightroom and Photoshop – Corrections

Posted by Ed Hamlin at 10:39 pm

Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom are probably the most valuable tools at the disposal of digital and film photographers. Yes there are a plethora of other platforms that can be used to edit digital photographs. Since I am not a Mac user I can’t speak to Aperture or other programs for Macs or PCs. All software has it’s pluses and minuses.  I’ll add, there are dozens of sources you will hear about the latest new on PS and LR.

Well I have given the subject of digital and film photography a lot of thought lately and decided that I would add Adobe news releases to my blog posts. I am not an expert; in fact, I imagine that about 90 percent of PS and LR users know more than I do. I like to get what I want in the camera. It is how I learned back 1969, if you didn’t get it in the camera you were sunk. Yes you could manipulate certain aspects in the darkroom when you made the print. If you were short on experience and you got it in one try you were luck, if you didn’t you spent hours and several attempts to get what you wanted. Well I use PS and LR for that purpose. The programs have become my darkroom. I have scans done of any film I have shot mostly 6×7, and then work with the negatives until they produce the print I want. (more…)

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Sep
21

Black & White

Posted by Ed Hamlin at 12:56 am

I made an observation while viewing some black and white (B&W) photographs today. Many of them looked like a color photo without the color. Creating a black and white photograph is an art. I think it takes more work to create relevant B&W photograph than color (don’t beat me up over this, it is just an opinion).

I think it comes bit more naturally to me these days versus my first attempt.  My first roll of film ever shot was Pan plus in a Kodak range finder at the age of nine or ten. I was told to expose the roll wisely. When I saw the negatives after the final rinse, I was disappointed with the results. A side note – I had to learn how to develop B&W film and make prints before I create my first exposure. I think it was my dad’s way of not developing his own film. (more…)

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Sep
04

What aspiring professional photographers should know

Posted by Ed Hamlin at 11:18 am

It’s been forty years now since I first held a camera in my hands and about thirty five years since I first considered a career as a photographer. I wont bore you with the years since then just read my bio. Earlier this year I attended my first exposition/conference for Professional Photographers of California. It was really the beginning of my understanding about being in the business of photography. 

I ran across an article by Nevada Wier through the blog Conscientious that I think is very important. What most don’t know when they sign up for college is they don’t teach you about the business aspect of being a photographer. When you get a BA in fine arts or what ever one chooses to pursue to become a professional photographer there is no mention of marketing, etc.  I don’t even think it is part of a MFA studies. Thus the relevancy of the article. I am not trying to persuade those who aspire to become a professional, the intent is that you acquire the skills in addition to photography.

Last month I taught two workshops, Creativity and Travel Photography, for the Santa Fe Workshops. I love teaching (and working as a Mentor also), although I don’t have time to teach more than two or three a year. I had two remarkable groups and they inspired me as much as, I hope, I inspired them. You can see their final shows here and here (week 2).

At the end of the first week one of the members of the class handed me a piece of paper with two questions and asked if I would answer them. They were brilliant, although I remember fumbling through the answers. However yesterday, just hours before I was leaving for a flight to Sri Lanka, I found the paper on my desk. Since the luggage was loaded in my car; I decided to think about my answers a bit more coherently. I got most of the way through them, then it was off to the airport. Now I’m on the 15 hour flight from LA to Bangkok, (then to Colombo) and am finishing the post.

What are 10 Things you wish you had known when you decided to become a professional travel photographer? Again, in no particular order, but notice that most have to do with business: 

  1. That photography is 80% about business, not photography. I really should have hung out with MBA students and not river guides and rock climbers (for potential boyfriends).
  2. Just about everything that had to do with photography since I am self-taught—which means that the teacher knew very little.
  3. It took me awhile to figure out that it was useless to try and photograph what I saw, since slide film can only render about four stops of contrast range, while my eyes could see about 16 stops. Really, I was just using reality to express my perception of it.
  4. That there is a difference between marketing and business and you have to be great at both.
  5. That many clients do not understand that photographers need to make a decent living also (especially non-profit organizations) and are always asking for free images. And, that it was never a good idea to give into these requests without some kind of compensation.
  6. That one should buy a house young to build up credit and equity. Invest in yourself but also in other ways.
  7. Those credit cards are essential, but evil.
  8. That I should never have carried such heavy cameras bags or pack packs.
  9. That computers would eventually rule my life (well, maybe it good that I didn’t know that actually)
  10. That no matter how recognized I would become in photography, the phone would never ring on its own. I would have to hustle and reinvent myself all the time.

Please read the article in it’s entirety via Nevada Wier

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