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You are a photographer when.... →
I’m a member of the Nikon D90 Group on Flickr and a post was published where subcribers were asked to respond to the statement that “you are a photographer when…”
There’s 2 pages worth of responses so far and I selected my favorite 10 in no particular order. What makes these special and comical is that some very easily apply to me.
- People expect you to take pictures at every event you attend and they expect you to do it for free.
- You change the light bulbs in your bedroom to get a better white balance.
- You get up at 5:45 AM when on vacation and then come back and sleep until just before sunset.
- When your camera gear is worth more then your car.
- When going on a trip you pack your camera bag 2 days before the suitcase and always leave space for the tripod.
- You look at photos and wonder what their ISO, f-stop, and shutter were and if they used Flash or not.
- When you wake up at 5am on a day off and can’t sleep because of all the beutiful light going to waste.
- When no one in the family recognizes you without a black box in front of your face.
- When you take good shot and in a hurry to upload on Flickr so that you get comments from your friends and contacts.
- You are a photographer when ….you buy a camera.
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iPhone 4 Captures
I doubt that anyone with the smallest amount of interest in photography would argue that it’s not the camera that creates the image but rather the photographer. But what these gadgets do provide is the flexibility to take photos that mean something to you and even more so if it comes from a device that serves so many other purposes.
Since the first iPhone, one of the biggest reason for not upgrading to any of the subsequent versions has been because none of the new features introduced ever attracted me enough to justify the commitment.
Kids playing at the park in a 90(F) degree weather in Brooklyn.Fast forward 3 years and the 5MP camera on the iPhone 4 obliterated any uncertainly I had in modernizing to a new iPhone and now I’m more than fascinated in the extra value that’ll go into taking photos because of the fantastic quality you get from it.
I rarely uploaded iPhone photos to Flickr because regardless of how compelling the photograph might have been, I strived to curate shots that were as high-level as the camera that took them but now that’s changed and I’ve realized how shallow that reasoning was. If a photo is amazing, it deserves to be overlooked with what it was taken and recognized in what it represents.
I’ve created a set on my Flickr page entitled iPhone 4 Captures that will be home to photos specifically taken with the iPhone 4 and color treatment courtesy of Camera+. iPhone images will be distinguished from shots taken with my other cameras (Nikon D90/Canon G11) because the former will have a thin black border.
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Networking with Moo
Working in a retail setting, more times than expected, I come across customers with the same deep interest in photography as I have and simple questions about a product are often forgotten and replaced with us asking each other “what style of photography do you practice” or “do you have a website”?
I enjoy nothing more than networking in person, so to remedy the embarrassing act of scribbling long URLs on a scrap of paper to share each others work, I ordered a free sample pack of Moo business cards that I can use for future encounters.
Having a business card adds credibility to your craft or business and when you have the advantage of them being unlike any other piece of paper with your contact information on it, people will remember you more.
I would even consider handing these out during our next travel since I always have the luck of meeting great people that up to this date, I still keep in contact with.
I chose some more recent travel photos from St.Lucia, Barbados and Puerto Rico to use on the cards. They’re incredibly easy to make and order especially if you have a Flickr account and at this point who doesn’t. They come beautiful printed in full color on both sides with high quality card stock. For $6 shipping, I say give the sample pack a spin.
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MagCloud + Flickr = Your Own Magazine →
MagCloud is a project that Derek Powazek worked on with HP Labs and the basic idea behind it is to enable anyone to start a real printed magazine.
Beautiful glossy screens like that of the iPad are gorgeous to admire images in but there’s still something about the pleasure of sifting through glossy pages of a magazine that exudes some intimacy with the reader.
Fully printed MagCloud magazine. Photograph by Daniel Catt. My wife and I subscribe to a few travel magazines that display decoratively on our coffee table and have made for interesting conversations starters when guest come over but how impressive would it be if right next to them you had a fully published magazine of some of your favorite photography for others to admire?
MagCloud’s new “Upload from Flickr” feature lets you do just that by easily turning your Flickr photo sets into a magazine without the need to use a design program or upload a PDF file.
It’s as simple as creating a set in Flickr and authorize MagCloud to connect to your Flickr account. I’ll surely be making one of these for myself and of course others will be welcome to buy.
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Flickr Lightroom Preset Extractor →
One of the most common question I get regarding my photos has to do with people asking about the post production method I use to get the color quality that seems to be fairly consistent in my images.
I use custom presets that I’ve developed in Lightroom. There’s rarely an instance when I can apply just one preset to a batch a photos and like the results. There’s a lot of tweaking involved but have you ever come across a photo on Flickr that you’ve absolutely loved the processing on and would like to replicate?
Well now there’s a bookmarklet for you to do just that and what the Preset Extractor will attempt is to generate a Lightroom Preset for the Flickr photo you are viewing.
Apparently there’s a lot of discussion going on as to whether extracting these details is considered stealing. Matt Kloskowski has written an article perfectly entitled Is it wrong to steal Lightroom presets?.
It’s also interesting to note that the site has included this notice to their service -
This tool is for educational purposes only. Use presets as a starting point for your own creativity. If you use someone’s preset, be nice, give them credit! You are responsible for following all applicable laws. This tool may not be legal in your jurisdiction so please be careful.
