« January 2009 | Main | March 2009 »
February 2009
February 28, 2009
Photography Tornado Damage
I spent the last couple of days traversing central Alabama chasing the severe weather that hit the area. You can compare storm chasing to gambling you either win or lose. The decision you make when picking a storm or band of storms to chase will produce the results you as a photographer hopes or you have spent a lot of time and gas waiting for something to happen. Friday was just that way, I picked the wrong storms to track and busted out. Now Saturday was like hitting a blackjack. You may be able tell by now, I do like to gamble, why else would you put yourself in a situation where personal injury could occur.
Now that is out of the way, back to today, I doubled down and hit a twosome of tornadoes that hit central Alabama. Just outside Auburn Alabama what looks to be a small EF0 ripped the roof off a antique shop and flipped several vehicles on the adjacent used car lot. Roughly forty-five minutes later, what I believe will be categorized a EF1or EF2 tore through Salem, Alabama and flattened much of this small community just south of Opelika. Fortunately, no injuries occurred, however, stunned and shocked residents mulled around trying to figure out what had just happened. The typical, it sounded like a freight train comment was made by several, the problem here, freight trains run on a regularly basis on tracks beside Salem, one shop owner commented, I just thought it was the morning run, right before the windows of his shop blew out. Southern tornadoes are not like the ones you see in Kansas or Missouri. You know what I mean, you see people standing on the side of the road watching those massive storms putting down huge tornadoes. Many southern tornadoes are rain wrapped. You may never see the tornado before the walls come falling down around you. So when the weather bureau posts a tornado warning you must pay attention.
Spring is nearly on us and tornado season in the South is about to begin. So for my fellow photographers out there who think they want to chance a few storms be careful out there. But take my advice, don’t… Murray Tornado Damage in Alabama
First, let me make this one big disclaimer, DO NOT chase storms unless you know what you are doing. Injury or death can occur if you do not pay attention to the conditions around you.
February 25, 2009
February 15, 2009
February 11, 2009
Model and Property Releases
Always be prepared to obtain the proper releases when you are photographing in public. It is important to know your rights as a freelance photographer and the rights of the people or a persons property that you are attempting to photograph. Generally, all commercial photography that has a recognizable feature such as face or body part must have a release. Editorial photography does provide some leeway. If the image is going used in a article to tell a story or is part of an educational piece then a release is not normally required. As to property, a stock photograph of a group of buildings or skyline would not require a release, however, if your image is of a specific building with a unique characteristic, then a release is required. Some buildings actually have trademarks and copyrights. Be careful taking photographs of public buildings, bridges, tunnels items along this line. In this age of terrorism, you could get in a little hot water with the authorities. There have been many photographers arrested or harassed by police and other security officials. I would suggest that you get the latest version of Tad Crawford’s, Business and Legal Forms for Photographers (with CD-ROM)
February 08, 2009
Stock Photography - Part Three
Workflow Okay - you have decided to do some work as a stock photographer. We have talked about what you believe to be a good topic or specialization, compared Royalty-Free versus Rights-Managed licensing and discussed the proper releases that may be required. Now let’s talk about your workflow. We will need to address both pre and post production, so let’s get started. Pre-Production - “Be prepared” is the Boy Scouts motto, so you should be prepared for whatever might throw you a curve while performing a photo shoot. In many cases, as a freelance stock photographer, you will be shooting on spec, so make sure that you have camera equipment in your vehicle at all times. You never know when a situation will arise that creates an opportunity for a unique image, it would be a shame to miss it. Once traveling in central Alabama, a F3 tornado hit 5 miles from my
Here is an idea of the equipment I carry on a normal road trip: Three digital bodies, four lenses of various sizes, flash, batteries, ten compact flash memory modules, rain suit, tripod, monopod, batteries, protective rain shields for gear, gps, light meter, cleaning kit, batteries, releases, portable hard drive and a laptop. By the way, did I mention batteries? You can never have enough batteries. I would also suggest that you get insurance, some homeowners policies may cover your equipment, however, there are companies that will provide policies that not only protect you against thief, they will also cover damage to gear. Now you are ready to go, you’ve got camera in hand, selected the correct white balance and exposure and you are ready to make that first shot. Here is your first decision what format do you shoot? RAW, JPEG or TIFF - make this decision wisely, for this will determine how the post-production proceeds once you get back to the comfort of home or hotel. RAW is the natural format used by each camera manufacturer and will provide the most image information. You will not be able to store as many images per module, but the additional benefits it provides in post-production far out way any drawbacks. Everyone is familiar with JPEGs and in most cases this is the format of choice for amateurs, since nearly any image viewer allows you see what you shot without any conversion. You will be able to shoot and store many more images per module, but image quality will suffer as you save and re-save the image in post. The third most poplar format is TIFF. Like RAW, the TIFF format provides a much larger file, so once again, the image count per memory module will be reduced, however TIFF is a loss-less format, good benefits when you start working with the image, but as in JPEG you will lose some adjustment freedoms that you get in shooting RAW. So when it really counts, shoot RAW, if you are just shooting for practice or experimenting, the JPEG format will work fine. I’m going to make an assumption here. Most people starting out do not have more than one camera and if that is the case, I would like to make a suggestion. Make sure you have numerous memory modules with you. They have gotten rather affordable, so the out of pocket expense will not be to great. Here’s where I’m going with this. When on a shoot, I always have two completely outfitted cameras and will take similar images of the same subject on both cameras. Why? As reliable as these modules are, they do fail. If you have everything on one module, then you have lost all the work you have put in for that project. If you have multiple modules, then you can split your work across multiple chips, thus protecting all that hard work. It only takes a moment to do a switch out and it could save you pain, agony and money should a failure occur. Just keep track of your, naming nomenclature when you transfer the files over to your system, so you won‘t overwrite an image. In the next post we start with post-production. location. I was one of the first photojournalist to capture the aftermath. Many of those images, were used by area news agencies and three were licensed and published in textbooks.
