Month: November 2013

IMPORT FROM USA and DON’T PAY TAXES!

Breaking the news for my european followers :

Blackfriday in the US is a day where huge discounts are made on electronics devices. But with time, it spreaded it out to other kund of goods.  So, buying online is now a great deal, even if you have to pay the tax on importation.  In the US, there is no added value when you get your purchases shipped.

Now, if you are in Austria and owner of a American Express, you can buy online, Amex pays all taxes!! Of course they sononly a few day so hurry up! Its time to go online to BH and get the candy you wanted to!

It goes like this : check your emails and find the one of amex they sent about buying at thanks giving. They explain this promotion. The have noticed a coupon-code in the mail you need while purchasing. Of course, without this code… It does not work!

Gotta go to BH and Adorama, and Topaz…

http://www.bhphotovideo.com

WHY YOU NEED A PRO TO SHOOT YOUR WEDDING

I think many guys like me, who love photography but who do not shoot for a living, should also read this article. Don’t get me wrong, this article is not about JAGWACs not able to make great shots. There are thousands guys able to make great shots. But at the end of the day, you have to admit that being a pro is something different.

20130706-DSC_0222 nb

If you are lucky, I sincerly do hope you are, you will marry only once in life. And this makes this day so unique. This is your day (ok, very often it is a little more her day than yours, hehehe…) and what you want is someone to make good looking memories of this celebration.

But this is not everything. You also need someone you can tell your mind if the pictures are not what you were expecting (blured, bad compo, bad light, etc…). Working with a pro makes things easy : you pay for a job, your are the client. And if the job is bad done, you can renegotiate the price or a  second shooting for the couple’s shots.

Now look around you. How many couples do you actually know who have been disappointed with their pictures because they relied on the oncle or their best friends ? I am sure quiet enough.And this is where is a huge mistake :

You would not ask your best friend to pilote a plane during your honeymoon trip if he is not a pro pilote, you would not ask you friends to cook  your weeding lunch for 100 people, you would not ask your mate to sew your wedding dress. But you ask your friends to make the shots of your most important day, the shots you will see again and again years after year… And actually, the lunch : when it’s eaten, it’s eaten. The dress : you will never carry it again. But your pictures…

As a JAGWAC I refuse to shoot weddings. I did only once. For free because I did not want to feel under pressure. And I told him, before the wedding, he would be the one to blame if the shots turn out to be bad. I advised him not to take me but to take pro, even if it is costing. He agreed on that and followed partially my recommendation : he had pros for the important pictures and me for the guests and some couple’s shots (see pic above). But I was happy when it was done. I felt much better when I could put gears in my room and then having fun like any other guest.

more to come…

Related articles

le FRENCH POST de la semaine #2

Difficile de faire des photos lorsque, comme moi, j’ai un travail captivant et chronophage et une famille adorable à la maison.
Alors la seule solution, et elle est évidente, c’est de prendre votre appareil photo avec vous partout et tout le temps quitte à le trimbaler pour rien.

Et puis les occasions ne manquent pas finalement.

– Faire les courses avec sa femme = acheter des robes pour le prochain shooting
– Faire un grill = faire du life style
– Aller à Paris ou ailleurs = Il y a de l’HDR dans l’air

– il fait -15° et il pleut = on allume CS5!

A suivre

HOW TO SHOOT GREAT PORTRAIT? WATCH THIS !

A very shot post today. But you know it, This blog is a “Share Info Gate” so you find here videos, opinions about books, website, exhibitions, etc…

So today’s post is a video of seminar hold by BRIAN SMITH, a portrait guru I love !

It’s about 1:30 hour, it’d great, it’s informative, watch it!

GETTING INSPIRED !

Bildschirmfoto 2013-11-14 um 18.41.40

We all know that : Sometimes we find motives to shoot all day long and you would need 2 or 3 more SD-Cards. And sometimes whereever you look around you, everything just looks like “eeehh?”…

This is something we all know I guess, writers call that : “The Page Syndrom”. You feel like shooting something but you don’t find anything to shoot! And this is exactly what’s happening : YOU do not find, but your neighbor would.

It’s only because you are not in the mood or you are entering in a phase of transition.

You need more inspiration.

It’s time to look at the works of other photographers to see the pictures and consider if you like them or not. And much more important : why you like them. Or not.

It’s time to get inspired again.

Nowadays it’s easy to get access to pictures : flickr, 500px, instagram, homepages… It’s also the best time to open Lightroom and to edit pictures you have been delaying.

Here a link to my best inspiring shot of the week ! (safe at Work, no problem !). The artist is PETE GLOGIEWICZ. He has great ideas, his shots make me laugh loud! I love his work !

more to come…

WATERMARK : GOOD OR BAD ?

X-Mas time is coming up !

Very naively, so to say, I was a little worried about the use people could do with my pictures after I had uploaded them on flickr.

 

Why naively? Well, my pictures were, when I look back, not good enough to interest other people. But I really had a lot of thoughts about this matter. One way was to upload my pics in a low quality. But the quality must be good enough to look good on a screen. And nowadays our pictures are to be seen online and pictures are printed to become posters on walls or calendars. Anyway, so I did so. As I use Flickr as an external storage, I had the double amount of work: I had to upload in low and high definition and set the private mode on the second one.

But one day, in stats section, I saw a referrer that made me curious. I clicked the link and could see one of my pics used on a blog.

Cup

I did not know how to react. On one hand, it is a sign my pictures are good enough to be used by other guys out there. I liked it somehow. On the other hand, even if the CC-rules were respected, I felt stolen, as if someone had taken my baby.

I thought I had to stop this or at least my name had to be somewhere so guys would know I AM the artist, the creator of the shot. I know it is ridiculous but I was really thinking that way at the time. So I put watermarks on my shot. Like this one :

20131023-DSC_0364-Bearbeitet

Does it look good? Humm… Well I felt it was a safe way to show my pictures and to feel safe about that. Actually it worked pretty well : I felt secured and I had no more thoughts. I was so much naive that I did not even figured out you can sweep it way within a few minutes and a little photoshop skills. So watermarking is not a solution.

I think it is time to reconsider the all thing : When you upload your picture, you loose control on it. And there is no way to avoid it. And is it that bad ? I don’t think so.

You see, when my pics are to be seen everywhere, on blogs, it’s a kind of advertising. As long as the CC-rules are applying and are respected it’s OK. And if I see one of my picture where I haven’t shared my copyright, I do hope the company who did this is big and rich like APPLE, WALLMART or GENERAL MOTORS… the rest will be done by my lawyer.

w Noel 2 bleue

So, in secret, I do hope this will happen with or without a watermark. And to make it easier for them, I don’t watermark my shots anymore.

f Ulli Shooting

more to come…