Professional Photography : amateurs

Submit Your Images to Online Photography Magazines

Eileen Fritsch — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:36:00 GMT

A growing number of online photography magazines and websites publish images from emerging photographers (both amateur and professional). Sites are often themed toward a particular vision and welcome unexpected or unconventional images. Here are a few sites that have caught my eye.

Flak Photo
The Flak Photo site features diverse work from a worldwide community of contributors and promotes a distinctive visual approach to seeing the world through photography. The site is produced by Andy Adams and features work from new photo essays, book projects and gallery exhibitions from both established and emerging photographers. Flak is updated frequently and open to submissions from the general public.

FILE Magazine
File describes its site as "A Collection of Unexpected Photography." According to the website "The purpose of FILE is to collect and display photographs that treat subjects in unexpected ways. Alternate takes, odd angles, unconventional observations—these are some of the ways photographs collected in FILE reinterpret traditional genres. We leave the Kodak Moments to the family album, the glossy fashion spreads to Vogue, and the photo finishes to ESPN. Rather than taking the well-trod paths, we veer off to get a different perspective. Confused? Browse The Collection. The photos say it better than we can." All amateur and professional photographers are encouraged to submit and can submit as often as they like.

F-STOP Magazine
F-STOP magazine is "an online photography magazine featuring contemporary photography from established and emerging photographers from around the world. Each issue has a theme or an idea that unites the photographs to create a dynamic dialog among the artists." F-Stop is published bi-monthly.

Lens Culture
Lens Culture is an online magazine celebrating international contemporary photography, art, media, and world cultures. At Lens Culture you can read essays, analysis and criticism about photography and culture and listen to audio interviews with photographers. There are also reviews of exhibitions and photo books as well a way to buy very cool 21^st Century photography via an online store. They also update via twitter @lensculture

SeeSaw Magazine
Established in 2004, SeeSaw is an "online photography magazine dedicated to work that successfully captures, represents, and encourages acute observation, via the photographic medium." SeeSaw is unique in that it presents found photographs of anonymous photographers.

Foam Magazine
Foam Magazine is an international photography magazine published quarterly by Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam and Vandejong Communications. It is a distinctive and highly appreciated publication. Foam Magazine serves as an exhibition space that embraces every aspect of photography: from documentary to fashion, from contemporary to historical, from world-famous photographers to young talent. Each issue features a specific theme that unites six diverse 16-page portfolios.

There are many more than six sites to which you can submit your images but these sites are my favorites. If you have any favorite online magazines you’d like to share, please let us know.

The point really is to just submit your best images and see what happens. The pool of work is quite amazing and growing every day.

Entering Print Competitions: Choosing the Right Images

Eileen Fritsch — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:43:00 GMT

By David Saffir

Entering a print competition can be one of the best ways to become a better photographer. Although winning awards and getting publicity can be gratifying, you don’t have to win the competition in order to benefit from it.

For example, here are just three of the valuable opportunities that entering a print competition can provide

·         In a formal setting, you can see what many other photographers consider to be their best work.
·         You can have your work evaluated and scored by a panel of judges. In some competitions, the judges will have microphones so you can hear their comments.
·         The process of choosing which images to enter forces you to look more critically at your work. As you attempt to evaluate your work from the eyes of the judges, you will start to see each image in a whole new light.

Competitions are usually divided into categories. This gives you multiple opportunities to enter and win an award, but can make your image-selection process much tougher. A print competition might include the following categories:
·         Portrait
·         Animals
·         Photojournalism, Event and Editorial (includes weddings)
·         Landscape Photography
·         Nature Photography
·         Close-Up & Macro Photography
·         Architectural & Design Photography
·         Digital Manipulation/Freestyle

Each competition may have slightly different criteria for judging and it’s important to know in advance what those criteria will be. For example, here are some of the criteria used by the group in which I am active: the Santa Clarita Photographers Association in Southern California.

Impact: Does this image grab my attention? Is its message understood immediately? Does this photograph hold my attention? Is it effective?

Style: This is an extension of impact but incorporates less tangible qualities. Does it seem to be an extension of the sensibilities of the photographer? Will this image hold up over time?

Composition: Look at the structure of the image. Is there movement or is it static? Is it balanced by way of effective use of negative space? Is the cropping correct? Does it have depth? Is there a primary focal point?

Creativity: Does this photograph indicate a deliberate effort? Did the photographer interact with or manipulate the elements of the photo with a specific outcome in mind? Is it innovative and unusual in some way?

Technique: Was this image created with the use of any treatments such as filtering or multiple exposures or Photoshop tricks? Does the technique support the image or does it seem misused?

Lighting: Akin to technique, lighting is the single most essential element aside from the content itself. Is the lighting appropriate? Does it upstage or complement the subject matter? If the lighting is artificial, is it well-executed?

Print Quality: Are there any obvious flaws in the print? Is it clean? Does it seem too light or dark? Are there printer marks or visible pixels? Is it printed in a way that supports or amplifies the content of the image?

Print Presentation: Does the presentation of the image support the image? Or does it upstage the image and drag it down? Would you be proud to see it displayed publicly?

As you can see, judges score prints on both objective and subjective elements. And yes, it is possible for a technically weak print to win an award if the image makes a strong emotional impact.

So now that we know what the judges are looking for, let’s tackle the really hard part: Picking which images to enter. I’m not joking, this step can make a strong photographer swoon. It is pretty easy to get down to your top ten, but top three? Ouch! And before you can even get down to your top ten, you have to decide: Which category? How many in each category? I’ve adopted a six-step process to narrow down my choices.

STEP 1: I ask myself: What are my business objectives? Would it help me build my business if I gained recognition in a particular category?

STEP 2: Or, I ask myself: What creative or developmental goals would I like to pursue? These can include almost anything, from learning how to create top-notch panoramas and HDR images to shooting celebrity portraits or weddings.

STEP 3: I go through my images in each segment. First, I pick the top two or three. Then, I eliminate as many sinkers as possible. An image that has a technical weakness must have other redeeming features, such as uniqueness or storytelling that keep it in the running

STEP 4: Now that I have whittled my collection down to the crème-de-la-crème, I review the leftovers that survived the cut. Of these, I will pick another two or three images.

STEP 5: I make some working prints (usually 8x10 or 8x12) and put them in a book. For a week or so, I show this book of prints to the most accomplished, opinionated, and contrary photographers I can find. This step helps me to: (1) identify those images that I personally like, but probably won’t cut it in competition; and (2) find images that I don’t like as much as everyone else does.

STEP 6: I make the final cut. I try to select only those images that convey an uncommon subject, feeling, or style or make a special impact. These are the images that I know will be competitive.

Once the final cut is made, I go into production. Print quality, mounting and presentation are also very important.

This image just won first place in the Portrait Category in a regional competition. From a technical standpoint, it is not very strong. In fact, I took it with a very small point-and-shoot camera, through my car window, while I was waiting in traffic. But the judges said that what carried it through was the emotional content—the storytelling

Thinking Professionally, Shooting Like an Amateur

Eileen Fritsch — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:52:00 GMT

By Wayne Cosshall

I teach photography workshops. I also effectively teach through my writings here and at Digital ImageMaker. And I also do public speaking on photography at camera clubs, libraries and the like. These activities, combined with my years of editing professional photography magazines, have allowed me to spend a lot of time talking to both amateur and professional photographers.

Amateurs and professionals are very different beasts. Amateurs can do whatever they want without the need to sell what they do. They can chop and change their focus (pun intended) as the mood suits them. Professionals must please their clients, even if that means doing work that they, themselves, don’t overly like. Although the conventional wisdom is that amateurs can learn a lot from pros, it actually works both ways.

In the time I have spent interviewing professional photographers I have come across many who have lost touch with what got them excited about photography in the first place. They have become jaded and tired. It is now just a job. And of course it is. It puts food on the table and roofs over their families’ heads.

But if it is only a job, how will they maintain the creative spark that makes their work stand out in a crowded and highly competitive marketplace? How will they keep their sanity as well?

Creative people can, in my experience, be perhaps more prone to depression than less creative types, especially when they are not creating. So professional photographers need to find a way to keep their creative juices flowing. One way to do this is to allocate some amount of time to shoot purely for themselves with absolutely no idea of selling the images. That may happen down the road, but selling the images shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind.. Personal projects are essential. They provide some structure, some motivation.

Amateurs are often immensely undisciplined. They waft from one subject to another on a whim and their spouses are often critical that they bought gear that excites them for a month and then sits unused. Amateurs sometimes work on something for awhile, but when getting the results they want becomes too hard, they move on.

Thus, what amateurs sometimes need is discipline. They need the discipline to push a piece of gear as far as they possibly can before even thinking about something new. Discipline to keep pushing for results that may be hard to achieve but, once they break through, will move their work to a whole new level. And discipline to keep themselves on track despite what others may say.

Of course these examples are broad generalities, and don’t apply to all amateurs nor all professionals. But they do illustrate my point that not only can an amateur learn from a professional, but that a professional can also learn some things from the amateur.

I can think of other examples. Amateurs sometimes have very deep technical knowledge in a particular area because they can. The pro may stop learning a particular subject as soon as they know enough to get by with it in their work.

A pro often has a more critical eye because they have needed to develop one. Pros must identify issues and correct them before a picky client spots them. Amateurs can be sloppy in their self-assessment and can benefit from the pro’s eyes. And so it goes on.

As in other areas where there are both amateurs and professionals, such as astronomy, each can learn and benefit from the others. All that’s needed is an open mind.

The Critique and Show Can Be the Best Parts of a Workshop

Eileen Fritsch — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 19:15:00 GMT

By Jay Dickman

In my last post, I talked about how to choose the photography workshop that’s best for you. I suggested that one good question to ask is how your work will be critiqued. At FirstLight Workshop, part of our model is to work with each photographer in a daily edit session. We provide a half-hour or so for a direct one-on-one session.

I encourage those students who are waiting for their edit sessions to pull up a chair up and listen, because the advice given during every edit session can prove to be one of the most educational aspects of our, or any, workshop.

We also do a daily show of our students’ best work. It is mandatory that all students be present for this, and I really want them to bring their voices to this. The daily show can open your eyes and creative spirit, because you may see how another photographer shot the horse round-up at dawn in Dubois. He may have shot it in a way you hadn’t even considered.

At the end of each workshop week, we invite residents of the community to our print show so they can see how the photographers at the FirstLight Workshop have depicted their lives. These shows are wonderful! Jay Kinghorn (my co-author on Perfect Digital Photography, long-time FirstLight instructor, and our IT guy) uses our two 44-in. HP Designjet Z3100 printers to output large prints of each student’s best photos. Each student receives four or five 13 x 19-in. prints as well as one 18 x 24-in. print.We chose to use HP Professional Satin Photo Paper for all of the prints, after we discovered that prints with a lot of contrast or deep blacks didn’t look their best on the fine-art paper we’d been using for some prints.

Every photographer I know has favorite papers for different looks, but we wanted one paper surface that would provide the visual and surface feel we wanted for all the types of images our students were shooting. Our print shows generally feature a mix of black-and-white images, portraits, and landscapes, and HP’s Professional Satin Photo Paper really covers the bases beautifully. We have yet to find that image that doesn’t “glow” with this paper surface.

I rent/borrow gallery space in which to hang the show. Hanging the show is fairly simple. We inset the photos so the image has a one- to three-inch white border. This creates a simple matte feel without adding a mind-boggling amount of work! Our hanging system is usually equally simple: clear pushpins. Not fancy, but the images are so powerful that no one has yet to complain about this inexpensive, fast and non-obtrusive hanging method.We hang the show for the final night of the workshop. The students contribute elbow grease in cutting prints, organizing the groupings, and hanging the show.

In our Dubois workshop in Wyoming in July, I was up in the workshop HQ finalizing the show when Jeff Vanuga, one of our FirstLight instructors, came up to me to tell me we had a problem in the gallery. The students had finished hanging their work and were standing in front of their panels with big grins, not moving.

Initially, when we took the show down we would give the smaller 13x19 prints to the subjects who were in attendance the night of the show. Now, the shows have become so popular that we leave them hanging in the community for a week or two. Our students leave a self-addressed mailing tube and we send each of them their large print post-event.

Choosing the Right Photography Workshop for You

Eileen Fritsch — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:19:00 GMT

By Jay Dickman

There are a lot of great workshops out there, and whether you are a pro, advanced amateur, or aspiring “wanna-be,” taking time out from the daily grind of producing client-directed images that may not ring your own bell can refresh your love of photography.

I know this renewal of passion occurs, because I routinely see it happen when I teach a FirstLight Workshop for serious amateurs and established pros. (FirstLight has hosted events in: the mid-Pyrenees of France; the western Highlands of Scotland; Barcelona, Spain; the Eastern Shore of Maryland; and Dubois, Wyoming.)

So what criteria should you use when choosing a workshop?

In my opinion, the most critical aspect of a good workshop is the ratio of instructors to students. At FirstLight Workshop, we have four instructors and a maximum of 16 students. This allows our students a lot of face time with the instructors. If you have more students and/or fewer instructors, you can create an environment in which the more reticent students won’t step up for their fair share of critique time and editing.

Here are a few questions I would consider asking before I signed up a workshop:

What is the maximum class size?
Having too many students with two or fewer instructors can’t provide the ideal environment for learning as much as you might hope to.

How do the instructors handle the type of subject matter we’ll be shooting?
Will we have to find your own subjects to shoot? Or will there be a list of suggested subjects in the area? Some workshops consider finding subject matter part of the learning process. But if that’s the approach, ask if students at previous workshops have encountered any difficulties in photographing the local citizens.

What will be the end point of the workshop?
Will we be creating a slideshow? A DVD? Or prints?

What is included in the fee?
Does it include any flights, hotel, meals, or other amenities? A good workshop provider will have all these details spelled out so there are no surprises.

Does the workshop get many repeat customers?
Repeat customers are a sure sign of a well-run event.You can also ask to see how past attendees have evaluated the workshop.

Can I talk to a previous attendee or two?
When you talk to these references, find out whether they considered the program to be successful. Did they get sufficient edit time? Were the comments from the instructors valid and helpful? Don’t be afraid to ask the most vague and important question: Did they grow and benefit from the workshop? If so, ask how and in what ways. (These questions may seem somewhat personal, but this is your hard-earned money and precious time you will be spending. Buy wisely.)

How will my work be critiqued?
Some events do a group edit, with each student submitting x-number of images. Others require you to edit your own work down to a specific number of images which the workshop leaders will then critique. Some workshops are really just shooting events, without any time set aside for editing/critiquing. If you’re serious about improving your photography, finding a workshop in which your work will be professionally critiqued can be quite valuable.

Can the photographers leading the workshop teach me what I want to know? Do they share my style and interests?
This is important for both sides of this relationship. I essentially “interview” each potential attendee, and I’ve sent a few to other workshops that I felt it would be a better fit them. I can’t offer the best learning experience to students who aspire to be the next Ansel Adams. Our strengths are not in that particular genre.

Will the well-known photographer who drew my attention to this workshop be there for the duration of the event?
Or will he or she just be an opening speaker or featured one-time speaker?

After you’ve decided to register for a workshop, carefully check the dates on the website or catalog as to: (1) when deposits are due; (2) when you can drop out without sacrificing your deposit; (3) when the total tuition is due; and (4) when the last opportunity is for you to cancel. These policies vary from workshop to workshop. Some operate like a fancy resort, where the money is due upon registration and you have little or no recourse to cancel.

Finally, if the workshop organizer can’t seem to spare time for you or doesn’t answer all of your questions, you may want to continue your search.

To get the most from your workshop, you need to bring a positive mindset. You’re spending precious time and money on the workshop, so it’s important to get the answers you need so you can make a wise choice. By doing some research before the event, you can come fully prepared to enjoy the full benefits of the experience.

JPG Magazine Provides Opportunities to See Your Photos Published

Eileen Fritsch — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 12:19:00 GMT

By Marc Aguilera
Welcome to the 21^st-Century world of amateur and professional photography. Many things have changed, but some have not. Getting published in a national magazine seems to be as much of a goal for photographers as ever. The founders of JPG magazine understand that ambition.

There is something grand about seeing your image and byline published in a quality magazine. Also, how many of us photographers use equipment that we love, and feel the need to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world?

JPG magazine is published by 8020 publishing and it brings the best photos from an online community to print. About 35,000 copies are printed and are sold through subscriptions ($25/yr) or on newsstands ($6/copy) such as those at Borders and Barnes & Noble bookstores.

The premise is simple. JPG members sign up for an account and shoot, upload, and submit images. Then, a peer community comments and votes on each image and story. Editors create the issue with the final selection of the best of the best. Contributors get $100 and a free subscription.

Issues have themes ranging from Democracy to The Fanatic, Fashion to The Self. The early issues were actually printed by LuLu.com and are still available on demand.

The story behind JPG Magazine is very interesting, particularly because the innovative concept of printing the best content from the web arose at a time when many traditional magazines were under pressure to build strong online counterparts to complement their printed editions. As more and more people started turning to the web for their news and information, some analysts are questioning how long print publications will be able to survive.

JPG Magazine has proven that solid opportunities exist for publishers who think differently. JPG Magazine started in 2005 when Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ saw how many high-quality images were appearing on photo-sharing sites such as Flickr. From those roots, the idea to use reader-generated online content to create a printed magazine was born.

The concept has proven wildly successful. For each issue, thousands of people submit tens of thousands of images. To choose which images get published, hundreds of thousands of votes are cast by thousands of people all over the world. I am a big fan of JPG magazine's submission guidelines. The images need to be authentic, brave, and real. Images with digitally altered text are rejected. No multiple photos on a single upload, no misrotated photos, no digitally added borders, no enlargements, no duplicate photos.

My taste in photography tends to lead toward authenticity, meaning little if any digital manipulation or staging. This is evident in my image Mother and Child which won first prize in HP's 2005 On Assignment Photo Contest.

I am a member of JPG and to date none of the images I've submitted have been published. But that doesn't stop me from shooting images related to each issue's theme and entering and voting. Viewing the winning images in each issue of JPG magazine is just as interesting as it is to belong to the community that votes on the winners.

If you're not yet a member of JPG, check it out. If you haven't yet seen your images published in a national magazine, JPG provides a great opportunity to give it your best shot!

The Golden Age of Photography: Part Two

BlogArchive — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 13:29:00 GMT

By David Saffir

I just finished teaching the three-day Imagemaking for Photographers workshop on the Central Coast of California. Our students included a mix of professionals and serious amateurs. Skill levels ranged from many years of experience with digital to “I bought this thing (a digital SLR) three months ago, and….”

We performed our field work in a number of environments under a variety of conditions. We shot at night, at pre-dawn twilight, in full sunlight, at sunset, and in canyons in deep shade. We shot still life, landscapes, and wildlife. We supplemented the field work with midday classroom sessions on camera setup, image preparation and correction, and printing.

Several things greatly impressed me during the seminar. First, the knowledge level of photographers is not only improving steadily, but the tempo of this growth is noticeably faster. I believe this can be attributed largely to the rise of social networks on the Web and increasingly easy Internet communications. For example, automated feeds from blogs such as this one have streamlined my daily reading. This has given me time to do other things (like shoot!).

Something else that struck me was that the newer DSLR cameras are extremely well made and produce images of extraordinary quality. Plus, they are much easier to use. Shooting at high ISO, cameras from both Canon and Nikon handled noise issues very well, including low light and night photography. Many of the students own these cameras.

The improvements in the cameras, along with parallel improvements in software such as Adobe Camera RAW, make it pretty straightforward for any photographer to shoot RAW and like it. Not one photographer in the class was using JPEGs. All saw the RAW file format as an advantage—both in image quality and creative options in image development.

Last, but not least, I was impressed by how far printing technology has come. In the workshop, we used HP Photosmart Pro B9180 printers. Images printed on a variety of media showed excellent color rendering, shadow and highlight detail, and dimensionality.

What I find most exciting is that the combination of these improvements in digital imaging hardware and software has made it far easier for photography students to concentrate on creativity-exploring ideas, and producing images that speak from the heart. As I saw for myself, this remarkable progress beyond the early technological hurdles of digital photography isn’t just a theory—it’s real.

The Wonderful World of Flickr

BlogArchive — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 13:53:00 GMT

By Marc Aguilera

Flickr is a great place for the new amateur, the accelerated semi-pro photographer, and working professional photographer. The flickr community is vast and amazing and I never get bored of looking at images from my contacts in the community.

I have had a flickr account since July 14, 2004. The first shot I posted was from my Samsung cameraphone of two wonderfully charming young girls named Branwen and Rhianon who are the children of my good friend Alan. I now have over 1200 images (which is not that many compared to other flickr users) and over 250 contacts. I belong to a few hundred groups and administer five, including a color management group and a group devoted to digital printing. Images are put into sets and collections of sets to make it easier to organize. I currently have 40 sets. I also have a Pro Account which gives me unlimited storage, uploads, bandwidth, and sets, as well as permanent archiving, and ad-free browsing and sharing. Amazingly, it only costs $24.95/year.

I often just love to explore and see if I can find an image of something abstract or seemingly rare. For instance, the other day I entered “Babirusa” and found dozens of images of the wonderful pig-like animal native to Sulawesi. I also looked for images of Latvia (a country I have always wanted to visit and came across some amazing landscapes by marika_te).

Because my wife and I own a 1965 classic 122s model Volvo, I recently looked to see if there were any images of that particular model on the site. Amazingly, I found over 100 images and several groups devoted to vintage Volvos.

One of the most popular groups is the Shooting to Learn Group, which is devoted to learning and exploring the photographic craft. The group is moderated by Dawn Perry and hosts assignments ranging from specific techniques to monthly photo contests. It’s an excellent resource for developing your photographic skills.

I also really enjoy looking at my favorite images from other flickr members. Images range from the very simple to the extraordinarily complex and are a constant source of inspiration. It’s amazing what we all photograph.

If you are worried about copyright, the default setting for all uploads is All Rights Reserved. If you wish you can attribute a Creative Commons license to protect and authorize the usage of your images.

I continue to be amazed by flickr, and I have only begun to scratch the surface. There is always something new and interesting being developed. The latest feature is called Places where you can browse images which have been Geotagged for a particular city. I searched for Riga, the capital of Latvia and found some amazing images from architecture to urban landscapes.

In my opinion, Flickr represents the future of the digital imaging community. It is a wonderful world for photographers, and if you haven’t yet visited, I would encourage you to do so.