Moving...
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Thursday, 17 July 08 - 07:00 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in General |
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to Wordpress.
Terapad is cool, but it seems more oriented toward storefronts and web sites than blogging. And the links to individual posts are horrendous!
Thanks!
The Drive Thru Art Show
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Saturday, 28 June 08 - 09:13 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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I just saw the coolest idea for an art exhibit at FestivALL.You turn down an alley off Quarrier Street and enjoy art from your car. The West Virginia State University Drive Thru Art Show.
After passing through what (to me) looked like the doorway to a car wash, you can enjoy paintings, prints and photographs displayed at proper gallery viewing distance.
I'm not sure if this is just a cool and cheap way of displaying art in public, or maybe a political statement about society's view of art, but it says something about the ingenuity of WVSU art students and instructor Paula Clendenin to get art out from under the organized tents and into the street. Or alley. Whatever.
More FestivALL 2008 photos at my Picasa site.
Sunbeam after the storm
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Monday, 23 June 08 - 07:01 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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We had a great hailstorm here yesterday. It was all over the news, power was out for about five hours. I missed the storm, but in the aftermath I saw this great sunbeam shining through the trees behind the house.
This is a High Dynamic Range shot using nine exposures, I didn't have time to grab a tripod so I shot handheld with the camera propped on a stump.
Photo Permits
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Friday, 13 June 08 - 11:19 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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It seems the right to photograph is an ongoing theme lately. The latest is
The High-Wire Act of Getting Photo Permits.
Quote of the day: "You’re basically relying on the kindness of strangers, who really don’t have any real burning desire to help you with your photo shoot, other than they like you, so be really, really nice."
Pimping McNally
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Friday, 13 June 08 - 10:50 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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Are you a fan of McNally? Not Rand McNally, Joe McNally. If so, you might have his book, The Moment It Clicks. Now all you have to do is pimp that book!
Photographers make poor terrorists
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Wednesday, 04 June 08 - 10:33 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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I've been wanting to write up a bit about the show, but Real Life steals all my time lately, something about earning a living and obligations and stuff.
In the meantime, photographers continue to be harassed by authorities because they think we're terrorists. In response:
Are photographers really a threat?
How to Shoot (Photographs) Like A Terrorist
A Downloadable Flyer Explaining Your Rights When Stopped or Confronted for Photography
Streets and Scenes
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Monday, 12 May 08 - 01:49 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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So that exhibit I was referring to is up now through May 31. I'm having a show with Betty Rivard, she's got ten large prints from New York and I have five moderate and five small photos from places like New York, Salzburg, Italy, Hilton Head. Here's the card:
The show is at the Art Emporium Gallery in downtown Charleston, WV, and we're going to be at the gallery Thursday evening, May 15 during the Charleston ArtWalk. If you are in town, stop by and say hi!
Making photography your living
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Wednesday, 07 May 08 - 09:16 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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A good post at [EV +/-] Exposure Compensation on When photography becomes a business … The upshot is that when you start trying to make a living doing what you love, you compromise your art and start to lose your passion for photography.
A couple of quibbles.
Miguel says that when most photographers start trying to make a living at photography, "the initial driver is a personal passion for art, an internal need to express themselves with their photography." Well, maybe. More likely they have a desire to make a living at something they love to do. Isn't that what the What Color is your Parachute types tell us? Figure out what you like to do and figure out how to make money doing it.
What's difficult about earning a living as a photographer is being allowed to grow. It's frustrating to produce, as Miguel puts it, "a commodity." Your job as a photographer is to try and make it more than that. If you learn new stuff, constantly try to make your work fun, there will be people who will want to pay you for that fun part.
There'll be those that don't, as well. But photography is like any other job: there's the cool parts and the boring parts. You can be a photographer and have fun some of the time, or you can be a truck driver. Of course, you can be a truck driver who carries a camera, which sounds like a photography assignment to me...
The problem with working a job and keeping photography as your hobby is that your job is supporting your passion. As bad as it is to have to make boring photos (handshake photos, anyone? copywork?), it might be worse to do something else all day and then need to pick up a camera in your free time. At least as a working photographer, you have a camera and an opportunity all the time, you're not sitting behind a desk unless you want to be. Somehow, doing cool photos in the afternoon (or even a cool personal bit of art shot between setups of a commercial shoot) makes up for the boring ones you had to do earlier that day. And you always have an opportunity to offer something extra special and personal to the client. If they bite, there's validation for your personal vision.
Getting ready to exhibit
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Tuesday, 06 May 08 - 12:45 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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It's been awhile since I actually put together a set of photos for an exhibit, and I had forgotten how much work is involved. As usual, you think if you plan it out right, you can get everything done on schedule. As usual, you're wrong.
First, selecting images is a real pain. You get a bunch of pictures you like, and realize they don't go together. Maybe you've been working on a project and you're exhibiting your project, but I photograph anything I find interesting, which makes for a great deal of randomness. That can be OK, but in this case I'm exhibiting with another person, so I have a responsibility to fit in, sorta. Often you don't even know what the images look like until they're printed (you can't decide on a computer screen), and then you have to select sizes and, in the case of digital inkjet printing, papers.
So you spend a few days deciding, then you have to make final prints if you don't already have those. In the meantime, you have to order frames and glass (based on the image sizes you decided on before you actually printed the pictures), and then you cut mats. You think "I can assemble all the frames tonight," but of course Murphy points out a flaw in one of your prints requiring reprinting.
If you frame yourself, you're surprised at how hard it is to get supplies for an actual exhibit. Even the art supply store in town is geared to selling a packet of wire and screws to hang one piece, not ten. Brown paper for the back? K-Mart, not the art store.
In the end it comes together, just like that college term paper, sometime in the wee hours of the day of your deadline. It's almost a relief to turn the work over to someone else to hang.
Your right to photograph
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Sunday, 30 March 08 - 08:08 PM (GMT -05:00) By Michael Keller in Photography |
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There's an interesting and useful post at Photojojo that pretty much synopsizes the rules regarding photography in public places. One thing it doesn't mention is that while you have the right to photograph, you may not have the right to use the photo. It all depends on the use. Art? OK. Editorial? Probably OK. Commercial? You need a release to publish.
But the most important thing to remember is the Hassle Factor. You are within your rights, but some security guy comes out and starts giving you a bunch of guff. (This has happened to me, I was on an assignment photographing a hospital exterior in the evening, I was across the street from the hospital on a sidewalk, with the camera on a tripod, and security people came across the street to harass me.) Now, you can argue you have the right to photograph there (in my situation, the hospital was aware of the assignment!), but when they threaten to call the cops, you have to ask yourself: do I want to spend the evening down at the station? Even if I get the photo, even if I'm within my rights, do I want to tick off everyone in the world and spend an hour or two discussing my rights with the police?
The blunt fact is: it doesn't matter. If you have the time and inclination to support your rights, you can, but it doesn't matter how much you complain, no one is going to get reprimanded for taking a call from a concerned citizen and escorting you downtown. The authorities unfortunately have every right to hinder you in your job, as long as they don't threaten to arrest you or take your gear. They can question you until you call your lawyer.
Since 9/11 there's been all kinds of paranoia about photography in public places, and you can drive by power plants with big signs that say "no photography." Who enforces that? I mean, terrorists can't get what they need from Google Earth? Do these people really have a clue who they need to be afraid of?
Edit: amazing that right after posting this, I came across something from a few months back.
Professor detained for taking pictures sues
... More items are available in my News Archive
