MCP Actions Contest: Win a FREE Lens Baby Composer!

Lensbaby is a sponser of MCP Actions and right now, they are having a contest to win a FREE Lens Baby Composer!  So photographers and photographer friends, check it out and enter!  Good luck to everyone! =D

http://mcpactions.com/blog/2009/08/18/win-a-lensbaby/#comment-17509 

100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography…

** I came across this post from another site and thought it would be awesome to share.  Hmmm, I think I just may write my own list when I have the spare time. (spare time??  what is that?! lol)  I figured all you photographers could appreciate this!**

100 Things I’ve Learned About Photography (from DPS site)

Since I found photography two and a half years ago I have learned different things which I would like to share with you today. These lessons have made me richer and I hope that you will find them refreshing and inspiring on your journey with the camera, too.

1. Never do photography to become a rock-star.

2. Enjoy what you are shooting.

3. Prepare well for your shooting, realizing that your battery isn’t charge when you’re setting up for that sunrise shoot is too late!

4. Always take one warm garment more than you actually need with you

5. Pay attention to your thoughts and emotions while you are shooting

6. Set goals you can achieve

7. Write tips about photography, because writing is also learning

8. Never go shooting without a tripod

9. Be pleased with the little prosperities

10. Build relationships with potential photo buddies

11. Watch the place you want to shoot first with your heart then with the camera

12. Always stay calm

13. Know that you tend to overestimate yourself

14. Perspective is the killer

15. Dedicate yourself to photography, but never browbeat yourself too much

16. Take part in a photography community

17. Keep your camera clean

18. Never compare yourself to others in a better or worse context

19. Find your own style of photography

20. Try to compose more and to hit the shutter less

21. Seek out and learn to accept critique on your images

22. Do something different to recover creativity

23. Get inspiration from the work of other photographers

24. Criticize honestly but respectfully

25. Get feedback from your lady

26. Don’t copy other photographer’s style

27. Be bold

28. Take care of the golden ratio

29. 10mm rocks!

30. Take self-portraits

31. Read books about photography

32. To give a landscapephotograph the extra boost, integrate a person (maybe yourself)

33. Every shooting situation is different than you expect

34. Pay attention to s-curves and lines

35. Always shoot in RAW (my opinion: hmmm, raw is good but I’m perfectly ok with jpegs.  As long as you are spot on, or fairly close, to the correct exposure, you’re fine). =)

36. Keep your sensor clean, so you can save some work cleaning your image in post production

37. Discover the things you think are beautiful

38. It takes time to become a good photographer

39. The best equipment is that what you have now

40. You can’t take photographs of everything

41. Break the rules of photography knowingly, but not your camera

42. Pay attention to the different way that light falls on different parts of your scene

43. The eye moves to the point of contrast

44. Clouds increase the atmosphere of a landscape

45. Start a photoblog

46. Accept praise and say “thank you”

47. ‘Nice Shot’ is not a very useful comment to write

48. ‘Amazing!’ isn’t useful either. Try to describe specifically what you like or don’t like about an image.

49. You are not your camera

50. Ask a question at the end of your comment on a photo to get a ping-pong conversation with the photographer

51. Do a review of your archives on a regular basis, the longer you photograph – the more diamonds are hidden there

52. Always clarify what the eyecatcher (focal point) will be in your image

53. No image is better than a bad one

54. Everyone has to start little

55. Your opinion about photography is important!

56. Leave a funny but thoughtful comment

57. Speak about your experiences with your photo buddies

58. Limit your photograph to the substance

59. Participate in Photocontests

60. Post processing = Optimizing your image to the best result

61. Shoot exposure latitudes as often as possible

62. Use photomatix as seldom as possible, HDR’s always have a synthetic flavor

63. Always remember what brought you to photography

64. Never shoot a person who doensn’t want to be photographed

65. Always turn arround, sometimes the better image is behind you

66. It’s who’s behind the camera, not the camera

67. Mistakes are allowed! The more mistakes you make, the more you learn!

68. If you have an idea and immediately you think : No, this is not going to work – Do it anyway. When in doubt – always shoot.

69. Understand and look to your histogramm while shooting. It delivers very important information about your image

70. Know your camera, because searching the menu button in the night is time you don’t want to waste

71. Shoot as often as possible

72. Believe in yourself

73. Don’t be afraid of getting dirty

74. Pay attention to qualitiy in your image

75. Your photographs are a personal map of your psyche

76. Re-check your ISO-Settings. It’s aweful to detect the wrong settings on your screen.

77. Be thankful for long and thoughtful comments on your images

78. Never trust your LCD. Normally it is brighter and sharper as the original image.

79. Provide for enough disc space, because it’s cheap and you will need it.

80. Learn to enjoy beautful moments when you don’t have a camera with you.

81. Always arrive at least half an hour earlier before sunrise / sundown, composing in a hurry is a bad thing.

82. Try to amplify your mental and physical limits. Takes some extra shots when you think “it’s enough”

83. Pay attention to structures in the sky and wait until they fit into structures in the foreground

84. Visit the same place as often as possible. Light never shows the same mountain.

85. Print your images in big size. You will love it.

86. Calibrate your monitor. Working with a monitor that is not accurate is like being together with someone you can’t trust. It always ends badly.

87. Don’t think about what others may say about your image. If you like it, it’s worth publishing.

88. Never address reproaches to yourself. Learn from your mistakes and look forward, not backward.

89. Fight your laziness ! Creativitiy comes after discipline.

90. Ask yourself : What do you want to express in your images ?

91. Always try to think outside the box, collect new ideas about photographs you could do and ask yourself : Why not?

92. Search for a mentor.

93. Photography is never a waste of time.

94. Every community has it’s downsides. Don’t leave it out of an emotional response.

95. There will always be people who will not like what you are doing.

96. Henri Cartier-Bresson was right when he said that “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.”

97. A better camera doesn’t guarantee better images.

98. Always have printing in mind when you postprocess your images.

99. Photography is fair : You gain publicity with the quality of your images. Unless the images are stolen, there is no way of cheating yourself higher.

100. Write a 100 things list

At the Beginning….

This blog is geared towards any professional photographer that lives in the New England area.  I’ve been a part of Roadside Families for a few months now.  Some of you may have heard of them and some of you may not.

Basically, it’s a Pay It Forward for us pro photographers.  My question to you is this:  When is the last time YOU were in front of the camera instead of behind it?  I can answer this….My husband and I have 2 boys, ages 4 1/2 and 2.  I have taken some beautiful portraits of my husband with them, but I have never had a pro take a picture of me with them.  Sad, I know.

So Roadside Families is an organization that is for professional photographers all throughout the world.  Basically what happens is you would shoot another photographer & their family, give them the edited files, send them a LARGE print for their wall (In my opinion, I would think nothing smaller than a 11×14 would work because we all know that 8×10s aren’t that big. lol).  Then the photographer that you photographed, will in turn, photograph another photographer’s family.

No money is to be exchanged….at all!  So whether you are married, have kids & pets..or single and a pet or heck, even if you want portraits done of you and your siblings, parents, grandparents, etc (the list can go on and on)….YOU could be a part of this too!  All I ask is that you are a professional photographer, live in New England and have your own website to be approved.  We as photographers insist on producing high-quality professional photos for our clients, so why shouldn’t we have the same for us? =)

Seeing how RF is located ALL around the world, I’m starting one for New England.  I will be doing my part and spreading the word about this both advertising on free websites (for all 6 New England states) and emailing local photographers as well.  I realize some photographers have their own studios and some are just on-location photographers.  Either would work, it’s all preference and what you or the photographer you’re photographing would want.

Roadside Families encourages local photographers to begin their own PIF chain, so here’s one for us New Englanders!  So, if this takes off we could start it soon or maybe in the spring when the weather is nicer.  Please leave a comment if you are interested (leave name, website and city/state you live in)or post questions.  You’re also welcome to email me thru my website if you prefer that (see links on the right column of this blog).

More info will be posted soon in regards to how everything will work (i.e. posting images from the sessions on here, timeframes, etc).  Hope to hear from you!