Gallery Pick of the Week
Instead of just showing pretty pictures only, here we have space for contributors to discuss their images every week.
This is a great opportunity to get some insight from the original photographer and the content is entirely open. It could be anything from the personal feeling of the photographer about the image to any photographic techniques or location knowledge he/she would like to share with our visitors.
Gallery Pick of the Week > December 2009
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Life could be much shorter than what we might think, 17/12/09, Pele Leung While most people probably haven't thought of the need to be a part of history but the continuity of human civilisation heavily relies on what we contribute today. |
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Do You Really Want to be a professional Photographer, 10/12/09, Pele Leung Since the arrival of digital era, photography has become a popular hobby and interest to many people once again. How nice would it be if someone pays us to take photographs? |
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Photographic Impressionism, 3/12/09, David Bruce There was a freedom of using my knowledge of exposure, focus, depth of field, framing for evil rather than good. I shot rolls of slide film without a single sharp element in any of the images, and... |
Pele Leung - Life could be much shorter than what we might think, 17/12/09
An underground cave takes million years to form and it is unfortunate that we might not have the luxury of time to do what we want. Jenonlan Caves, NSW.
Australian landscape appears to be timeless but the people around us are certainly not. When I recently attended a school reunion dinner gathering I have hardly noticed any familiar faces. Did any of my old classmates turn up? Yes, there were a few but I hardly recognised their faces - at least they showed little resemblance to what I could remember of them. There is no doubt that time flies and human life won't last 'forever' like the timeless Australian landscape. Regardless of what we do, our chance of being remembered by our descendants is not high. As time goes by, only a handful of people might leave a page in history.
While most people probably haven't thought of the need to be a part of history but the continuity of human civilisation heavily relies on what we contribute today. What we do today basically leads us to the future. If you are a keen photographer, you have a slightly better chance than others in crafting a page in history. Regardless of what subjects you shoot, as long as your photos capture great moments in time, you contribute a gift to mankind. Your name might not last forever but your photos will as long as our civilisation still exists. The whole concept seems to be an unrealistic noble idea but I seem to be caught by this thought every time when a potential great shot is presenting to me.
Only a handful of people would notice when the first autumnal leaf drops and there are even less number of souls would look into the details. A new stream of science could be spin off from the design of a single leaf! Believe it or not, the more we look into the nature, the more we would believe how magnificent our world is. Does 'God' exist? maybe - in certain sense, most likely. It is all up to our imagination of how 'God' exists. As this is not an article of debating religion, we limit ourselves to how we could make use of our finite lifetime to do something we like most and also beneficial to others. If you ponder what you should do next (I mean the meaningful next), perhaps checking out the world around us could be a useful starting point to re-discover yourself and others. Travelling never stops amazing me and I hope you share the same passion as I do.
So what is the relationship of this article to Australian scenery? Next to none. However, the ancient landscape does remind me of our short life and existence in this world. It is time to utilise our time wisely and I hope you get my message.
Pele Leung - Do You Really Want to be a professional Photographer, 10/12/09
Since the arrival of digital era, photography has become a popular hobby and interest to many people once again. How nice would it be if someone pays us to take photographs? I am quite sure this dream is in almost every photographer's mind. However, running a professional photography business is not that easy or enjoyable as most people hope.
As a professional photographer, you always worry when you don't have a customer. When a few customers are at your door you are excited and want more. When there are more customers lining up at your front gate you start to believe yourself - your skill and your attractiveness. Like weather, good business never stays the same unless you work hard on it. When business starts to go down, you worry again. How to keep yourself at the top of the hill is always a two-million-dollar question. Is an answer really out there? I am not sure.
Can you find your right customers from a large city like Melbourne?
I met Dr Greg Chapman, a leading advisor of emerging business, at a business meeting recently. I took the opportunity and threw all my questions to him. Let's hear the advice from a professional business person.
Q: What would you recommend if someone is passionate in photography and want to take his/her dream further as a part-time or even full-time business?
Dr Chapman:
A new professional photographer should attempt to define what is their niche. Is it wedding photography, family photographs, commercial etc. This is important as each niche is a totally different market. Having defined their niche, they must decide what are their points of difference. In other words, why you? Have you won awards? Is it your knowledge and experience of the niche, even before becoming a professional photographer? Do you have special qualifications? Do you use special equipment? Once you know the answer to such questions, you can answer the question, why you?
Q: My peer Fred Smith is already a professional photographer - yes he has an ABN, that's all. He would like to know how to make his business sustainable. Although potential customers appear to be everywhere, he just couldn't get them in as his customers. What do you recommend to Fred?
Dr Chapman:
In order for Fred to have a sustainable business, he needs a stream of enquiries from qualified buyers in his niche. To achieve this, he requires a marketing system that generates the enquires he seeks. This usually does not depend on a single strategy, but rather a portfolio of strategies. The four key lead generating strategies are advertising, public relations, word of mouth and cold calling. Fred needs to develop strategies in some or all these four areas.
Q: Mary Jones, another peer of mine, is already a professional wedding photographer with an average customer base. Mary doesn't need to worry about paying her bills but she wants to do more for a better living quality. Any thought?
Dr Chapman:
If Mary has a fairly full book, she should consider some more advanced marketing strategies that will allow her to increase her prices and make more money by working less. She could do this by being able to demonstrate a higher value than her competitors, potentially being more selective of her clients, and have a structured sales pipeline that she has tested and produces a high conversion rate of leads to clients.
Q: Harry Peterson is a well established corporate photographer but he lost a significant number of customers due to the downturn of economy. He is thinking of shrinking his team to cut the cost because he believes the market won't be back up again for at least a few years. Do you think shrinking his business is the best option he should take?
Dr Chapman:
As most photographers have quite weak marketing systems, before shrinking his business, Harry might want to invest in a marketing audit to determine what opportunities he has to increase his business even in a weak economy. Most photographers won’t invest in this and many will leave the field.- to those who are prepared to make such an investment. It is ironic, that a photographer will be the first to say you should use a professional to get the best photographs for a corporate image, rather than an amateur, but refuse to hire a professional marketer to get the best marketing outcomes for their business. A good marketing strategist will come up with ideas that will generate many times their fees, and yet most photographers won’t hire one. The smart ones will, and will grow their business, whilst everyone allows theirs to shrink.
Dr Greg Chapman is a business adviser and marketing strategist. He is also the author of the top selling, internationally recognised book: “The Five Pillars of Guaranteed Business Success”. Visit www.FivePillarsBusinessSuccess.com and download a free copy of Dr Chapman’s Mission Statements Made Easy Tool.
David Bruce - Photographic Impressionism, 3/12/09
I’ve never really bought into the digital vs film argument to any great extent – after all, they are just two of the more common of many possible ways of recording an image. It’s never been about what you record the image with, it’s the image itself that counts. Digital makes some things easier, but you still have to know what you are doing, and trying to do, before you will get anywhere consistently. There are still things I could do in the darkroom that I can’t replicate satisfactorily in photoshop.
I’m also sure there were almost identical arguments when colour film became available, and before that the whole idea of a photograph was probably considered gauche by artists in other media. And without doubt, sometime in the future we will all be sitting around and saying that some new technology is not real photography – only Digital SLRs can be considered real photography…
But that is beside the point. What I really love is Janie’s central proposition, that photography which does not record the ‘real world’ in a documentary fashion is in no way wrong or poorer. Having gone down my own pathway in that direction, I can tell you it is no less challenging, stimulating, frustrating and occasionally surprising than any other type of photography.
My previous photography was heavily what I would call ‘realistic’, and primarily landscape oriented. I do, did, my best to keep people out of my images except as anonymous figures to add scale or relevance. I’ve had the privilege to photograph a number of weddings and other important events in people’s lives – both for money and for good will. I’ve photographed people and products for commercial clients – and of all of them the hardest turned out to be wine bottles (try it sometime if you don’t believe me!). In all of these, I wanted to capture images that made more of a scene by putting a frame around it – but to ‘keep it real’ at all costs (and yes, I consider a polarising filter to be real…).
Busselton Jetty, WA
But about the time I moved to Canberra a couple of years ago I found myself, quite unconsciously to begin with, experimenting with letting go of that reality and just seeing what happened. There was a freedom of using my knowledge of exposure, focus, depth of field, framing for evil rather than good. I shot rolls of slide film without a single sharp element in any of the images, and loved it. My wife thought I was mad, and to be fair most of it was rubbish.
"Art for arts sake III", Canberra
But the thing was, it was different rubbish, and it opened up a whole new way of thinking about photography. For the last two years I have done abstract images, layered multiple exposures, and experimented with both in-camera and in-computer effects that totally disregard what I used to think of as sacrosanct (in particular, the ‘real’ rendering of colour). As I’ve done more and more, I’ve learned what (I think) works, and developed techniques and styles which are totally analogous to what I did before – just different.
Some of my most satisfying work has been totally abstract, textural works in which I try to capture an impression of a subject – and in some of these it is not even possible to discern what that subject is.
"the Four Seasons - Spring, Summer, Autum, Winter"
Others try to capture the feel of a place with limited regard to what it ‘really’ looked like. It is totally liberating.
"Still Waiting", Curtin Primary School
Reaction to the images has been interesting. Other people have varied in their feedback, but just as with my more traditional images, there are specific images that people consistently gravitate to (and buy). I was able to hold an exhibition of a collection I called First Impressions (www.LOSphoto.blogspot.com) – so called because they were my first impressions of Canberra, and also my first impressionistic images. It was one of the most fun things I have ever done, but partly because I had to argue with the gallery about which images to include and how to hang them – which made me think about them from a whole new perspective again.
I still take images that are in my more traditional style, and I love that too. But adding impressionism, or as Janie called it, expressionism, to my repertoire has made my photography more interesting and varied to me, and I think I am a better photographer for it.
Either way though, I will stand up and vigorously defend the proposition that there is a wholly legitimate place for images created using photographic techniques that seek not to freeze time, but to express an emotion or artistic interpretation that goes beyond what you can see with your eyes.