ARTICLES

Toyota MR-2

I never really get a decent opportunity to shoot cars, although this is something I would have loved to have been able to shoot. Since first I started, cars has always been a favorite of mine, but I have always had to “cheat”. That is grab a shot of a cool car somewhere, be lucky in the sense that there is some form of good light available and then edit the photo later on. I will upload more on my main page but for now, here is a lovely Toyota MR-2 to gawk over, hope you like!

Toyota MR 2, super car, toyota fast car, yellow car

Photographs and usage

Is usage something that keeps you up at nights, do you even know what usage is? What do people mean when they speak about using photographs, when I pay photographer for pictures, don’t I own them? In many ways this is a very complicated and difficult subject to handle. Try to imagine the following scenario. Photography is a business, which means that although we love what we do, we also need to make a living and provide enough financial throughput to retire one day, we have no big company supporting most of our expenses.

Black Widow, Romanov, costume, Sashi

 

Getting photos taken is like having a custom made car made just for you, in a way. That’s the standard business model. Make a product that you can sell millions of, that way it’s kinda affordable and you will make money for the business to pay employees and expand etc. We don’t and usually are not able to take the photos from an assignment and sell millions of copies and make money from them, especially for certain specialized jobs. So usage is kinda like renting a DVD, you pay for time that you are able to rent the movie and watch it and enjoy it. Or that is the principle.

But before I get things horribly wrong, please go have a look at this excellent article on the subject written by experts on the matter – A guide to photography usage terms

Creative Industrialization

We as creatives are entering a “Dark Age” of “creative industrialization”. Just as with the previous industrialization, thousands lost hope and jobs so too it will happen in our lifetime. Creativity will certainly not die out, it will thrive but earning a living from being creative will die out. We must find new ways to deal with things. Just as many craftsmen back then lost their livelihood through technology so it is happening right now. We are no longer just photographers, we are also web designers, photo editors, retouch specialists, marketing guru’s, social media experts, writers, income tax consultants, trend consultants, print experts etc. We are no longer just musicians, we are also, record producers, marketers, publishers, sound engineers, designers, composers, publicists, writers etc

We stand at the precipice of a dark new world, the undiscovered country lies at our feet as the profession of being a creative is slowly eroding away into a sludge of digital noise ending up on the shores of proverbial beach made up of billions of gigapixel images. Mediocrity will rule the day and the true craftsmanship of being a master will be replaced with a degree from The University of Youtube.

Watch this movie: (actually best to right click on the vimeo logo and watch in a higher resolution on vimeo) or download from their website here

Portrait pricing

I found this great article written by my friend Greg on his blog, do yourself a favor and read it through as it is quite amusing and enlightening for those that might not have a clue. How effing much for a portrait?

If youre not into portraits maybe a shot of your lower limbs might do the trick?