The next day during our studio time, I showed one of my instructors the picture. He liked it a lot, he was a little shocked that I went to such a great length of finding all these props but little did he know that it was only the beginning! Looking back now, that picture is a little much, but at the time I was satisfied and excited.

After my partner was finished shooting her picture for the assignment we had two hours left in the studio. I had these pretty little daisies that I bought the day before when I was buying the roses and I brought along those tiny scissors, too. I figured I’d take advantage of the extra time we had so I photographed the other idea that I conjured up in my head. This picture is the one you see here. It was finished in a matter of minutes. It was so much simpler than my elaborate, fairy tale and garden inspired image that I shot the night before. After some hemming and hawing, I decided to turn in my first picture for the assignment.

I got a good grade for that picture and since I didn’t turn in the image you see here, it got pushed back on my hard drive and covered by all the new images I was taking. A couple months later when we had to decide what area of photography we wanted to go into, I had a meeting with one of my instructors who was the head of the commercial studio. I told him that I wanted to specialize in still life photography and he said ok, show me what you have. Together, we went through all the pictures I shot in the commercial studio. The last image that was in the collection (that I had actually almost forgotten about) happened to be this one. When he clicked on it, I started to dismiss it and say, “Oh I shot that a while ago… it’s nothing special…”, but he stopped me. He asked why he never saw this before and I told him because I handed in the other shot for the assignment. He looked at the other picture and said, “This… this is nice, it’s good, ya know”.

Looking back now, I realize that this image was the first one that really showed the style that I would soon start to develop and that I now incorporate into all of my images. All I needed was someone to point that out to me and guide me in the right direction. It marked the beginning of a new chapter in my photography. I went on to turn that image in for an assignment later in the year and it ended up being chosen as the cover image for my class’s graduation invitation, which in itself was a huge honor.

To this day, it is still one of my most liked images in my portfolio and people have no clue it was taken so early on in my career (well now they do).

So a quick thank you to Dick, for teaching me, guiding my way through the commercial studio, and ultimately pointing out to me that this image and my abilities are something special. And thank you Joan, for giving me the information and confidence I needed to develop my own sense of design and for thinking of my work and choosing my image for the graduation invitation. You both are of huge importance to me!

Rikki Snyder is a freelance photographer and stylist specializing in food, product and still life. She is currently available for work in NY and Boston.

Blog: http://rikkisnyder.com/blog
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/RikkiSnyder
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rikkims/

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By the end of 2009, the Red Arrows had performed a total of 4,269 displays in 53 countries. Their 4,000th display, and one that I personally witnessed, was at RAF Leuchars, Scotland during the Battle of Britain Airshow in the September of 2006.

As mentioned earlier, The Reds are usually a nine aircraft team but only eight planes can be seen in these images and this is due to the tragic demise of one of their pilots, Flt Lt Jon Egging. Flt Lt Jon Egging’s Hawk T1A aircraft crashed near Bournemouth Airport. These images were captured during the Airshow at RAF Leuchars in September of 2011, less than a month after this incident.

The loss of a fellow pilot and a team member would certainly have taken an immense emotional toll on the entire team and uncertainty loomed over whether they would perform at RAF Leuchars but they did, and the sense of respect for the Red Arrows was palpable in the air when they performed. And their performance, as always, was true to their motto – Éclat meaning “excellence”.

The images themselves were captured free hand without the use of a tripod. A Sigma 50 – 500mm lens mounted on a Canon 50D was used to capture these images. Owing to the speed of the subjects being photographed, using a tripod would not have been the best method of capturing these shots.

My main aim of capturing and showcasing these images is that they act as a tribute to the pilots, past and present, of the Red Arrows also referred to as The Reds.

Kurien Koshy Yohannan is a Scottish based professional Corporate Event Photographer who in his spare time loves photographing wildlife, nature and aviation related subjects.

Facebook: http://facebook.com/BlackStallionPhotography
http://www.igallopfree.com
http://www.fluidr.com/photos/blackstallionphotography

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I also didn’t have a model with experience or the patience for me to go through multiple lighting adjustments. Go figure. The image of my daughter with makeup was setup in window sunlight. No other light source was used on my model. I applied all the makeup (I am no makeup artist either, so had to have some fun with this one) and no digital manipulation of color was used. The photo was taken with a Nikon D90 in RAW. The settings included:

Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/8.0
Focal Length 105 mm
ISO Speed 200

The image was imported into Lightroom 3.6. I cropped the image in tight and added more exposure (+4) because I wanted the blown out white effect. From there, I softened the harsh light with an adjustment brush , reduced tint, and also added some minor saturation to the eye color and dramatically reduced temperature (original RAW had more skin warmth/yellow), then I did a lot of spot removal because some of the makeup didn’t blend into her skin well. Finally, I reduced the sharpness of her cheeks/nose a touch because I didn’t want to see pores or tiny hairs. Done. Give this a try with various models and makeup. YouTube has a plethora of videos on makeup application to give you some ideas. This process gave me great ideas for more fashion makeup shots using ambient as well as studio lighting.

As an amateur photographer of three years, Joelle Herman loves it all and typically spends a week to a month on a subject.  She also finds that being a part of a local camera club (Frederick Camera Clique) helps in networking, learning and exploring your passion.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jneo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/joelleherman
Google+: Joelle Herman Photography

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© Chris Horner

This building has a presence like no other. In person it’s powerful. Built in 1913 at a cost of over $15 million, it was created to make a statement – an 18 story monument. It was modeled in a classic beaux-arts neoclassical style, and has the distinction of being designed by the same firm that created Grand Central Station in New York City. Millions traveled through here, and it sits just a mile or so across from the busiest border crossing in the USA – the Ambassador Bridge that leads to Canada.

Anticipating future growth and aided by streetcar service, it was placed just outside of the downtown Detroit area. However, the expected expansion never took place. One of the casualties of the Great Depression in the 1930’s was the streetcar service to the station. All of a sudden, MCS was cut off. Thus a slow, painful death ensued for this magnificent building that stretched for decades. In 1988 MCS was shut down for good. From then on the only visitors to MCS would be scavengers and curiousity seekers.

The first time I really paid attention to this building was seeing it from the highway at night one cold, winter evening on the way to take my family to dinner. It stood like a dark monolith against the urban sky. I asked my wife, an architect with an interest in historical buildings, “What is that??” She explained a little bit of the history to me. After dinner we drove up to it and I just stood staring in utter amazement. A lone streetlight illuminated the front, the only thing breaking up the deep darkness from within. How could a building this magnificent be allowed to deteriorate into a condition like this? I knew I wanted to get a picture for myself.

A couple of months later I came back, after learning how to set a camera to take night photos. The results were not good. I quickly learned that there’s far more to getting a picture than just setting up and pushing the shutter. Obviously I had a lot to learn. That was back in 2007.

Over the course of several years, this became my favorite spot to shoot. Still, finding a way to create an image that made a statement as strong as visiting the building in person was proving elusive. I tried many times. Finally, in January 2011 I captured the image in this article. I titled it Forlorn. It was one I was finally satisfied with. From this angle, it looks alone and abandoned – even though downtown is only a mile behind me. The cold, grey Michigan winter day and featureless sky matches the mood of the building perfectly. The beaten down snow and slush add to the cold feeling emitting from inside MCS. By this point in time, SAVE THE DEPOT had been spray painted on the top of the station. It was a culmination of perfect circumstances and many lessons learned from previous failed attempts.

© Chris Horner

Many plans have come and gone to restore MCS to its former beauty. Currently some renovation work is underway. It’s interesting to notice how the rise and fall of MCS has so perfectly aligned with the city it sits in. It would be a shame to completely let this building go. It was created in a time and with details unlike anything you’ll find today.

Below is a link to other pictures I’ve taken at MCS. You can see some of the inside as well – and more reasons why this building is incredible. You’ll also find other articles on my website with more specific information about MCS. It has, by far, been my favorite photo subject. Enjoy.

Chris Horner is an award winning freelance photographer based in Charlotte, NC who specializes in fine art prints and commercial photography.

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lensartwork/sets/72157617220524223/

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© Joe Decker

Last year was no exception. I’d noticed that often the mountains west of the lake receive beautifully orange first light before the sun works its way down to the strange arrays of pumice on the west end of the lake. The combination of shaded pumice and bright orange reflections were appealing, but because the best color was short-lived, I didn’t have enough time last year to really create an effective image.

I’m glad that I remembered this effect again last month. Arriving well before dawn on a clear, almost-windless day, I scouted out interesting arrangements of blocks that would give some order to the sense of strange objects floating in a reflective sea. I particularly looked for situations where blocks and their shadows created non-overlapping forms in the image, knowing that such overlaps would give the viewer depth cues and thereby reduce the sense of the surreal I hoped to capture.

I used a mild telephoto perspective (around 140mm), again with an eye towards flattening the image and creating a more abstract result.

One of the factors that make this image pop is the contrasting, mixed lighting. Most serious photographers understand the need to set a good white balance to effectively make a landscape image. However, there’s a misperception that there’s always a mechanically “correct” white balance for a scene. For many scenes, particularly ones illuminated by very different colors of light, it isn’t always that simple.

In this case, the warm first moments of sunrise on the slopes of the Sierra form a backdrop which contrasts with white pumice forms in a deep blue, high-altitude shade. I knew that I would have to spend some time selecting an effective white balance for the final print.

In the end, I selected a white balance that kept just a mild sense of blue in the shadows but which captured the warmth of the reflections.

I felt that those choices best captured what I felt looking at the scene. Our visual systems tend to downplay the strength of blue in shadows. I did want to include some blue in the shade; however, as the orange-blue contrast is often considered a visually pleasing combination (as I find it to be here.)

Joe is a great nature photographer with who does a lot to share his knowledge with other photographers. We strongly recommend his book, The Tuesday Composition, a collection of great tips for improving your nature photography.

Website: http://www.joedecker.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoeDeckerPhotography?ref=ts

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I refer to this photo as, “Evening Shot of the Grand Island Bridge” for obvious reasons. The photo was a low light, long exposure photo, which put my skills and patience to the test. On the eve of the shoot, our weather here in Western New York was typical of a November evening. With the wind whipping and the temps falling, I knew at this point, the task at hand would not be easy.

After choosing the location, I set up my tripod and mounted the camera. A long exposure photo would require a solid platform to shoot from, so particular attention was being paid to the wind and how it was affecting my setup. After using my camera’s on board light meter, it was determined that a good starting point to capture this image was a fifteen second exposure with an aperture setting of f-18. After my first shot, I was disappointed with the results. This prompted me to go to full manual mode, and disregard my cameras built in light meter. To be clear on the matter, the location we shot from was dark, and the available light was in fact coming from the other side of the Niagara River and this was confusing the light meter.

After some experimentation and a few test shots, I felt I had the camera dialed in, and prepared to take my finished photo. You can tell by the shot, that sometimes you have to go with your instincts in order to make the photo. Here are the settings. I used a Tamron 18 to 270mm lens, mounted on a Canon camera, with a focal range of 200mm. There was no image stabilization used, as the tripod was in use. The camera settings; ISO 200, with a thirty second exposure and an aperture of f-22. In addition I allowed the camera to use it’s built in auto-focus feature, but used a 2 sec delay on the shutter release to avoid any shake by pressing the shutter.

Please tell me what you think of the photo. As always I look forward to hearing your comments and reactions.

Michael Sargent is a top wildlife outdoor photographer in the eastern United States. See more: 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/M.SargentPhotography
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/msargentphoto
Blog: http://msargentphotography.wordpress.com

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I am not vegetarian.

I occasionally eat meat, although it has never been one of my favorite meals and, for personal health reasons I try to limit as much as possible its consumption.

Anyway, this book is not about my alimentary habits but rather about my personal, visual meditation on the condition of living beings, people and animals, a meditation about life and death.

I shot these photos in a rather primitive slaughterhouse in the south of the Dominican Republic, where, perhaps due to the lack of strong social movements against cruelty to animals, a photographer is still being allowed to enter such place and freely document it.

Despite a lack of all those humanitarian implications that such a place would provoke in “the modern world”, here, the only concern in letting me photograph the slaughterhouse was the obvious lack of hygiene, which could jeopardize business even in the Dominican Republic, should these photos be published locally.

My reassurance that it was not my intention to do so, quickly gave me access all areas to photograph “business as usual” in the slaughterhouse.

All along, while shooting, and later, while editing these photos, a question was in my mind: who is suffering more and longer over here? The animals or the people? The killers or their victims?

Of course these cows and these pigs are being killed in a very violent and inhuman way, a knife shoved into their heart to then let them bleed till they die, but what about the killers? In this pre-industrial world they don’t even wear the rubber boots, the face mask, the gloves and the white apron their American colleagues are issued (as per FDA rules) in order to preserve a certain degree of hygiene and as a pretence for a more professional and perhaps detached approach to their license to kill.

No, here the killers walk barefoot in the blood of their victims, they plunge their bodies inside the carcasses to extract their innards, they struggle, man versus pig, sweating, screaming as loud as the pig, while searching for the deadly spot, right above the heart, to give a painful, yet almost instant death.

And while the animal dies, they don’t. They continue to live in this gory theater of guts and blood and screams, killing animals day after day. In a paradoxical way, the life sentence to the executioner can be perceived as crueler than the death sentence of the victim.

And then you think: how can they do it?

They kill to earn a living.

-
Giovanni Savino is a photographer based in New York City and in the Dominican Republic, specialized in editorial, documentary and portrait photography. See more: 

http://magneticpic.com/
http://magneticpic.posterous.com/

http://about.me/magneticpic

http://www.flickr.com/photos/magneticart/

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But with this accessibility comes increased competition for work. How do you get your work seen and, more importantly, published? For real money?

Accept Rejection

The first thing you must do is accept rejection. If you’re serious about turning your hobby into a career, it has to happen gradually, with the likelihood many knockbacks along the way. This happens to all self-employed content creators, especially in a field as competitive as digital photography.

Trying Stock Photography?

Selling stock photography is perhaps the easiest way in to start making money. Book publishers, magazines, advertising firms, film companies, web designers, graphic artists – they all use stock photographs to save money and time. The photographer makes a percentage of the image sold. It may be as little as 25p per photo, but the more images you have out there the more you will make. You really must be prolific as well as creative.

Among the big agencies selling stock photographs are iStockphoto, Fotolia and Dreamstime. Each one has different requirements, but generally you need a camera that takes images no smaller than 2mp. Once signed up, you can start uploading images. If any of your shots are accepted, they will become part of the site’s stock inventory. If one sells you receive a small payment. If you sign up to a few agencies and upload hundreds of good images, you can start to make a living, or at least a good supplementary income.

The best thing about this approach is the ease with which you can track the success of a picture. If your images are doing well, an agency might offer you an exclusive contract, meaning more money per image.

Do your research

You can save yourself a lot of grief and disappointment by thoroughly researching the agencies you submit to. Find out what their technical guidelines are. Take time to discover which kind of images sells the most. Read the small print so you can avoid falling afoul of trivial errors like unauthorized logos.

Find interesting subjects

Remain distinctive and avoid clichés. There’s no shortage of cats and babies on the internet, and no reason why your bundles of fur and flesh will stand out from the crowd. If it’s easy for you to capture, it’s easy for anyone – so get out there and find interesting subjects if you want to increase your chances of success.

Use your social skills

Another great thing about microstock photography is that it’s a true internet meritocracy. Traditionally, photographers had to hustle and politick, working their way into a network of contacts who would employ them, yes, for their photographic skills, but also for their social skills and likeability. Working as an online stock photographer removes all judgment except that passed down on your work.

Sujata Ghosh is a freelance writer currently working on number of projects. She loves her job, which gives her the opportunity to enjoy travelling, photography and cooking.

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With our new photo group at Flickr we plan to spotlight a random collection of images for themed posts here on DSLRBlog (i.e. ’50 Inspiring Images of Hope’). Feel free to share your ideas for different Themes for the group. We’d love to hear from you.

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This image was taken in Gunung Leuser National Park in northern Sumatra. Gunung Leuser is home to an orangutan rehabilitation center where once-captive orangutans are released to the wild. Because of their history, they have a more open and friendly relationship with humans – at least initially. For example, to support them as they re-learn how to forage for food, park rangers offer milk and bananas to the orangutans from a platform in the forest a twice daily basis until they fully re-aclimate to life in the wild.

My wife and I were doing a photo and video story on orangutan rehabilitation. This shot occurred a long, full day hike with a ranger. It’s interesting that even once they regain their wariness of human, the orangutans retain a relationship with the rangers they spent time with during re-aclimation. In this case, we came across a female that had been back in the park for a year, but the ranger was familiar with her. He called her down closer to us.

While she was reluctant, she came close enough for my wife (and producer) to hand a piece of fruit upward. The orangutan came down just low enough to reach out and barely clasp the fruit, and then climbed back up to eat her prize.

It was a surreal moment. And it again hits on one of the themes for me with photography. Often, the ability to take a well-composed, well-lit photo, while essential, is only a small part of what it takes to capture a great image. The moment when you click the shutter is just the tip of the iceberg or the end of the road. Most of the iceberg beneath the surface has to do with figuring out how to get to the right place at the right time and find or make the conditions for the compelling image.

I love the composition of this one, but I also just love what it says about the possible connection that exists between us and one of our nearest relatives in the animal kingdom. The similarity of the hands implies our genetic closeness, while the handing of the fruit upward suggests the possibility of human helping these endangered species thrive.

Erick Danzer is Founder / CEO of Photocrati Media and former professional photographer.

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