Here’s some information from the inviation:

PURPOSE: To assemble developing artists, editors, publishers, teachers, and professional photographers in order to celebrate and explore the future direction of photography.

WHAT TO EXPECT: LOOK3 is hosting an experimental two night event to present the work of 90 innovative photographers on a farm 30 minutes west of Charlottesville.  The 90 artists showing work were asked to participate by experts in this field such as PDN, Burn Magazine, Humble Arts, Getty Images, VII, and others.  This initiative, which we are calling LOOKbetween, is designed to showcase early-career talent and engage the presenting artists with media professionals on practices and trends influencing the direction of photography today.  We want to turn the traditional mentorship model on its head and let the established professionals hear what the next generation of photographers has to say.  Thank you to BD and National Geographic for supporting LOOKbetween. Each night will feature outdoor projections of work by the invited emerging photographers in attendance. Showcasing the work of these talented photographers is a main focus of the weekend. However, LOOKbetween is also designed to create networking opportunities and be a forum for the exchange of ideas between professionals and those early in their career. Saturday daytime will be devoted to discussion about important issues in photography.

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In addition to all the great imagery, Burn Magazine, Photocrati, and Luceo Images will all be announcing the winners of their grant competitions for emerging photographers. We’ll write a post about the event and the grant winners next week.

The Photocrati Fund offers $5000 grants to non-professional photographers to undertake important humanitarian and environmental photography projects. Our goal is to identify outstanding, up-and-coming photographers and give them the resources necessary to pursue projects that will have a tangible and positive effect on the world.

We will offer one grant in 2010. The application deadline is March 15, 2010, and the award will be announced in June 2010. Awardees become Photocrati Fellows for the calendar year from the announcement of their award until the announcement of the following year’s award.

Award decisions will be made by the Photocrati Fund Board, a prestigious panel that includes some of the world’s best-known environmental and cultural photographers.

Check It Out:
Announcing $5000 Photocrati Fund Grants

Contrasts: A dani man wears traditional body paint and decorations along with his sunglasses at the Baliem Festival.  Held every August in the Papuan highlands, the festival is a celebration of dani culture involving dances, competitions, and mock battles.

In addition to Photocrati, I’ve been working on another great project with a great group of wedding photographers. Some of the best and best-known wedding photographers in the world are working together to launch a new, invitation-only membership group for wedding photographers called Best of Wedding Photography. This will be the most selective group of wedding photographers in the world.

Membership invitations are based on peer-review. We’ve created an independent board including Crash Taylor, David Beckstead, David Ziser, Anna Kuperberg, Glen Johnson, Ben Chrisman, and Matt Adcock / Sol Tamargo from Del Sol Photography. If you pay attention to the world of wedding photography, you should recognize many of these names. Beckstead and Chrisman have both been named as the WPJA’s Photographer of the Year in various years. Five of these member have been named among the Top Ten Wedding Photographers in the World by American Photo in various years. Johnson has a best selling book on wedding photography and David Ziser, of course, runs a well-known workshop series in the US.

We believe this organization will change the landscape of the wedding photography industry and become one of the most sought after invitations among wedding photographers worldwide. Look for the launch some time in November.

I just wanted to let readers here know that Peter Burian (co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide and author of many of the Magic Lantern DSLR guides) has just published a review of the Sony A850. That’s one newsworthy camera. It’s the most affordable full-frame digital SLR on the marketing now, yet offers the highest available resolution on the market at 24.6 megapixels. Compare that to the D3X, which offers the same resolution but costs about $5000 more.

In any case, Peter’s review is one of the first full field test of the A850 out there. There are a few others, and you can see some at TestFreak’s Sony A850 page. It’s clear that Sony has made some dramatic advancements in it’s offerings for digital SLR enthusiasts over the last year or two. It makes me wonder if and when it would ever be possible for manufacturers like Sony, Olympus, or Pentax to challenge the behemoths, Nikon and Canon, in the digital SLR market.

“Small and compact, a good choice-if you don’t mind some compromises.

I’m not really sure that Canon knows exactly what to do with this camera. It seems simple enough, judging by weight and size, but is otherwise a complex tool with lots of oomph built in. If you’re looking to move up to a digital SLR without making a heavy investment or simply want an inexpensive and lightweight DSLR that you can tool around with on your next vacation, the Rebel T1i would be a good choice.

However, don’t buy this camera if you expect to use it extensively to shoot video-HD or otherwise, as you may be disappointed. Buy it as a still digital, and use the video capture as an adjunct feature to capture special moments when a camcorder isn’t handy….”

Along with the team over at Photocrati, as well as a couple teams of web designers, I contributed that insight to help design a new series of WordPress themes for photographers. I think these are now one of the best low-cost solutions on the market (I’m biased, of course). I’m not going to write a full review of the themes, since it’s hard to objectively review a product you’ve helped design. But I do want to talk about what some of the advantages are, and, yes, some of the disadvantages. I’m going to structure this like my other reviews.

Let me start by saying that we’ve converted this site and I’ve converted my own phojournalism site to the new Photocrati WordPress themes. Check them out here:

MORE INFORMATION | DEMO

OVERALL APPEARANCE

In my view, these templates are beautiful. They have just the look I like, which is a simple, elegant look that emphasizes the images. The rest of the site just kind of fades into the background. They use primarily whites, grays, and blacks for the background, which for me is less distracting from the images than greens/reds/oranges or other bright colors.

Let’s start with a few screenshots of the themes. Here they are:

They have the look of many flash sites, even though they are not flash. The home page is designed with one large image space that contains a flash-style slide show.  The gallery pages contain rows and columns of thumbnails, which I prefer to “filmstrip” style thumbnails that require you to scroll up/down or side/side to see all the thumbnails in a gallery.

I actually like the gallery look enough that I actually use a gallery as my home page on my new photojournalism site. Below a screen shot of my new homepage. It also shows you want the galleries generally look like (although you can customize those like everything else.

Grade: A

EASE OF USE

I’ve often noted that there is an almost direct trade off between Ease of Use and Flexibility. Designers of templates can make thing easier by limiting the number of options you have, or they can give you lots of options, which will complicate things.

WordPress has lots of options. You can do almost anything with it. One downside of that is that WordPress themes are very much do it yourself solutions. You need to set up your own domain, your own hosting, and install WordPress. If you are familiar with all that, it’s really not too complicated. You can do it all in a few minutes at sites like <a href=”http://www.BlueHost.Com/track/erickdan” target=”_blank”>Bluehost</a> that offer one-click installation of WordPress.

Once you’ve got your blog and you’ve got to fill it out, and make many of the layout decisions yourself. Again, this is great for flexibility, but less so if you are looking for a plug-and-play-and-don’t-worry-about-it kind of site.

That said, pound for pound, WordPress is known to be one of the easiest web platforms to learn, giving you a tremendous amount of flexibility for a relatively short learning curve. And once you know WordPress, it IS easy.

Grade: B

FLEXIBILITY OF DESIGN

If these themes have a learning curve for WordPress newcomers, then the payoff is incredible flexibility. There really is very little you CAN’T do with a WordPress site. You can change colors, fonts, layout. Add elements or take them away. Move elements around. Add text where you want it. Integrate with social media. You can even add a full-fledged forum or e-commerce shopping center to your site if you want to.

The WordPress community is huge, and there are thousands of plug-ins that allow you to do just about anything.

Grade: A

BLOGGING CAPABILITY

WordPress is the world’s most powerful blogging platform. Not much more to say.

Grade: A

E-COMMERCE FUNCTIONALITY

I mentioned just a paragraph or two that there are all kinds of E-Commerce plugin-ins that allow you to add full shopping capability to WordPress. So the potential is there.

But for the time being, these these don’t offer what many of us want, which is the ability to sell photos directly from our galleries. The Photocrati team is working on this, but doing it in a way that is simple and elegant is tough work.

So for the time being, unless you are a WordPress guru who can do it yourself with one of the E-Commerce plugins, then you are out of luck until the Photocrati team comes up with an easy method to do it.

Grade: D

COST AND FEE STRUCTURE

Again, it doesn’t really get any better. Right now the Photocrati themes are selling for $59 each – for lifetime rights to the themes any updates. Pay once, low price, and it’s yours for life. Most highly managed template solutions (Photobiz/PhotoShelter/etc) entail ongoing monthly payments ranging from low to very high.

Grade: A

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Once again, WordPress is widely known to have about the best SEO capability that it’s possible to have. It has an inherent advantage over managed flash solutions, because it is a powerful blogging engine. And search engines love blog-style content – it fits all the qualities that search algorithms look for and therefore does very well. That’s while small mom-and-pop blogs can compete on the front page of Google with major multinational corporations.

Grade: A

FREE TRIALS AND GUARANTEES

Photocrati offers a 30-day money back guarantee that entails sending one email requesting a refund. Easy enough.

Grade: A

CONCLUSION

So, as you can see above, the Photocrati themes are strong in almost every aspect. They have two weaknesses: they do not yet offer the ability to sell your images directly from your site, and there is a learning curve for users who are new to WordPress. The second weakness, however, goes hand-in-hand with overwhelming flexibility. The reason there’s a learning curve is that, with WordPress, you are in control, and you can do just about anything.

As of now, pound for pound, I think these are best low-cost solution on the market, and it competes effectively with some highly managed solutions that cost 10-20 times more.

OVERALL GRADE: A-

John Mitchell, who provides great tailored photo workshops in Australia.

Gregg Lowrimore, who does some great landscape and wildlife work in Colorado.

And to some businesses that support photographers and have supported DSLRBlog or Photocrati in various ways:

FrameFit.com, which has over 32 years of experience carrying picture frames, plexiglass, mat & foamboards, plus many other picture framing items.

Delmiaco Design Studio, which provides photoshop templates & digital backdrops that are professional, customizable, press ready.

Photogenic, one of America’s leading professional photographic lighting companies since 1904, specializing in electronic flash systems for professional and amateur image makers.

Photodex ProShow, software for making breathtaking photo & video slideshows for both DVD and web.

Profiles by Rick, whose custom ICC profiles provide a great, low-cost solution for photographers who want accurate color from their printers.

i2K Quickage Panorama Software for creating great panoramas, even with no tripod, on both Mac and Windows systems.

Diversified Lab – Pro Photo Lab, which has served professional photographers since 1977 with online proofs, printing, photofinishing, albums and more.

Denevi Digital Imaging Service, which provides High quality professional scanning and DVD transfer services, including Blu-ray for great prices.

Anyways, now that the flurry of changes is done on Photocrati, I can get back to sharing some business tips here. Up shortly: a review of Printroom.com online storefronts.

Thanks for the patience, Erick

The General Rule: If a photo of a person, or of copyrighted or trademarked property, is used to advertise something, then the publisher of the photo needs a release.

The Privacy Exception: If you are hired to take photos of someone (say a wedding or studio shot), those photos cannot be published, even editorially, without a release.

If you really understand those sentences, then you know almost all you need to know about the legal requirements of model releases. Most of this article elaborates on these sentences above to make sure each part of it is clear.

The General Rule for Photography Model Releases

The first thing to note is that, for the most part, only photos of people need releases. Contrary to popular belief, neither animals nor buildings nor other property require model releases, except in the specific case where the property is the subject of a copyright or trademark. That will come as a bit of a surprise to most people, who are used to hearing about property releases. It’s also a surprise to many property owners, who think their buildings or other property is protected. But it’s not, unless it’s trademarked or copyrighted.

Second, model releases are only needed if an image is used for advertising purposes. That is why pictures used for editorial purposes—textbooks, magazine articles, newspapers—don’t generally require model releases. Hence the old rule of thumb: commercial work requires a release while editorial work does not. The same rule applies to copyrighted or trademarked property: photos of copyrighted or trademarked property only need a release if used for advertising purposes.

Third, it is the publisher who is legally obliged to have a model release, not the photographer. For the most part, unless you lie and tell a publisher you have model release when you don’t, you are not legally responsible. Publishers of photos are responsible for knowing if a given use requires a release, and they are the ones who are legally responsible if they publish a photo without one. Of course, even if you are not legally responsible, it’s no good if one of your buyers gets in legal trouble due to one of your images. So you should have a basic understanding of the law, and you should communicate the exact release status of any images you license.

Note also that if you decide to self publish, then you become a publisher and are thus liable like any publisher.

Model Releases and Privacy

No legal discussion would be complete without an exception. If you are invited or hired to take pictures of someone, say for a wedding or studio shot, the resulting images are protected by privacy laws. You can’t sell those photos EVEN FOR EDITORIAL USES without a model release. Much like attorney-client privilege, the established relationship between you and the client creates a responsibility to safeguard privacy.

This can create a strange situation, because this responsibility applies even in public places where other people might take pictures of your clients at the same time. Since they don’t have an established relationship with your clients, they CAN sell their images editorially without a release while you can’t.

Model Release Summary

So let’s summarize. First, you (the photographer) don’t need model releases. Only the publishers of your photos need releases. And they need releases in three specific situations:  First, they are using a photo of a person to advertise something. Second, they are using a photo of copyrighted or tradedmarked property to advertise something. Third, they are publishing a photo of your clients, who hired you to take their photos.

Outside these situations, except for arcane situations you are unlikely to face, the buyers of your photos don’t need model release. And if they don’t, you don’t. Mostly.

An Alternative Answer: If Your Buyers Require a Model Release, You Need One

Whatever the legal requirements are, the simplest answer to the model release question is this: If your buyer requires a release, you need one. This is important because buyers often want releases even if they’re not necessary. Since they’re the ones who are liable, they take extra measure to protect themselves and remove even the possibility of a lawsuit.

So, Should You Obtain a Model Release?

Let’s say you’re traveling someplace and you taking photos of the people you see during your journey. Should you stop to get a release? If you have commercial clients, or you think you’ll want to sell the photo for commercial purposes, then it may be worthwhile to stop and get a release. If you do mostly editorial work, and the likelihood of commercial sale is low, then you should probably skip it. If you do stop to get a release, it will severely interrupt if not halt your shooting altogether, preventing you from getting all the other great shots you might have captured. And you’re not likely to need it anyway.

Recognize that there are armies of photographers who never get model releases. Most notably, photojournalists and press photographers who do editorial work rarely obtain releases.

The important point is that whether you obtain a model release is ultimately a business decision not a legal one. It affects which client you can sell to. Obtaining a model release can be valuable because it opens up the arena of commercial clients as potential buyers of your photos.

More Information

That is the shortest and most direct answer I can give for model releases. If you would like a longer and more detailed answer, I would strongly recommend reading Dan Heller’s guide to model releases. He’s written a good book on the subject, and almost the entire contents of the book are available on his website. It’s very thorough, and probably the only reference you’ll need on model release. If you want to more information on the book, click here: A Digital Photographer’s Guide to Model Releases: Making the Best Business Decisions with Your Photos of People, Places and Things.

Sample Release Forms

If you’ve decided you do want to get a signed model release form, you can find a list of sample forms at the National Press Photographer’s Association here.

We are now in the process of going through ALL our articles and reorganzing them into sensible, easy-to-find categories. All the content should be reorganized within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, please pardon the dust on the sidebar!

Thanks.

Erick

Here are the basics: 15.1MP, HD video capture (full 1080p HD video recording at 20fps), a DIGIC 4 Imaging Processor, 3.4 fps for up to 170 large/fine JPEG images or up to nine RAW images in a single burst, ISO speeds up to 3200 in whole stop increments (plus H1: 6400 and H2: 12800), a 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA). The camera comes with Canon’s Auto Lighting Optimizer, Creative Auto Mode and Live View.

The T1i is scheduled for delivery by early May and will be sold in a body-only configuration for $799.99 and in a kit version with Canon’s EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS zoom lens at an estimated retail price of $899.99.

Initial Reactions to Canon Digital Rebel T1i / 500D

Joe Decker, a Photocrati contributor, talks about implications of the 500D / Digital Rebel T1i the “narrowing” of the market for digital slr cameras, and how the increased power and resolution of “entry” level cameras may soon reduce the size of the market for flagship pro models.

Digital Photography Preview says “this is most of a 50D stuffed into the familiar 450D body.”

Camera Labs says: “if the Beta unit’s quality holds up, … the Canon Rebel T1i’s image quality is at least as good as the Canon 50D, delivering more detail than most of the 12-megapixel cameras on the market for less money.”

Both the DPreview and Camera Labs comments above are based on preliminary use of beta models, so it’s a bit early to tell what the verdict will be. But it’s clear this is intended to be Canon’s new flagship model at the lower end of the market, and that it will be popular camera.

Making a living in photography is hard. There is a big difference between an occasional sale, and actually making enough money to live—to pay your mortgage, health insurance (since you are self employed), business expenses, and all your other daily expenses. Depending on your living standards, you may need $50,000 or $100,000 or more in net income to maintain the living standard you want. That’s a lot of photos.

Yet this site is about making the full transition to being a pro photographer, not about making a few sales. And it IS possible to make it as a full-time photographer. That’s the good news.

So how do you do it? In my view, the key to making it as a full time photographer lies in establishing multiple streams of income. If you are truly, honestly determined to make it as a freelance photographer, then this is probably the most important advice you need to take to heart. The key to freeing yourself to shoot full time lies in establishing multiple streams of income.

What do I mean by multiple streams of income?

I like to distinguish between “primary” and “secondary” income from a photography business. Primary income comes directly from the work you do as a photographer. It includes selling prints, licensing images to editorial photo buyers, working with stock photography agencies, doing assignments relevant to your niche, and doing event photography.

Secondary income comes from photography-related activities that don’t entail actually taking or selling images. This includes income from workshops, article and book writing, web advertising, and other sources. You need to diversify in both of these senses–expanding the ways you make money from traditional photography activities, as well as expanding by finding secondary sources of income that are only indirectly related to your photography.

Diversify Your Primary Income from Photography

You need to be active in all different aspects of the photography business. Sell images directly to magazines, publishers, or other buyers. Sell images through one or more different stock photography agencies. Sell prints, either through your website or at exhibitions. Obtain assignments—whether commercial assignments, editorial assignments, or weddings and similar events. Indeed, given how lucrative weddings are, I would say that most professional photographers shoot at least some weddings to supplement their incomes.

The point is  that you need to be willing to do as much diverse work as possible. If this sounds contradictory to other advice on this site or others—for example, finding your niche—then it is, but only a little. Having a niche and establishing diverse streams of income are compatible.

Let’s say you shoot agricultural photography. You can sell directly to magazines or publishers specializing in rural or agricultural topics. You can sell either your photos or services (assignments) to commercial farms, commodity trading companies, or state agricultural agencies. You can sell photos through stock agencies. You can sell your beautiful farm landscapes as fine art prints from your website.

If you decide to shoot a few weddings per year, then it’s true that this diverts from your niche. You may not want to incorporate that work into your image as a photographer, or include references to your wedding work on your website. But unless you are already established a high-powered photographer living off assignments with major magazines or corporations (and if you were, you probably wouldn’t be reading this), then you SHOULD shoot weddings and events as a way to enhance your income. Even as a part time activity designed to support your main photographic activities, income weddings and other events can often match income from your core photographic work.

Diversify Your Secondary Income from Photography-Related Sources

So far, I’ve focused entirely on making money from your photography—that is, by selling either your photos or your services as a photographer. Now, I want to push  one step further. I think you also need to establish streams of income based on activities related to your photographic work, but that don’t just entail selling images and photographic services.

What I am I talking about here? Well, think about the professional photographers you’ve heard of or read about. In addition to their photographic work, they sell books, write magazine articles to accompany their images, conduct workshops, and provide other services to would be photographers.

For many photographers, magazine writing, book royalties, workshop fees, web businesses, and other such apparently peripheral activities often account for a large percentage of total income. This is one of the aspects—one might say “secrets”—of the photography business that often eludes enthusiasts who think about making the transition.

Sometimes these secondary projects can be quite large. The well-known photographer Ron Engh maintains a website, Photosource International, that provides a forum for interaction between photographers and photo buyers. Photographers put portfolio’s of images on his site, and he sends out lists of photo buyer requests to photographers who pay a fee for this useful service.

The web has provided an important medium for such “peripheral” activities. A case in point is this site, which not only provides some supplemental income, but synergistically works to promote my photography services.

The possibilities for secondary income are endless. You can provide graphic design services to the general public or photoshop services to other photographers. You can venture into video work, where the competition is less intense. You can start your own mini-stock agency, using your site to host images from other photographers who do similar work to you. You market their images to buyers or as prints in exchange for a percentage of sales.

This way of making money from your photography business is limited only by your creativity. The ability to find and take advantage of such opportunities is one reason that entrepreneurial instincts and business knowledge are as important to you as your photographic income.

Add Income from Non-Photography Sources

Finally, to all the photography and photography-related sources of income above, we must add one more category. You should seriously consider trying to establish or take advantage of sources of income entirely outside of photography.

In many books by pro photographers, the authors joke that one thing you need to make it as a professional photographer is family wealth or a working spouse. Actually, they’re not joking.

Although we can’t know for sure, I would venture that many well-known photographers had substantial wealth to draw on to ease the transition to full time photography. With out such wealth, it is hard to accumulate the tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that most pros own. It’s equally difficult to find the time to accumulate the tens of thousands of images needed to make a living.

If your spouse works, especially at a job that pays well and includes health care, then you have a major advantage. You could, conceivably, focus all your time on developing your image library and marketing your photos without threatening the well-being of your family. It gives you the time and space to build your photography business.

In the absence of accumulated wealth or a working spouse, you should consider putting in place other ways of generating non-photography income. I would like to say that, at this point, we are departing from the scope of this site. But really, we’re not. This is a practical guide to making it as a freelance photographer, and this is an important issue. So let’s take brief look at it.

In the realm of non-photography income, what you need is not just another source of income that requires you to trade labor for earnings. Working another job, while it is another source of income in the short term, inhibits your ability to make a complete transition to photography. This is because all the time you spend working your job is time not spent on your photography. And in most cases, that’s a lot of time.

That said, if you have the capacity to work as a part-time consultant in whatever industry you currently work in, that may be an option for alternative income. Unlike regular full time work, consulting can be arranged on a part-time or seasonal basis, thereby creating more time for your photography.

Ideally, however, you need what is often called passive or automated income. Let’s say you own a piece of real estate on which someone pays you rent. While the management of that property may take some time, it’s relatively small compared to the income provided (and the management can be delegated to someone else). In this case, you receive monthly income that based on your invested capital rather than your invested labor.

For that reason, real estate is one of the most common forms of semi-passive income. That is one reason it is usually an important part of investment strategies for wealthy people and for those trying to be wealthy.

The point here is not to encourage you to go into real estate, but rather to get you thinking about ways to establish streams of income that require less of your labor time, and free up more time for photography. As with photography-related activities above, the only limit on your non-photography income is your creativity. And as with above, this is another reason that entrepreneurial and business sense is as important to you as your photographic talent.

If you have the mind to digest and act on these business concepts, then I would strongly encourage you to read more on the subject. There are great resources out there for how to build wealth and automated income.

To sum up the point of this post, if you really, honestly want to make it as professional photographer (and you are not ALREADY there), you need develop multiple streams of income based directly on your photography, but also on photography-related activities, and possibly on sources entirely outside of photography that require less time than your current job.

You should try to sell you photos through as many different channels as possible (magazines, publishers, stock agencies, fine art prints, exhibitions), to obtain commercial assignments from local businesses, and to shoot weddings and other events when the chance arises. You should develop a great website, and think of ways (like this site or Photosource International) to use it to generate extra income. You should consider writing magazine articles to accompany your images, or even writing a book. You should, in short, look for any available opportunity to leverage your photographic knowledge and the rest of your existing skill set for additional income.

DSLRBlog is now under new management, and it is being transferred to a guy I know you are going to love, Erick Danzer.

Long time readers will have noted that I have been letting the writing responsibilities slide. I just haven’t had time to give this site the attention it deserves, and Erick, as well as being a great writer, is actually an expert photographer. I am sure you are now in much better hands!

That said, Erick has told me I am welcome to come back and inflict my bad snaps and worse grammar on you any time, so you haven’t seen the back of me for good

Thanks for taking on our baby Erick, I am certain you will take good care of her!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/balakov/sets/72157602602191858/

In the process of starting SLR Geek, I collected a long list of SLR and PHOTOGRAPHY domain names. Despite the fact that some of them are competitive with SLR Geek and here with DSLRBlog, I don’t want to sit or squat on them, so I’ve put them up for sale, here and on SEDO. Here is a list of all the domain names currently for sale, along with the prices. Note that prices on SEDO are higher due to fees charged by SEDO on any sale. So you’d be better to buy them directly from me.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at erick@erickdanzer.com.

DOMAIN NAMES

$349

www.slrreport.com
www.slrblogger.com
www.slrbuzz.com
www.slrspot.com
www.slrsupermarket.com
www.slrwarehouse.com
www.bestslrs.com
www.photographymonster.com
www.freelancefieldguide.com
www.freelancephotoguide.com

$99

www.slraddict.com
www.theslrreview.com
www.theslrstore.com
www.thefreelancephotographer.net
www.slr-report.com
www.slr-review.com
www.slr-reviews.com
www.slr-guide.com
www.slr-pro.com
www.slr-guru.com
www.slr-blog.com
www.slr-blogger.com
www.slr-buzz.com
www.slr-addict.com
www.slrenthusiast.com
www.theslrblog.com
www.theslrblogger.com
www.theslraddict.com
www.theslrguide.com
www.theslrguru.com
www.theslrpro.com
www.theslrenthusiast.com
www.slr-enthusiast.com
www.slrreport.net
www.slraddict.net
www.slrblogger.net
www.slrbuzz.net
www.slrenthusiast.net
www.slrspace.net
www.slrspot.net
www.slrstuff.net
www.slrsupermarket.net
www.slruniverse.net
www.slrwarehouse.net

$49

www.slr-addict.net
www.slr-blog.net
www.slr-blogger.net
www.slr-buzz.net
www.slr-enthusiast.net
www.slr-guide.net
www.slr-guru.net
www.slr-pro.net
www.slr-report.net
www.slr-review.net
www.slr-reviews.net
www.thedigitalslr.net
www.review-monster.net
www.theslrguide.net
www.digitalslrblog.net
www.theslrblog.net
www.theslrblogger.net
www.theslraddict.net
www.theslrenthusiast.net
www.theslrguru.net
www.theslrpro.net
www.theslrreview.net
www.theslrstore.net

The resource directory is a way to connect you, our readers, with the best companies providing goods and services for photographers. To be clear, the listings in our directory are paid, so the directory is an advertising medium. But it is advertising the way it’s supposed to be – a legitimate effort to connect people who can mutual benefit from the interaction.

To make the directory genuinely useful, I do my best to link only to reputable companies with good service histories. So the directory is kind of like a better business bureau of photography-related companies. To get in, they have to be in good standing and stay in good standing.

I have not personally used all the companies in the directory. For those I haven’t used, I do research and basic due diligence online, looking for reviews, forum discussion threads, and other indicators of performance.

If you use any the companies in the directory, please feel free to let me know if you have particularly good or bad experience.

For Companies

If you are interested in being listed in the directory, feel free to contact me at erick@erickdanzer.com. This site currently receives about 7000 unique visitors per month, and that traffic level is on a sharp upward curve since I took this site over a couple months ago and gave it some fresh breath and a more focused emphasis on aspiring professionals. As noted above, I only list companies that I can feel morally comfortable with. If that’s you, this arrangement is a good thing because my blog readers are more likely to use your service than they would be in the case of “normal” online advertising. The fee for a listing on our main directory page is $24 / year, just enough to help offset the costs of running the site. The price for our “featured” listings on the sidebar vary and will be rising sharply over the next couple of months as traffic increases, so please contact me for details.

Please note that I will soon be offering a similar service on Photocrati, a collaborative pro photographer blog of which I am editor. Photocrati is a relatively new blog (just a few months old), but boasts some great talent (including, for example, Peter Burian, co-author of the National Geographic Photography Field Guide) and is already on its way to 20,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views in May 2009. We expect to surpass 100,000 page views in June, and half a million page views by the end of this year. Advertising on both Photocrati and DSLRBlog will expose you to a broad swath of serious photographers online.

Of late I have noticed many “serious” photographers claiming that they don’t do weddings and children. I even found myself removing a few flickr contacts last week because of this reason.

Let me explain my reasoning.

As a photographer I have covered many events, I have been on stage with the courteeners at a gig in front of 5,000 people, I have photographed features for magazines with bands such as the view and the Enemy and I have had the pleasure of meeting some amazing people (some I would class as personal heroes).

Now this all may sound like gratuitous name dropping, my partner and children will confirm I will quite happily name drop at will (don’t get my better half started on the email I received from Katie from the Ting Tings complete with a kiss), however it does serve a purpose. As much as working in this kind of environment is a bit of a buzz and quite exciting, it completely pails into insignificance when you compare it the stress and planning that is required for a wedding event.

During set pieces for photoshoot you can plan everything to the last detail, you are in control of the environment, the lighting and the people. When it comes to a wedding you need also need to be in control of your environment, however there are crucial key moments that you get one “pop” at. If you miss the bride and father coming down the isle or the you “may kiss the bride” moment then that’s it, it’s gone forever, you can’t stage a moment like that so the pressure is on. Couple this factor with the low level of light in the church and the fact that using flash within the service (from my perspective) would be completely disrespectful, then you are left with a pretty hard gig to cover.

So getting back to my point, to criticise photographers who cover weddings and children and to question their credibility in my view is ludicrous. Maybe these “artists” should stop taking self portraits in whacky situations, step up to the mark and take on a real challenge

Here’s a couple of short quotes to wet your appetite…

“It’s a romantic story,” she says. “Can you imagine? Being young, being on the road with the Rolling Stones, doing everything, and holding on tight to my camera.”

“I sometimes find the surface interesting. To say that the mark of a good portrait is whether you get them or get the soul — I don’t think this is possible all of the time,” she says. “Could you imagine trying to get the soul every day?”

I highly suggest you give a listen, or at least check out the NPR article for some highlights.

Reporters Without Borders and the Burma Media Association are outraged by the two-year sentence passed today on Ein Khaing Oo, a 24-year-old woman journalist employed by the weekly Ecovision Journal, for taking photos of Cyclone Nargis victims. She was arrest in Rangoon last June.

“This unjust sentence comes amid a wave of unprecedented sentences for journalists and activists,” the two organisations said. “We appeal to Burma’s military authorities to free Ein Khaing Oo, whose only crime was to cover the humanitarian disaster in the Irrawaddy delta.”

This is an insane story. Hot on the heels of the UK cracking down on cops harassing photographers for doing nothing wrong, there are countries which take this stuff to the extreme. And it just keeps getting worse too.

Another journalist, Zaw Thet Htwe, and a blogger, Zarganar, are also being held for helping Nargis victims.

Not only does this sort of thing show a complete lack of respect for humans rights (among other things), there really isn’t much that can be done from the outside beyond pushing for political pressure.

There have been so many such arrests in Burma that there has been a website created to be a central source of information about the victims of these arrests, protests, petitions, etc. You can find that at www.fbppn.net.

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