Read and Learn About the Business of Photography
I had a custom blog built and I am so happy. You can read all about it on my new blog
I totally encourage blog stalkers, so be sure to set it up in your regular blog feeder, whatever that might be. you can always visit my old blog to check out my “old” work. But, I wont be updating it anymore.
Cheers,
Jerry
I used my Boda Bag for the first time at a wedding this weekend in Temecula. WOW! What a cool bag.
This is the Boda on body.
This is the Boda on Hottie… 
Initially, I thought I’d just use this bag for portriat shoots. But, it turned out to be a nice wedding bag too. Here’s what I had in my Boda bag: I had 2 camera bodies on me, each with a lens. So, most of the day I had my 35mm on one body, and the 85mm on another. So, then in the bag I had my 24mm, 50mm, and 100mm Macro lens. I also had 2 580EX flashes, extra batteries for everything, my cell phone, business cards, an extra battery pack for the flashes, and all my CF cards. Because I am shying away from zooms these days, I had tons of extra room left. I could have easily fit another lens or two.
I wore it around my waist most of the day, and took it off for the reception, once I felt things were safe and secure. Although, this was a unique situation and I would not recommend this.
Two huge thumbs up for the Boda bag. You can read all about it here: Boda. If you wind up buying one, tell them you heard about it here. I am not in any way associated with them, I just love the product.
Cheers,
Jerry
The Digital Wedding Forum. Check it out. For $99 per year, it’s a steal.
See you there!
Jerry Frazier
Frazier Photography
This is another post on stealing, but in a different way. It’s a known fact that in Southern California, photographers are getting their equipment jacked left and right.
Here’s a thief taking some equipment which was caught on the hotel camera, but the theif was never caught: http://www.andrenaphoto.com/DWF2007/jaytheft.jpg
Here’s a video about theft: http://cbs11tv.com/video/?id=18845@ktvt.dayport.com&cid=7
They dress up in black and hang around the reception looking like a guest. When the photographer turns away, they take the bag and walk out.
In case a bride is reading this too, here’s another video on a thief taking the wedding cards left by guests. Guard your gifts, your purses, all bags, and anything of value. I know it sucks, but that’s the reality. Wedding have become a target for theives. http://cbs2.com/video/?id=46519@kcbs.dayport.com
It’s becoming somewhat of an epidemic. What’s the solution?
Always keep everything on you at all times. Buy a newswear chestvest or belt system, or a Think Tank belt system (this is what I have) and keep everything on you at all times. If you don’t like doing that, hire an assistant to babysit your equipment all day and night. Their job is to never ever let anything out of their sight. Not even for one second.
Make sure your insurance is up to date. You can get insurance through WPPI. WPPI cost $99 per year, and through this membership, you can get insurance through Hill & Usher. It costs around $500/year or so. Or, you can join PPA and they have coverage through your membership with them. PPA is good because they also have attorney’s service amoung other things.
Lastly, if anyone has any slick ideas on how to solve this problem, I’d love to hear it. I know they make GPS phones that you can throw in your bag. This would possibly help retrieve your equipment after it’s stolen. But, I don’t want it to get to that point. It’s too much of a hassle.
When I take a bag, and I’m not using my Think Tank belt, I bought a $20 bike lock, and I lock my bag to something once I am at the reception. However, apparently, these theives are taking stuff out of the bags and walking off with cameras and lenses. So, you have to fully protect everything. Having everything on your person seems to be the best solution overall.
Update: A link to Dina Douglass about this problem. She did a great job describing the situation.
I realized when I switched from film to digital, that the main place that I spent my time was in front of a computer screen. What kind of life is that for a photographer? So, I started thinking that I wanted to spend the absolute minimum time doing work on my weddings and portraits. I worked hard to create my workflow, but it works well for me now. I edit a wedding in a couple of hours now. It used to take me weeks.
First of all, here are the tools I use. Keep in mind that there are many tools out there you can use. These are just my tools of choice. Also, keep in mind that I am constantly revising my workflow, so it changes often.
My Tools: Downloader Pro, BreezeBrowser, and Photoshop CS3. I use a PC with Windows XP, a 19″ monitor, and a 24″ monitor. I calibrate my monitors using BasIColor.
The first thing I do is I open Dowloader Pro and I download all my cards onto my PC. I start a folder with the clients names on it, and download all the images into this folder.
Then, I rename all the images in sequence so that the first image starts with 101.
I backup all the images onto 2 500 GB external hard drives.
I also burn all the images onto a set of DVD’s
Typically, I do this work the day after a wedding. If I have muti-day weddings, or back-to-back weddings, I’ll do this at night when I get home.
Once the back-up and burning is all done, I can relax because I have a copy on the cards, a copy on 2 external hard drives, and a copy on a set of DVD’s. That’s 4 full copies. I feel relatively safe, at that point. The devistation of losing someones wedding images is just unfathomable to me, so I am extra, extra safe. I use to make another copy and store them off site, in case my places burns down or I am robbed or something horrible happens. It’s a very good idea. But, out of laziness, I stopped doing that. Now that I am writing this, I think I’ll start up again.
I then start going though the images using Breezebrowser (BB) and I put a check mark on all the ones I like. I do this very, very quickly. I let my instincts take over. I don’t think at all. I just fly through and check what I like without thinking about it at all.
Once I’m done with tagging the keepers, I sort them so all the keepers are at the top. I look at the thumbnails, and think about the story, and make sure that there are no gaps. Sometimes, I’ll be missing a few shots, because they are not great shots, but I need them to tell the story, so I’ll put a few back in.
Once I have that all worked out, I then delete all the ones that didn’t make the cut.
Then, I open up Bridge in Photoshop and I select all the images and start the process of adjusting white balance, exposure, contrast, and make black and whites. This process takes the longest, but is pretty quick for me because I work very quickly. My goal is to shoot as correctly as possible in camera so that this post work is mostly minimal. This probably takes me about 2 to 3 hours max. For really tough lighting situations, it may take me a bit longer, as more adjustment are required. But, my concept is that this process is really just a proofing process. So, I don’t worry about anything being perfect. I just want it to be close. Remember that you really don’t want to do a bunch of work on things that probably no one will ever buy. When people order prints and albums, you can then go in and add some tweaking. But, too much work on images is a waste of your time. So, just get close, keeping speed and efficiency in mind.
Once this is done, I batch process everything to jpeg and I’m done.
Once the batching is done, I upload the images to an online gallery, send the password to the client.
Then, I make a DVD of the RAW keepers, and the jpegs.
I copy the jpegs over to another internal HD, and to an external HD.
I delete the client folder, and call it a day.
I can typically shoot on Saturday, back up on Sunday, and upload to the galleries by Monday. I typically take Sunday off once everything is backed up and safe.
There is one other option that I haven’t discussed. Many photographers these days are outsourcing their proofing. This means that they send out the images to a company and pay to have everything done for them. I tried this for a little while, and didn’t care for the process too much. I am too picky about how I want my images to look, and it just didn’t work for me. But, I do know alot of photographers who are doing this with great success. Two companies who do outsourcing are Raw Pudding and Lavalu. Brian and Mike are both great guys, and are excellent photographers too. So, if you simply want to get a life back and don’t want to do all this work, you can send it out to them. Be sure to tell them where you heard about their services. Also, you can simply use these service once in a while, if you are lucky enough to get super busy and you need some relief.
In order to get where I’ve gotten, I used to keep a log of my steps while I was working. I would use it like a check list. I would also revise it on the fly as I was working. Step by step I would go through everything, and I would have ideas on how to cut various steps as I would work. It worked really well for me.
Have fun, don’t get too bogged down. Shoot right in camera, spend as little time as possible on the computer, and enjoy taking pictures.
Cheers,
Jerry Frazier
With the advent of the internet came instant access to many things that you would not have had access to normally. It’s a good and bad thing.
As photographers, it’s good that we can display our work for the world to see. But, the bad side is theft. Sometimes photographers who are starting out will copy websites. Sometimes, they will go so far as to take the words and even the images and use them as their own. This is blatent theft and is horrible. A photographer lives and dies by the images they create. If they are like me, which most are, they spend an incredible amount of time choosing their words carefully, picking colors and fonts and things that will elegantly display their image to the buying public. A website, and the carefully chosen images are all part of an overall marketing campaign too. It’s all packaged and designed for that specific photographer.
Beside the fact that the photographers stuff is totally and completely designed for their own way of selling and marketing, it’s really stupid and pathetic to steal. DON’T DO IT.
Another reason that this sucks is that you are misrepresenting yourself to your clients. Your clients are paying you money based on what you are presenting to them. You are lying to your clients who are paying you money and trusting you. That is just despicable.
Lastly, as a creative individual, it doesn’t even make sense to copy other peoples stuff. Come up with your own ideas, shoot your own photos, and take pride in what you do. Everyone will love you for it 
