Having Your Photo Used

I can take pictures all day, but until someone uses them they aren't worth much.  One of my favorite things about being a photographer is seeing your photos used.  It is always rewarding when you get to see one of your images in print or on a website.

A photo of mine that was recently put into use in a simple manner was for Ethan Hutchinson, a furniture designer.  I originally photographed Ethan for Luxe Magazine and he contacted me after the shoot to see if he could use the photos.  The magazine always has exclusive use for a period of time, but after that expired we touched base again.  I let him use the photo in exchange for a model release allowing me to use the photos.  This was mutually beneficial because it gave me stock photography to use of a furniture designer in his workshop.  Not what I typically have in my stock library.

He used the photo on his new web site...

Portrait & Lifestyle Photos of Skaters

I've been working on building up my portfolio of lifestyle images and trying to capture some imagery for my stock library. I contacted Greg, the first person I photographed as part of the Afro Project, to get some skaters together. He is a sponsored skateboarder and I thought it would be great to photograph him and a few of his skater friends.  Greg was able to get four people together and we shot at an underpass covered in graffiti and another area with some old brick warehouses.

I always get nervous before a shoot and this one was no exception. I am always worried that I am going to get all these people together and essentially waste everyone's time. Thank goodness that once I am shooting that worry goes away every time!  I have essentially decided that the nervousness is a good thing because it keeps me on my toes and make me work hard to get results.  As a photographer, we base our reputation and career off of getting results every time.  You won't get much work if word gets around that you didn't come through with the goods for a client.  So I guess I'm saying "be nervous".  It can only help.

Working with Greg and the other skaters turned into a great time and I got some imagery that I will be proud to put into my portfolio. Here are a few of the images...

 

Photographing a "First Person" Point of View

Photographing from a "first person" point of view sounds easy doesn't it?  That's what we are doing every time that we take a picture ourselves.  Now what if that first person point of view had to be from another person's perspective?  Not so easy.

This is what I was asked to do earlier this week for Stockshop.com.  They are a stock agency that I shoot for and they had a client request a first person viewpoint of someone spinning a child around and riding a bike and they needed it to them within 24 hours.  I said "Sure, I can do that" and asked my family to help out (which I owe them dearly for).

Once we got started, I quickly figured out that it wasn't going to be very easy.  The only way I could get pictures of my wife, Kelly, spinning my son, Landon, around was to hug her... put the camera near her neck...have her spin Landon while I spun with her.  All of this while trying to take pictures in focus and with motion blur, which required a slower shutterspeed than normal, when I couldn't look thru the lens.  Needless to say, we all got dizzy everytime as well!  I'm sure we were quite the sight to see in the park that morning.

The next shot was riding a bicycle from the same viewpoint.  We decided that the best way was for me to hug my arms around Kelly while holding the camera near her neck again and run with her while she pedaled.  Again, it was very challenging to pull all the elements together and after getting my feet run over a couple times, we finally got the shot.

I want to thank Kelly for getting up at 6am on her day off so we could go to the park to get the photos. Love you hon!

Here are three of the images I ended up providing.

New Stock Photography Contracts

I shoot quite a bit of photography in addition to my client work.  This tends to be true especially when I travel.  Over the past few years I have built up a pretty large library of images. So far I have been attempting to sell these photos myself with mixed results using PhotoShelter.  I have made a few sells over the past few months, but it is hard if you don't have the time/money to really market your collection.  With this in mind I decided to seriously pursue trying to get contracts with a couple stock agencies.

I recently signed a contract with StockShop, who are based in Boston, to represent a large part of my library.  I have been in the process of providing them with imagery that they have requested to add to there catalog of images.  It is a very interesting process since I haven't worked with an agency previously, but I'm looking forward to the opportunities.

I have also been working hard on photography of people in the past couple years.  I have been doing a lot of self-assignment work trying to build up my skills and fill in the gaps in time between client work.  I also recently signed a contract with Masterfile, a stock agency based in Toronto, to represent my people and lifestyle work.  It is a great opportunity for me to creat potentially paying work when I am between clients.  I am also hoping that some of my client work will be able to be repurposed as stock.

Hopefully with these two new relationships you'll start seeing my photography popping up in places all over the world!