Category Archives: General

General, Photography

The Photography Show 2017

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The Photography Show 2017 was something of a different experience for me than last year. Last year I was part of a team working the show, and this year it was essentially just me.

I got to hang out with many wonderful friends and colleagues, some of whom I haven’t seen since Photokina. But, as far as DIYP was concerned, I was flying solo.

I arrived on Friday evening and came back home after the show ended on Tuesday, and it was non-stop the whole time. We stayed in the worst hotel in Birmingham, but it was still the best show to date for me.

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General, Photography

TPS 2016 Roundup, and apparently I’m a model

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I’d planned to post something within a day or two of arriving back home after the show, but you know how it is, real life gets in the way.

Eventually, so long had passed that I figured there wasn’t much point posting about it, but now things are getting caught up and today’s tutorial by Dracorubio (more on that later) has given me an excuse to jot something down.

I want to keep this brief, and non-rambly, so first, let me say that the show was amazing, much better (and bigger) than I’d expected it to be.  I hadn’t been to the new and rebranded show since it was launched shortly after the demise of Focus on Imaging.

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General, Photography

It’s getting to be that time of year again

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After 5 or 6 months of almost non-stop rain, we’ve finally started to see some breaks in the clouds the last couple of weeks and had one or two days of rather lovely sunshine.

That means it’s time to get out of the studio and back on location!

DSC_5831

Throughout the year, even when I’m not actively shooting on location, I’m always looking for new places to photograph clients, models and other subjects.  It’s just something I tend to naturally do when I’m out travelling somewhere.

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General

Do Your Research When Hiring Freelancers

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Whether it’s a photographer, a programmer or any other type of freelancer, do your research, and make sure you get the right person for the job.

While most of us will never work on projects with such expensive, devastating and controversial implications as those shown in the video below, it demonstrates the point of finding people who know what they’re doing.

Don’t risk just accepting the cheapest bid, and yes, there may be a lot of folks out there who may even offer to do it for free, but if they don’t even value their own abilities, why should you?

Look at work they’ve done in the past, sometimes it may even be possible to get references from previous clients, especially if they use sites like Freelancer.com.

Most reputable freelancers will tell you if they don’t think they can do the job you’re asking of them and will often suggest somebody they know who can as an alternative.  They value their reputation too much to risk screwing up a job they know they can’t do.

Cover Image : ‘Research’ by Neil Conway
Used under CC BY 2.0 License.

General

F*ck you, pay me

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“I’m sorry, we just don’t have the budget to pay you”, says the multi-million £/$ company, “but it’ll be good exposure for you!”

I see things like this pop up in my Facebook feed quite regularly from folks who’ve received random emails from individuals and companies asking them to work for free and they choose to quote them before ridiculing them on their public timelines.

Then somebody usually posts this link (or rather, a copy of it hosted somewhere else claiming it as a genuine email exchange – yup, folks, it’s pure fiction).

http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html

It’s funny, sure, but not the way to win people over you actually want to pay you for what you do.

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Work Hard or Work Smart?

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This post is the consequence of a conversation I had yesterday evening with my sister, chatting to her about the upcoming South Lakes Interclub Photography Competition, and how the whole thing works.

But it is also kind of the point I was attempting to make on my previous post about fixing things in Photoshop that you could’ve resolved at the time of shooting (well, one of the points I was trying to make).

In previous years, we’d remained at the venue (as a competing team, not as host) until at least 11pm usually (once past midnight – after which we had to make an hour and a half drive back home) due to waiting for technological hiccups to be overcome so that we could continue, but last year was different.

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General

I’ve been quiet this month…

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January was awesome, a super busy month, but I also had a lot to talk about, and a lot that I could talk about, and enough time to talk about it.

February’s been even busier, but most of what I’d love to show off, I can’t talk about (damn those NDAs and that whole “privacy” thing).

I’ve been getting a fair bit of shooting done this month, and I’ve also started working on a rather large web app project – which, again, I can say nothing about.

This all sounds a little like one of those “look at me, I’m begging for attention and some recognition for how awesome I am!” posts you see all too often on Facebook these days, but that really is not my intent.

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