Consumer Quartet

How stacked is your photo album? Are you keeping it updated as the years go by? Remember, you won’t ever get them back. It’s probably time to start preserving those special times. When I flip open an old photo album and glance through the variety of black and white photos from my parents’ childhood, I am simply amazed.

For some reason it’s hard to remember our parents were children once too. We only know them as the adults they have become. I want my children to be able to do the same thing with me one day. So far my wife and I have accumulated around a dozen photo albums. We have two or three of them made up of black and white photos.

Some people actually prefer black and white photos since they tend to hide imperfections a little better. However, now days the digital cameras are so widespread and simple. So many photos are taken and downloaded to our laptops. This is much less expensive if you don’t print them out.

Do you take a lot of pictures? Well, if the answer is no, then you should start. Pictures are the keys to great memories. I noticed that I did not start taking oodles of photos until I had my first child. Suddenly, I wanted to preserve every single pose. Some of my favorites are black and white photos.

These old-school pictures have a certain presence all their own. It’s almost like they show a deeper emotion. There’s something to be said about the lack of color. It allows us to see beyond the mere cosmetic factor. This is why my wife and I love to shoot plenty of black and white photos of our children and family.

In this modern world of color, it’s rather hard to come by classic black and white photos anymore. If you’ve not dabbled in this area of photography, I suggest that you at least give it a shot.

Get some great black and white photos of your family and loved ones. If you would like a preview of some extraordinary black and white photos, you can always surf the web and find a spectrum to choose from.

The quality is not lost in black and white photos, it’s merely the color. After dealing with both sides of the coin, I don’t think I will ever prefer color pictures over black and white photos.

Get some great black and white photos of your family and loved ones black and white photos of your family and loved ones.

Sometimes you need to see a wider view of things. For this you will need a wide-angle lens. Don’t worry about terminology such as “angle of view” and “lens elements”, just accept that the shorter the focal length (the number in mm that a lens has) the wider the scene in front of you will appear.

So a 50mm lens is “wider” than a 100mm one. But true wide-angle lens starts at about 55mm down to about 20mm (or their digital equivalents).

Wide-angle lenses have three great properties. First, they enable a wide view of the scene ahead which is great for landscapes where you want to create a sense of openness and scale. Secondly, they have a greater depth of field at any one aperture than longer lenses. Thirdly, they increase perspective so things disappearing into the distance appear large in the foreground and quickly tapering off into the background.

This makes for great pictures. They are useful not just for landscapes but can enhance closer subjects especially those with strong perspectives and lines. You can also feel that you are getting more intimate with certain subjects because the wide angle can let you get closer than you would with normal lenses. Taking pictures in confined spaces - for example room interiors - is easier with wideangle lenses.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.

Photographs of wildlife, flowers, birds, reptiles, snowfall, landscapes, sunsets and other sceneries are often used as stock photographs. Stock photography is photography that is used by a number of people for a number of reasons. One person - usually the person who took the photo - gets paid each time someone buys the rights to it. Nature photography is in great demand among publishers, artists, graphic and web designers, book publishers, greeting card companies and others for web design and publishing their websites, books and greeting cards. Nature stock photographers can earn good money selling nature stock photographs, as some of them fetch a very high price.

For assignment photographs of nature, a customer has to hire a photographer and send him/her to a particular destination to shoot images. This can be very expensive because it not only involves the price of the photographs but the photographer’s out-of-pocket expenses as well. Instead, a customer can opt for nature stock photographs that are readily available with nature stock photographers or agencies. Stock image agencies or stock photographers have a wide range of nature stock photographs to choose from.

Nature stock photographers who intend to submit their nature images to stock photograph libraries have to be good. The photographs have to be excellent with high resolution. A customer will select the photograph of choice and pay the quoted price. It is advisable that a nature stock photographer market, sell and distribute their photographs through their own website in order to reap the most financial benefit.

Digital photography technique offers both challenges and rewards. However, in essence, photography remains just that when you convert to digital cameras: you still have to know how to compose and shoot pictures to get the best results.

The way you see your subject, and visualize the resulting image doesn’t change in any basic way with digital photography technique, but there are exciting new approaches and technologies to understand and to master!

Digital Photography Technique One - Pixel Parlance:

Bigger isn’t always better. Having more pixels doesn’t always translate into better images, as the size and quality of the pixels are also important. 6 Million pixels of a bigger size can actually give you a clearer image than 8 million of a smaller size.

Digital Photography Technique Two - Zoom Zones:

Optical zoom is more important for your image quality than digital zoom. Optical zoom delivers more detail to your camera sensor, whereas digital zoom is more of a cropping function applied to existing data (detail) captured by the sensor.

Digital Photography Technique Three - Making Sense Of Sensors:

Digital photography relies on sensors, which are often less discerning than film when it comes to rendering detail in shadows and highlights. You should therefore be careful not to “blow” your highlights. If they are not captured to start with, you can’t adjust them afterwards in your software processing!

Digital Photography Technique Four - Grading The Grain:

While there is a general acceptance of the grain sometimes visible in film prints, the human eye is particularly good at seeing regular patterns, such as row-and-column “noise” in some digital prints. When you purchase your digital camera, it is a good idea to check the reviews regarding noise levels for particular models!

Digital Photography Technique Five - Color Coding:

What about black and white shots? Digital cameras take pictures in color. The most basic element of the digital darkroom, such as Photoshop, you will need to master, is how and when to turn your digital color images into exactly the black and white image you want.

Digital Photography Technique Six - Setting Selections:

In digital photography you the freedom to choose on a per-shot basis many settings you were locked into or restricted to, when using film, such as film speed and white balancing.

Digital Photography Technique Seven - RAW Rewards:

When purchasing a digital camera, you will have the option of models which produce only JPEG files (which are processed on board by your camera), or some which give the option of RAW files, which are unprocessed.

The assumption is that RAW files can then be processed on your computer with more powerful software to achieve the desired results. RAW converters are improved all the time. Over time you will get better results from your existing RAW format picture files by applying the latest converters when they become available.

RAW is like wine: it improves over time, just let it lie until the right converter comes along…

Digital Photography Technique Eight - LCD Leeching:

The LCD screen drains battery power. Use the viewfinder to compose your photographs. Most digital cameras will let you switch between the two.

Digital Photography Technique Nine - Histogram Hits:

You will need to figure out how to use the histogram function - once mastered it is an indispensable tool to get balanced pictures. Some cameras show the histogram in real time for easy correction of your exposure.

Digital Photography Technique Ten - Software Solutions:

Digital cameras are susceptible to artifacts and aberrations that film cameras are not, such as those resulting from JPEG file compression, oversharpening, etc. However, most of these problems can be dealt with by applying the correct software solutions before printing.

There is no mystery behind the images your camera produces. It is only a question of mastering digital photography technique.

For more information visit Best-Digital-Photography.com

Rika Susan of Article-Alert.com researches, writes, and publishes full-time on the Web. Copyright of this article: 2006 Rika Susan. This article may be reprinted if the resource box and hyperlinks are left intact.

For Artists and Photographers they will be happy to know that Johnson’s Fine Art will be opening on the Internet soon at http://johnsonsart.com The company, owned by Jason Johnson, will specialize in fine art gallery canvas prints and large gallery mounted prints only. This gives experienced and new artists and photographers a great new venue for their works.

There is no monthly fee for the service, or ongoing fees of any kind, the artist or photographer actually has a sellers page to put their bio, works and even a link to their home page if they desire. Jason would prefer that the artists create their own page, but he does employ Tag Craig of http://am-nuke.net as web master for this gigantic project. There is no charge if the artist/photographer creates their home page.



All prints on the site come either in gallery canvas or mounted prints. Each piece comes with a free gallery style frame for canvas, or outstanding frame or mounted gallery frame. In most cases the buyer has the choice of free frames and in some cases the authors and photographers want the finished product to look as how they know it should look. Either way, the buyer of the print has choices and freebies. After all how many Art Galleries include a $100- $300 frame free with a purchase?



The artist can choose what sizes they want their work to be available in as well as the pricing. Most pieces on the site that I have seen, so far, range from $459.00 to over $2500 (usd) depending upon the size. The artist gives their price for the smallest canvas or mounted print, and the other sizes are calculated from that.



Although I did not see an affiliate program as yet, you may want to keep in mind that most affiliate programs give about 15% of the cost. Keep that in mind when setting your price. I am sure the site will have an affiliate program before they open.



This is a great opportunity for the advanced hobbyist to professional photographer to earn their keep and a natural resource for any starving artist to supplement their income. The site will require the actual scanned 4×6 at 300-1200dpi (@ 1222% for 30×40) or better print for testing to see what the maximum size can be. Of course if you have an 11×14 print your scan will be less. They will also need a 300 pixel wide thumbnail that Johnson’s Art will watermark to keep folks from reprinting. Although they are still setting up, you can get a sneak preview.



To get your work listed and for the details, you can contact the web master: tag AT am-nuke.net he will have some of the questions I stated here for you and will set up each piece of your work exactly how you want it. The site is scheduled to open December first, but like most major sites that is an approximate date but as you can see the news is already going out and will probably have several major links before it even opens.

Randy Redhawk
New Mexico, USA
Contact: randy@rwpbooks.com
Website: http://rwpbooks.com
The father of five (four adoptions), Randy is a published novelist - Please visit his site at http://rwpbooks.com

Why don’t the pictures of your new living room, basement, kitchen or bedroom look as nice as the pictures in the catalogs? After all the money you spent on furniture, drapes, carpet and accessories, it should look beautiful. The human eye sees an angle of view of almost one hundred eighty degrees and at the same time can resolve sharp detail. In order to come close to this feat of magic, the camera’s abilities must be stretched to the limit.

A twenty-four millimeter wide angle lens sees an angle of eighty-four degrees, sufficiently wide for our purposes. A wider angle lens starts to show too much distortion through foreshortening and a less wide lens will make the room seem smaller. A second choice of a twenty-eight millimeter lens with an angle of view of seventy-five degrees is acceptable. A trick I have used to increase the width of view is to shoot through a doorway, just missing the sides of the opening. Unless you own an expensive perspective correcting lens, a distance of four feet from the floor is ideal to prevent convergence (when the walls appear to tilt in). If you own a digital camera with a 28mm lens, perspective can be corrected digitally with software from Adobe Image Ready or the equivalent. Most wide angle lenses share the fault of barrel distortion. This can be corrected with software from radcor.com.

Walk around the room and choose a view that includes the best look for most of the furniture. Two different views may be necessary to tell the whole story. For a spacious look, shoot into a corner, slightly to the right or left of dead center. Pictures taken at right angles to a wall look constricted and less spacious. Interesting table tops will look better from a higher angle. Be sure to light all lamps in the rooom.

Another method of presenting a whole room in one picture is to use the stitch method. First find the center of the lens node. This is a point halfway between the front element and the sensor chip. Place the camera on a tripod, attached at the node point. Level the camera, set the lens on 50mm* (equivilant) and take several slightly overlapping pictures. The images may be stitched manually or helped with software for that purpose. Be sure to smooth any indications of joining.

While flash on the camera is safe and will render the whole scene in accurate color, too much is lost in the way of depth, highlight and shadow detail and in attaining an interesting look. Flash on the camera flattens the scene, reflects unnaturally off flat surfaces and introduces a dark shadow around every object in the room. A better lighting includes a single bright light in a large reflector and a second light bounced off the back wall not appearing in the picture. Items of a dark nature like a dark stained cabinets need an additional spotlight in order to balance the tones in the picture. Night time pictures avoid the problem of overly lit windows, but if the window treatment only looks good with light coming through the window, time your photos at dawn or at dusk. The bluish light entering the window at these times while not matching in color temperature is quite dramatic and attractive. This blue light can be corrected later in the computer.

For sharpest results, use manual camera settings. The best f stop to use is F11 or F16. These stops provide the most depth of field and the sharpest detail. Wider f stops might produce a softening of focus near the camera and a more narrow f stop (F22 or F32) will bring in less detail due to the diffraction effect. Take a meter reading at the recommended f stop for the appropriate shutter speed. Animals or people may be included in the composition, but remember to make sure they don’t move for the duration of the exposure which may take several seconds. These photographs are great for your album, insurance records and an aid to decorating. Good luck!

*A wider lens setting will introduce too much foreshortening for stitching successfully.

I’m happy when you’re happy.

One thing I discovered during my experience with digital photography after 20 years of shooting film, and I teach this point in all the many seminars that I’ve put on to hundreds of other full-time pros, is that digital photography is very well suited for the portrait photographer. So why are we the last to jump on the band wagon? Many commercial shooters have known about and mastered the use of digital in their business’s for far longer than the portrait photographer.

My guess is that we’re afraid. Afraid of the learning curve and afraid that the quality just isn’t there unless we spend an ungodly amount of our hard earned cash on some scary looking gigantic array of confusing and awkward, let alone “how am I going to learn how to use this stuff” equipment.

Truth is, you can easily get away with as little as a 3.5 megapixel camera. I know, I used my Canon D30 for the first eight months of my digital journey. That camera created more memories, more sales and more wall portraits that I ever thought imaginable.

Whoa, wait a minute you say, wall hangings? Can’t be!! When I put on my seminars I routinely display many large wall samples for all to see, with some of the older samples I created with the 3.5 megapixel camera; and the reaction I get is usually disbelief.

Listen. The quality is there. I’ve proven it over and over and I know anyone can replicate the same results. Yes, even with a 3.5 megapixel camera.

You’ve just got be careful, that’s all. We have a collection of images at our studio, even large wall hangings captured with our dinky little D30, and they are “jaw-dropping” stunning. I know other photographers who have had amazing results as well. I know that it works and file size is secondary.

There are many reasons, but I’ll work with the main list. Here they are:

*Quality. The quality of images captured with a high quality lens, properly exposed and well posed is more than enough, even if you shoot JPEGS. Yes, JPEGS. Over 90% of the more than 30-40,000 exposures I put through my camera every year is shot in JPEG mode. Why? Why would anyone in their right mind shoot in such a “low quality” mode? The answer is simple: It works.

I like to compare JPEG’s to shooting with portrait film. It is slightly softer (although not even noticeable to the human eye) and muted, ideal for skin tones, right? Besides, we slap on “softar” filters in front of these outrageously expensive lenses and degrade the image even more. Don’t bother. Shoot with a good lens, in JPEG mode, expose properly, pose and create as usual, and it will all come together. Add any effects later.

Look at what else portrait photographers have been doing to their finished images besides purposely degrading the image with “softars”. We retouch the surface of the print, sometimes extensively. We canvas mount. Add texture sprays.Oils. Linen laminates…on and on.

My point is simple. Portrait photographers do not need to create the very sharpest, highest resolution images available. If they have in the past, they’ve always degraded the image through these other means. It’s kind of ironic don’t you think? You can still shoot in RAW mode if you wish, but it isn’t really needed.

If we needed the absolute highest quality image at capture we would have all been shooting with Kodachrome 64 or Velvia on a 4″x5 camera. But we don’t. JPEGs work. I have many 30″ prints, and even a 70″ print, that was captured in JPEG. And they look amazing. Your can too.

*Control. People want their photos fast. We live in a drive-through world and minutes count. In our studio we create a slide presentation for our sessions and we show them to the clients within 20 minutes of every shoot. Clients love it. They get to see the results instantly. If you fight this you’re fighting basic human nature. We want, want, want, and want to see it sooner than later. Sales go up, the client is already in the studio ready to see the images, and ready to spend. Their is ample evidence that when you show the images sooner, and you create large projected images, which is a cinch with digital, sales go up. Digital gives the portrait photographer more control over the sales process, and ultimately it means more profits.

*Retouching. Let’s face it, people want to look good. What used to take hours and whole lot of aggravation with spray booths, smelly and dangerous lacquers, is now possible with absolute ease. Even when I decided to farm out all my retouching because I had had enough, it still took weeks or months, and huge retouching bills.

Not to mention the loss of control I had over the retouching aspects. It was up to the subjective interpretation of the retouching artist to enhance the images the way I wanted them retouched. Now, with a few basic skills, and all those years of retouching experience all transferred over to the new darkroom, my computer, I can easily retouch to any degree I like. In mere minutes. With absolute astounding results. This ultimately translates to satisfying a basic need that needs to satisfied in our clients, their vanity. They want to look good, and they want it fast.

*Innovation. I could go on for days when it comes to what new products, ideas, services, sales processes, packages, etc, etc…I have been able to create because of digital photography.

Suffice it to say for now that I am excited and alive again with passion about my photography and about the possibilities. When you apply the power of digital, and get a handle on it in your workflow, you can create new and exciting products like never before.

I’ve seen it and experience it every week in our busy little small-city studio. The proof ultimately boils down to net profits, doesn’t it?

After all, we are in business first, and creative artists second, right? Right? Are you with me on this one? We are in business to make money and survive. We need new and exciting angles, ways to stay afloat, so we can pay our bills, keep the bankers happy and provide for our families. No one can predict will total accuracy how digital photography will ultimately evolve, but my betting dollar is with it all the way. I’m not taking any chances.

Anyone remember when colour film and paper was introduced as a mainstream commodity? I don’t, I was just a wee lad, but I heard stories about the many studio owners closing their doors and packing it in because they didn’t want to keep up with the demand and latest craze that colour film and colour paper had created. Dinosaurs. Every last one of them. Their loss, all because of a thick head and mis-guided egos. Don’t be a dinosaur.

My biggest discovery: Who the true expert is!

Ultimately the true expert in our business is not ourselves, or our peers. The real expert is the client. They open up their hearts and wallets and fork over hard earned cash for the memories we create for them. Do they care if it is shot on a JPEG? In RAW mode? Do they care if we use the biggest, best, strongest, fastest computers and software?

Of course not. When you get into your clients head and listen to the conversation that goes on these things are totally irrelevant.

Far more important to her, and to us, is the fundamentals of good photography. In a whirlwind of technological advances nothing seems to ever stay the same. Truth is, the fundamentals of good photography will never change. That’s where is all starts.

Master that and you have 99% of your digital photography challenges mastered.

Robert Provencher has been a professional portrait and wedding photographer for over 25 years. Robert has authored several manuals on digital photography and photogaphy marketing.
http://www.nobsphotosuccess.com

Never overlook the beauty of churches when looking for images to create. There are such a wide variety of styles, designs and forms. From the old and ancient to the modern, there is always something to admire.

And it doesn’t matter where in the world you are and what religion you follow. There is always a place of worship nearby. Some are large and some very small. Most will give you a warm welcome and photographic joy.

By asking permission to photograph, you can get a greater range of images for you collection. And there’s plenty to take photographs of. Ornamental designs, gold decorations, stark stonework, religious paraphernalia - it all there. Take a tripod to get those slower shutter speeds and avoid camera shake.

With luck, of more importantly, judgement, you can seek out the churches that are adorned with magnificent stained glass windows. These often tell a story or depict a scene from religious text and are vibrant with colour and detail. Photograph these from inside the building to get fantastic backlighting.

Churches often have spectacular architecture and design. You will often need to stand well back to appreciate the scale of the designs and using a wideangle lens will help include the whole building in the frame.

Churchyards themselves can be a great source of material. Many churches will have a cemetery in the grounds and by looking around you can get pictures of ornamental gravestones and interesting inscriptions. Don’t overlook the vegetation in churchyards as many such areas are regularly and professionally tendered.

Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.

As advanced consumer electronics like digital cameras, PDAs, multimedia mobile phones, and similar devices become increasingly affordable to the everyday user, we find ourselves having to keep track of more and more types of technology, which makes keeping all of our devices compatible with each other increasingly difficult. The technological marvels that have opened up so many new avenues to the common home user, which used to be reserved for the wealthy, are all sold to us with the advice that they will somehow make our lives easier and better. Specifically looking at digital cameras, the biggest problem of this sort is the fact that there are more than 8 distinctly different types of memory storage card commonly used, and the devices that use them are rarely able to accommodate more than two types at best. SecureDigital, CompactFlash of two generations, Microdrive, SmartMedia (SmartCard), Memory Stick and Memory Stick Pro, xD Picture Card, and MultiMediaCard: Just how many of these do you use? If you know, do you know which device uses which? Fortunately, with the advent of multi-format flash-card readers, you can now safely know that no matter which camera, phone, PDA, or PC storage card you use, you can transfer data between any of your other devices quickly and easily.

A multi-format flash card reader is simply a device that plugs into your PC via any of a number of different types of data cable, which has a series of slots that accept one or more of the above types of removable media. It can read and write to these cards, transferring data - be it photos, mp3’s, word documents, or anything else - between the memory card and your computer’s hard drive. From there, you can transfer data back to another card via the card reader, if you wish, or perhaps edit and print off photos from the computer, burn data to a data CD or DVD, or simply keep them in your collection on your PC. They are surprisingly affordable for what they deliver, and there is a very wide range available to the market.

When deciding which card reader is for you, there are thankfully only a few things you need to consider that will make the difference in your purchasing decision. The obvious one is to consider what you actually need: How many, and which types of flash card do you use, and are you likely to add to this number in the foreseeable future? Naturally, then you consider which of the available readers has the features you need. It may be that you wish to be ready for every occasion, opting to simply buy the reader that offers the highest number of different formats.

Since finding a range of readers that support more formats than any one user is likely to need is not difficult, a more important thing to consider is whether a reader is compatible with your PC. The majority use either FireWire or USB 2.0 to transfer between your computer and the device. While there are a few important differences between them such as the maximum speed of the connection, the difference between their connection speeds is the factor least likely to limit how well it operates, and falls beyond the scope of this brief guide. What you do need to know is whether or not you have either a FireWire or USB port on your computer. Chances are, if your computer’s age is anything like your camera’s, you have already have USB support. For a point of reference, USB 1.0 (which is compatible with, but slower than USB 2) began to become standard around the time Pentium III’s were being released. If you’re not sure, you’re looking for a rectangular “female” socket - there will probably be more than one - either on the front or back of your PC measuring roughly 1/2″ wide by roughly 3/16″ high (or about 12mm x 3.5mm). As well as hardware compatibility, if you’re not using a recent version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, you need to consider whether you system will be able to run the software for the reader you buy. While all the software may not be compatible on Linux or Mac OS, flash card readers generally just act as a fairly standard mass-storage device, and the cards often use a slightly modified FAT-16 file system, meaning basic read-write operation is usually easy to set up, even without the software. Finally, there is the cost to consider.

Having laid down the criteria for judging the products, we can compare a couple of the more interesting models on the market. Obviously there are a lot more than just these two out there, however, they serve well by way of example. The SanDisk’s ImageMate 8-in-1, as the name suggests, supports eight different media types: Compact Flash (1 & 2), MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick Pro, and Secure Digital. While it does support it, it should be noted that SanDisk recommends against using Microdrive with this device. It has 4 physical ports, each acting as a USB mass storage device (4 virtual drives in total) with any version of Windows later than Windows 95, or Mac OS 9 and later. It uses a USB 2.0 interface, and features very fast transfer speeds from all of the card formats to the PC. If you want compatibility with just about every major flash card in use, then the ImageMate 8-in-1, manufactured by a respected brand in the industry, and usually retailing for just over $60, is a superb purchase.

If you need a better guarantee of compatibility with your system, then you should consider the Addonics Pocket Ultra DigiDrive (UDD). It supports all of the formats of the ImageMate, plus a few less common ones too. Also operating as a USB 2.0 mass storage device, the feature that sets this one apart form the rest is the compatibility. In addition to being compatible with Windows and Mac OS, it includes drivers and support for Sun Solaris 8 and higher, and Linux Kernel 2.4 and higher. This device represents the ultimate in inter-compatibility, and also being priced at around $60, it is a tempting purchase.

Flash card readers are highly affordable devices that take the headache of compatibility issues away. Whether for your camera, PDA, multimedia phone, PC, and any similar device you care to name, these ingenious devices are so affordable that you almost can’t afford not to have one.

Ron Donnelly is editor of the website, buying-guide-for-digital-cameras. You can view the site at www.buying-guide-for-digital-cameras.com

Where do you keep your images? If your answer is a shoebox, plastic slide holders, or KODAK boxes, — you are not alone.

Many photographers are organized and can find a specific picture when a photobuyer calls for it. But most, unfortunately, are not. However, there’s hope. I’m going to outline what I call the “Lazy Man’s Way” of organizing and selling your photos.

First of all, I’m going to ask you to step into the 21st century and quit grumbling about how Kodak and Fuji no longer provide film for you at the local drug store. Whether we like it or not, the Digital Age is upon us. So, let’s get with the program.

You asked about being able to be lazy?

The Digital Age that you see others experiencing is the key to your newfound workable laziness. Why?

No more: chemicals, tin rolls, delivery of film, arguing about color balance, light table mix-ups, filing slides in pages and notebooks, humidity problems, sleepless nights worrying about delivery (or return) of your original slides to a client or a stock photo agency.

If you’ve lasted this long in stock photography, then you must be a dedicated person. It’s time to make your dedication move in a new direction:
Digital.
This is where the laziness comes in. It’s not so much the taking of pictures, or cataloging them, but in selling them.

A little history first.

After fifty years of dominating the stock photography field, stock photo agencies are gradually losing their exclusive grip on the industry. In the last century, the agencies were pretty much the only game in town. If you decided to go with one, you had to make sure it was a specialized stock photo agency. If you had five different specialties that meant you put one-fifth of your collection in each of the five specialized agencies.
Today, whether you are a specialist or a “generalist,” it’s now more effective to market your pictures at an electronic “portal.” And this is where the laziness comes in.

Portals are digital stock photo agencies that feature your images in a massive collection. They utilize keywords to help visitors (buyers) locate special photo needs. Since all the photos are in digital format, you have no worry of picture loss as you would in a classic stock photo agency. Also, you are able to join several portals at the same time if you wish, and determine which one is doing the best job for you.

Photobuyers like portals. Photobuyers use the search power of the Internet when they start a search for the photo they need. Using keywords, a photobuyer might land on a series of portals. Each portal has its own keyword search section, so finding the “just right” picture becomes much easier. In the next decade we are going to see photobuyers working almost exclusively with portals for this reason.

And if you want to be a lazy marketer of stock photos, portals provide you the opportunity to literally dump all of your top-notch marketable images into the portal. There’s no cataloging necessary. Remember, keyword searches find your picture (in seconds), not a visual search.
Here are more reasons photographers and photobuyers are placing their images in portals: portals are quick, (a photoshopper can browse a portal’s collection swiftly); they offer charge card payment; they pay you, the photographer, monthly (unlike stock agencies who may pay only every six months); they offer real time reports on sales; they often offer direct download (24 hour service); they offer a variety of photographer styles and personalities; they provide fresh, new ideas and trends because their photographers are constantly adding new pictures; they calculate the fee for the photobuyer which eliminates the need for any negotiating; thus they allow you to photograph and they do the selling for you; they offer a higher percent of the sale than most standard stock agencies; they are, in effect, an outsource catalog of your work.

Here’s a group of portals you’ll want to look into. Some are for Royalty Free photos, others are for Managed Rights, and others are a combination of both. Some aim at low-end buyers. The pay is low, too. Others are middle ground, and others are high-end.

adobe.com; alamy.com; artzooks.com; bigstock.com; istock.com; myloupe.com; painet.com; stock.xchng.com; shutterstock.com; stockphotomedia.com; vizpix.com; photosourcegroup.com

So you see, once your stock photos are in a portal, or portals, you can go about doing what you do best, take pictures. This new work style may mean that you’ll have to convert your top slides to hi-resolution digital images (about $10 each) and buy a digital camera. But if your dedication is alive and well, you’ll soon pay for those expenses from your sales.
Now you can lie back in your hammock and have another mint julep.

Rohn Engh is director of PhotoSource International and publisher of PhotoStockNotes. Pine Lake Farm, 1910 35th Road, Osceola, WI 54020 USA. 1 800 624 0266; Fax: 1 715 248 7394. http://www.photosource.com