Shutter Mike Photography

For anyone not familiar with the Joss Whedon series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, shame on you.  But it is a forgivable offense that you can easily reconcile with a few weekends and a box set of DVDs.  Despite the preconceived notions that the title might drum up, this series was very well done and was so much more than just another teenage vampire genre show.  There is the classic good versus evil, the struggle of being an “outcast,” diversity, teen angst, plus vampires.  But more so than all of that it is well written and well acted making it suitable for most any demographic audience.

So what does this have to do with photography?  Have I gone way off course?  The photography comes in with some recent shots I took for Awesome Toy Blog, an action figure and collectible toy enthusiast’s go to place for news, information and the latest sightings.  Sideshow Toys has a series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer collectible statues and I photographed their most recent addition to the collection, Willow, for Awesome Toy Blog.

This is not a photography post per say.  It is more about pursuing your dreams and going after what you want.  I did not write it and full credit goes to Ricardo Bueno who wrote the Do Epic Shit post on his Marketing and Technology for Real Estate and Small Business blog.

1. Stop waiting for permission to do something awesome
2. Silence the inner critic
3. Don’t ever be afraid to fail
4. When you do fail, get up and try again
5. Remember, your ideas are better than you think they are (see #2)
6. Ignore the haters (they too are critics; see #2)
7. Ignore negative people (they’re energy mongers)
8. Stop waiting for things to be perfect because they never will be
9. Execute (remember #8)

Although these simple statements can be applied to any ambition or dream we have been putting off because it is not the right time or we are too afraid to fail they really speak to me about my pursuit of photography.  My inner critic is very loud sometimes and needs silencing.

In case you are in the Gilbert, AZ area anytime over the next few months stop by Bergie’s Coffee Roast House in downtown Gilbert (just north of Joe’s Real BBQ) to see art from the members of the Gilbert Visual Arts League – including me.

The GVAL’s mission is to

create a venue for local artists to show their work and be recognized for their talents. The league strives to increase artistic awareness and appreciation in their community and surrounding areas.

Part of that mission includes working with local business and venues to secure space for artists to display their work and Bergie’s is one of those spots.  This is the first time one of my photographs has hung in a public place so I am not sure what (if anything) to expect.  But it is still cool.

My photograph is of a green door in the El Presido area of Tucson, AZ.  It is on the north wall of the main room.  The art will be on display through July 31st.

Google has come out with yet another “tool” (or is it s toy?).  This time it is a quick little gadget in You Tube that lets you create 30 second videos called Search Stories.  The idea is to tell a story, about anything you want, through Google searches.  its a great way to just have fun or to potentially do a little promotion of your photography or any business really.  Here is one I created.

The composition rules in photography all serve the general purpose of engaging the image’s viewer with the image.  That may be through getting an image that follows certain standards of beauty or enticing some sort of interaction from the viewer.  The purpose of leading lines in a photograph is to lead the viewer’s eye through (and occasionally right out of) the photograph so that they view the image as the photographer wants them to see it, starting at point A and following a specific path to see the image as the photographer saw the scene.  Leading lines are also used to bring the viewer’s  attention to one particular point in the image, generally the main subject.

How the leading line is achieved and what is used to construct it is completely up to your imagination.  Railroad tracks are probably the most common example of a leading line.  But fences, roads, the edge of a building, or a row of similar objects can all make a leading line.  As mentioned in the Framing the Subject post the “rules” o f composition are not absolute so much as they are guidelines to use and expand upon to produce images that are appealing.  As photographers we have to interpret and often break or reconstruct these rules to get the images we are after.

The image in the upper right is using the yellow lines of the road as the leading line to start the viewer in the lower left corner of the photograph and leading them to the center and the sunset.

The photograph of the tunnel above is simply directing the viewer’s eye to a termination point of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Finally, the image of the path on the right takes the photograph viewer from the shade to the light and finally the museum building at the end of the path.  In this photo one could argue that the path, or the leading line, itself is the subject rather than termination point of the museum.

In photography, composition refers to how the elements in the frame are constructed and arranged to result in the desired final image.  There are many “rules” of composition in photography that are designed to produce an image that is appealing to the human eye.  Of course there is no one thing that is universally beautiful.  So these rules are not absolute so much as they are guidelines to use and expand upon to produce images that are appealing.  As a photographer you have to interpret and often break these rules to get the images you are after.  They do not have to be, nor are they meant to be, set in stone and followed blindly.

A good (and relatively easy) rule of photography composition to start with is framing the subject.  Simply put, framing a subject in an image is a photographic technique similar to physically framing your image in a picture frame.  Only in the case of photography you are using elements in the image to frame the part of the image that you want to draw the viewers attention to.

When you are composing your shot look for natural elements in the scene that could act as a frame for the main subject you want to draw the viewer to.  It does not need to be a solid, four-sided physical frame however.  It can be an implied frame, a hint of a frame on only 2 or 3 sides or anything you feel is appropriate for the image you want to make.  Remember the rules are made to be broken.

Bouillon School – Miami, AZ

(Yes, there is a Miami in AZ too – minus the ocean)

f/5.6 – ISO 100 – Focal Length 55 mm

If you sell on eBay and take the time and effort to produce photographs of your auction items there is a new policy coming down the line that you should be aware of.  The official eBay statement reads as follows:

Starting September 1, 2009, eBay will begin selecting sellers’ photos for inclusion in the eBay product catalog. If your photo is chosen, an attribution including your user ID and a link to your profile page will be included on the product details page under your picture each time it’s displayed. This attribution can give you significant additional exposure.

If you’d rather opt out of this program, please do so through My eBay as described here. To ensure your pictures are not considered for inclusion in the eBay product catalog starting September 1, you need to opt out by August 31, 2009 at 23:59:59 PT.

You can opt out any time after that as well, but any pictures we select starting September 1 during a time you are not opted out may continue to be used in the catalog at our discretion.

To some people the potential link traffic and exposure is a good thing and this will not be a problem.  The key here is, if you do have an issue with it, you have to opt out or your photos are up for grabs for eBay to use.  However, if your photos have a watermark it has been said that they will not be used in the eBay catalog.

Just in case you might have missed the fine print when signing up for eBay here is their policy on who owns the photos you post in an auction:

When you give us content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright, trademark, publicity, and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future.

It takes a lawyer to understand all of that.  Just something to keep in mind when you are posting your photography on eBay or most any other website.

Photographing certain bridges (but not all bridges) in the New York City area is prohibited.  They include the Triborough Bridge, Verazano Bridge, Whitestone Bridge and Throgs Neck Bridge.  I’m not familiar enough with NYC to know the significance of these bridges over say the Brooklyn Bridge or the George Washington Bridge.

What is interesting is that a search of Google Images for Verazano Bridge results in over 55,000 images and the Metropolitan Transit Authority website has a picture of the bridge.  It looks like the genie is already out of the bottle on this one.

There has been a lot of buzz lately about “Photographer’s Rights,” i.e. what am I allowed to shoot and who, if anyone, has a right to stop me or confiscate my equipment or photos?   If you are a photographer, especially since 9/11, with anything more than a point-and-shoot camera you could potentially find yourself in a situation where your right to photograph something is questioned.

Not too long ago I was in downtown Phoenix and was stopped twice in one day.   Once by a security guard and once by a Maricopa County Sheriff.  The security guard had undoubtedly seen me on a security camera as I was photographing the exterior of the Bank of America building on a Sunday.  She was very polite when she approached me and simply asked what I was doing and told me “They don’t like you taking pictures of the buildings.” I did not argue the point at the time but thought it was strange since it was a public plaza (Collier) and a skyscraper in downtown Phoenix that had certainly been photographed before.  A simple search on Google results in its own Wikipedia page and a street view of the building on Google maps.

For the second incident later that day I was photographing some public art outside the Maricopa County Courthouse when a sheriff officer pulled over.  Again, he was very polite (and a little bothered because they made him stop on his way to lunch). He asked what I was doing, if it was for business or personal use and to see my identification.  Again, I was not taking pictures of anything secret or not meant for public view.  In fact, the new court house tower has a live web cam watching the construction process.

My encounters with the “law” were minor, but they have certainly made me cautious and think twice about what I am photographing.  So I did some research to get the facts straight.

There are two very good sources available that explain your rights as a photographer and what  you can and cannot do.  Print, read and carry one or both of these in your camera bag.

The Photographer’s Rights by Bert P. Krages (Attorney)

Legal Rights of Photographer’s  by Andrew Kantor

Here is a brief recap of your rights as a photographer in the US.

• In general, if you can see it, you can photograph it.
• Public places are fair game to photograph.
• You are free to photograph private property as long as you are standing on public property.
• You can photograph people, including children, without their permission as long as they are in a public place and do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
• Private property used as public property such as malls, churches, and office lobbies are acceptable to photograph.
• Public infrastructure (except where expressly prohibited by law) such as bridges, airports, public utilities and transportation are all fair game.  There are some exceptions when it comes to military bases adn nuclear power facilities.
• Police and security guards cannot require you to delete your photos or confiscate your equipment (if you are being arrested there are exceptions).  This requires a court order.
• The Patriot Act, Homeland Security rulings and anything related to “9/11” do not prohibit photography.
• These rules apply to taking photographs, publishing and selling them after the fact gets a little more complicated.  But this is covered in the two documents above.