Archive for December, 2008

Merry Christmas to you all!  I hope you have a great holiday season with lots of good times with friends and family.  We have lots of family here for a few days and are having good fellowship, food, and fun.

While I enjoy most types of photography, I shoot quite a bit for stock photography.  You can see some of the sites I sell on in the link section on the right.

Stock sites can be very choosy about the type, quality and composition of the images they accept.  I’ve found that getting the technical details can become routine, but finding that magical quality that sells repeatably is ellusive at best.  As portfolio size increases, sales also increase.  This is of course directly proportional to quality also.

So, what is a stock photo you might ask?  It is any image that can be used to sell or promote an item or idea.  Many advertisements in magazines are made of one or more stock images.  Many internet sites use stock photos to get their point across or just decorate their site.

I photograph a large percentage of people for stock now.  While being good looking is nice, designers look for all types of images.  If you are interested in modeling, or know someone that might be, I would be very interested in scheduling a time to discuss the details.  One of the things all of the sites I submit to have in common is that they require a witnessed model release.  For adults, you can sign your own release and someone else can witness it.  For children under 18, a parent must sign the release.

People often ask what their images might be used for.  I really can’t tell you what any specific image might be used for.  The best advice I can give is that if you would be uncomfortable with how the image might be used, don’t pose for it.  This isn’t saying don’t pose at all, but think of the possible uses for the outfit / costume you are wearing before shooting in it.

The most usual arrangement I make for models is TFCD.  If you aren’t familiar with this term, it means “trade for CD”.  Whatever images are edited, I will provide you with a CD of them in printable and web ready formats.

I’ve been contemplating a new design for the website for a while now.  Updating the old design, while not difficult, is time consuming.  And, while online editing is possible, it is cumbersome and I don’t get around to it very often.  None of these things help to keep the site current and the content changing.

I’ve decided to change over to a blog format.  This will allow me to add new content much more easily and will give me the opportunity to keep the site fresh and personal.  It also allows me to add new content anywhere I have internet access.

I hope you enjoy the new site as much as I think I will.  If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to share them.  As I delve into the options of the blog, there will hopefully be frequent changes and additions.  Let me know what you think of them.

I’m in the process of moving into a new studio location.  The studio is located in the building with Ripple Theater.  This building was originally built in the 1940’s and has changed uses several times since then.
It started off as a grocery store, at least as far as we can tell.  I’m looking forward to researching some of the history of the place when time permits.
The next business was supposed to have been a car mechanic’s garage.  The studio is located in the old garage entrance bay.  In fact, the old garage door is still suspended on rails on the ceiling.  Evidently the entrance was just boarded up and then matching concrete/stucco was applied across the whole front of the building.
The latest rendition of this room was its use as a “Tea Room”.  White trellis was suspended in the air with plants entwined through it.  The floor was carpeted with indoor/outdoor carpet, along with several shelves around the room.  Some of the old cabinetry was left intact, but decorated to match the rest of the room.  Flowers and vines were stapled all the way around the room, and fabric was hung on most of the walls.  Everything was held up either with staples, long wood screws or glue.
My project the last couple of weeks has been to clean all of this out, so the room was actually usable again.  The cabinets were the first thing to go.  They actually went quite peacefully.  After that I started tackling the carpet.  Half of it came up after a couple hours of labor intensive trial and error.  I then moved on to another project.  One wall of the room is an exterior wall composed of old red bricks covered with plaster.  In removing the “decorations” from this wall, pieces of the plaster also started coming off.  I decided that a grungy brick wall would make a great background for photos, so all the plaster was scraped, pounded and pried off the brick.  After that I removed a few more shelves and pulled up the other half of the carpet.
My next task will be to remove as much of the paint from the brick wall as possible.  A couple areas had been exposed previously and were painted over in a couple different colors.  I started this yesterday, but didn’t get too far on it.  It does look like most of the paint will come off though.  After that, I’ll be ready to put subflooring and hardwood down on the floor.
Finally, after that, I should be able to start hanging backdrops and lights.  Then the studio should be usable.  Feel free to drop by and help me test it out.