Paterson Photography Ltd.

Several comments over the past year got me thinking about photography and more so what is the job of a photographer and are we doing that job today?  First I am not talking about getting in-focus, properly exposed images – this is the basics for anyone that call themselves a photographer.  What I am talking about is something a lot deeper and something that the great photographers do regularly. What is this magic? It is to portray an emotion in images they / we take, whether it is a picture of a wedding, newborn, graduation, nature or wildlife.

I was hanging a print on the wall at the studio the other day of some Elk in Waterton when a client came in and made a comment that it looks like the picture was taken on a warm fall day. Funny thing was that it was a cold, damp, windy day that had me thinking that I was nuts to be out in that kind of weather in the first place (actually was headed for home a few minutes before I shot the picture but then I decided to stay and I got the image).  A few days after the first comment another person made the same comment on that picture and another one, the second one is of a waterfall that had me soaked to the skin on a cool summer day.  That is when I realized that it really doesn’t matter the situation that we are shooting in (hot, cold, wind, rain), it doesn’t matter the type of subject or the location, the thing that really matters is the feeling that the image leaves with the viewer when they see it.

We can quote all we want about the rule of thirds, shooting in RAW, camera types, lens types and sizes and while they all have an effect on the image they really have very little to do with the viewers overall feelings.  I was looking back on some old photos that I really admire from before I became a photographer, and one thing that I noticed looking at them this time is that they show a place and a time but really not a lot about what was happening to the photographer.  It could be a picture of the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton many years ago and the print is amazing, but you really do not feel what it was like to take the picture.  You feel what the photographer wants you to feel and that is the important part of taking pictures.  I was also looking at some wedding photos taken by another photographer many years ago and I love the pictures, they make me feel warm and happy and some even make me laugh, but I have very little information about what was really happening to the photographer or even in the overall day of the couple.

I think that this is a part of photography that is being lost today.  We can take so many pictures with our digital cameras, cell phones, tablets, etc. but we are not putting any thought into the pictures themselves. The pictures that we are getting do not have any emotion to them.  We shoot a rock on the shore of a frozen lake and it is boring, we do not even feel the cold. A beautiful sunset or sunrise and doesn’t bring any feelings as it is not cropped properly or color corrected.  Part of this I believe is how the image is edited, we need to know what and how much to edit a photo (Photoshop does not have to be a bad word if done correctly) but more so it is taking the time to figure out what makes this scene exciting and how to capture it before pushing the shutter button.  Shooting 500 horrible pictures can be blown away by one amazing picture that the photographer took his or her time to get right, something that I mention time and time again when I am judging photography contests.

So a challenge for this year for our photography is to get back to more of the way pictures were taken in the past – take a few extra seconds, minutes or even hours to find out what makes a scene (okay hours will not work with weddings or portraits as the client will not be very impressed, but it can be done by scouting a location before hand – something that I have taught for years).  Then work on capturing that in pictures.  This may require us to miss some shots while finding others, it may also require us to come back to a location when the light is right. Then once the picture is taken to do it justice in the editing.  I hope that many photographers will also do this, instead of shooting just to get pictures lets take some time to capture memories and emotions!

 

A quick way to help you manage your files and avoid disasters is to rename your digital camera files.   I get a number of people coming to me that have problems finding their digital files, they have folders full of files with the camera file number only. Some have written over old files with new ones as the file name was the same.

Take a second and rename the files to be more specific and you will know what the images are of and the file numbers will always be different.  Some programs will do this for you adding the date you transferred the files or use a program to add something like “jan1512waterton21″.

Well some things I miss from the olden days (food that tasted like real food, being able to talk to someone without them texting, etc, etc.), some things I do not miss (having to find a pay phone to call home when on assignment, dial up Internet, etc).  One BIG thing that I do not miss is darkrooms.  Sure there was some fun in getting a perfect print after a lot of experimentation, but it was a lot of work to mix chemicals, wash prints and hang them to dry.  One thing that I have heard from many people was that they could not get a good Black & White print with digital.  Well no more!!!  Last year I did a lot of testing with our new printer and have come up with some amazing b&w settings and media.  I found a high gloss media that makes amazing b&w’s.  True blacks (no yellow or blues mixed in), GREAT contrast and details so amazing that I do think they pass the quality of old darkroom prints.  If you want to see some samples stop by the Lethbridge studio, I have a couple printed and am working on some more samples.

Well I had a chance the other day to sit down and talk to a lady that was asking for some help with displaying some prints in her house.  The prints that she got were from a photographer in northern Alberta and she was concerned about how dark they were (she wanted to take them back to talk to the photographer but the drive was too far to make it worth the trip).  I took a look and found they were very dark (even in my studio under strong lighting).  When I put them on the wall in the studio I could hardly see the details in the faces.  When she did the same thing at her house she said that most of the image was so dark she could not see anything.

This is not the first time I have heard this from people, I have heard from a number of people that they have prints that are way too dark to be able to see the details in the print (people portraits, wildlife, nature, etc.). This is a good time to remind everyone that when you are getting printing done remember that the place that the print is displayed is important.  Many homes have poor lighting and if you are printing your work dark then it will even appear darker on the walls.

Well after a lot of searching I made the jump into a tablet in the last part of 2011.  So far things are going good, love some of the features, not impressed with some, and hate others – but overall I like it more than don’t like it.

Type of tablet – ASUS

Operating system – Android

Why Android? It was more the tablet than the operating system. I had a IPAD in my hands but it was a little large for me and some of the features like a GPS receiver and external storage made me change to the ASUS.  A few times I have wanted a larger screen, most times mine is fine.  A couple times I have wanted 2, 3 or 4G, but all I need to do is stop at any place with WIFI and I am running, and in Lethbridge and places like Waterton there are a number of places that have free WIFI.

Some of the Likes:

Size

Computing Power

Built in Memory

Wireless WI-FI

Ability to add more storage space (has micro SD slot)

Availability of a number of good programs

Quick start up time from sleep

Battery power – lasts all day plus

Good Speakers (could be louder)

Dislike’s

Programs that came with it are hard to use, not very user friendly, hard to set up, limited customizations (More an issue with Android than the tablet manufacturer, solved this by downloading some programs that do work)

Would have liked a USB port on the tablet, can get one but have to buy the keyboard

Speakers – good in a quiet space, not that loud for noisy areas

Limited accessories (lots of accessories for Ipad and Playbook available like desk stands and vehicle mounts, limited for my tablet  – some accessories do cross over like blue tooth keyboard) – I think that I am being picky as I really do not need 3 different colored covers, but ……

 

Uses

I wanted the tablet to do a couple of things, first to handle my schedule (photography assignments, workshops and teaching, personal scheduling and more). This was not so important when I was in my studio in Lethbridge as I have a number of computers that I can run scheduling on, but I need to be able to take my schedule with me to places like Waterton, Kananaskis, The Icefields and many other places that I love to shoot and travel.  This proved to be the most difficult part as most of the programs that are available today are hosted by either Google or Apple and are running on the “cloud”.  Without WIFI or cell service most of the scheduling was useless.  A big problem if you are in the mountains or out in the middle of nowhere and need access to a schedule, phone number or other information but have no phone or Internet.  So after a lot of research I found that I can run the calender program on the tablet separate from the Internet and have it sync with a Google calender when I am back in the office in Lethbridge or at any WIFI location.  Another  of my concerns with using the “cloud” is that you have very limited control over what happens to the content once it is published.  A major crash, a business shutting down or changing the business model could have a lot of people trying to recover schedules and contacts (remember some of the service outages with Blackberry and Telus in 2011?).    After some research I found a cool program that downloads my schedule every hour from the cloud and backs it up to the computer at the office in Lethbridge, then once a day it downloads to my home computer to make sure that I have several back-ups. This gives me a little more confidence that I will have a back up in case of a major outage.

The next thing that I wanted a tablet to do is to carry course information, sample pictures, music and books.  This is one area that I am VERY impressed with the ASUS.  I love the fact that it uses removable media, I can load information on different media and the tablet memory is still available for other things. One card can have wedding samples, another card course information, another card music, etc, etc.

Thirdly I love the fact that the ASUS uses a GPS receiver and does not rely on cell towers to get its location from.  I like having maps with me when traveling and using the GPS and many times where I drive I do not have cell service for an IPAD or others to use to triangulate the signals.

Programs  – there are more programs than I could ever try.  So far my favorite programs are Google Sky Map (now I can figure out the stars and planets), the business calendar that I found (very easy to use and easy to read), my MP3 player (it has a sleep mode so I can go to sleep and it will shut itself off), the note program and image viewing program and I have got a couple games to keep me busy.

So is a tablet worth the money?  In a dollar and sense view it is not worth the cost (I could have bought two laptops for the price of the tablet), from a convenience point of view it is really worth it. With a tablet it is always on and I can access information without delay.  From a battery point of view it is also great to have a tablet.  My tablet runs for two days on a full charge and to charge it it only takes an hour.  From a working point of view I still like my computers and my laptop as they can do a lot more and are a lot more powerful but for now the tablet will be another tool in the toolbox.