Really, it is…

When you’re on the job, you need to know how to use your tools. This requires some level of education, and practicing on your own time is a part of that education. The last thing any photographer should engage in, is on-the-job-training. Yes, I know experience is valuable. There is a difference between experience and training. Experience helps you apply what you have been taught, to be more efficient in producing the images you had envisioned. I have met a number of “pro” photographers that will only pick up the camera if somebody pays them to do so.

Most proficient photographers know that setting up a practice regiment, keeps you sharp and ready for any situation. This is what I believe separates the pros from the amateurs, not how many wedding gigs you booked this summer.

Photographing birds is fantastic practice. Most of the same rules applies to birds as it does people. You can practice high-speed focusing, tricky exposures, framing and composition, and dealing with the general public. When you pick up your camera, every function should be second nature. The laws of depth of field should be ingrained in your head. You need to know the math of photography backwards and forward. Birds move fast, you need to react accordingly. Learning how to anticipate movement based on the surroundings is a skill that only comes with practice. Most of us rely on auto focus, but that takes practice, just like anything else. Composition is also very important. Seeing that it is unlikely that you are going to get a warbler in your studio, you learn to use the environment to frame your subject. Use the background provided by the world around you to frame your subject .

The best part of photographing birds, they are everywhere. In cities, in the desert, at the beach, on the river. I mean, you can see birds everywhere.  Pay attention to everything you do and apply you learned from those days of shooting birds to your day job.

A great book to check out..
National Geographic Photographing Birds

The answer to that question is no. It’s currently living with hipsters. When was the last time you dropped off a roll of film at the drug store? Sadly most of the people reading this have never done that. Compact digital cameras are so inexpensive these days that there is no need to do that. The idea of even getting prints made seems silly when we have the internet.

I look at my walls and see the pictures of my family and places that I have visited are a reminder of life before digital. A shame really. Prints are nice, but I guess they have lost some importance.

Shot on Ilford Delta 400 Pro, Koni-Omega Rapid 100.

A few years back a friend told me that he had more pictures of himself from me in the few years we’ve been friends than his parents took of him during his whole childhood.

I’ve been a camera nut for more years than I care to admit sometimes, but my friends and family have provided me with tens of thousands of images. I do have some hard and fast rules that I follow when photographing people, these rules are only slightly negotiable for different situations. These guidelines have taken me a long time to realize, and sticking to them has served me well.

Always carry a camera with you and use it, but there’s more than just that.

These are not in order of importance. I may also be missing some.

1. The right camera for the job. Always have a camera with you, but have an appropriate camera for the situation. It’s probably not a good idea to bring a big scary dslr to a pub when a small non-threatening camera will do the job perfectly. With that logic, you probably should not use a point-and-shoot to photograph your friends’ wedding.
2. Trust is the key to great friendships. The trust you build with your friends is the best way to get the image you have been looking for. Showing the world embarrassing pictures of somebody is a surefire way to shatter that trust and in some cases destroy a friendship. Don’t post a picture of a friend doing something they shouldn’t be doing for all the world to see. FaceBook and MySpace are filled with images of people violating local laws and ordinances. Don’t be that guy/girl. Non-flattering images of friends is another way to be an unwelcome guest at any gathering. Do you want bad pictures of you floating around? Neither do your friends. If it’s not a good picture, don’t show anybody. I don’t delete anything personally, when I go back over my collection I use those as a reference and nobody else ever sees them.
3. Edit down to a reasonable number of pictures. Editing your images is a very important skill. The advantage of having hundreds of pictures from one event, is that you can choose the best images. Don’t worry about not getting a picture in there. If a friend asks why they didn’t see a picture of themselves, you can just tell them that you didn’t get a good one. (see #2) there are some great tools to make this easy. I prefer Lightroom to organize my images, but there is are some free programs like Picassa that make this task easier.
4. Displaying your pictures is a matter of preference. You can email the pictures and frustrate everybody. Your best bet might to join one of the many online photo-sharing sites. If you are a YahooMail user then there is Flickr, if you are a Gmail user there is Picassa. Another good way to do it is perhaps build your own website, there are so many great tools online to help you get that done if you can’t do the coding yourself. Create a gallery and send everybody a link, instead of a file. Make a print, frame it and give to your friend as a gift.

I know this seems to be an over simplification, but it can be more difficult than you realize. Photography is not just about picking up a camera and taking a picture. There is so much that goes into taking a picture, that everything about it needs be second nature. Photography is equal parts of mathematics and artistic expression.

Happy shooting.

There is one really great thing about moving to a new town, and a big town particularly. Learning where the best spots to photograph and what time is the best time to photograph.
Portland has always been a wonderful place to photograph no matter what time of year and whatever the weather. I have been coming through Portland for 15 years but living here is proving to more interesting than I could have thought. It takes getting out everyday to shoot. Which if you are a photographer, then you know what a drudging endeavor that could be on a rainy day.