Amazing changes in the future of photography – Some here now!

Hello:

I tend to be a geek when it comes to gear for my photography. I can’t always afford all the bells and whistles I want but, I try to keep on top of it all any way. So I thought I would share a bit of what I have found.

1. We have been hearing a lot about think screens that can be put in our pockets, folded, and stored in a number of different ways. I think the big goal has been to have a screen in mid air. Well, technology is on the way to making that happen.

2. Wouldn’t it be great to walk around with hundreds, thousands, or more of your photos so that you can show people what you do? I get asked all the time “What kind of work do you do?” or “Where can I see your work?” Well, now we have a couple of options that seem to work very well.

a. Iphone by Apple – With the Iphone you can have your photos with you at all times, you can e-mail them at request, you can show a link to your website, or show a client the photos you took just for them. Other features include GPS so you can show where you took the photos, or where you happen to be at the moment. The Iphone has given the photographer a number of new tools! The IPhone even has its own site dedicated to the photos taken with your IPhone on Flicker.

IPhone

b. The Apple ITouch – Itouch is similar to the IPhone except the ITouch cannot make phone calls.

3. It wasn’t long ago that my studio lighting kit took up a lot of space, had cords all over the place, and weighed about 30 pounds. It took up the entire back seat of my car. Move forward a bit and now my lighting kit fits in a fanny pack that fits under the drivers seat. If I include lighting stands it is a bit larger but, still very manageable. I am using the Nikon lighting system that includes on camera flash, three SB800’s a Chimera light bank, and three light stands with Photoflex brackets that allow me to use umbrellas with the lights. This kit is wireless so no wires to worry about, It is compact, and light weight. I love the new set up!

I could probably fill pages and pages with information with all the new stuff out for photography. The above three should be a good start! Let me know what you think and if you have any nifty gadgets that I should know about?

Peace,

Bill

Fun in photography

The past week or so I have been thinking about fun and photography. As a professional photographer I have found that most photographers don’t really enjoy going out and taking photos any more. At one point in time they looked forward to picking up the camera and finding something to shoot. Then once they become pro – photographers they tend to want to put the camera down at the end of the day and not look at it again until the next work day or the next assignment. Some how I have found a way to love taking photos even though I am a pro – photographer. I enter photo competitions for fun (More on this later) and I like doing photo shows, I like just about any subject to photograph so it is still fun to pick up the camera and go out and create amazing images. I hope I can keep my enthusiasm for photography!

I have been entering photo competitions for about 20 years now and for the most part I still enjoy it. It started when a friend of mine invited me to a local Camera Club here in Colorado Springs. It is the oldest photographic club in the nation! It was great going in and having a judge talk about images and tell me where I could do better or what they love about my images. It was a great time and I really looked forward to the competitions. Then one day politics entered the club. People were fighting over what image should win, and they would complain about the judges and the job they did. We quickly went from having 40 to 50 members at every meeting to having 10 to 15 members. We couldn’t find judges so we ended up having the same handful of judges over and over. The competitions were no longer fun and I moved on.

Here we are 20 years later and I have been participating in competitions through another photo club. I have loved the competitions. We have different judges each month and have only had one or two repeats in the past 8 years. The competitions have just been fun and I have enjoyed them. People joined the competitions for the fun of it and we could draw 30 to 50 members entering the monthly competitions. Over the past 8 years we only had a few complaints and two or three people that would complain consistently We cannot please everyone all the time. Well, this last month everything changed.

One of the images in the competition was too large for the rules. Some how members decided that it was my obligation to monitor the images that were submitted? I have never had this obligation in the past but as club president they decided it was up to me. Either: no members noticed the image, members didn’t think it would be appropriate to bring it to my attention, members didn’t think about it before the competition or if they did they didn’t have enough investment in the club to bring it to my attention. The image was clearly too large and perhaps I should have noticed but, with dozens of other things going on that were part of making the club work I didn’t notice or pay attention. The final result is the image won the grand prize! After the competition a few members complained to me. I asked them to please let me know if they see a problem in the future BEFORE the image is judged and I will take it out. I said that since it has already been judged it stands! (I knew right away that no matter what decision I made at that point, that people were going to be upset and feel that it was unfair!) It was a very difficult position that I found my self in. Had the participant been notified before the judging, the image could have been taken out of the frame, and it would have been within the limits of the competition rules and could have been entered. But it was judged while too large. It was clear that no matter what was decided at that point the competition was not about having fun and getting feedback for some people it was about winning and the rules are rules and “it is all Bill’s fault because he didn’t do something about it!”

A second issue came up for some members. We have volunteer judges that usually have no affiliation with the club. This month I selected an expert on the images that were to be judged. She is one of the top in our community but, she made one mistake in her comments. She used the term “impressionist” when she meant to say “expressionist.” In the minds of some participants, all of a sudden she didn’t know anything about the topic and it became “Bill’s fault” as he selected the judge! All of the images that won fit the category and they were outstanding images and deserved the awards they got for the category. After the judging I was approached by two members that stated that one of our members “accosted” the judge at the end of the evening. Another member complained that one of our members was very inappropriate toward our judge! I found this to be truly disturbing! We have never had this problem in the past but it is already having ramifications in the art community. It is going to be more difficult to find judges in the future.

In the above situations I have found that some people are not looking for solutions to problems, they want to have things their way and if they don’t get it their way they would just assume not participate at all! So what ever happened to having fun in photography? What happened to learning from the process? How did it get to the point that victory was more important than having fun? I don’t know the answers to the above but, I can say that this last competition was the first I have had for years that was not fun for me. It was clearly not fun for a handful of others, and it has made a number of people bitter altogether.

My hope is that we can pull back together and have FUN with our competitions again. I hope we can make some decisions that will help catch issues of images that don’t qualify before the competition starts, I hope that when people are frustrated with a judge they can keep it to themselves and not strike out at our judges or speak poorly of them to others. I hope that people that take the competitions so seriously can find a club that better meets their competitive needs and be a part of our club in a way that makes them more comfortable. My hope is that our members and I can enjoy the competitions that come up over the next several years. I hope to have fun with photography!

Just my thoughts.

Bill

More on Life Goes ON!

Hello:

Well, the Life goes on show was a big success. There were more than 80 images on the wall, we got good coverage, and people had a great time. It was fun participating in the show! And now it is time for Life to go on! I am currently working on a number of projects to include a documentary and two books. I will be doing a number of photo shoots so if you or anyone you know is looking to be photographed let me know! The summer months are rich with photographic opportunities and there is only so much time. One of our dogs gave birth to four puppies last weekend and then two of them later died. The two that are left appear to be healthy and they are growing quickly. I already have a few photo shoot ideas with the new puppies and the mom.

Photographic projects that I am currently working on include

Medieval images similar to what you would see in Boris Vallejo’s paintings. I am not looking to duplicate the images but, to do similar work.

Sports shoots that include team and individual sports. I am interested in everything from pro, school, and amateur sports events.

As always I am looking for models for fine art, abstract, and surreal nudes. I am looking for a broad range of models for the above projects and I am compensating the models on a trade for pic basis.

If you know of great photo ops please let me know!

Thanks for your time

Peace,

Bill

“Zendagi Migzara” – Life Goes On

Hello:

This Friday July 11th, is the latest photo show with my work in it. It has been a great experience setting this show up and I think there will be a few surprises for those of you that decide to go to it? We are having images from two clubs that I am a member of as well as a couple of relatively famous photographers from Denver (Hal Gould and Loretta Young-Gautier of the Camera Obscura Gallery) and a photographer from Montana. We will have images from 24 artists on display!

The show will take place at the Smokebrush Foundation 218 West Colorado Avenue, Colorado Springs, CO. You can find it in the Art Depot district just under the Colorado Avenue Bridge on the North side of the street. The show starts at 5 PM on July 11th and goes through July 23rd. Visit the smokebrush website for details. http://www.smokebrush.org/happenings.htm

It was interesting setting this show up! The staff of the Smokebrush center did all the work of actually intaking the images, and putting them on display. I put out a notice that we were looking for images with two photo clubs here in Colorado Springs and requested that they let me know if they were planning to put images up in the show. I received 13 responses from people that they wanted to put images in. 24 people actually brought images to the show. With such a great response we had to turn down a number of pieces of work but, every artist got at least one image into the show. The end result is 88 great photos for people to view! The show is free and open to the public and a number of the images are up for sale so feel free to bring your wallet.

Originally there was going to be a fashion show to go with the photo show. The fashion show was canceled as the producer of the fashion show is unavailable to put it all together. It is unfortunate as in excess of 44 people were participating in the fashion show. We were going to have models, designers, a DJ, a lighting person, a body painter and we invited photographers to photograph the fashion portion of the show. I hope this show can take place at some point in the future. It is amazing the details that go into producing a fashion show of this nature! Well, as the show states “Life Goes On.”

I hope a lot of you make it to the show and take the time to let me know what you think by commenting to this blog!

Peace,

Bill Young – Figurative Photo

I’m no Ornithologist but!

Hello:

I just went on a trip to visit with the relatives from all around the country. It was a great time. One of the things that happened once I arrived was an interest in some small yellow birds that spent most of the time across the river from us. The first task was to identify the yellow birds, then we needed to determine what was the best equipment to capture images of the birds, and then plan a way to get the best photos of them.

Identification wasn’t as easy as most would have thought. The problem was that the birds kept a good distance from us and there are lots of bright yellow birds that fly through the area of Chama New Mexico. We collected a few tools. We started with a book on birds put out by the National Audobon Society, Then we got field glasses (Binoculars) that are developed for viewing birds. The way you know they are developed for viewing birds is that they are light weight so you can move around with them and they are high power enough to see small objects at a good distance. As it turned out the bird we were after was a Yellow Finch! http://www.thelensflare.com/gallery/p_animals_2182.php. This bird was Identified by the bright yellow color all over the body, the black patch on the top of the head, the size of the bird, and the location we found it in. If you were to look for the birds in a different season you may not recognize them at all! http://www.birdsnbutterflies.com/yellowfinch.htm

The second step was to determine what equipment to use. Due to the fact that the birds were keeping a good distance from us we had to bring in big lenses. I told the relatives we needed at least 600 mm of lens to capture the fine birds. We also would need a sturdy tri-pod if we were going to get a good photo of the birds without motion. We would also need those field glasses again in order to find the birds as the 600 mm lens would be too narrow a view to be effective at this job. I also recomended a natural blind – The trees in the area were a good place to hide in order to take the photos instead of just standing on the banks of the water as most of the relatives were doing.

Now planning the photo out. We have a few things to consider when planning our photo out. We want to get a pleasant background, we want as close to the bird as we can get, and we want to capture the bird in as natural a habitat as possible. We can do this by observation. Birds are creatures of habbit. If you watch birds for awhile you will start to notice that they have a favorite perch. They also have favorite times of day to spend time on that perch. We determind that early morning and in the evening was the best time to capture our shot. during the day the birds basically vanished into the woods. We found a tree that one or two birds kept going to and a branch they would land on. After observing for a couple of days we figured out that early morning was the best time as the sun would be lighting the birds up and we didn’t have any back lighting as in the evening. After deciding where we wanted our bird for the shot we needed to figure out where to take our shot from. We found a clump of trees that were as close as we could get without crossing the water and that we could put a lens through to get a nice clear shot of the birds.

Well, as most of you know I am not a morning person. Not that it doesn’t happen but, that it is unlikely. I left it up to my cousin to get the shot. Did we get it? I actually don’t know yet as when I got up the next morning the cousin that was going to get the shot had already left. I guess it will be a few days before I find out. I can tell you I have had great luck with the planning above and you can see some of my photos of birds on the gallery pages.

Now you know how the photos are taken so get out there and start shooting! I think you will be suprised just how well you can do if you follow the plan of attack laid out for you above. If you don’t have a 600 mm lens you can get closer to the perch before the bird(s) are expected to arrive and then be quite and watch the birds come in. Just make sure you don’t add stress to the birds, and take care not to disrupt the habitat they live in. We want the birds back next year so that we can get even better photos of them. Audubon Society http://www.audubon.org/. Let me know about the success you have in capturing your images of birds!

Joe Papez – A true American Hero

Hello:

I was just going through the web sites about Joe Papez. Joe is the American Hero that I am doing a documentary on. He was an amazing man that just dies at the age of 100 years old. I am still doing some research for his life story and decided to see what was posted since his death. One of the things I found to be interesting is the way  people write about his Purple Heart’s. Joe earned three of them during World War II. I say Earned as that is what really happend. Some of the web sites say he won purple hearts and I think there is a big distinction between Earning a purple heart and winning one. When I think of winning something I think of it as something I want to strive for. I want to win things and I don’t think anyone really wants to win a purple heart. It is a difficult distinction as most would say you want the things you earn as well. I would submit that we often earn things we don’t want.

We earn the consequences of our behavior. Some times this is good and at other times it isn’t in our best interest. If you work hard, and apply what you learn you can often earn A’s. If you goof off and don’t apply yourself chances are you are going to receive poor grades. Both of them are earned results

The English Oxford Dictionary defines Win in the following way:

1 be successful or victorious in (a contest or conflict) : the Mets have won four games in a row | [ intrans. ] a determination to win | [with complement ] the Pirates won 2–1.
2 acquire or secure as a result of a contest, conflict, bet, or other endeavor : there are hundreds of prizes to be won | [with two objs. ] the sort of play that won them the World Cup.
• gain (a person’s attention, support, or love), typically gradually or by effort : you will find it difficult to win back their attention.
• ( win someone over) gain the support or favor of someone by action or persuasion : her sense of humor had won him over at once.
• [ intrans. ] ( win out) manage to succeed or achieve something by effort : talent won out over bureaucracy.
• archaic manage to reach (a place) by effort : many lived to win the great cave.
• obtain (ore) from a mine.
noun
a successful result in a contest, conflict, bet, or other endeavor; a victory : a win against Norway.
PHRASES
one can’t win informal said when someone feels that no course of action open to them will bring success or please people.
win the day be victorious in battle, sport, or argument.
win or lose whether one succeeds or fails : win or lose, the important thing for him is to set a good example.
win (or earn) one’s spurs historical gain a knighthood by an act of bravery. • informal gain one’s first distinction or honors.
you can’t win them all (or win some, lose some) informal said to express consolation or resignation after failure in a contest.

The English Oxford Dictionary defines Consequences as:

1 a result or effect of an action or condition : many have been laid off from work as a consequence of the administration’s policies.
2 [often with negative ] importance or relevance : the past is of no consequence | he didn’t say anything of great consequence.
• dated social distinction : a woman of consequence.
PHRASES
in consequence as a result.
take the consequences accept responsibility for the negative results of one’s action.
ORIGIN late Middle English : via Old French from Latin consequentia, from consequent- ‘following closely,’ from the verb consequi.

Even though I believe Joe would have preferred to go through life without ever earning a Purple Heart I do know that he was proud of what he did in WWII and that we should all be proud of his efforts. It is the results of people like Joe that brought us to victory in WWII and we all owe him and other men and women like him that served and still serve to this day to make our country a better place.

Peace,

Bill Young

My most recent trip

Hello:

Well, I just got back from my trip to Montana. It was a good trip over all! At the same time it was sad. I went to video tape the funeral of my good friend Joe Papez. I am doing a documentry on Joe, and I have to say he really lived a full life ending at just over 100 years of age. There were 100’s of people there, music, and good food. I think it was pretty close to the way Joe would have wanted it. I only have a few pieces to gather at this point and then I will be able to edit the documentary! I hope to have everything done by this time next year!

While on the trip I did some photography of Owl’s, Turkey’s and their young, deer, sky lines, trees, flowers, and friends. I also visited with family and friends. It was a good trip over all. Now I have to get ready for my next trip. This week I have to work on the Archeoastronomy of the American South West photos so I can finish my next book. I have been working on this book for about five years now and I look forward to getting the words, and drawings together to go with the photos. I am also in the process of preparing for the next book on Archeaoastronomy which will be associated with Winter Solstice. As soon as I get those photos going I have a trip to New Mexico to be at a family reunion, and then back to the springs again and working on the Show for July 11th. I hope to get some time in to blog from time to time but, I don’t know what internet access is going to look like over the next few weeks?

Have a great week!

Bill

A Whole new experience

Hello:

Well, today I had a new experience. I went to a friends cremation. It was interesting as I went up I found my self going through different emotions and not knowing how to react. I walked in and they had the viewing. He looked good considering the situation and the family seemed pleased. We watched as he went into the oven and then we left for a few hours. I couldn’t help but, think I should have been taking photos and at the same time feeling that it wasn’t appropriate. I think one of the family members took a few photos but, put his camera away as the body went into the oven. I felt the whole thing was very dignified & now the family has something to remember him that they can bring home.

I wonder if there is a good way to ask about doing photos in a situation like that? Is that best kept for immediate family? What are the rules of engagement in a situation like that? I am sure that my friend that died would not mind photos but, he wasn’t there to ask! I guess if anyone has input I would be interested in knowing! I also realize that we don’t have to photograph everything! Those are just moments that can never be re-captured.

Thanks, I hope to hear from you soon!

Bill

Hello world!

Welcome to the blog of Figurative Photo! I am new to this blog stuff so I hope I can keep it interesting and up to date. I will use this as a chance to let you know what is going on with me and my work. I do photography and videography. I enjoy both mediums and have a lot of projects in the works. I have a few projects that you can look into right now.

1. A show at the Smokebrush Center in Colorado Springs! I have a show called “Big.” It showcases some of my images as bigger than life!

2. I have an installation piece in the Show Shelter also at the Smokebrush Center.

3. A book “Year in the life of a Camera” has five of my photos in it. You can pick up a copy at Blurb.com. This was a fun project by the Circle of Confusion photo club here in Colorado Springs.

I have several other projects in the works so check back and find out what is going on. Also check out my web site! FigurativePhoto.com. I will also be posting some more information about current shows, I have been receiving some interesting reactions to “Big” and I will attempt to respond to some of them in this blog.

Have a great day and feel free to comment on my work!

Bill Young

Photographer/Videographer – Figurative Photo/Ripple Effect Productions.