BREAKING NEWS: Is Getty Trolling Flickr For New Talent?

Armando Martinez, my new friend and Photoshop instructor-extraordinaire, tipped me off last night during one of his classes about an exciting new partnership between Getty and Flickr.

According to this Seattle PI article and this blog posted on the Getty Images blog, Getty editors "will be exploring Flickr's collection of public photos and inviting some of these photographers to be part of the Flickr collection on Getty Images."

What does that mean for you and me? Getty Images customers will have access to our photos and give us a chance to license our images commercially with an internationally recognized digital media organization. Check out the Flickr collection on www.gettyimages.com in coming months to see what the editors have selected. That also means those tags and keyword searches are going to be more important than ever in helping get your photos to the editors. Plus, Getty will pay many of us amateur and semi-pro fotogs the same way they pay professionals, with percentages pased on use and restrictions. Getty will likely be looking for "scenic and creative shots".

Armando seems to think Getty Images and Flickr might try to use the dollar stock model to sell the images cheap. Read PhotoShelter's response to this move by their top competitor and why they think Getty is killing the stock industry.


I will definitely keep an ear out for more information about this. Look for more great ideas and information from Armando later this week, since his Photoshop 2 class was so incredible that it blew my mind and opened the door to so many new possibilities for achieving better photos.

Instructor's Tip: Motion

Enjoy this week's "Instuctor's Tip" by award winning nature photographer Russ Burden:

Depicting movement in a still image has challenged photographers
since the advent of photography. After all, we’re shooting “stills,”
not “motions.” In order to portray motion, some sort of blurring and
movement of the subject needs to occur. If we think of fast moving
objects, words like, “It happened so fast it’s all a blur,” come to
mind. Ironically though, we’re taught that blurry photographs are not
good ones. So how can we successfully marry the concept of blur and
motion?

SLOW SHUTTER: Use a slow shutter speed to emphasize motion. The speed
of the motion dictates what shutter speed is needed. Digital
photography has made this so easy as you receive immediate feedback
as to whether or not the proper shutter speed was chosen.

STATIONARY/ BLUR COMBO: A very powerful way to portray movement is to
integrate both action and stillness in the same image. Look for
situations where key elements of the composition remain motionless
while others show lots of action. The classic example that comes to
mind is a train entering a station. A slow shutter will portray the
movement of the train, yet the people waiting for it to arrive remain
stationary.

DASHBOARD EVENING: Get yourself to a city at dusk. The reason for
this specific time is there’s a good balance of both ambient and
artificial light. Rest the camera on your dashboard and point it out
the windshield. Drive around with the shutter open. Ideally you’ll
want a shutter speed of a few seconds. The longer the shutter is
open, the more streaks you’ll pick up from headlights, taillights,
and buildings.

- Russ

The photo(s) in this post were taken by Russ Burden. To learn more about how Russ captured this image, join him on one of his photo tours. Visit Russ Burden Photography to get more information.

To take a class with Russ or a fellow Digital Photo Academy instructor in your area, check out the Digital Photo Academy. I took Russ' intermediate and advanced courses last year, and he continues to be a strong source of knowledge and encouragement as I progress in my photography.

Don't forget to check Take Great Pictures for Russ' most recent tips. On the home page, click on the "Photo Tips And Techniques" button in the left hand column. Additionally, check out his "Digital Tip of the Month" found by clicking on the Digital Photography button.

Get the Goods: Tips and Tricks for Shooting Fireworks

Tired of the same hum-drum firework shots year after year? Use some of these great tips and tricks culled from my favorite photography sites to take your shots from run-of-the-mill to thrill this Fourth of July!

Tip and Photo by Frank Siteman, a Boston Digital Photography Academy Instructor: TAKE THE LENS CAP OFF


Yes, it may seem simple enough, all you have to remember to do is " take the lens cap off". But Wait, maybe you don't want it to be so simple. Imagine what you can achieve if you're willing to shake things up a bit.

Try this:

With your camera on a tripod and the shutter set to B for bulb, you can easily obtain multiple exposures of fireworks.

First, hit the shutter. The shutter will open...but with a lens cap on, no light will enter the camera.

Then, as you hear the dull thud of the launcher and see the streaking fuse heading to the heights, you can pretty well judge when a big burst will happen.

So, just before that explosion of shape and color, and with that shutter still open (on bulb), remove the lens cap and capture just the climax of the pyrotechnic. Then, cover the lens and wait for the next launch, repeating the process until the entire field of the photo is filled. Obviously, some experimentation will be required, but you'll have a blast with this one, cobbling together an unending variety of color, motion and dazzling sparkles.

And don't forget that you have the option to point the camera at different areas of the sky.



10 Tips from Digital Photography School

Photo by Hupaishi

This post from the DPS Forum is chock full of the most important techniques for shooting fireworks shared by fellow photographers and the book "Digital Photography: Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks (Top 100 Simplified Tips & Tricks)" by Rob Sheppard.

The greatest drama from the night may not be in the skies, reminds photographer Jon Sienkiewicz, who wrote about Metering Fireworks at takegreatpictures.com

Keep a look out for crowd reactions, such as this photo of an amazed and wary looking child shared on the Huff family blog

POTW: Shadows

It's been a long while since I had the time to shoot and submit a "Photo of the Week" assignment for the Colorado 4X4 Shutterbug Forum. But a great shot presented itself during my night photography outting on Saturday.

I took this shot at the Denver Skate Park in LoDo. Capturing the boarders and bikers in mid air while their shadows played along the pavement was exciting. But this was my favorite of the bunch. I like the symmetry of the curves in the image, the good use of Rule of Thirds with the main subject in the upper left hand side of the frame and the usage of highlights and shadows. A commenter on Flickr said it looked almost organic, as if the boarder was in the womb....so I changed my initial title of "Solitary Rush" to "In the Womb."

July Monthly Assignment Posted: "HISTORY"

The votes are in and HISTORY will be the topic for July's photography assignment. Brush up on the rules by reading this past post.

You will have from now until July 27 to submit an entry. Voting polls will then open and the winner will be announced on August 1.

Need some inspiration for this topic? Efrain Cruz, director of Illuminate Photography Workshops had this to say about capturing "History" as a photographic concept:

"I think this is a great idea. You will likely get so many variations, perspectives, and interpretations that the field will be beautifully vast. It might also be such a vast field that photogs could get stymied by the vastness of it all. They could get lost in the scope that they do nothing, or nothing creative. However, I think that a lot of great work will come out of it."

Some of my readers have already commented that they think the topic is too broad, but don't get tripped up by that. Use this as a great opportunity to think outside of the viewfinder. What does history mean to you? How could it be crafted compositionally in an image? I'm looking forward to seeing some amazing interpretations. Good luck everyone!

An Aside: CD Conundrum

I simply wasn't prepared for it when I got what my photography colleagues are now telling me was an inevitable request: "What will you charge for a CD of all the wedding photos including the reception?" It seems like an innocent request, but it's not. The potential fallout in loss of sales related to that one question is why so many digital photographers do not offer CDs in their contracts.


I sell prints and digital downloads on my business website and a professional printing company makes the prints and mails them out to clients. Many clients think that the photos should belong to them, so it shouldn't cost anything for a photographer to give them a CD. However, clients need to be made to understand that they are paying for your service to photograph the wedding and not the price of reprints or ownership rights unless that's clearly stated in the wedding contract.

The bride told me she understood what she was paying for, given the fact that I only charged her $500, and that she would have to purchase prints from my website. It helped her understand the situation better when she tried to hire a previous photographer and found out she couldn't possibly afford the $3,500 price tag for those services.

A quick search of online photography blogs and forums netted these responses to whether or not a CD should be sold:

1) NO -- because the client will take the CD to the nearest drug store and print up hundreds of low quality pics for their friends, relatives and wedding guests for mere pennies. That means no print sales for you. And the print quality will most definitely be terrible, making the photographer seem at fault for terrible workmanship.

2) YES -- but only after a certain amount of predetermined print sales have been made.

3) NO -- sell a DVD with an AVI files or a CD with a slide show of low resolutoin images instead that cannot be reprinted.

4) YES -- include CDs only in predetermined packages

5) YES -- but only at fair market value, making it clear that the client is paying fo reprint rights, not the actual CD.

Let's look at the numbers. I ended up with a little more than 600 shots taken between myself, Mike and Jason for that entire day worth of photography, not to mention the bridal portraits I took a week before the wedding. Even if I charged just $5 (waaaay too low) for each of those high resolution images, that would still run a client $3,000 for the CD.

So here's what I told my client: The high res images on CD would cost $3,000 due to shared ownership and reprint rights, BUT, it might be more economical to buy the actual prints you want from my business website where you will receive pro-quality prints.

So far, all I've heard is crickets chirping out in the audience. I may run the risk of losing more sales this way, but I think I've reached my limit in offering freebies and selling myself short.

Get Connected: Attended a Night Photography Group Shoot

Saturday night and well into Sunday morning, I attended a free night photography group shoot hosted by Illuminate Photography Workshops in Denver. BTW, that's me in the back row of the photo above! I can't tell you how much fun it was to be apart of this creative group of people. It was fun to shoot with friends and professional colleagues John Freeman and Tiffany Trott. Plus, working alongside other talented photographers is very motivational and its fun to see how different "eyes" see and capture a similar topic, such as the Denver Millenium Bridge. I felt safe traveling around the city at night with so many other people around me. And nothing compares to getting to see and experience your hometown as it lives and breathes in the darkness.



Workshop director Efrain Cruz (directing students above) plans to host these events each month, offering former students an opportunity to learn new techniques and shoot on location with workshop instructors like Armando Martinez. But I also think it's a great way to grow Efrain's business. He's creating a sense of community among current and potentially new students in a non-threatening and fun way. Plus, people who attend the event are encouraged to post up their images on Flickr, another great avenue for getting your photography out to a public audience.

Up until now, I have to admit I've loathed my tripod and rarely used it. To be perfectly honest, that contraption scared me and made me worry that my camera wasn't attached correctly and would eventually end up crashing to the floor. But you can't take long night exposures without a tripod keeping your camera steady, so I couldn't avoid the Bogen any longer. Everyone seemed to understand my initial aversion to the tripod and thankfully no one laughed at me (to my face anyway) when I needed to be schooled on how to work it. Hey, cut me some slack, at least I had the bloody damned thing! But before the morning came, I was confidently lugging my camera attached atop my tripod just like everybody else, and my respect and confidence for the Bogen has grown tremendously. Especially since it helped me take amazing shots like these:








See more images from the night's adventure on the Illuminate Workshop Flickr Group pool.

If you are in the Denver area and you want to join us this coming month during our next night shoot, subscribe to Illuminate Photography Workshops newsletter here.