An old-time, professional photographer once told me that we don’t get paid to take pictures. We get paid to see things that “normal” people do not.
I once led a photo workshop to the Green Mountains of Vermont. Our group was there to photograph fall color and we had a cornucopia of opportunity everywhere we looked.
During the pandemic lockdown, I am photographing my guitar collection. I started a guitar podcast and blog and I also decided to write a book about how to photograph guitars. Because of those things, I have been testing various products that might make photographing guitars (and other subjects a little bit easier.) Whether it’s guitars, or other products that you want to document with your camera, you’re going to constantly be dealing with how to light things and how to deal with reflections and/or specular highlights. If you are a portrait photographer and need to be able to photograph people in a controlled environment, and you have very little space to work with, then a photo booth also comes to mind.
I know what you are thinking. How can I work on my photography without a camera? Well eventually you will indeed need one. But these are all things you can do with just your mind. Give it a try.
(I should note that these habits have worked for me and countless people whom I have taught over the years. If you open your mind, I am sure at least some of them will work for you too.)
About 10 days ago, Olympus announced the fact that it is in talks to sell the camera division to JIP. This prompted some nonsense about that being the end of Olympus. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I said on the day of that announcement, it’s gonna be business as usual.
Thanks for joining me on the flagship podcast of the PictureMethods blog where we deliver free insights and inspiration for photographers. The show drops on the first Friday of each month.
Topaz Labs released a free update to Gigapixel AI. This update includes a model improvement for better results, a new single-image preview view, new zoom options, and the new “man-made” mode to better enhance the details in cityscapes, typography, and other images with clear outlines and sharp edges.
Many photographers have interacted with Olympus over the years. After all, the company recently celebrated its 100th birthday. That long, rich, history has led people like me to really embrace the brand. For me, it started with the OM-1 in the early 1970s.
In the early 1970s, I was in college and bought my first real camera. (I had been gifted a few cameras before that, but the Olympus was the first one I bought with my own money.)
If you look up the word Sepia, and do a little research, you may be surprised that the word is originally Greek for the common cuttlefish.
But that is indeed relevant to photography because sepia tone is NOT black and white images that were made 120 years ago and have faded, it started as a process. You are probably more familiar with gray scale (black and white) but there is also brown scale (sepia.)
My pal Rick Sammon has a Facebook group where he offers education and inspiration on a regular basis. He asked me to contribute an image and some tips to his group. In case you’re not following that group, I wanted to provide the tips here on my blog as well. I hope you enjoy them.
