My Son’s First Real Shoot

May 29th, 2008 Dave Scott

My son Ryan (16) was putting together a video for a project at school. The video documented parts of his life and also the fact that he would like to be a photographer. Well the time came to do a complete shoot WITHOUT DAD present. Assisting him and shooting the video is Ryan’s older brother Jordan (17). Jordan also did the editing for Ryan’s project. I took this clip out of the finished product and replaced the copyrighted music that he used with a loop. This all took me about 15 minutes so I hope you can bear with the quality.

This should inspire some of you that email me with questions and lack confidence. All of the lighting was designed and set up by two teenagers. Don’t over think your lighting. Remember, main light, fill (if needed), accent light (if needed and/or you want it), and background light (if needed and/or you want it). For this shoot the guys used a medium softbox at f8.0, fill light was a white, reflective umbrella at f5.6, hair light was a 7 inch reflector with a 20 degree grid at f8.0.5 (yes, we still use a light meter that is about a couple decades old), and the background light is a 7 inch reflector with a 20 degree grid at f8.0.5.

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Posted in Equipment, Misc, Shooting | 1 Comment »

Mark Your Web Images

May 19th, 2008 Dave Scott

One of my images has been hijacked. I was looking through my log files and I saw reference to one of my images and the referrer page was not on my website. My image was being used on another web page while being served from my server. This image is on the news page of my website and, unfortunately, I never marked the image with my copyright information. Well, it now has my copyright and website marked on it so the guy hijacking it now is doing a bit of advertising for me. I have sent hijacker an email and will report if he takes the image down.

You can see the page HERE.

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Posted in Misc | 1 Comment »

DPSR - Help With Blogger’s Poll

March 25th, 2008 Dave Scott

Rodney Washington, the blogger behind Digital Photography Secrets Revealed, has a poll running now that asks “How Do You Market Your Photography?” He states:

I’ll be using your responses to create a discussion to further understand how to get the most out of your marketing and promotional tools.

Let’s help a fellow photographer out and participate in his poll. Many of you have asked me about marketing and I haven’t written about it yet. Rodney’s site will allow you to get another photographer’s perspective.

Posted in Misc, On The Web | No Comments »

Photojojo - Photography and The Law

March 25th, 2008 Dave Scott

The folks at Photojojo have a post called Photography and The Law: Know Your Rights. They have condensed a document called The Photographer’s Right and made it a bit lighter read. I have two teenage sons who have turned me on to the whole Chuck Norris phenomenon. He’s listed in the post!

The issue of photographer’s rights played a much larger role for me personally long ago when I worked for several newspapers. There are plenty of discussions on how the Patriot Act has lessened photographer’s rights so I’m not going to touch on that here. Keep in mind, however, that finesse, diplomacy and thinking on your feet can be your best tools in getting the shot you need. I’ve been in situations where police have tried to remove media. The way I see it, I could stand and argue and read off my rights (as I’ve witnessed many photographers do) or I could use good interpersonal skills to try to get my way. If that didn’t work I’d walk away, take off my 85mm lens and throw on a 300mm lens with a 1.4x converter and get the images I was being paid to come back with.

For more information on the legal rights of photographers I highly recommend the following book: Legal Handbook for Photographers: The Rights and Liabilities of Making Images

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Welcome to Business for Photographers

March 7th, 2008 Dave Scott

Welcome to Business for Photographers. I’m Dave Scott, a professional photographer for the last 26 years.

As imaging technology has gotten more advanced since my beginning in this line of work and with the internet making information extremely accessible, I’ve noticed some negative trends. When a technology is introduced that allows the masses to compete with professionals there are certainly going to be big changes in the way business is done within that line of work. However, the basics of business will hold true, the good shooters with good business practices will make good money and the rest will not.

I have continued to work through all of this change partly by adapting but mostly by continuing to do the same things that have worked for over two and a half decades. I’m not worried about the new breed of shooter who charges cut rates for sub par work. Their clients are not the clients that I seek and they should not be the clients that you seek.
If you want to improve your photography and make a living at it, you have to constantly learn from good sources. Preferably ones that actually make a living in the field. You’ll eventually begin learning on your own as you start to understand the concepts involved in making great images and then applying them.

I enjoy teaching. In fact I teach at one of my local high schools, two periods a week (as a guest instructor) and through a private photo club that I run two Saturdays per month for students of that photo class. Additionally, I host photographic workshops for amateur and professional photographers.

The high school students that I teach are truly inspiring. They soak up every detail and work very hard. However, one of their most inspiring qualities is that they are not afraid to make mistakes or experiment. I encourage all of you to go back to the attitude that we had when we were young and ready to take on the world and apply it to your photography. I’m looking forward to providing quality tips and hopefully inspiration to help you to take your photography and your business to the next level.

The image at the top of this post was shot by one of my student who also happens to be my son. Students created the 4 light set-up, dialed in all of the lighting, and shot a bunch of fun tests with each other over the course of 2.5 hours. When the model arrived, each student directed her to achieve the image they had preconceived. They were allowed to shoot no more than 15 frames to achieve their goal. With the exception of a tiny bit of color correction this image is as it looked straight out of the camera. The photographer, Ryan, is a 15 year old sophomore.

The image below shows their set-up.

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