Special Effects: Photo Filters

This is our last Monday blog post for the semester – just a few ideas about photo filters, that you could use in your own image-making pursuits. Like Light Painting, the purpose of this post is simply to introduce some techniques that could be good to experiment with, and which, if you have time, I will again offer you 1-3 points extra credit if you create ten or so filtered photos and post them to a Picasa album. 

There’s two basic kinds of filters: physical filters that you put in front of your lens, and software filters that you can use when processing the image. Physical Filters… most screw on to the front of a lens, but basically a filter could be anything that you place between the lens and your subject matter.

 [photo courtesy TiffenFilters.com]

UV Filter: basically this is a piece of glass screwed on to the front of a lens. Its main function is to protect your lens from scratches, sand, water, etc. It doesn’t really change the colors or values of your images, but can save you a lot of trouble… much better to scratch a $50 filter than the actual glass surface of your expensive lens! If you’re using a digital SLR camera with interchangeable lenses, then this filter is a must-have safety device.

Polarizing Filter: Useful for cutting out glare and odd reflections.

Neutral Gradient Filter: mainly for landscape imaging. It’s quite difficult with certain types of scenes, such as an expansive view from the Hairpin Turn across the valley, to get a good exposure and detail in the land when the sky above is bright. Half of the filter is dark, half is clear -- you can set the dark part on the part of the scene that's too bright, thus altering your histogram's width, avoiding the dreaded blinkies.

Color Filters: any color of plastic or gel can be used to change the images you create. For example, many black-and-white photographer use a red filter to alter the contrast in their images. A sepia filter will make the images brownish, often quite lovely.

Home-made Crazy Filters: You can use any transparent or semi-transparent material to create your own filter… tape on plastic, soda bottle, sunglasses, Vaseline on a uv filter, paint on glass, plastic cling wrap, and so on. Here’s an example of a photo I made in NYC, using a homemade filter made of scotch tape and stringy packing tape placed on a piece of clear glass and then held in front of the lens to blur out the text in the menu above the waiting line:

Here’s another image, using scotch tape on glass to blur out some of the content

There is a look and a kind of visual detail that only physical filters can give you. But many appearances can also be created using software filters. Post-processing images can be useful and a lot of fun. And easy to over-do. If you’re in Photoshop or GIMP, then you have an entire menu of ‘filters’ which except for tools for blur and noise and sharpen, are in my oh-so-humble opinion truly ugly ways to ruin good photos. For example, there’s a filter called ‘watercolor’ that’s intended to mimic the look of a watercolor painting. If you apply it to a photo you’ll see quickly just how awful the results are, how it doesn’t at all look like watercolor paints, and so on. To show you the problem, here’s a delightful bunny photo I made, titled ‘Home’:

Here’s the bunny photo altered w/the watercolor filter:

And just to prove the point, here’s the same photo altered using the ‘brush daubs’ filter:

Yuck. But there are filters that are potentially useful. For example, here’s the Photoshop ‘Diffuse Glow’ filter, applied lightly:

That’s not that bad, and if applied more subtly could really alter the symbolism and mood of the resulting image.

Color Software Filters: two ways to make them – in Photoshop you can select Image -> Adjustments -> Photo Filters; or in GIMP or Photoshop you could create a new transparent layer, in which you paint a solid color and then set the transparency to what you want. Similarly, you can create the look of a neutral gradient filter: create a new layer, apply a ‘gradient fill’ of any color combination that you need, and then set transparency, luminosity etc. If you were a graphic designer charged with adding text to a photo, you might create a software gradient filter so that you could amplify some text.

Ultimately as artists we each find our own favorite ways to create images. Some of us will find it beautiful and interesting to heavily retouch, fiercely filter, and radically alter our images. Others of us will need to create minimally retouched or processed images. The same artist might also grow throughout a career, and in one phase of experimentation alter images a lot, where in another, the work is more minimal or straightforward. The choice is yours! 

Halsman's JUMP

After the photo shoot, artist Philippe Halsman always asked his subjects to jump, resulting in some of the funniest celebrity portraits in history. Here's the famous J. Fred Muggs:

[image courtesy Laurence Miller Gallery]

Halsman's work is on exhibit now at the Laurence Miller Gallery in NY, click here to see a lot more images including Salvador Dali, Audrey Hepburn, Brigitte Bardot, Dick Clark and many more.

These photos bring up the portraitist's all important rule: getting your sitters to feel natural, relaxed, and human. Portraiture is social by nature -- person to person making images about the person. The photographer can smile, tell jokes, talk to and interact with the sitter -- make that camera less intimidating. In such situations staging the scene is all-important. If your lighting, your camera and the environment are all set ahead of time then you can concentrate on the person rather than fiddling with your camera!

"Imagine. Make. Create." opens Thursday 29th 5-7pm

The annual student exhibit at Gallery 51 opens on Thursday evening. Congrats to all of the students who got work in the show!

Painting with Light

To paint with a brush, you stick the brush in some pigment and then smush, smear, or gently caress a surface with the paintbrush – and viola! in time and with editing, a good image! With photography instead of a paintbrush you can grab a flashlight, set the camera on a tripod and at a long exposure, and then smush, smear or gently caress the scene with the light – and woot! in time and with editing, a good image! “Light Painting” is a technique in photography where the artist moves a light source while creating the photo, thus building images that have a wide array of light and shadow effects that cannot be accomplished any other way. The results can be spooky, sublime, dream-like and futuristic depending on the scene, the lighting you create, and the colors.

Probably the most famous example is this photo of Picasso quickly moving an ember to draw with light, by Yousef Karsh:

Besides burning sticks, you could use a flashlight, a laser pointer, a glow-stick, LED keychain – anything with a light. You’ll need longer time exposures to get the effects – experimentation helps. You could tie a flashlight to a string, and suspend it from a ceiling or swing it in the air. You could lash together fifty lights and sweep them through a room. You could take one powerful hand-held spotlight and illuminate the night, or use cardboard reflectors and the headlights of a parked car. The potential and possibilities to make images that are unusual seem endless: all you need is creative approaches to your scenery. (And don’t forget that you can alter your ‘white balance’ settings to amplify the color of the light in radical ways). Here’s some outstanding contemporary examples: 

Jens Warnecke and Cenci Goepel of Lightmark created these surreal moments: 

Kay Canavino of Adams, MA, has done a wide array of award-winning night scenes using light painting. For example:

To see more of Canavino’s work, click here: Night Portraits.

Chad Coombs –  inventive, gritty, and lively photographs include this high-fashion, dream-like portrait: 

In addition to his stunning fine art work, Patrick Rochon has used light painting for ads for Honda. He  makes incredible, surreal imagery as solo and group portraits:

A hearty thank you to Kay, Chad, Jens and Cenci, and Patrick, who each kindly gave permission to allow their photos to be posted here.  :) 

Students: I dare you to try out some light painting. Not required as a project, but will give 1-3 points extra credit if you try light painting and post your results to Picasa. Otherwise, your assignment is to keep working on your final project images, about which I urge you to carefully consider each composition -- your framing, cropping, rotation, etc. Reshoot if needed, edit as always. Deadlines are getting close so be sure that you figure out which publisher to use, and start building your book.

Finally, please schedule time to go to this year’s student art show, “Make. Imagine. Create.” which opens Thursday evening at Gallery 51. I believe Alex, Signe, Kevin and Stephanie have photos in the show, along with the artworks of many other students!

Feature Artist: Anita Alvarez

Artist Anita Alvarez created this thoughtful composition for our 100 Steps project:

In her bio Anita noted that "My passion for photography has grown over the years but really took a spike with my first nikon last year. I specifically love landscape & portraiture which some may say are complete opposites, but i love nature and people. My mother & I have done lots of traveling around the world & my passion for people, culture, & landscape most definitely arose from there."

Feature Artist: Walter Bouchard

Here's a wild and inventive photo from Walter Bouchard, from his 10x100 project for our class:

Feature Artist: Stephanie Naffah

Photographer and Arts Management Major Stephanie Naffah developed this image as part of her final project:

On her website Stephanie noted that she is "the secretary of Mass. College of Liberal arts Photography club. I work at MCLA Gallery 51. Since I can remember, I have been dramatically drawn to photography. When I looking at other works of art I get inspired. By observing other pieces of art, and have create new ideas for photo shoots and photos. Have practiced photography since 2003."

Feature Artist: Nicole Gelinas

Artist Nicole Gelinas created these two photo as part of her in-depth final project for our class:

On her website Nicole noted a semi-secret truth, that "Art requires a special kind of madness to be pulled off correctly."

Feature Artist: Danielle Christensen

Danielle Christensen uses her mad cartoon skillz to develop this photo series:

She said on her blog "My concentration in in illustration, and photography, and soon animation. Cartooning is my real passion and when there is a way that i can input some of that cartoon fun, i do it in a heart beat. "

Feature Artist: Alex Massar

Alex Massar created this as part of his narrative, staged series for our class. This witty photo's title is 'Story Time':

On his website, Alex noted: "To tell you a little more about myself, I am a musician at heart and a photographer for fun, I love to do wierd and new things with my camera that people don't expect. My involvement with photography on campus is pretty heavy, as of now I have taken two thirds of the photography classes we have to offer here, and I am president of the photography club, which I have spent the last year modifying into a modern and exciting club to take part in."

Feature Artist: Kevin Mack

Kevin Mack's narrative series of photos from our class included this gem:

Kevin also makes a lot of nature and adventure-related work, such as

Kevin wrote: "Kevin Mack is an Adventure Education major who runs weekly outdoor trips through the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts Outdoors Club. His weekly outdoor adventures are always captured through his camera lens." In fact the photo above was staged in the Outdoor Club's storage room.

Feature Artist: Barbara Lampron

Our peer Barbara Lampron has created a great series of photos of youthful chickens. Here's one:

Barbara is an avid cyclist and kayaker. She noted in her bio that she is "Currently a non-traditional student at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts with an interest in dark room techniques to create botanical based photograms," and of course many experiments in digital photography too!

Feature Artist: Signe Kutzer

Here's a delightful photo by our colleague Signe Kutzer, from her series of strong Farm Women of Vermont:

Signe notes: "I am currently a college student pursuing my passion of becoming a successful artist. Since I can remember, my world involved imaginative creations of what I observe. The satisfaction my mind and body receives when dive into a hands on project is purely euphoria. My eye is drawn to nature's organic shapes, textures, and colors. I am intrigued with what surrounds us, our environment, whether that be the trees or the structures that man has created. My photographs capture not only the moment and story of the content but record my emotional attachment to the subject. I strive for beauty and meaning within all of my photographs. They embody the mood of what is visible and what is not. I want viewers to experience not only what I did at that moment, but to have their own personally relationship.... their own story."

Photo Battle!

Just for fun --

as a followup to the previous post regarding how you recognize the quality of your own photos...

There's a website where you can post a handful of your own photos and have them paired against other photos. The general public votes on which photo they like better! Trustworthy? Probably not. But it is very interesting and entertaining to see what photos people tend to like more than others, and a few enterprising punks like to post silly photos. :) Click the link to enjoy...

Photo Battle

Once you go there, try clicking on 'scoreboard' to see the current photos with the most positive votes. 

How Do You Know if Your Photo's Good?

Excellence. Excitement. Vision. Meaning. In addition to raw technical issues such as exposure, lighting, signal vs. noise, and focus -- when we're making art we're creating meaning. We're creating images that speak to us, that are interesting to look at, and fun to be around. How do you know if your photo has got it -- that special something that provokes people (including you the artist) to think about and consider the image?

For most artists, there's a point in one's technical practice when one is no longer struggling with specific craft issues, and instead, the technique occurs seamlessly and smoothly. This is called skill transcendence, when all of your skills and artistry come together and work as a group smoothly so that you feel in the zone, that things occur nearly automatically. A pianist who practices scales for a long time gains the dexterity and memory to play without thinking exactly where every finger ought to go -- instead, she can sight read the music, translate to another key, etc. If she had to think about every movement of each finger, she'd go too slow to play the tune. If you were learning skiing (or really any sport), you'd see how in the beginning your form was all over the place, skis angling and arms flailing and body wobbly, tentative. In contrast the expert skier appears smooth, efficient, with a quiet and focused form -- instead of concentrating on 'getting my back leg to weight and angle to make a turn down the fall line while punching my ski pole forwards and twisting at the waist' the expert feels and looks simpler and calmer like he is 'just skiing.' After much practice, you just don't have to think about every skill all the time. Your analytic mind is out of the way, and yet you feel wholly engaged. In photography, skills are exposure, focus, planning the camera's settings, and of course composing the image. Probably the creation of meaningful images happens mostly  when skills are so strong that you don't need to always be thinking of them, and can instead focus on the imagery. Of course when something goes wrong, the highly skilled artist can step back from making images and analyze technical issues to adjust and revise the entire process.

The skills you are using to create a photo depend on what kinds of photography you create, which includes what kinds of meaning you wish to provoke audiences to consider. Photographers have spoken frequently about how they recognize quality in their own work, for example...

Ansel Adams emphasized the need to move beyond mere technique when he said: “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” He also centered in on realism, when he noted that photography is "a blazing poetry of the real" but hinted at emotion too: "A great photography is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed."

Alfred Eisenstadt connected skill transcendence with artistry: “I dream that someday the step between my mind and my finger will no longer be needed. And that simply by blinking my eyes, I shall make pictures. Then, I think, I shall really have become a photographer.”

Yousef Karsh emphasized the psychological impact of his portraiture: “Character, like a photograph, develops in darkness.” and “Within every man and woman a secret is hidden, and as a photographer it is my task to reveal it if I can.”

Man Ray preferred meanings: “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask 'how', while others of a more curious nature will ask 'why'. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.”

Henri Cartier-Bresson linked reason, skill and emotion: “To take photographs means to recognize - simultaneously and within a fraction of a second - both the fact itself and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that give it meaning. It is putting one's head, one's eye and one's heart on the same axis.”

Diane Arbus emphasized the importance of her subject matter when she said: “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them” and “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”

Dorothea Lange gave some advice about where artistic meaning comes from: “Pick a theme and work it to exhaustion... the subject must be something you truly love or truly hate.”

So I have a question for you: 

How do you recognize your own best work? What's different about it than artworks you've produced that just aren't quite so compelling? Does it look different than your mediocre or poor work? Does making your best work feel different than when you've made moderate work? Do your best images convey more or better meanings than otherwise? Which meanings? Why? What is your motivation to take pictures?

Use the comments to post your thoughts and ideas...

The Cascade

The Cascade, 12"x30" digital archival print [iso100, f22, 1.3s]. I posted it here so that you could see how I revised this image. I was dissatisfied with the overall composition: felt like the gnarled roots in the middle popped up out of nowhere, that the balance of the waterfall with the rock walls was too harsh, the focus a bit off, etc. So I went back to the scene, reshot everything, rebuilt the panorama and arrived at this image:

This has a better sense of depth, a calmer balance from left to right, and a few spots of new interest -- the bokeh at the top middle due to moisture in the air, and a couple zones where ferns have some motion blur due to a breeze during the long time exposures needed to make the photo. The focus is also crisper throughout. Printed at full size 300dpi this would be 12" tall and 33" wide.

The Cascade is a wonderful place here in North Adams, MA… just a short hike from the trailhead, and nestled deep in the woods. Whenever I go there it feels otherworldly and intense, waterfalls thundering in the early Spring.

Professional Photo Websites for Free

Digital art and digital photography can and should be placed online. Unfortunately professional design services and website management software could cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Ugh! But what if I told you that you didn’t need any special software, that making a website could be surprisingly easy, and free, or only ten dollars a year?

There’s two web services that I recommend you use for creating high quality websites that feature your work for free. The first is Weebly.com, the second is Wordpress.com. 

I’ve created an example Weebly website at this link:   http://gregscheckler.weebly.com

Weebly.com is shockingly easy to use, has some good clean templates, and nice photo gallery functions. You could definitely use it as a professional website if you keep the design straightforward and direct.

Currently my professional website is driven using Wordpress: http://www.gregscheckler.com I get about 55,000 visitors per year at this website – much broader exposure than any other marketing venue that I currently use. I use 1and1.net, at a cost of about $10 per year, to register and own the domain name gregscheckler.com, and then have the free Wordpress website (http://gregscheckler.wordpress.com) automatically routed to the name gregscheckler.com.   Wordpress has a lot more functions than Weebly, and you should try it someday, but it's interface isn't as intuitive as Weebly's. 

So here's what to do for today's online project... create a Weebly website:

1.       Go to Weebly.com and sign up for a free Weebly account.

2.       Choose a name and Create a free website.

a.       the website name is probably best if it includes your name, since after all your name as an artist is the main way that people recognize you.

3.       Select an exceptionally clean, simple Template

a.       don’t select complex, hyper, or overly colorful templates or themes… the purpose here is to keep your audience focused on you as an artist and your artworks.
b.    if you select a theme with a large header or photo, customize it w/your own art.
c.     don't select any of the add-ons or teasers (don't pay for anything).

4.       Know that in Weebly, everything works basically by dragging and dropping design elements into the website.

a.       Remember, the goal here is to feature your photography.

b.      Click on 'Save' and on ‘Publish’ frequently to save your work

5.       Create these pages:

a.       Homepage

b.      About the Artist

c.       Announcements (use the ‘create new blog’ function for this one)

d.      Photography

6.       Make the ‘Homepage’ your front page and put a picture or slideshow on it.

7.       Make ‘Announcements’ into the blog page; here you will post announcements such as when you are in a show, when you’ve taken an interesting photo, etc.

8.       For now, write a sentence or two about yourself on the About the Artist page.

9.       Place gallery of photos on the Photography page (select 5 to 10 of your best photos, upload them, and follow directions for making an album in Weebly via their ‘multimedia’ menu)

10.   Click 'Publish' again, and then Post a link to your new website in the comments section of today's post here at gregscheckler.blogspot.com

One of the best parts about Wordpress and Weebly is that if you decide you don’t like the website, you can either change the template or theme and try a different design without losing any of the content that you’ve posted, or, you can easily delete the whole thing. It doesn’t cost anything but a little time to set it up, so you’ve lost no money.

The project is finished once you've posted your website to the comments. The next part of today's post is for reading (not doing...) 

So then what do you do with your new website, if you choose to keep using it?

Here’s one thing that a website is really good for… testing your advertising. The fact is that advertising in magazines, newspapers etc. can cost a lot of money. Photographers sometimes make a lot of money w/a decent ad. But it’s hard to figure out what ads will work well. And if you’re like me then you don’t want to spend $1,000 on an ad that doesn’t work. So, how do you test the market before sinking thousands of dollars into advertising? You use a website.

For example, if you want to see what kinds of your photos people really respond to and might consider buying, link your website through to a printing service (such as Redbubble.com) so that there’s products such as matted or framed prints that people can buy. Then create some low-cost Google Adwords or Facebook Ads. In fact by clicking around Weebly you may have seen that it can automatically synch with Google and Facebook ads – but you’d use ads to get people to go visit your website (not to post ads on your own website). Simply read the directions for ads at Google or Facebook to set your own budget and to test what kinds of imagery and wording people click on when they see your art – it’d cost a couple hundred dollars to reach thousands of people who are likely interested in your work, which is far better than spending the same money buying an untested print ad distributed to a lot of people who may have no interest in your work. Once you’ve figured out what online ads are working well for you, and once you’ve made some money, then maybe it’s time to branch out and use your market testing to create some excellent print ads. I won’t fool you into thinking this is easy… it isn’t. It’s hard to come up with effective ads that sell the art. And you probably shouldn’t aggressively market your photos until you’re 100% confident that they are excellent quality or at least good enough that you’ll be proud to sell them. The main idea here is that you can use your website to test the markets for the artistic photos that you’ve created. In other words the well-designed, free or extremely low-cost website, becomes the centerpiece of your basic advertising campaign.

Copyright Basics

How do you protect your artwork from theft? How do you make sure that you get paid for it and someone else doesn’t? What do you do with your copyright once you have copyrighted art?

Digital photography, and other digital art forms, can be reproduced online and by most any computer millions of times, perfectly. This is both one of the great capacities of digital arts, and one of their drawbacks. Once digitized, your work can be published and seen with greater ease than any other art form. But once online, it could be difficult if not impossible to know if someone has copied your work and sold or repackaged it without your permission.

Advice#1: relax.

There’s so many millions of photographers in the world that until you’re famous or publishing a lot, it’s quite unlikely that someone will steal and then use your artwork. It’s probably more likely that you’ll be hit by lightning or win the lottery. That much said, a little information goes a long way. And the more professional you become, the more important it is to know these basics.

When is your work copyrighted?

                The moment you make the artwork it is copyrighted. It’s yours. Copyright is automatic.

Quite simply you don’t have to do anything for your work to be copyrighted. Nothing. Just do all the usual things such as backing up your files and you really don’t have to worry about it much. But if you ever need to prove your copyright in a court of law, then you need a public record of your copyright. This is extremely easy to do online. You can go to the government copyright website and for a fee you can submit pictures online for full registration. The website for all things copyright is http://www.copyright.gov There you’ll find full directions for copyright and the online center for copyright submissions at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/

But I hope you don’t copyright each photo one by one. You could do that, but it’d cost you $35 per registration – 20 of your best photos would cost $700. Ugh!

Here’s how to copyright a hundred photos for less than $100: batch together an entire body of artworks as a large project. So for example, you could take a set of 100 related photos, and compress them into one large ZIP file using a compressing utility like PKZip (http://www.pkware.com/software-pkzip/file-compression) PKZip is shareware – it has a free demo but then eventually you’d need to buy software (around $50) or find some other compressing utility. Then you upload the zip file of your entire set of photos to the US Government Copyright office, fill out a form online, and pay the online copyright fee ($35). In eight or nine months the government sends confirmation that your set of works is fully registered for copyright. Easy!! 

Of course if you really aren’t publishing your photos anywhere, then it’s unnecessary to register your copyright – everything’s copyrighted the moment you make it, automatically. You should really only bother to register and pay for copyright online if you’re going to be publishing the work widely where people might see it and steal it.

For a while it used to be that the artist had to sign the artwork and put the year and the copyright symbol on it, for example "Gregory Scheckler © 2010." Many artists still do this although it is no longer necessary, thank goodness, because such signatures and symbols are dreadfully ugly on top of carefully composed photos!

The issues surrounding theft of images. copyright, fair use and artworks does imply a few other things:

-          As an artist, as a professional, you should create your own artworks and not steal anyone else’s artworks. Not only is it best for your creativity to make your own work, it's best legally.

-          Give credit where credit is due, cite sources.

-          If you have a website you can decide how you post images, so they can be copied or so that they can’t (many pro photographers use a ‘Flash’ photo album that prevents copying of images).

As I said before theft of images is rare. But it does happen. It’s worst when it’s from artist to artist. For example, the painter Shephard Fairey is being sued by the Associate Press for stealing a photo of President Obama, which Fairey illegally used to create his famous ‘Hope’ poster. (click the link to get a series of articles about Fairey and the case at BoingBoing.net. I’m not a fan of Fairey’s work, but the issues are complex indeed). Artist Jeff Koons got skewered in the courts for having stole a photo of puppies which was a violation of the ‘fair use’ clause. Probably the main reason that both Fairey and Koons got sued is that they’re both rich. And they stole art from artists or organizations who had intended to profit from the artworks – in other words, varying levels of profit and serious money were involved in each case. After all ownership and money are at the core of copyright, because ... what do you do with your copyright?  

You sell it. 

To be more precise, you sell the versions of the artwork along with variations of the rights to copy the art. 
When you agree to publish your photos somewhere, you are allowing the publisher to buy the rights to use the photo. Doing so is often called 'licensing.' Artists often sell

-          Limited Non-Exclusive Reproduction Rights

-          Unlimited Non-Exclusive Reproduction Rights

-          Exclusive Reproduction Rights

So for example suppose you had a nice set of landscape photos that a publisher would like to use for a set of greeting cards. You would arrange and negotiate the kind of reproduction rights that meets your needs. In most cases, you would only sell limited, non-exclusive rights (sometimes called ‘one time publication rights’) for a simple fee – say $1,000 for the publisher to have the right to use five photos for the greeting cards for one run of the cards. Non-exclusive rights means that you can still sell the image to other venues, in galleries, etc. Exclusive rights means only the publisher can use the image – I’d encourage you to never sell exclusive rights. Well, unless you getting a ton of money for them. Similarly you would only sell unlimited rights for big money, because without limitations the publisher can make millions of copies of the artwork for any purpose. Every artist must of course decide what the pro’s and con’s of each situation are depending on the job and your own need for pay.

All of this brings up basic copyright and licensing Advice#2: if you have a contract and you don’t understand it, hire an arts lawyer to help you.

And advice #3: have a contract. 

You can find many examples of licensing and rights agreements online by googling ‘photograph license agreement’ Here's a random sampling: fairly straightforward by Andrew Stottsan; detailed by Carl Schneider; less formal by Marilyn Coey.  You might notice from these examples that when the photographer sells a photo, she is not necessarily selling the entire copyright. Also to illustrate what this looks like, here’s the actual text of a licensing contract from a small job I once did for a record company for an album cover. Note how despite the apparent global terms, this contract specifies ‘non-exclusive’ except for my agreement not to sell the image for any other sound recordings. This is a standard boilerplate contract:

=============== start contract ===============================

From: (Company address removed)

June 30, 2009

To: Gregory Scheckler

(address removed)

RE: (product removed) / Gregory Scheckler Artwork Agreement (1510.09-ART)

Dear Gregory,

The following, when signed by you and by us ("company"), will confirm our agreement

with you:

1. You hereby represent and warrant that you are the sole author and owner of ONE (1)

piece of art, a copy of which is attached to this agreement as Exhibit "A" and by this reference made

a part of this agreement (the "Material"). You hereby grant to COMPANY a worldwide, perpetual,

irrevocable license to exploit the Material in packaging, promotion, publicity, marketing materials,

and merchandising including merchandise for sale for the COMPANY artist professionally

known as “ARTIST” (“Artist”), including the non-exclusive right to reproduce, distribute,

display publicly, and make derivative works of, the Material, and including the non-exclusive

worldwide publication rights and the non-exclusive rights to use the Material in connection with the

Artist for any purpose and in any medium, now known or devised in the future, perpetually and

throughout the world. As between you and COMPANY, you shall be the owner of the copyright in the

Material, subject to COMPANY's non-exclusive rights to use the Material as described herein and the

restrictions on your use of the Material as described herein, and provided that notwithstanding the

foregoing COMPANY shall be the owner of the compilation copyright in the Artist's records and

related materials embodying the Material. You hereby irrevocably authorize, empower, and appoint

COMPANY your true and lawful attorney (a) to initiate and compromise any valid claim or action

against infringers of COMPANY's rights with respect to the Material; and (b) to execute in your name

any and all documents and/or instruments necessary or desirable to accomplish the foregoing.

COMPANYwill give you ten (10) days notice before signing any such document in your name.

COMPANY may dispense with that waiting period when necessary, in COMPANY's judgment, to

protect or enforce its rights, but COMPANY will notify you in each instance when it has done so. The

power of attorney granted under this paragraph 1 is coupled with an interest and is irrevocable.

2. As full consideration for all rights granted herein in and to the Material and your

representations and warranties contained herein, COMPANY will pay you (inclusive of any sales, use

or other applicable taxes)

(a)  (fee stated here)

3. You hereby represent and warrant that you have not and will not use and/or license

or otherwise dispose of rights in the Material to any other third party in connection with the

exploitation of, the marketing advertising and promotion of sound recordings.

4. You warrant and represent that (a) you have the right and power to enter into and

fully perform this agreement; (b) no use of the Material by COMPANY or its licensees for any

purpose authorized hereunder will violate any law or infringe any rights of others; (c) you have not

done or permitted and will not do or permit any act or thing which shall or may impair in any

manner the rights herein granted; (d) there is no litigation, dispute, claim or action in connection

with the Material; (e) COMPANY will not be required to make any payments in connection with the

Material or its use, except as provided in paragraph 2 above; and (f) you will execute such further

instruments as COMPANY may require to effectuate the purpose and intent of this agreement. You

will indemnify COMPANY and any licensee of COMPANY against all claims, damages, liabilities, and

expenses (including reasonable counsel fees and legal expenses) arising out of any breach of your

representations and warranties.

5. This agreement contains the entire understanding of the parties and will be governed

by the laws of the State of California applicable to contracts entered into in California and entirely

performed there. No change of this agreement will be binding upon COMPANY unless made by an

instrument signed by an authorized signatory of COMPANY. Company may assign its rights under

this agreement in whole or in part. You will perform under this agreement as an independent

contractor and not as Company's agent or employee.

Exhibit A (artwork attached)

======================= (end contract) ==============================

More difficult than any of these legal issues, of course, is finding people and publishers who will pay for your artwork. For that you’ll need to contact galleries, publishers, artists and editors for advice, basic business connections, etc. Probably the easiest way to get a lot of addresses and phone numbers in one place is to get a hold of the most recent version of Photographer’s Market. Then start sending out your best photos or other artworks, and keep at it. Once you have 6,000 rejections in a row you can give up. Until then, keep seeking paid work.

Lighting Diagrams and Recipes

This new blog post looks to contain hundreds of ideas about lighting for the staged photo:

20 Resources That Will Get You Lit

I'm not much of a portraitist, but if you'd like to learn more about studio lighting for portraits, Stefan Tell has some very clear blog posts about portrait lighting. 

Curves

Bonus blog post...

Basically, we haven't discussed it much yet but the Curves adjustment tool is a great way to adjust tone and color (and therefore exposure) ranges throughout a photo all in one convenient place. Very useful. See Photoshop menu Image --> Adjustments --> Curves or for similar processes in GIMP try menu Colors --> Curves.

There's an extremely clear and understandable tutorial about how to use Curves over at Tutorial9.net

Curves can be overdone with great ease... but they can also be a convenient way to tweak a lot of color and value settings all at once. And if you want very subtle control using layers options like 'lighten' or 'darken' or 'luminosity' or 'hue' with some transparencies too, try using Curves in a new Layer, or Adjustment Layer. (actually the same is true with any of the processing controls we've tried throughout this class).

Visual example of the differences... using curves to fix the tonal range in the shadows and midtones...

Snapshot versus Fine Art, Part 2

Part 2:  Intersections with Photojournalism

Similar to the snapshot is a strictly photojournalistic approach, in that snapshots and photojournalism tend to rely on unretouched photography. But photojournalism unlike the snapshot can be quite intentional.

The photojournalist's documentary photo is intended as evidence to tell or support the news. With photojournalism, realism is necessary and the photographer aims to tell a story that’s consistent with what’s really happening in the world. For that reason, retouching of the image is forbidden. In contrast, the fine art photo includes much of the artist creating the image in such a way as to draw out expressions, images, and content that the artist finds most important – not merely what’s there to be photographed, but rather, what’s there to be richly emphasized, even altered if needed. The fine art photo could be (but doesn’t need to be) heavily altered and retouched, whereas the photojournalistic photo must not be retouched, and the snapshot photo too is normally little retouched. But unlike the documentary photo's need for realism, the snapshot is not retouched for a different reason... it’s just too casual to bother with much redesigning and retouching.

Our expectations are that fine art photos don’t have to be but could be retouched, redesigned, and altered for aesthetic or symbolic effect, whereas the snapshot probably isn’t altered and the photojournalist or documentary photo had better not be. We expect some photos to be truthful representations, even evidence in a court of law, whereas we expect other photos to be expressive or even wholly fictional.

But at a certain level no photo is entirely truthful, since the photographer must always adapt camera settings, lens settings, and composing to the imagery that she intends to record, thus altering what can be recorded every step of the way.

On the intersections and problems among the differences between careful editorial photojournalism, strange retouching issues, truthfulness versus misleads in photography, there is no better writer than Errol Morris (who made the academy-award winning documentary, The Fog of War). I recommend reading these two sets of his online essays:

It Was All Started by a Mouse (Part 1, and Part 2) – detailing the problems of how to title and caption a ‘truthful’ photojournalism.

Photography As a Weapon (linked here at the NYTimes Blogs) – regarding the unusual retouching and captioning that happens in photos such as the missiles shown here, which is widely recognized as a fake, although it was published by numerous newspapers:

[photo credit: New York Times / Errol Morris]

All of this begs the question... can you really trust any photo? Responding to this question requires being very familiar with the intentions of the photographer, the apparent uses of the camera and its settings, and looking for tell-tale clues in the photo that something may have been manipulated. How do you recognize the fakes? In addition to Morris’s articles, here’s a great sidebar discussion at Scientific American, Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo.

If you’d like much more detailed information about photo fakes and image forensics, then you should check out the research and writings of Hany Farid, who leads the Image Science Group at Dartmouth.

Sometimes, of course, finding the fakery is delightfully easy. You'll see lots of humorous examples (and some fakes of fakes), at PhotoshopDisasters.  Enjoy!