Copyright Scott Bourne 2010 - All Rights Reserved

I haven’t spent much time doing editorial photography. With that disclaimer, I still believe I have enough knowledge about the subject to have formed a reasonable opinion about its trends. And it’s the trends I find somewhat disturbing.

When looking at the portfolios of editorial photographers, particularly emerging editorial photographers, everything looks pretty much the same. It’s not a new problem. This has been going on for decades. It’s natural for photographers to emulate what they see in successful print. But this goes beyond that. This borders on imitation: not downright copying mind you, but imitation, which although nuanced, isn’t exactly the same thing.

Even more disturbing is the fact that much of this work is contrived. Pictures are out of focus because “that’s cool.” Pictures have polaroid-style edges because “that’s cool.” Pictures are strongly backlit and in fact blowout because “that’s cool.” When pressed, most of the photographers doing this work that all looks the same cannot articulate with any specificity WHY they are doing what they are doing. Whether they want to admit it or not I think I know why. They’ve seen it somewhere else so they are emulating it – either consciously or subconsiously.

Yet – it’s all done in the name of being “new.” Quite a contradiction isn’t it?

Yes the out of focus pictures are a response to too many IN-FOCUS pictures, so they think they are being cool by being new. If you’re a regular reader here you know what’s coming next.

It’s much more important to be YOU than to be NEW! The logic of this should be clear. If you are imitating other people’s style because it’s new and different from “traditional” photography, then you really aren’t doing anything new at all. It’s much more valuable and important to put your own, true stamp on it. Shoot from the heart. Don’t be one of those people that has an over-powered, strongly back-lit engagement photo in your portfolio because every other photographer has decided that it’s cool to wash out the detail in the picture. Instead, pay attention to story-telling and craft and know what the rules are before you break them.

It’s perfectly fine to try new things. In fact, I think it’s great. I advocate for that approach. But do so based on your interpretation and from a place that is truly you – that is authentic – that is born out of your own desire to communicate – not your desire to imitate.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

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The world is getting smaller – as in mobile devices like smart phones and tablets are replacing laptops. The obvious response for computer laptop makers is to try to “catch up” by scaling down. Enter the new Apple MacBook Air.

This ultra-light laptop was the first of its kind. I bought the very first version of the Air on the very first day it was available. It’s come a long, long way since those days.

I recently decided that lugging around my ultra-fast and ultra-heavy 17″ MacBookPro didn’t make sense. I needed a tax write off so I picked up the latest 13″ MacBookAir fully loaded. My test machine for this article is running with a 1.8 GHz Intel Core i7, four gigabytes of 1333 MHz DDR3 RAM, Intel HD Graphics 3000 384 MB and a crazy fast 250GB SSD drive. I also ordered the Apple SuperDrive, Thunderbolt cable and AppleCare.

Coming from Apple’s heaviest laptop to one of its lightest is very freeing. This thing is barely thicker than my iPad. I can walk around on a photo shoot with this in my hand and it’s lighter than most of my cameras.

The connectivity is much improved over the previous versions. There’s a new Thunderbolt port which I use to connect to the Promise Pegasus R6 for 10 TB of usable RAID storage, plus two TB of redundant storage. There’s a port for connecting a CD Rom drive (extra) and two USB ports. There’s a headphone jack and one feature I just love – a fast built-in SD card reader. While I have never been a huge fan of SD cards it’s clear that the manufactures are. More and more of the cameras I use support SD so this is a very convenient feature. Believe it or not, no matter how many card readers I buy (and it seems like I’ve bought dozens) I can never find one when I need one so thanks Apple for saving my bacon with the SD reader.

The ergonomics are better than ever. The screen is bright and easy to read and the backlit keyboard was very important to me since I often write at night. The computer doesn’t get hot on my lap. The touchpad works very well.

For me, the biggest improvement in the new MacBook Air is speed. In everyday use, the 13-inch Air feels incredibly snappy, thanks in large part to the way Apple integrates flash memory into the design. The Air boots almost instantly. Just as impressive, the Air’s flash memory achieved a crazy-fast file transfer rate of 127 MBps!

And the final speed test? Running Aperture. I used to lament the fact that Aperture wouldn’t run on my original Air. Okay it would RUN but not in an acceptable way. It was dog slow and utterly unusable. On this new i7 Air Aperture glides along making the new 13″ MacBook Air perfect for travel.

The battery will last a good six hours or more if you baby it but I love to run full on so I get about half that. It’s comparable with other laptops I’ve used.

The 13″ MacBook Air as I’ve configured it is indeed spendy. I paid just north of $2000 plus tax. But I priced a comparable laptop from Samsung running Windows and the price ended up being nearly identical, with the Samsung being about $50 more expensive.

If you want an ultra-light, small laptop for photography and can afford it, the 13″ MacBook Air is worth a look. It’s fast, well-designed, has decent battery life, a nice display, great connectivity and easy to carry.

Highly recommended.

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Copyright Scott Bourne 2011 - All Rights Reserved

(With a hat tip to Jeff Foxworthy!)

You might be a bad photographer if:

1. You think that merely owning a Leica means your images will hang in a museum.

2. You know nothing about and care nothing about your subject.

3. You need to get drunk or stoned before you think making pictures is fun.

4. You think that paying extra for the “PRO” account on Flickr makes you a professional photographer.

5. You spend more time explaining your photographs than you do making them.

6. You think that picking up your camera once a year during a national holiday means you’re avoiding getting rusty.

7. You spend more time on camera forums belittling other people’s photographs than you do trying to figure out how to make your own better.

8. You spend ANY time complaining that your pictures don’t get enough LIKES on Facebook or Flickr.

9. You’re more interested in making photographs that cause the cool kids to promote you on Google+ than you are telling stories with your camera that matter to your subjects.

10. You think that pixel-peeping and measure-beating will cause you to be a successful and famous artist – or – to get that girl you met in college to like you.

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Guest Post and Photo by Tamara Lackey – Follow Tamara on Twitter - twitter.com/tamaralackey

One of the more difficult things for a portrait photographer to do is start the shoot with a resistant subject. You can light them stunningly well, pose them beautifully, and place them against the most perfect backdrop ever – but if your subject is not choosing to engage in the experience of being photographed, it’s quite difficult to achieve your best portrait work.

What’s a ready-to-go shooter to do?

1. Get to the root of the resistance. Are they self-conscious? Have they had a bad / boring / harrowing previous experience?

With adults – and children – I ask them quite directly. I ask them to specifically tell me the details of their previous experience, and then I try to get to the root of why it was so detrimental. I will close the discussion by explaining, in exhausting and often humorous detail, just how this particular experience will not mirror any previous negative ones.

2. Are you automatically hearing from your subject that he or she never looks good in photographs?

Many people have a self-image that conflicts with how positively others view them. One of the perks of this job is to show another how you beautifully you see them – and how you can enhance that through great lighting and posing.

An excellent tool at your disposal is the act of mirroring. Show them how you think they’d look best – play with various expressions and engage them through your sincere interest in truly wanting to show off their best attributes. Tell them they need do nothing but mimic at first. As long as you’re willing to play along, that takes the pressure off of them – and, if shooting digitally, you can show them how you are actually getting attractive photographs of them, which does wonders to boost confidence.

3. Are they simply running in the opposite direction?

This applies frequently to children and pets. Hopefully not as much to brides – but there’s a lot of pressure out there, so you can’t really rule that possibility out in all cases.

With children and pets, I let them get it out of their system – often encouraging more running and activity right out of the gate, if I see that’s what they need. In terms of the photographer, this requires a good sense of perspective, a basic understanding of the sheer power of bottled-up energy, and an active willingness to wait for the right moment.

With brides, it’s a whole different issue and usually one best suited for a relationship counselor. And that’s pretty awesome because, every so often, it’s nice to know that we photographers don’t have to do everything.

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Photofocus Episode 100

Host: Scott Bourne (www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne)

Special Guest: Frederick Van Johnson (www.frederickvan.com or www.fvj.me/plus)

Show notes by Bruce Clarke (www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke)

Welcome to Episode Number 100 of Photofocus with Scott Bourne and special guest Frederick Van Johnson. Photofocus is the show devoted to your questions about anything photography related including gear, technique, locations, etc. Your questions will shape the direction of this show so be sure to send your questions to photofocus@me.com. We will try to answer as many as we can but we get a lot of questions so we’ll try to take a collection of questions that represent a particular topic and present them together. This week, Scott and Frederick talk about Kodak filing for bankruptcy, new cameras from Canon and Nikon, and they answer some listener questions.

Sponsor – Borrowlenses

Borrowlenses.com rents just about any piece of camera gear you need. Contact them today to rent the gear you need for your next shoot.

Discussion – Kodak Files for Bankruptcy

The big news this week was that Kodak has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Scott and Frederick reminisce about the days of film and all that Kodak did for the photography industry. Scott remembers his Kodak rep Mike and the great relationship he had with him. Scott and Frederick both had one of the first digital cameras – the DCS 420 and they discuss how the advent of digital changed the photography industry and affected Kodak. In the 90′s, the big bosses at Kodak down played the importance of digital and in 1999 they decided not to make their own digital camera body which resulted in them being left in the dust. Scott thinks they could have taken that existing relationship they had with photographers and used it to sell and promote Kodak digital cameras. Scott thinks that the only thing they have left is their name and their patent portfolio but doesn’t think that will be enough for them to survive and that their name and patents will be sold off to someone else. Both Frederick and Scott are saddened by this news since Kodak played a large role in their photography careers.

Sponsor – Animoto

Animoto will replace what you think of as a slide show. Upload your photographs and Animoto will make an amazing slide show for you. You can try it for free and create short slide shows. Head on over to Animoto.com and try it today. They now offer 720p videos.

Discussion – Nikon D4 and the Canon 1DX

Scott doesn’t think these new cameras are revolutionary but are both evolutionary. The price on both the D4 and the 1DX are significantly more expensive than their predecessors. Scott thinks Canon is still ahead when it comes to video but Nikon is still leading the way when it comes to low-light performance.

Sponsor – Viewbug

Viewbug is a great place to find out about and enter great photo contests. Visit http://www.viewbug.com/photo-contests to learn more.

Sponsor – SumgMug

SmugMug is a great place to host and sell your photos and your videos.

Listener Questions

This week we kick things off with a question about the Canon 100-400 Push-pull telephoto lens:

Question One – Canon 100-400 Push-Pull Lens

Terryl Woods from Malibu California wrote to us about the Canon 100-400mm push-pull lens and wonders why it’s so controversial and what the problems are with it?

Scott: It’s a fairly old lens and was one of the first big zooms Canon sold. Instead of twisting it, you push and pull it. One of the biggest problems is that the push pull mechanism would bring dust into the camera. Since it’s older technology it’s also not one of the sharper lenses in the zoom range.

Question Two – Figuring Out the Focal Length

John Harginhand is trying to figure out the focal length of his zoom lenses but is having a hard time figuring the effective focal length from the EXIF data.

Frederick: He should be able to get that in the EXIF data. In Lightroom, when he clicks on the image, it should tell him in the inspector exactly which focal length he was at. He’ll find it in the Library mode under meta-data. The camera will record it when you press the shutter.

Scott: The data is there. You just have to figure out where it is using the program you are running for your photo editing.

Question Three – Editing Photos

Ryan Corum in Washington DC writes: I’ve always been taught to take as many photos as you can to ensure you’re getting the best shot and even then you can make it better in post but I’ve read that professional photographers don’t edit 99% of their shots. I find this hard to believe. How often do you edit your shots?

Scott: If it’s photojournalists, then they don’t edit their shots. If it’s for me, I don’t let anything reach a client that has been edited. I try to get it as close in camera so we never spend more than 2 minutes editing a photo. Spend time editing if you have the time and you enjoy it.

Frederick: Editing will be different for everyone. The metric is time and how much time you want to spend on an image. Most professionals will try to turn images over more quickly since time is money whereas a hobbyist might have more time to spend editing a single photograph. You can even outsource your editing to companies.

Wrap Up

We want themes and questions from you. Be sure to visit the blog at PhotoFocus.com for articles, how-to’s, videos and more. E-mail us at photofocus@me.comfollow us on Twitter. Don’t just take pictures – make pictures.

Scott Bourne is at www.scottbourne.com or www.twitter.com/scottbourne or www.3exposure.com or www.carloves.com

Frederick Van Johnson is at www.frederickvan.com or www.fvj.me/plus or www.thisweekinphoto.com or www.mediabytes.com orwww.twitter.com/frederickvan

Show notes by Edmonton Wedding Photographers Bruce Clarke at www.momentsindigital.com or www.twitter.com/bruceclarke

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Guest Post by Skip Cohen

I recently saw an email blast from my buddy George Varanakis at Rangefinder/WPPI. He listed the top ten reasons not to miss WPPI. Personally, I’d drop a few and add a few, one of them being your ability to interact with vendor after vendor to help strengthen your business. I’d also add, one trip to Vegas gets you exposed to hundreds of new products and concepts, one of them being GoingPro Bootcamp.

A trip to Las Vegas in February isn’t just about WPPI anymore. It’s about adding new building blocks to your business and some of them are outside WPPI programming. For two years I’ve started every marketing presentation with the same statement.

Just because the media says it’s going to be a bad year, doesn’t mean it has to be!

That’s a big part of the GoingPro theme and the GoingPro Bootcamp. We started the project because there are so many aspiring photographers interested in going pro and missing the boat on the right way to get started. Frustrated, they jump into the market with lousy quality and low-ball pricing. Instead of building a business on a solid foundation, they try and build it on the word “professional”, having no understanding of the importance of how to sustain a business.

Well, it’s been two years since we started GoingPro, which originally was just a book with Random House. Now it’s a blog with an estimated 50,000 followers and sixty-four podcasts, resulting in 120-150,000 downloads a month. Last but not least, it’s our second Bootcamp, an all day event helping you with everything, but photography.

George missed  the last GoingPro Bootcamp, but we didn’t and neither did about 100 aspiring professional photographers. He’s got another chance and so do you. With the combination of Michele Celentano, Scott Bourne and me we’ll help you with ideas on marketing, pricing, building your business, insurance, social media, community involvement and local networking, just to name a few. Most important of all, we’ll help you figure out how to promote yourself and your work so you can get your second customer.

Anybody can get their first customer. The trick of building a solid business is getting your second customer and even better, getting the first customer to come back a second time. You know how to focus your camera. Well, we’re going to help you focus on concepts like quality, value, integrity and the ability to exceed customer expectations. Those are the key attributes of any business that brings customers back!

And speaking of exceeding expectations – that’s just what we intend to do on February 18. It’s only $99 for the day. So, whether you’re just getting ready to take the plunge into the pro side of the business or you’ve been out there for a few years and need some help – we intend to exceed your expectations.

See you in Vegas! Signing up for GoingPro Bootcamp is just a click away.