Andrew Kelley Photography » Photographic Ruminations

Good Art vs. Salable Decor

Andrew — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 00:47:57 +0000

Koi

Well, this is both timely and interesting. As part of a general push to market my images, I’ve been preparing for a round of spring art shows. I mostly have the logistics down — which print sizes to offer, how to display them, where to source the materials etc. (I’m planning to cut, mat, and frame the prints myself.) The real challenge is deciding which images to sell. Just as I was pondering that question, I read today’s post on The Online Photographer:

Selling prints is really a lot different than exhibiting photographs. Also than discussing photographs. The end-use of a print for sale—at least when there’s no personal connection between the subject and the buyer—is presumably for it to be displayed. That is, it will be used as decor. And a picture most people will put up for display can be very different from a picture they’ll enjoy looking at online or in a book. (Again, assuming the photographs or the photographers aren’t recognizable or famous.) They’re actually relatively specialized pictures.

Interesting. And yet another peril in self-editing one’s photography. Not only is there the ever-present risk of picking photos that have special meaning to the photographer, but are otherwise not very good. There’s the additional challenge of picking photos that are both good and that someone would hang on their wall. I’ve made some strong images, that I wouldn’t hang on my walls — and I shot them! (See exhibit No. 1 above.) I’ll have the bear this in mind as I make my selects for the art shows. If you have ideas about photos that I should include, please leave a comment. Once I’ve narrowed down the field, I’ll post a gallery here for comment.

| 2 comments | Post tags: Art, Decor, Print Sales, The Online Photographer |
© Andrew Kelley Photography, all rights reserved

Ego Stroking

Andrew — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 23:06:36 +0000

Buy Print | License

Sunrise with Snow Geese

One of my favorite images, Sunrise With Snow Geese (above) was selected for 500px.com’s daily livejournal of notable images. Not coincidentally, the image is currently¹ included in 500px’s collection of popular photos. I feel a tad sheepish for being excited about winning a popularity contest. I’m supposed to photograph for myself, create a body of cohesive work instead of one-hit-wonders, etc. But I am exited. It’s great to have others enjoy my work, and I don’t know where else I can get so much exposure so easily. Even aspiring “artists” have egos.

Speaking of 500px, I’ve been spending far too much time there lately, enjoying the awesome photography on display, exchanging comments with other photographers, and tracking the reaction to my images. Fortunately, a few of my photos have been popular. It’s more than just ego stroking, however. It’s refreshing to escape from the rigid formulas for images that dominate some nature photography websites. Critique forums sometimes elevate technical details or formulaic rules over aesthetic success. There are beautiful images that are not tack sharp, and plenty of uninspired, but technically perfect images. Ditto for the compositional rules. As a photographer, it is critically important to learn the “rules.” Sharp images that are well-composed have a leg up over everything else. But following the rules is neither necessary or sufficient to make a good image.

The less specialized audience on 500px selects images based on whether they’re pleasing, not whether they follow the rules. Of course, it’s not perfect. Over saturated kitten images are overrepresented. Plus, people pick images to view based on small, square thumbnails. Some excellent, but subtle images, won’t ever be picked out by that system. But all in all, its delightful to participate in a new photographic community. (I should also note, purely as a factual matter, that most nature photography sites don’t include boudoir photography.)

500px uses a voting system where users can vote images up or down. The value that a vote contributes to an image decreases the longer the image has been posted on the site. This insures that the popular collection frequently features new images. ↩

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© Andrew Kelley Photography, all rights reserved

What Would Ansel Do?

Andrew — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:27:21 +0000

Ansel Adams is (rightly) regarded as one the of the pillars of “realistic” American landscape photography. And though Adams is almost too popular to be hip, I will confess that I stand in awe of his work. There is one point about Adams that many don’t realize, however. He is great, in a large measure, because he was a darkroom expert: he was great at manipulating photos to express his artistic vision.

This point came to mind when I came across these four videos on Jim Goldstein’s blog. These are four-part series of videos from the 1983 BBC Program “Master Photographers.” I recommend watching all four, though to my mind the second video is the most interesting.

Ponder these quotes the next time you think that digital manipulation is killing photography:

“None of my images are realistic in terms of values… it’s intentional manipulation” (at :50).

“The negative is the composer’s score, all the information is there. The print is the performance, so you interpret the score at various aesthetic emotional levels, but never far enough away dividing the original concept.” (at 4:00)

Notably, Adams was excited about the potential for the potential to reinterpret images using the computer:

“The thing that excites me is that in not too many years we’re going to have a entirely new medium of expression with the electronic image. I’ve seen what can happen to a print reproduced by the laser scanner and how that is enhanced and that is just the beginning. … and I know the potential is there and I know its going to be wonderful. Well in that sense the negatives for these photographs as an example will take the place of a fresh kabal they are….personal or some early composer will then be reinterpreted through a fresh medium and I think that is marvelous.” (at 7:00).

Thanks to Jim Goldstein for point out these great videos and transcribing the quotes reproduced above.

| 0 comments | Post tags: Ansel Adams, Video |
© Andrew Kelley Photography, all rights reserved

Light

Andrew — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 01:45:17 +0000

A hard lesson to learn, and one that I forget all too often:

Some photographers (poor souls) never learn the essential trick of photography, which is that photographs are about light—not about their subject, not about your equipment, not about colors or “sharpness” or proving you’ve been to the Statue of Liberty or Disneyland or what Uncle Fred looked like. Well, all of that, too. But mainly light. Light is the essential ingredient of a photograph. It can ennoble virtually any subject. More than that, it creates subjects. It structures the things we see. A photograph that doesn’t depend on the light it was taken in has a lot of extra work to do to amount to anything.

From The Season of Light at the Online Photographer. Well worth a read.

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© Andrew Kelley Photography, all rights reserved

More Blurs, and Other Powerful Work by Alain Briot

Andrew — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 19:27:36 +0000

Intentionally blurred images certain are in vogue this year. Master landscape photographer Alain Briot has posted a lovely portfolio of intentionally blurred images on his website. Though the technique is largely the same, it is interesting to note just how different Alain’s images are from William Neil’s images that I blogged about previously.

While I am on the subject of Alain Briot, I must say just how depressing (and motivating) it is to view his work (and to read his essays). Every time I think I’m getting better at photography, I view his portfolios or read his essays on the Luminious Landscape and realize just how much further I can progress as a photographer. Not to copy Briot’s images or his style, but rather to have the technical control and aesthetic sense to make images that reflect my style and vison as effectively as he does.

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Thoughts on Being “A Digital Person”

Andrew — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 06:02:58 +0000

The following from the Online Photographer review of the new Nikon D700 got me thinking:

You digital people are so lucky. And what do I mean by “digital people”? Michael Reichmann mentioned, in the course of his new Panasonic G1 review, that he encounters photographers these days who never shot film. So do I. It’s an amazing if inevitable development in the hobby. Anyway, I often don’t think you digital people have any idea how lucky you are.

I am one of the people Mike is talking about. The only film camera I ever owned was a Kodak 110 Instamatic, and the last time I exposed some silver halide was in my father’s Minolta SLR. When I was eight. And I definitely feel lucky to have come to photography during the golden age of digital. But I wonder, what might I have missed?

Mike’s obviously right about the “lucky” advantages of shooting digital. The histogram and “blinkie highlights” give instant feedback on exposure, and the LCD does the same for composition and focus. Plus the marginal cost of a digital image is essentially zero: no film, no processing. Also no film to carry into the field, no film to change (I can’t imagine having to stop shooting every thirty-six frames to load a new roll!), perfect duplicates, the digital darkroom, bigger prints from 35mm DSLRs than with 35mm film, and wider dynamic range, at least compared to slide film. And of course there are the ISO’s that simply destroy anything available from the film world. The list goes on and on.

But still, I wonder if I didn’t miss a little something with film. For one thing, digital encourages (at least in me) a somewhat hasty approach to photography. Rather than waiting for the decisive moment, I find myself using the machine gun approach: hold down the shutter long enough and I’m bound to capture something good. (I doubt I’d be quite as enamored of 6.5 frames per second if it cost 25 or 50 cents a frame!) Ditto for exposure. Shoot and chimp the histogram, rather than getting exposure right the first time. And indeed, with the modern RAW processing software and low-noise SLR’s close is good enough — at least if the highlights aren’t clipped. I’ve studied Artie Morris’ exposure guidelines, and I try to follow them, at least for fun. But let’s be frank. Most of his proposed adjustments are +/- a third of a stop. I doubt fairly strongly whether one can tell any difference between images that are exposed dead on in the field and images that are adjusted by a third of a stop (or even two-thirds of a stop) in post, at least if the highlights aren’t clipped.

I suspect that my photography (at least of stationary subjects) would improve if I was compelled to take more time with each shot. And I bet that I would feel more of a connection with my subjects if I contemplated an image a bit more before making it, rather than wielding my camera like an automatic weapon. One of these days I’m going to have to purchase a totally manual film camera. Maybe I’ll get very serious and buy a 4×5 large format camera. Or maybe a panoramic camera shooting 120 rollfilm, hmm . . .

But I wonder. Would I be a photographer at all if film were still the rule, rather than the exception? Possibly not. I certainly wouldn’t have progressed as rapidly in my understanding of the hobby if I started on film. Maybe I am lucky.