This year I'm not going to run with a 52 weeks photo project, I'm going to TRY and complete 52 weeks of helping the environment around me. You can read more about it on my 52 for the Environment page.
Twitter # will be #52Env
Hello 2013... What do you have instore?
Has 2012 been kind? Has it delivered? Have you become better in any way? A better person? A better worker? A better lover? A better negotiator? A better photographer? A better dad? Did the sunshine warm your back and light your way?
No? Doesn't matter... There's always tomorrow, right? Not always... Mostly...
Well, my 2012 was interesting... A full year of running my own business, still semi-sane, interested and excited about opening my email each morning... I get some time with my little man, I get to spend the days at home and can wander about nude if I so desire... Don't worry, I wear a shirt for business Skype calls... I have a good coffee machine and a great music collection.
I have interesting clients, all in my desired field, all producing products I believe in - it makes it very easy to talk about the gear you promote when you use all of that gear. I don't get people that *love* this, that and the other when they've not even used it.... Anyways, their loss... Smile and Nod.
2013 is going to be more awesome in many ways. I'm assisting on another wedding with award winning photographer, Katie K of HeartStory in Canberra early Feb and then shooting my brother's wedding a couple of weeks later - can't wait. He'll look awesome and his lovely fiancé will look amazing.
A brief aside for you, think about this...
Do what you love. If money was no object, what would you do? I'm doing it. Lucky.
What is one important thing I'm doing this year?
This year I'm working with MindShift Gear, a new company formed out of thinkTank Photo and award winning photographers Dan Beltrá and Jerry Dodrill... MindShift are a company that make camera bags - well, that's what they do at base level. MindShift Gear are much much more - they're a company creating a connection with nature, they're making products that enable a photographer to work unhindered, to take care when amidst the great outdoors. This all got me thinking - how can I make a difference to my little part of our planet?... I think like this often and, as with a lot of other people, I come to the crushing conclusion that it's very difficult for just one person to do something worthwhile - not impossible - just very difficult.
When I think about the environment, I think about global warming, I think about Polar bears, I think about reefs and mountain ranges... I don't necessarily think about the creek at the back of my house or the river down the end of the street... The local park... Hell, a roadside near where I picked up my coffee... There are a brazillion *small* things I can do to make my part of this planet a slightly better place - it doesn't need to be cleaning the wrong kind of ice away from the entrance of the Norwegian Fjords or chasing a Japanese fishing boat back into international waters.... So, rather than be overwhelmed, I'm committing to a blog post once a week about what I've done in the preceding seven days to help the planet in my local community. I encourage you to do the same.
In other news - other clients have exciting products lined up for 2013 - some you'll expect, some you won't... It's going to be an exciting year.
Don't look down, dont' frown... look back and smile, look forward and be empowered. 2013 will be amazing.
Happy New Year x
Christmas....
So, it's been another interesting Christmas, shifting from Windows to Linux on my webhost resulted in my entire web presence being ...well... stuffed up... So, in the meanwhile (I have a backup, just not here at my parents where I'm enjoying a fun, energetic Christmas week or two) .... in the meantime, there's 'nothing to see here! Log off, walk amongst the trees...
Watching the waves roll in...
Sometimes we need to stop and do something different... I'm one of those people and tonight I decided I needed to stop - I'd been snappy (and not with a camera or rubber band) all day and had to turn off and go for a walk - I went for a quick drive and, as ever, took my camera perchance the Mayans were right and I spotted a massive asteroid headed for Sawtell... No asteroid, but a quiet spot on some rocks watching some surfers wait for some solid but small swell to propel them along to their impending doom - hell, it could have been their last surf ever! Anyways, I spotted this one guy whom I later found out was named Mitch Pollard, judging by his Facebook a very keen surfer, who put on a great show... Thanks Mitch.
I was using my 70-200 f/2.8 on a 2x MKIII converter for these photos - so they're at 400mm mostly f/5.6 (which is the maximum aperture when used with the teleconverter).
Listening to the surf, watching the guys ride... A nice come down. Here's a few.
Interesting that Mitch holds his hand in a natural 'god of rock' position when off the water! It was great being down there watching them cut back and forth on the small'ish waves, cleared my head, gave me time to ponder nothing at all....
I also saw a seagull.
Instagram, the new billion dollar sinking ship?
Much tribulation over the new set of incoming terms and conditions from photo sharing website Instagram. Many friends posting [me included] their thoughts on the fiasco... I've been thinking about it over night and this is what I've come up with - for today.
I am a strong supporter of photographers rights, that said...
First and foremost - we have to remember that Instagram is a 'billion dollar business' for someone... Someone / a group of someone's paid a cack load of cash for the photo sharing website and we've been using it for free since October 2010.
Instagram need to have a revenue stream - they need to be making 'the big buck' to get those investors back their cash... So they need a basic money making model, right? Now you could say there are three basic models they could roll with...
- Make us pay to download Instagram from the various app stores. Still free.
- Stick annoying ads in our stream - which some services like Ink361 already do (and it's fine) Still Ad Free.
- Turn themselves into a massive stock library with no lines drawn between images taken by a full time professional or a 7 year old kid.... Yeah, there you go.
They chose option three (you can read the entire agreement here)
You can also read Kevin's note to y'all here... It went live a little bit ago..
Option three allows them to advertise with your images - cross promote with the cash splashing Facebook big daddy momma company... AND, the bit that most of my friends are screaming blue murder about, they're going to sell your precious Instagrams to a third party... Or, that's what it sounded like, right?
OK, so even if that IS what they're going to do, they're only going to take images that you've previously not made any money from and sell them to their benefit... Whilst that's not in keeping with the Photographer's Mojo, it serves a purpose....
Let's have a quick technical look at this... [very quick!]
This image which I like to call 'Beached' is a modest 85kb... ComScore says about 7.3 Million people use Instagram, daily... Let's be conservative and say a quarter of them upload a photo... 1,825,000 people... Let's be conservative and say the images are 50kb (I'm using an iPhone 5...) that's about 90gb per day.. not a load, but it all adds up.
630gb a week or about 32 Terrabytes a year... Not a whole lot... Then you have network / load balancing / accounts etc.... Not a hell of a lot of overhead there right now... A drop in the proverbial digital ocean compared with Facebook / Flickr etc... None of that matters.
The purpose is that they wanna get paid.
And, reality is they NEED to get paid.... I want to continue sharing my images on Instagram, and those for my client. Instagram have NOT laid crazy claim to your copyright, they only want to dip their tiny little Mr. burns like claws in to your previously un-monitised photo stream and buy a few cool beverages... Great...
How many photographers do you know that are HAPPY about working for free? None... You pay for your albums, your prints, your computers, your hard drives... Why should you post your work online, advertise yourself (or in my case, myself and two clients) and not front up some cash for it??
We might not like it, but stuff costs....
I'm going to keep my Instagram account and I'll advise my clients to do the same... If I see a photo of myself on a billboard in NYC with the caption "Get mental help today" then, well, I'll reconsider...
