thoughts Archives - Page 2 of 2

The Longest Yard Sale

August 12, 2011September 13, 2012 bill Leave a comment

I’ve travelled to the World’s Longest Yard Sale off and on since the mid 1990’s. I went to college in a town close to the trail which now runs along US 127 from southern Michigan down through Tennessee and then on different roads through Georgia and Alabama. It now takes place the first weekend in August and you get four days where 675 miles of flea markets, garage sales, and yard sales appear. Just about any business near the route dedicated to selling cheap junk goes all out for the weekend.

When I first started going, the sale took place in mid-August and provided a way to get cheap items to fill out the dorm or apartment in college while getting back together with friends not seen during the summer. After graduation a few of us continued the trend, but now it’s down to me and a long time friend from college. The weekend now functions as a chance to catch up for a couple days as for buying cheap junk.

This year’s trip marked the first year I’ve been able to go and seriously working in photography as last year I didn’t get to go and the year before I was on my photo sabbatical. I knew going in that I’d be looking for props and wardrobe along the way. We managed to travel from the north end in Hudson, Michigan down into central Kentucky over three days this year. Following the trail forces you off the Interstates and through small towns and communities like West Unity, OH and Danville, KY I’d probably otherwise never see. You come across the routine and the bizarre along the way. The traditional sits side by side with the new like the construction of windmills in fields of corn and soybeans.

Overall I found some success picking up some items for wardrobe and props. On wardrobe I focused mostly on general items that would work with many models or I’d found more. I also found many people were a little too attached to their stuff, or at least more attached than I. I really like the things I came home with and look forward to working them into some coming shoots.

I intentionally didn’t take my camera on the trip, though I ended up buying a film SLR during it, because I knew I wouldn’t have time for shoots and would be on the go so much I didn’t need something else to keep track of. Still my iPhone provides a few interesting images from the trip.

Ten Days on the Road

August 9, 2011September 13, 2012 bill Leave a comment

I’ve not been able to shoot much of late. I’ve been travelling most of the last couple weeks for either work or fun with no time to shoot along the way. Two separate trips to Nashville and then a long road trip that stretched from Michigan to North Carolina. Just about every day began with getting up early before I was on the go all day and ending by going to bed late. The next day I’d repeat. I think I’ve had a taste of the life of some of the travelling models that I work with. Enjoyed the chance to see a lot of friends I don’t get to see that often along the way and spend a few days with a friend since college.

Over the weekend I did get a chance to do some flea market and yard sale shopping where I picked up some props for coming shoots. Along with the usual hats, coats, and belts I also ran into a great price on a Canon AE-1 film SLR with lenses and flash. Not looking to get into shooting film at the moment, but that might make a nice winter project when outdoor shooting goes away for a few months. Already have a plan to use the camera in a shoot later this week. Also have a shoot coming up on Sunday along with a couple last month to catch up on so expect more posts soon.

Speaking of outdoor shoots above is an interesting photos from a shoot with Bree Addams right before I started travelling. Posting with very little processing to show the interesting lighting effect on her at that moment. It almost looks like I’ve pasted her into the photo, but that’s how it came out of the camera.

A Look at 500px

July 25, 2011September 13, 2012 bill Leave a comment

Last week I tweeted that I had begun playing with a web site called 500px. I’d joined the site a couple weeks ago after seeing it mentioned on Twitter by another photographer Zack Arias. I posted two photos that day and played with the site a bit, but didn’t have much of a chance to come back to the site until earlier this week. After working around the site for a couple days I’d written up a blog post on my thoughts that I planned to publish around the middle of this week. However shortly after my Tuesday night tweet on the site I uploaded two new photos to the site including the one to the right from my shoot with Katlyn Lacoste last month. Though I felt it the best photo from the shoot I’d not posted it here to save the image for an entry to itself so it could have the attention it deserved.

500px works wonderfully and I think it’s worth a look right now for any photographer. The site feels well thought out and the recent attention they are getting seems well deserved. It’s the first time that I’ve joined and really used a photo sharing site of this type. I have a Flickr account, but don’t think I ever posted a single photo to it. You can see that social sites like Facebook have influenced the 500px design. The terms of service are photographer friendly and I feel comfortable sharing photos there. For those without a website or blog of their own, the site also offers the ability to sell prints directly from the site.

The basic social features are all there including commenting on photos, marking photos as favorites, and the ability to follow another photographer. I do like the ability to follow a photographer since if I like your work I can easily see what you do next. The overall quality of photos on the site seems high which I think comes from having some very good photographers on the site and a well thought out ranking system works. They also have some very interesting ideas on ranking and rating photos that are largely targeted at trying to help photographers get exposure on the site. Part of their rating method reduces a photo’s rating over time which I like as it puts an emphasis on both uploading new photos to the site and keeps photos that have been on the site for a long time from dominating the popular lists.

I can share an experience on how well the process can work even for someone like me new to the site. After uploading the two photos Tuesday night I moved to another project that occupied me until bedtime so I didn’t pay attention to anything photo related the rest of the evening. My earlier two photos had gotten some notice and been added as a favorite by a few other photographers. I woke up the next morning to find that the photo of Katlyn had gotten a good bit of attention overnight. Then 500px promoted the photo by publishing it in their Fresh photos at 500px for July 20. From that point the photo soared and at one point Wednesday afternoon the photo was on the second page of most popular photos on the entire site. As of now the photo has dropped off from the peak, but still appears to be getting traffic. Remember that this is for someone who had been a member less than two weeks and had a total of four photos on the site.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve never had a single image viewed more times that this one of Katlyn. The interesting side effect has been more traffic to my main web page. On Wednesday my site saw about three times as many visitors as a normal day and the traffic bump still lingers even through yesterday which saw about twice as many as a normal Saturday. I’ve also seen a similar bump on Twitter where I’ve gained more followers this week to my candidvision account than in the previous month.

Sometimes It Just Doesn’t Work

July 12, 2011September 13, 2012 bill Leave a comment

A recent shoot reminded me of an important lesson that sometimes a shoot concept just doesn’t work. I would expect this occasionally with an inexperienced model or when I’m working with a new model. In this case I was working with an experienced model that I’ve shot with many times before and always with great results. One of the concepts that I brought to shoot just didn’t work. The model couldn’t feel it and get into the right mindset. We tried for a while and she did get close a few times, but in the end she just never felt it and the shots just aren’t there.

My mistake came when I kept working on the idea even after it became obvious to me that she couldn’t get her mind into the right place. It’s true that she wanted to keep trying, but at some point I should have moved to another concept that held more promise. The reminder comes to adapt your shoot to the situation that you’re in and not being afraid to abandon a concept that isn’t working. You can always try it again another day or with another model. Here we didn’t have time for one concept and if I’d moved to that and left the other concept behind I think we’d had a more successful shoot.