Nothing particularly insightful to say about this. I just liked the texture of the rope.

It could maybe a little sharper. It could maybe do without the little red distraction in the background.

It was model night at the club again last night.

It’s still an intensely uncomfortable experience, but I’m actually finding I’m growing to enjoy it once I get past the “you model, me idiot who hasn’t a clue” stage.

It’s made me want to take more shots like this. Not sure when the opportunity will present itself though.

There is definitely a lot of magic goes into lighting these sort of shots. A lot more than my pictures give credit. One of the club members took charge of lighting and set up three lights -

• One firing into a white umbrella high right
• One firing into a white reflector left
• One firing through a snoot (I think that’s what it’s called) to the right rear

It’s maybe why I’m frustrated when reviewing these. I can see a picture I took, but not a photograph I composed if you know what I mean? I’d like to get some experience actually making lighting decisions and to do that I need to both understand lights and have access to the environment to do it.

It may be time to break out all the off camera strobe gear again.

I didn’t appreciate how bright snow had the potential to make a shot until this week.

I also discovered getting wet knees for your art is no fun either.

(f/7.1, 1/250sec, 50mm, ISO-200, 6/02/2009)

I’ve mentioned before that I’m always interested in new experiences in photography and one which has intrigued me for a while has been the idea of making money from it.

Now, before I go on, the idea of photographing a wedding fills me with dread. I don’t have the confidence or the gear to shoot family portraits (though I did do a couple over Christmas – more on that another time). So, I kinda thought that was it.

Well, turns out there is another way. Taking stock photography.

When companies need a bit of fluff for a website or an advertising campaign, a nice piece of fruit or some bloke scratching his head, they use stock photography. When someone wants a picture of a city for a new book or for an article, they use stock.

Which is great if you happen to have a made a hobby out of taking pictures of it.

Now, given the amount of photos I take, I’ve always been a bit bemused about what to do with some of them. I’ve managed to sell a couple at an exhibition last year, but apart from that and my own personal enjoyment (and here I guess), they never see the light of day. Stock photography seemed like an interesting idea to try out.

I started “selling” pictures about 2 weeks ago and tonight I discovered I’ve made $5. OK, hardly enough to make me quit my job, but as was pointed out for me – I made that while sleeping, surfing and working. It’s also kinda cool that someone somewhere likes my photos enough to buy them. Best of all though, you can sell non-exclusive rights to the image so you can use it yourself or sell it on a number of sites.

I’m not going to get into what makes a stock photograph right now, and I’m not going to extol on the virtues of it anymore than above. If you’re interested, there are a lot of sites selling it and you need to be prepared for a bit of a meat grinder when it comes to getting accepted and getting an image on sale – images are moderated and no punches pulled when they tell you it’s not good enough. Still, it’s good fun.

The site I’ve been mostly using up to now has been shutterstock. The percentage you get for a sale is very small (think 25cents a picture), but I guess it does add up. Other sites are available and I’ve registered on some of those as well, but without getting round to posting much to them.

I don’t think it’ll change the photographs I want to take, but it is kinda fun to play at from time to time.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Oh, and yes, there is a referral on that shutterstock link – if you sign up via it, I get 3cents for every picture you sell without it affecting your commission. Tell you what, if you start making me big money, I’ll maybe split it with you!

Last Tuesday was the annual NIPA beginners competition and as such saw several hundred of the best prints from beginners in clubs within Northern Ireland gathered together.

I was lucky enough to attend, and luckier still to come away on the night with some good results from my photographs. Looking at the entry however, one thing was abundantly clear. There are a lot of excellent photographers out there (and these are just the ‘beginners’).

I’m glad things went so well. I’ve been finding it tough to field entries for competitions and for general web fun recently. Losing the last half of last years photographs has been a lot more painful than I expected – it turns out there were a lot of prints I liked amongst it and each time I try to put something together I find myself looking for them. Hopefully there is some progress on their recovery – I’ll let you know in a week or two…

On an entirely different thread. I’ve started dabbling with “stock” photography. It’s early days and I’m still deciding if it’s something I want to progress, but I’ll post about my experience so far once I’ve been playing for a month (and surprisingly yes, someone has actually bought something of mine)

Anyway. Just a quick update. I haven’t gone away you know…

Was back browsing my street life pictures and found this one.

In retrospect, this is probably more along the lines of what the judges may have been looking for.

When you’re given a theme like “Street Life” and there is no brief provided to give a context, it should really be up to the photographer to interpret that theme. Sure, they may end up “outside the box”, but if it can be viewed as within theme then it should stand. However, with both themed NIPA competitions this year, the judge on the night has turned up and within seconds passed a comment to the effect of “the council have decided that <the theme> means…”

Instantly I was able to rule out a lot of my shots. More depressing was the fact that a lot of other photographers fell foul of this as well. On the night, I ended up getting second overall in the colour prints section, but to be honest it was marred by my frustration at this ‘secret rules’ thing that seems to keep happening. Myself and a few others mentioned our frustration to the NIPA rep – let me stress this is not his fault, he fell foul of it too.

Maybe next year NIPA will provide a context for the theme rounds on their web site? I’ll be dropping an email to ask them to do just that when the dust settles this year.

You know. When I started taking photographs I never realised I’d need to start learning animal, plant and now rock crystal names…

No idea what sort of rock crystal this is.

Still, it’s kinda pretty.

OK, I have a question and google has not provided me with an answer I understand yet, so I thought I’d ask here in case someone knows.

When choosing a shutter speed I’m told to beware of the reciprocal length of the lens as anything slower than that may introduce shake in the finished picture. Thus a 50mm lens has the reciprocal of 1/50 and so the ideal shutter speed for a shot should ideally be more than that.

But, and here’s my question.

What about on a digital camera? I mean, I assume the rule applies to a standard full frame digital, but since my Canon 400D has a magnification factor of 1.6 (that is a 50mm lens on my camera is effectively the same as an 80mm lens on a 35mm – full frame – body), does that mean I actually need 1.6 stops faster?

So, does a 50mm lens on my camera needs 1/80sec?

OK, I know my mileage will vary and some people have remarkably steady hands (not me) but does this make sense?

If it does, it would explain away a lot of disappointing shots I’ve taken that I blamed on me being Mr Shaky Hands man.