Sorry, I could not resist – Honestly though it’s no easy road and it’s not fast. But learning photographics the right way is wonderfully rewarding. Edward Weston once said – “If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography.” – I’ve found that to be true. I also learned that the sooner you dig into the science of light and art working together, the easier it gets.
Take your time, enjoy it and don’t ruin it for yourself by trying to go pro before you’re ready or be something you’re not. That said, I’ll give you more. Visit the Best of Pro Photo Show page. It’s a list of of the best tips, shows and articles we’ve ever shared over the years. It will keep you busy for the rest of the weekend and you’ll walk away a better photographer. Good luck, Gavin.
Today we talk about the latest in the photo world and then get into concepts of image presentation, prints, signatures and more, in a challenge to get us talking about presentation. Join the discussion on the PPS forums. prophotoshow.net/forum.
The Bath – A Portrait that got Gavin banned form Facebook. Read more here.
by Gavin Seim: We all should to consider how social media effects us in the long term. I recently released a new portrait called The Bath. I posted this portrait on my Facebook page and the next morning I logged it to find it had not only been removed, but I had been banned from Facebook for 24 hours as PUNISHMENT for supposedly violating an “unnamed” responsibility of using Facebook. I assume they placed this under nudity, even though it contains none.
There’s is nothing inappropriate about the photo and did not even consider that it would get taken down. These are my kids and I intentionally made sure nothing showed that could be taken wrong in the slightest. So here I am, a business on Facebook, being treated like a three year old, slapped on the hand for being naughty. And that’s it. No appeal, no recourse. I call it a Facebook Spanking!
Even as a paying advertiser who has spent thousands of dollars with FB, I don’t have a real contact or way to get help. Just a black mark on my record, meaning that in the future, the punishments get worse. Some random thing could even get the PERMANENTLY REMOVED from Facebook. What happens to the years of work and thousands of dollars building my network and pages? Who knows. The thing is, they can do whatever they want. It’s their network. Just like every private network.
This got me thinking about how reliant we’ve become on social networks. Even someone like me who blogs actively on his own sites, relies on Facebook, Twitter and others to let people know about those articles and get traffic flowing. There’s nothing wrong with using those tools, but when we rely on them all our eggs start rolling into one basket. What happens if we get cut off. How many of us have maintained traffic sources that “we control”? Things like newsletters. Why? because I don’t like my business being under the thumb of corporate management that won’t even talk to me.
Personally this prompted me to start a fresh email list called the Light Letter. I want to make sure I can connect with those interested in my work on “my terms”. That’s not to say I won’t use Facebook, Google +, Twitter and other professional networks. But this experience really showed me that we as people and professionals need to become less reliant and start controlling our own content and traffic. I hope others will follow and start thinking about Content Freedom. As people who rely on content communication as part of our business, it’s time we make sure we can keep it flowing.
What are the solutions? I think a well made engaging newsletter is one. The list is not dead. Organic SEO traffic is good too. Maybe even traditional mail. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m thinking. What ideas do you have for controlling our content on our terms rather than on the whims some corporate management who couldn’t care less?
I’ll be going into more in depth on this soon as we look at how we can keep our content ours. You can also join my Light Letter below if you’re interested. Either way I encourage to check out LightLetter.com to see how I set it up. It’s been converting quite well.
by Ansel Adams – Tom Kobayashi at Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar, California, 1943. Follow the image link for more and some nice direct scans vs print scans.
by Gavin Seim: Ansel is one of my favorite pictorialists, though he did some beautiful portraits as well (check out this link for some cool ones you may not have seen before). I go on binges of searching, perusing books and trying to find overlooked snippets that offer ideas to refine my work. I was up around 2AM recently doing this and I stumbled across a little gem I had not seen before. The final interview of Ansel Adams by Milton Estrerow.
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“Two months ago, I spent two afternoons interviewing Ansel Adams at his home in Carmel, California. It was one of the most memorable experiences I have ever had. He was warm, brilliant, imaginative, sensitive, funny. We talked about everything from music to Georgia O’Keeffe to the glories of Point Lobos to how to unload my camera. I had planned to return to Carmel for further sessions, but he died on April 22. Following are excerpts from his last interview.
Summer 1984
MILTON ESTEROW
Who among contemporary photographers do you admire?
I like Joel Meyerowitz for color. I think he has superior color sense. Mary Ellen Mark is tremendous. The trouble is that a great deal of new photography seems sort of experimental, without any great motive. I feel very bleak about a lot of it. So many don’t care about craft. I like Olivia Parker. Don Worth is good, and Nicholas Nixon. George Tice is very subtle. Bill Clift, yes, he’s something. Roy DeCarava is very important…
This classic roundtable features the endless banter of The Three. But we actually talk about a lot of cool things as we look at the latest gear, talk about tough realities of the industry and even kick into some Facebook and marketing tips in our very long after show. If you listen to the entire after show, you get a +2.
Brought to you by the Seim Effects and the Amazing EXposed workshop – seimeffects.com
New Mexico case forcing people to photograph homosexual weddings. An artist is not, nor should ever be obligated to produce art they morally disagree with. SHAME on New Mexico courts – Article 1, Article2
