It's Different When You Work for Yourself

I hear stories all the time of people missing work for trivial reasons.

I don't have a judgment about these workers because I wasn't there. Often there's more to a story than people realize. But I do know it's different when you work for yourself, especially if you plan on staying in business.

I'm in Carpinteria recording for lynda.com. That's this week's day job. It's a great opportunity. On top of that, at night and early in the morning, I'm tending to my normal responsibilities that include publishing and taking care of clients. 

The kicker is, I would love to take this week off - or even a day or two. My right arm is still immobilized in a sling, and I left a house of runny noses with a sore throat and a head full of glue.

My mindset in these situations is to get through today. When tomorrow comes, get through it too. And just keep doing that until things get easier. Step by step, the work gets done.

Are self-employed people tougher? Not necessarily. It's really a matter of understanding the situation.

Then meeting it head on.

-Derrick

To Watermark or Not

When I share a picture online, I want people to think about the picture, not an intrusive watermark,

At the same time, I know that the metadata that accompanies my photos and includes my name and copyright information often gets stripped out of the image. 

I don't like that either.

So I'm faced with the challenge of how to best share my photos and keep my name with them.

First of all, I'm going to continue using metadata. If you're not up to speed with that, applications such as Aperture, Lightroom, and Photoshop, allow you to apply your name, copyright, website, and other data to the IPTC fields that live in the file header of the picture.

As long as someone or some app doesn't remove that information, it's always there. Personally, I wish there were a way to lock the IPTC fields after I've populated them. But as of now, I don't know how.

So that leads to watermarking, which is embedding my name in the actual image. There are all sorts of ways to do this, but my current favorite is an iOS app called Tagg.ly. It's easy and fairly attractive. 

If someone wanted to, they could crop out my Tagg.ly watermark. That wouldn't be very nice, but I'm sure it happens.

What I'm not going to do is put a giant watermark in the middle of my photo. For me, it ruins the viewer's experience.

I'm curious as to how you approach this.

To watermark or not.

That is the question.

-Derrick

That's a Judgement Call

Some of my favorite moments were never recorded by camera.

Sunsets lighting up housing tracts, billowy clouds hanging over parking lots, a child reaching up to hold his parent's hand - these are all shots that I've enjoyed, but didn't capture.

Why not?

Sometimes it's because of our selective vision. For example, those three-dimensional clouds hanging over a Safeway store are indeed beautiful. But the foreground isn't. So either I have a shot of just clouds and blue sky, or I have a shot of clouds, blue sky, and a supermarket parking lot. Unless something spectacular is happening there, the shot just isn't going to pass muster.

So I enjoy the clouds, and then go about my business.

The child reaching up for his parents hand, well that's a different story. People are nervous about photographers taking pictures of young ones in public. It creates suspicion. It makes people uncomfortable.

To be honest, I don't want to ruin the moment. So I let the child feel secure holding his mother's hand, and continue with my shopping.

This raises one of the most difficult questions in photography for me personally: When is it appropriate to take a picture, and when not? In the past, as a photojournalist, I sometimes intruded when I would have preferred not to. These days, I'm more conservative in my shot selection.

The bottom line is, I have many wonderful moments in my photo library - and just as many that never made it there. That's OK.

Because I'm a photographer. I see moments that others miss. I got to experience them with or without a camera. And many of those mental snapshots have stayed with me for life.

The real gift of becoming a photographer is learning how to see.

Whether or not you click the shutter,

that's a judgment call.

-Derrick

Prom Night

At 6:30 PM tonight I will be heading to a house not far from my studio, that will be full of excited teenagers dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns.

First and foremost, my job will be not to embarrass my boys in front of their friends. My second job, and the one I'm more concerned with at the moment, is to photograph couples shots of these young adults before they head out to their prom.

The only camera I've held since my shoulder separation, and then my second dislocation, was an iPhone in my left hand. Under normal circumstances, that would not be the camera of choice for tonight. So I had to come up with a rig that will allow me to shoot while keeping my arm securely attached to my scapula.

Little did I realize back in 2010, when I conceived of the nimble photographer, that my years of practicing nimbleosity would pay off this way. But tonight it will.

Everything that I need for this assignment will fit in my Lowepro Urban Reporter 150, which I'll carry over my left shoulder. Inside I will have an Olympus OM-D E-M10 with the very light 14-42mm EZ power zoom. I'll also have the Olympus FL-300R portable flash unit.

My plan is to stabilize the camera on the lollipod, which is very light and extends up to chest height on me. I'll add the MeFOTO ballhead with mini Arca Swiss removable plate to make composing the shot easier.

I can position the camera on the lollipod at a height that my right arm can reach the shutter button while still remaining secure in the sling. I'll use the articulated LCD screen to compose the shot.

In my left hand I will hold the off-camera flash which will be controlled by the built-in flash on the E-M10. Since it will still be light outside, I don't think I'll have to use diffusion. I'll just balance the ambient lighting with the flash illumination and drawdown the power of the strobe a stop or so.

I've tested this rig here at the studio. It's amazing how well it works. The Olympus E-M10 is light enough so the lollipod can stabilize it, giving me that extra hand I need.

Of course I'll write about my experience and how it all goes. I'll also share some pictures from the shoot. But the way things are looking now, this one-handed shooter should be able to capture some very nice couple shots tonight, thanks to his training as a nimble photographer.

Now all I have to do is make sure I keep my mouth shut.

And try not to look too gimpy with my Tyrannosaurus rex shooting style.

-Derrick

Every 15 Minutes

I was a speaker yesterday for the Every 15 minutes event held at Santa Rosa High School in California.

How I found myself standing there at a podium in front of 2,000 students, teachers, administrators, police officers, and emergency rescue workers, wasn't because of my photography background. It was because my son Zach was participating in this very emotional and important program.

Every 15 minutes a teenager is killed in a drunk driving related incident. 

It feels abstract when stated like that. So this program attempts to make it real by staging an reenactment that lasts for two days, ending with a funeral for the children who died in the accident.

My stepson, Zach, was one of those teenagers in the crash.  A police officer and a chaplain visited my studio to inform me of the incident. And then I was asked to write a letter to Zach expressing my feelings for him. After all the letters were reviewed, I was asked to read mine at the staged funeral.

Even though this was a reenactment, it didn't feel that way. And it's almost impossible not to get caught up in the emotion that comes with the thought of losing your child to a drunk driver. 

I learned a lot about myself over those two days. And it certainly drove home the idea that our children need to feel like they can call us at any time, from any place, when they feel like they need help.  Don't get in any car that doesn't feel safe. Ever.

It's a standing free pass. 

If necessary, I would drive to the other end of the country, to retrieve a child to make sure he was OK. 

Zach and his brother need to know that. 

Yesterday, I told them so in front of 2,000 people. 

And I will them again, and again,

And again.

-Derrick