Jain Lemos » Photography and Publishing

Twirling Saguaro. Photo by Jain Lemos.

Can you provide a few images to help build the Encyclopedia of Life? It is an incredible global partnership between the scientific community and the general public to record every species on the planet, about 1.8 million. (This is NOT the type of image they are looking for.) As of late August, almost 40% of EOL’s 33,000 images are from five photographers: from Portugal, Australia (2), Spain and Austria. You can see a showcase of the best here.

If you want to provide images you agree to do so under a Creative Commons license, so be sure to read the Licensing Policy first. I suggest selecting CC‐BY‐NC (Attribution‐NonCommercial).  Start by viewing the instructions on contributing photos via the EOL Flickr group on their How To Slideshow. There are 18 slides; open to full screen mode. Let me know if you decide to participate and what you will be contributing. I am going to submit some shots of the friendly, small white lizards that hang out by our front door.

1963 Cadillac Sedan DeVille. Photo by Jain Lemos.

Chances are, you have invested countless creative hours into several important projects. Some of these may have been published, licensed or sold; others are most likely buried deep in a file directory on a mass-storage drive, never to surface on a desktop again… unless you take some action today.

Revamping, recycling and recirculating materials already “in the can” is a practice that successful artists utilize. How long ago you developed the material is inconsequential. Think of it this way: If the project was important enough then, it still is. Knowing when and how to repackage your work is invaluable. Here are a few points to keep in mind:

• If you can link your work to any trending topic, you have a ready audience.
• Search again for outtakes or chapters eliminated in editing and start building the sequel.
  
• Refresh the content with new, unexpected design direction appealing to a different (and wider) demographic.
• Remember that beautiful-but-static hummingbird calendar? Now, use 100 images of the birds and assemble them into a 4-minute video with narration, graphics, hip music and sprinkle in amusing factoids.
  
• Use behind-the-scenes techniques to convey the excitement and emotion you had when creating the project.
  
• Don’t be afraid to be bold! Leave plenty of room for collaboration and be open to changing your original vision.

Sometimes I wonder how many more photo sites I can possibly add to my bookmark list! I’ve been cruising this one lately pegged as Picture Social: The Network for Photographers. One of their groups is called Photo Criticism. Here is how the group’s leader, Richard S., explains the rules:

“This group is for negative feedback on photos or things that could be improved only. People tend to only comment on photos when they have something nice to say, but this group is designed to go against that trend so you as a photographer can find out what is wrong with your technique. So please don’t be afraid to contribute a negative comment in this group on someone else’s work.”

As far as I can tell, most critiquing is done politely and constructively despite the green light to hammer away at any downright terrible photos. There are pros and cons to soliciting advice from strangers (who you’ll soon add as friends so maybe my point is moot). Sometimes receiving too much feedback makes your head spin, causing the wheels to fly off of your creative process and vision. Still, I love looking at all types of images and throwing in my seven cents here and there. Will you be brave enough to put your photos up on the chopping lightbox?

And I’m married to a white man with blue eyes. Is that diversity? Can we be… trusted? What happened to the We Are All One mantra? It seems the more we try to achieve world unity, the more we become scrutinized for being, well, whatever we happen to be!

Here is how this topic comes around to photography. I received my June issue of Photo District News the other day. All 80 pages. It’s the “Careers & Self-Promotion” Issue. One article is titled, “Eye-Catching Promos Under $3,000.” I should hope they are blinding the editor for that price! Despite big promises on the cover, the issue had little new information given the sophistication of their audience. When I tossed it on top of my huge stack of back issues, I wondered why I should bother to renew my subscription.

Yesterday, I received a bulk-mail renewal order form with a canned message from Publisher Lauren Wendle. Her headline reads: “It’s not a pretty picture.” That is, if I don’t renew NOW. No, I guess it isn’t!

The topper came today when I read on the duckrabbit blog that there is a new contest that has to do with PDN. You can win $1000! How? It seems that a recent panel of PDN Judges (24 and I know a few), are all white!

Stan Banos claims on his blog here that this is an example of “passive racism” and an outrageous slur on the photographic industry. Therefore, duckrabbit is offering a cool 1K to anyone who can prove Stan wrong by providing the best answer to the question: “What possible, plausible excuse could exist for PDN to select an all white jury from a publication of such influence?”

PDN, dying on the vine, has to play with their friends and advertisers, who I guess happen to be white. I really hope someone wins that money!

Update as of June 9, 2009: There is a statement issued by PDN on this issue here: PDNPulse on Lack of Diversity…

Oh, don’t tell me you were doing some marketing on Twitter!

Here’s what productive folks like Julian Oliver are doing over at levelHead. He calls it, “an augmented-reality spatial-memory game.” Stick with the 4-minute video for a few seconds as it starts to become interesting. The whole thing is beyond my groking, but I’ll bet it means a lot in some circles.

Now, back to the topic of Twitter. I’m working on cracking the code. It’s not as simple as it appears to be at first. I am finding many reasons to work on this platform. This morning, I drafted an idea for holding a Social Media Training Ranch. LOL, “How To Rope Them In!” Plus I can work as a SM Editor now.

In the 80s, we took the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Test (I’m an ESTP) and various other career path assessments, one called Natural Depth Management co-founded by my late best friend Kathe Willis. In one of these, my results were Promoter/Promoter/Promoter. I was not happy at the time as I fancied myself as Creative/Artistic/Visionary. This is all to try to put another blog post together so I don’t become rusty. Twitter will do that, 140 characters at a time. (Please follow me @jainlemos!)

Blow-Up, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni

I seem to be doing so much whirling around there hasn’t been time for posting. Everything on my mind seems to be off topic. Here’s what I have:

Last night I watched this amusing movie: Blow-Up. It was new to me. It’s a 1966 classic. You probably have seen it! It’s a boring movie, but I couldn’t really put it down. I liked it a lot!

**Warning: The Wikipedia page linked to above has a spoiler under PLOT.**

I was curious to find out where the location was for the photographer’s studio and if it is still a studio. The page says, “The photographer’s studio was filmed at 49 Princes Place, London W11, which in the decades since has been office and studio space for architectural firms.” I would like to go there if I get to London.

For me, the best part of the move is the performance of The Yardbirds during the period when Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck were both in the band! Priceless. Fortunately, the TCM host alerted us to this factoid before the movie started. I was really getting bored and then I heard Jeff Beck’s guitar before I remembered to be on the lookout for their cameos.

Also fun was trying to calculate how many times Thomas pressed the shutter button out in the park without changing film vs. the 36-frame neg strip he develops. Film Professor Jonathan Dawson wrote this review of the film and gave me a great post title!

Black Star shooter Sean Johnson muses about what it really costs when asked to shoot for free in this post on Black Star Rising. In one of the comments, a reader suggests charging friends a little something. Frankly, I’m over that Friends and Family Rate thing. I give people my time and advice constantly without charging but I can’t remember a single instance when I ever received a special rate for services from any of my F&F except for a few partnership projects that required personal time/expense investments. Maybe that is because I don’t expect people to work for free or drop their prices so I can make more profit. I’m just too embarrassed to even ask. I’ve hired countless photographers, writers, editors, designers, assistants, printers and retouchers over the years. I tend to give work to my F&F before going to strangers. People I enjoy working with and trust to deliver quality I usually consider my friends! Don’t most of us work that way? I reveal my budget from the beginning and if they can do it for that price, great, if not, no problem. I also can’t count the times that NPOs, start-ups and the like used their charity status to practically demand that I reduce licensing or assignment fees, so I understand where Sean is coming from. End of rant for the week.

I have a tower of topics I’ve been saving to post and it all came tumbling down today. Here is what landed on top of the pile:

Thanks to John Thomas for pointing me to this Photoshop demo gem on YouTube. The hair extensions are particularly amazing. (P.S. John, I’m a Rangers fan, too! Hooray, they had a big win last night for game one/round one of their Stanley Cup playoff match vs. the dreaded Caps.)

After being on a roll yesterday because I figured out the installation and database config, I’m on the fence right now about ProPhoto2. There are some great features but also some areas that aren’t customizable. Yet. I’ll stick with it for awhile. I have a few goals in mind:

1. Expand my services to include creating photo blogs.
2. Feature publishing projects and photographers.
3. Provide new photo ideas for you to ponder.
4. Spend more time here and less time on Facebook.
5. Continue my own blogging journey, which brings me great rewards.
6. Encourage you to work every day on: One photo, one caption, one pitch, one blog post.

Over the holiday break, I had many conversations about the future of publishing and photography and I’m certain you did, too. It was a mixed bag. The big “thing” seems to be landing projects that have a lot of potential outlets but there is little money up front or on the backend. We are all working for less, hoping for more. The demand for quality photography didn’t go away and won’t go away. But the distribution of work is changing and licensing models are, for better or for worse, more simplistic than ever before. What does all this mean? I’d say: Let’s stay in shape to go the distance. Create something every day and don’t grade yourself too harshly. One photo, one caption, one pitch, one blog post. Yes, we can.

Santa was kind to me, and soon I’ll be experimenting with ProPhoto2. It is one more tool in my heavy kit. Productivity is my game plan for 2009!

Wooohooooo, Jain! Success! Thanks for using TUT E-Cards – Inspiration for every occasion! With every best wish, TUT’s Adventurers Club

“Give beyond reason… care beyond hope… love without limit… reach, stretch, and dream….” ~ The Universe

Thanks so much for your support this year. Hope Santa brings you everything you want. Merry Christmas! It’s going around. ~ Jain

What a crabby day it was yesterday with my frustration over PDN’s articles, a stock market meltdown and photographs of political candidates turned into horror shows on a magazine’s expense account. Navigate on your own, if you must, to Jill’s manipulator site to check out her latest handiwork that is spawning heated comments from every corner of the photo industry. We can bet memos are furiously circulating that explain how portrait lighting for name clients should only be from the top and left in the manner of history’s great master painters.

Everyone is brain stretching for the best headlines; any substance beyond that is immaterial. As long as you hit a news cycle, claim a million hits in one day or show up as a hot topic on the coolest photo blogs, it would seem you’ve made it in this business. Really, this is getting pathetic. Tomorrow, I’ll return to actually trying to help people as much as I can.

The last few days I’ve been writing about an insignificant issue: To have or have not comments on a Blog. Then I ran into technical difficulties!

There will come a time, most likely during the biggest shoot of your life, when technical problems arrive like mosquitoes on your son’s banana-smeared face. Your sim card won’t register, your notebook isn’t booting, your extension cord is too short, and that new assistant kicked the hair light you spent too much time positioning. Need I go on? Your subjects are twitchy, the magic light is over, the stylist is on her PDA writing a new invoice, and your fingers are swollen. Whatever: Something is broken.

So just how Zen will you be in a technical crisis? First, broadcast that you need to tweak something. Don’t explain, don’t complain and above all else, don’t apologize. Just make your announcement with big enthusiasm! Then quickly set up an amusement. You will have better ideas, but I am talking about simple and fast. Throw a hat in the middle of the room/street/studio. Dole out some playing cards and challenge folks to see who can flip a card right into the hat. This silly time waster will hold folks’ attention for about 8.5 minutes. If you need more time to fix your problem, divvy up the parking meter change and let the betting begin. Still not ready to shoot? No table limit.

Get up now to add a roll of quarters and a deck of cards to your Pelican Top Loader.

I am not sure I know the answer to this question anymore: How is professionalism measured in this business?

Have you sold any of your images for one dollar or less? Why did you do it!? To what lengths will you go to be considered a professional? If you even once received income for a photo are you calling yourself a pro? If you only have a photosharing website, have never been hired for an assignment, don’t have an agency or rep, are still paying off your first strobe kit and don’t know how to use a radio slave, why can’t you stomach calling yourself ***GULP*** an Amateur?

What if you had a sale on a microstock site or a relative paid you to take photographs of some event or their business? Does that justify the pro credential? To join some associations, you must state that your primary income is from photography and submit tearsheets. But association enrollments are down. The bar has been lowered so there are more people calling themselves professional photographers than ever before.

I am not all worked up about this. I am, however, shouting out to everyone who truly wants to be considered professional, “Please do not sell–or allow agents, assigns, associates or affiliates to sell on your behalf–any of your images for a dollar.” To lighten up this post, here is an amusing quiz you can take from PhotoPreneur to find out if you have what it takes. Question #13 might be the tipping point. Oh, they give us another moniker to consider: Hobbyist.