The rest of these are mine.
Photography 2
- Thread starter Floorist
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Well, I've been getting several requests from friends, family, and business associates to buy prints of my photos. I've been truly overwhelmed that anyone would be willing to purchase what I've done. With my wife gently prodding me along, I've decided to start a (mostly online) side business to make that a possibility. That being said, I've formed an LLC. The name is Bird Brain Photo, LLC. Over the next several weeks I'll be working to set up my site and arrange the details for options such as framing, matting, printing, etc.
I wanted to say thanks to everyone here who has been so encouraging to this new outlet for me. It truly means a lot to me, and I appreciate you all.
Of course, I'll continue to post things here as well and I'll try to share details of my progress as I'm able to.
I have no delusions of this turning into anything full-time, I'll simply be ecstatic if it helps cover some of the costs of equipment to continue to get better.
One step at a time as they say....
Thanks again!
Chuck
I wanted to say thanks to everyone here who has been so encouraging to this new outlet for me. It truly means a lot to me, and I appreciate you all.
Of course, I'll continue to post things here as well and I'll try to share details of my progress as I'm able to.
I have no delusions of this turning into anything full-time, I'll simply be ecstatic if it helps cover some of the costs of equipment to continue to get better.
One step at a time as they say....
Thanks again!
Chuck
Just have fun with it. I published a book 4 years ago. Has not made much money but it has been fun.
Wow is that in focus.This one took some time to get...about an hour and a half to get no wing blur and the bird in frame and in focus.Birding has definitely taught me patience if nothing else.
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The is super cool. Just getting it in focus is a difficult job, but the pose is perfect. 
I'm sure you've researched a bit on copywriting and watermarking images that you'll present for viewing on your site.
I was pondering what you're doing at one time.
I found a couple of places where you could create your space through them and they would market the images, giving the customer options.
I think you priced your image.
They would offer upgrades to provide mounting, matting, and framing. With each upgrade, they have you a percentage of that, above the image sale.
All we seem to get are the red and black striped wooly bears.
Thanks Hi!Wow is that in focus.
On most cameras if you hold the shutter button halfway down, the camera will focus on your subject and then when you press the button down fully it takes the picture. The problem is it stops focusing for a split second when you fully press down. If the subject is sitting still, it's not a big deal, but if it's moving you can get blur and the image won't be sharp.
The secret is using "back button focus".
With back button focus, you separate the focus and the shutter by assigning focusing on a different button, usually the AE-L / AF-L button on the back of the camera (hence the name). You use your thumb to continually focus the lens, while using your index finger to press the shutter button. Using continuous focus mode along with the back button technique helps with shots like that.
But still, taking a bird that's literally moving about 50-60 mph and doesn't move in a straight line for long, combined with a long lens that gives you a smaller target area to capture makes for a lot of missed shots. I probably have about 40 or 50 shots where he's half in the frame or blurry, or both
Like I mentioned. It's teaching me a level of patience that I never had before. It's been raining quite a bit overnight. It's supposed to stop around 11:00 and start clearing off the rest of the day and get to almost 80. We had our big dealer show that we put on this week, so I haven't been able to get out all week and I'm feeling the urge to go stand in some mud in my hiking boots with a camera!
My only challenge is today's my anniversary, (33 years married, 37 years together). So, I may have to take the misses along or I'm going to get in trouble. I love for her to go but she does get a little touchy about me telling her to quiet down. Of course doing it in the car BEFORE we get out and probably doesn't help.
I did bring home her favorite orchid and chocolate along with a card last night, so I've probably got a little leeway.
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Yep.
There are several vendors that help with all the options for the customer. I'm going through and vetting some of the ones that have been recommended to me by other photographers. You want to make sure their quality is right for sure. You don't want to start off with a bunch of angry folks who feel like they didn't get what they paid for sure!
One of my functions at my company is IT and I'm also responsible for our digital marketing, website, etc. I taught myself html, CSS, and a little bit of javascript a few years back and I've created some websites, but honestly I'm not really wanting to do it from scratch. I don't really want to spend hours and hours sorting out all the little "gotchas" and keep up with all the security necessary for e-commerce. I'm using Squarespace to host and create the website as well as the e-store. They are really reasonable and have been around a long time. They also have a bit of a niche with photographers so there are some really good starting templates that are fully customizable without having to do all of the coding.
Some of the other branding I've created...
Facebook page header...
Social Media Profile Logo
I'm working on all this stuff as we speak...still have a bit of work to get the website done and some of the other million things, but one step at a time...
Copyrighting images really isn't too bad. You can do them in bulk for one set price through the Library of Congress website. I think it's like 700+ images for like $55. That's also on the list of to do's.
Even though it's only been since October I've amassed about 25,000 images. Of course, not all of them are of a quality that I could sell, but I have to cull through and edit those, along with the new photos as I take them. Photography is the fun part. Editing is what you do when it's too dark to take pictures. There's quite a bit to the editing process, but it can help you make use of the images that are "marginal" and make them into something usable. But like learning photography, there's a lot to learn and new things are added every day.
Aren't you photographers glad its all on computer cards now instead of film so you can delete the bad and keep the good. Just think of the savings, I take donations for my advice.
Interestingly enough, film is making a comeback. My daughter's significant other is a film photographer. He specializes in street photography and cars (he's a mechanic). He just learned how to develop his own film this past year and it looks like a PITA to me. God bless him, he sends me pictures from his phone when he's working on film and there is just stuff everywhere in their bathroom. Lots of equipment and chemicals.
Film itself is crazy expensive, and even expired film is horded and sold online at crazy prices. So, if you got any old unused film still laying around in the sealed packages, sell it while it's hot. It's going like bitcoin.
Being a computer guy, the digital aspect is definitely one of the reasons I enjoy it. The editing takes a bit and can really save marginal photos, but it's still faster and cheaper than developing film for sure. The software (at least the good software) for editing isn't cheap though. I probably have $1000 in software, but it makes a big difference in speed of editing and quality of your images. There's some pretty bad editing software out there for sure. I use about 4 DxO products and I do the majority of my editing in Light Room Classic. Every now in then, I'll use Photoshop, but that's pretty rare really.
While there are some AI supplements for different aspects of editing, I really don't use them much. My editing tends to be the same type of editing that a film developer would do. I usually limit it to lightening or darkening exposure, cropping, changing white balance up or down, applying lens corrections, sometimes using vignetting. I do use denoising software (DxO PureRaw 4). Which essentially goes through and removes the noise or "pixelization" that occurs at high ISO (camera sensor light sensitivity). This sometimes occurs because of low light conditions with these digital cameras. For dark situations, like cloud cover, walking through shaded woods, night photography, you have to turn up the sensitivity of your sensor to light and this generates "noise".
After you edit images a few thousand times, you sort of develop a process and you can even create "presets" that make a lot of the routine adjustments automatically (like denoising) when the image is imported from the camera in RAW. You always want to get rid of "noise" first before you do any other editing. Otherwise, the image will get worse when you do any other edits. Like a say, you learn to develop a workflow, a lot like installing a floor.
These are basically the same adjustments that a digital camera will do "automatically" or a at least make it's best guess at if you shoot in jpeg format. I'm just doing the corrections manually so that I can adjust things they way I think they should be and according to what I was trying to do with the image when I took it.
On average when I go out on a hike, I'm taking between 400 and 1000 images. Especially if I'm taking pictures of birds in flight where I'm shooting in "burst mode" with a high shutter speed. I've even had days when I've took as many as 2500 shots. Each of my cameras is different, but I have one camera that will shoot up to 120 frames / second. That means if I have it set up to shoot that way, each time I push the shutter button, I can capture as many as 50 images from that one click.
The work comes in going through each of those 50 images and comparing them until you get what you want (assuming your settings were correct, and the camera's auto-focus and tracking worked correctly). Then you have to actually edit those images. I think I mentioned in an earlier post, I probably have one of the world's largest collection of in focus tree branches with blurry birds behind them. Sometimes you just have to point, click, and pray. Especially shooting from a significant different and shooting handheld instead of on a tripod or monopod. But it's fun. I liken it to fishing. Sometimes you get tons of keepers and sometimes you get skunked. For a two or three hour walk, I will usually spend 6-8 hours culling and editing images. You got to enjoy it or you'll go nuts trying to keep up with it.
20 miles from here after 11 inches of rain in 36 hours
How many miles from the Mississippi river are you?
Fort Wayne, where I live, sits at the conflux of the St. Joe and Maumee Rivers. These two rivers converge in the center of the city to form the St. Mary's River. A lot like Pittsburgh. As a result, we used to have huge problems with flooding. Over about a 25-year period, the city and county spent about $1.5 billion to raise the banks of the river and they also dug a huge "relief trunnel" that can funnel millions of gallons of water around the city. I lived through two major floods in 20 years. I was fortunate that we lived in an area of the city that wasn't flooded, but I had relatives who lost about everything. We had an aunt & uncle who had to live with us for about 3 months while they tried to rebuild when I was a kid. I pray for those who are affected and hope the damage is kept to a minimum. Be careful and stay safe!
Near the Kansas/Missouri border.
....They took my Kodachrome away
.....and I quit, kinda cold turkey.
I couldn't afford to duplicate the quality of what I had, so the motivation disappeared. It changed so quickly too.
Not just that, but life changed and there didn't seem to be a way back.
I'm so glad I discovered the hobby tho. Lots of miles discovered traveling back roads, logging roads (we have a LOT), and seeing things 95+% of the locals never have, and never will see.
People never venture off to see what's out there to see. They probably see a gravel road and turn around, thinking banjos are about to start playing. Kinda sad that people don't go out exploring. A lot of cool places aren't very far away. Ya just gotta turn the key and drive. You don't even need to have a destination..... just go
.....and of course, stop. Ya gotta stop to smell the roses, or in my case, mud flats.
What a mess.
"After you edit images a few thousand times, you sort of develop a process and you can even create "presets" that make a lot of the routine adjustments automatically (like denoising) when the image is imported from the camera in RAW. You always want to get rid of "noise" first before you do any other editing. Otherwise, the image will get worse when you do any other edits. Like a say, you learn to develop a workflow, a lot like installing a floor."
When cleaning up my Kodachrome scans, I never know what order to do the in.
Look at my signature image.
I was playing with PS. I must have done hundreds of manipulations..... It was about a 1/8" square out of a Kodak film frame.
My girlfriends daughter was twirling a sparkler and it was probably a 10 second exposure.
I found this one interesting shape, copied it, then tweaked it to death, saving the results they tweaking again using levels, sharpening, sharpening again, them hitting contrast, then histogram in color channels...... I just kept doing it over and over and over... probably till the sun came up.
I still have the Photoshop program and the Kodak scanner...... But the scanner became unusable after the introduction of Windows 10.. My XP computer died, and so did my ability to scan and use Photoshop.
I guess now it's an annual fee? They don't like it when you could pay once by buying the program outright.
When cleaning up my Kodachrome scans, I never know what order to do the in.
Look at my signature image.
I was playing with PS. I must have done hundreds of manipulations..... It was about a 1/8" square out of a Kodak film frame.
My girlfriends daughter was twirling a sparkler and it was probably a 10 second exposure.
I found this one interesting shape, copied it, then tweaked it to death, saving the results they tweaking again using levels, sharpening, sharpening again, them hitting contrast, then histogram in color channels...... I just kept doing it over and over and over... probably till the sun came up.
I still have the Photoshop program and the Kodak scanner...... But the scanner became unusable after the introduction of Windows 10.
. My XP computer died, and so did my ability to scan and use Photoshop.I guess now it's an annual fee? They don't like it when you could pay once by buying the program outright.
