My First Protester
While setting up for a shoot in front of Moscone Center last week, I was greeted by a loud and dedicated protester. Inside the center was the annual Mortgage Brokers Association Convention & Expo. Outside was the lone protester. He was protesting the government bailout of the mortgage and financial industry. What he lacked in numbers, he made up for in heart. The fact there was only one of him didn’t stop him from taking the opportunity to disrupt the mainstream media (I guess that would be me) from glorifying the mortgage industry and the government bailout (again, me?).
Unfortunately for him we weren’t quite ready to shoot and were only in the setup phase. Sadly, he was ushered away by the time the shoot was ready to begin. I didn’t want him to feel like he didn’t accomplish anything, so I went ahead and snapped this shot of him in action.
Fight on lone protester, fight on!
It’s Been A Long Time
I was talking about my lack of blogging over diner with a friend the other day. She only recently has taken the time to read some of my writing and said she thought it was funny. I think she was just being kind. I thanked her in my typical uncomfortable with compliments kind of way. I stated the obvious and mentioned that I hadn’t really been blogging much lately, to which she asked why. I didn’t really know how to answer. I mean, I’ve actually been fairly busy with some interesting projects and there’s no reason I shouldn’t be writing about them and other things I’ve been working on lately.
Almost Famous
I’m not exactly a celebrity photographer. Not that I wouldn’t want to photograph celebrities, but I just don’t seem to get many calls for celebrity shoots. They say if you want to shoot celebrities you need to already have celebrities in your portfolio. Quite the catch-22. However, the few times I have received a call to photograph a celebrity it seemed to be the same story: “we can’t pay much…. But hey, you’re going to get to photograph <insert b-list celebrity here> and you’ll get photo credit!”
I’m not sure why they think I would accept less money just because I’d be photographing a celebrity. I always want to ask, “would you do your job for 50% less pay just because Janeane Garofalo was in the cube next to you?” Probably not.
I’m always usually willing to work with clients to meet their budgets, but if it comes down to getting a good rate and photographing a nerd in Los Angeles (Seriously, I just did a shoot for Psychology Today… they called and told me they wanted me to photograph a nerd) or a low rate and photographing Brad Pitt, I’ll take the nerd every time.
This week Photoshelter began testing a new print service for limited edition prints. One of my photos was chosen to be in the trial run of the service which will be going on through October 1st.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
I’m working on a redesign of my current website. Below is a link to a sample of what would be the gallery “engine” of the website. Currently I use Livebooks to power my website and while it has worked well, I’m getting a little tired of the format (that and it seems like every other photographer’s website I go to lately is a Livebooks page with the same basic layout).
So far, I like the new gallery (although I don’t know what I’d do with the overall site design just yet). However, I often like things because they are new and different rather than better… I tend to get sick of things and I’ve had the same web design for a while.
We all know that most photo buyers prefer a simple “show me the damn images” website without being fancy. It’s usually the photographers who get off on the elaborate, intricately designed and oh so clever websites that take forever to load and are impossible to navigate but are supposedly “worth the hassle.”
Some things I like about the new gallery:
- I like being able to see all the images at once in the thumbnail view
- I like that the images are a lot larger when viewing full size
- I like the interface and prefer its navigation (when using the arrow keys its quicker to go from image to image).
Some things I don’t like about the new gallery
- It seems to load slower
- The images are displayed in random order. This means I can’t put the images in the order I want.
- The image order changes every time you load the page so if a buyer wants to show another buyer a particular image and say’s “I like the 3rd picture on the 2nd row” it means nothing because that image changes location every time the page is loaded.
So, if you’d like, check out the new gallery and let me know what you think or if you have any problems with the page:
http://www.jeffsingerphotography.com/testnew/test/
And of course you can see the current design here.
Liz Hatch – Bicycling Magazine
I recently did a shoot with cyclist Liz Hatch for Bicycling Magazine. Liz was gracious enough to come to San Francisco’s Chinatown for the shoot even though she was in a pretty bad crash about a week before the shoot. She could barely lift her hand to shake mine when we met. And yet despite knowing she was in agony, I asked her to heave her bike onto her shoulder (yeah, the bad one). Without complaint she obliged, although I did feel bad as I watched her struggle to find a comfortable position for the bike…. hey, you’re supposed to suffer for your art, right? Oh wait, it’s me that’s supposed to suffer… right?
Needless to say Liz is a lot tougher than I am and could probably kick my ass even with her injuries.
