Through the Lens - CLOSED

Students! who'd hire em?

by Dominic Lee, AMPA. Priory Studios

I love looking at students portfolios. While I envy the standard of their work, which is often stunning and inspirational, they tend to be creatively non commercial (nice way of saying arty farty) for a job in a Portrait Studio.

Prepare more than one portfolio.

You may be a genius at photographing products or creating an artistic masterpiece from an image of a gravestone but if you are applying for a job at a Portrait Studio, it would help if your portfolio contained several examples of Portraits. Likewise, Pack shots & Advertising ideas if you are looking for a job in that area. And so on with Fashion, Architectural, Press & PR. It could be the key to get you past the interview stage!

Interview.

It is also worth considering your dress code. If going for a job interview to a studio which specialises in photographing families, it is not appropriate to wear 25 different pieces of metal embedded in your face and clothes which were designed to hunt animals on safari. It might make you feel good looking like the "Free Spirit" that you were in College but you won’t get the job if there is a risk that you will scare the bejaysus out of the babies.

CV’s

I receive an average of one CV every day; (some days 3) most are from the new EU states. So prepare yourselves well is my advice. Hire a suit if don’t own one (if you don't like suits, ring Bill Oddie). Look at the MARKET, and keep your work options open, many great photographers are getting lost in the system. Have a look at the company’s website and prepare yourself and your portfolio for a job in that company.

By Dominic Lee, Priory Studios

e-mail addresses

Photographers are by their nature an image conscious bunch, constantly looking at ways to improve their image and stay ahead. You make an effort to upgrade your studio, keep a good window display, new signage, enter competitions, and display awards etc. Of course you spent weeks choosing a trading name to create the right impression??

            Then why do so many photographers have such shitty e-mail addresses that say to the public “I am a fly by night cheapo” such as info@gofree.indigo.ie, joeh@hotmail.com , sales@yahoo.co.uk (how can you expect to be taken seriously as a Local Photographer??). Although not as bad, why do so many continue to use xxx@eircom.net  - especially when you have already registered your website address. I think it looks much more professional to use: [email protected] , but more importantly it is usually easier for the client to remember!

            I have had a keen interest in e-mail addresses since first choosing mine years ago and getting some great advice from a friend who had to change stationary several times when his ISPs either went bust or were taken over. If you register your own domain name you can take it with you to the ISP of your choice.

            What brought this “rant” on was a comment from a friend who recently tried to e-mail a selection of photographers from the latest Golden Pages and had nearly a fifth bounced back. I wonder if he had used a one year old Golden Pages how many would have failed? Not only is this a waste of your money but you are directing the potential customer to your competitors!

RAW or JPEG by Dominic Lee, AMPA. Priory Studios.

RAW is RAW; JPEG is “JAYSUS Please Excuse Grain”

It surprises me to hear photographers shooting JPEG’s on a pro camera. It’s a bit like using your hand to wipe the mist off the inside car windscreen instead using the AIRCON, which added HUNDREDS to the price of your car.  The fact that you can get 40 images in RAW mode and 400 in JPEG mode on the same card is a clear indication that you are sacrificing quality.

More of what’s bad is not good; it’s just more bad. So are you saving the cost of buying more memory cards? Hardly a good excuse when a 4-gig CF card costs about the same, as the average photographer would spend on film in a single shoot.

RAW file conversion in PhotoshopCS is a piece of cake. It’s at this point that you can make corrections to exposure latitude and colour balance without affecting the quality of the image. These changes can be made to one image and the same ingredients then applied to all of your images en mass or by selection.

JPEG (JimCracky Pictures Everyone Ghastly)
Adjust your JPEG by half a stop either way and you simply enter the “overcooked moment”. Lord help you if you have more changes to make (like cropping). From then on any change you make to a JPEG will create trouble elsewhere with your file. 

However, if you work on the required changes in RAW file, you have up to 4 f stops either way in exposure adjustment at your disposal. That means you may adjust it by up to 8 times lighter or darker and still have a printable, saleable image, (I'm quoting from the PhotoshopCS sales lit. and not from personal experience). All the information is still there so there is also scope to crop and change colour without affecting the quality of the image.

Unless you are 101% sure that your capture is a perfect exposure and with perfect colour balance (UNLIKELY SCENARIO), there is no excuse for shooting JPEG’s on a camera which cost hundreds more than its amateur kid brother which has no RAW file option.

WHY OTHERWISE WOULD HIGH-END DIGITAL BACKS ONLY COME WITH CAMERA RAW FORMAT THAN TO ENSURE ONLY THE HIGHEST QUALITY IMAGE?

So are you a Professional or are you Jake-the-PEG with an extra leg?

Dominic Lee, AMPA
www.priorystudios.ie

Changes to IPWS Blog

At IPWS we want to bring you an number of different views on the Irish Photographic Industry.  Having one author puts pressure on that one person to deliver (and at the rates we pay we don't want that) So we have invited a number of guest authors to contribute to the our Blog. Their brief is simple - write about the industry, global or local.  The authors come from a number of different disciplines - they are suppliers, photographers and media commenators.  I hope you find it interesting and stimulating.

Alan Murphy