(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)

Filed under: GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Mac Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •ProAudio Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Market Served •Corporate •Events •Products •Hardware •Storage •

CRU-Dataport Drive Boxes

Filed under: DSLR •GentryMedia •HDSLR Coalition •Market Served •Corporate •Events •Nature •Sports •Travel •Products •Camera Support •Cameras •Hardware •Lenses •

Holiday Gift Guide for Photographers 2011

6. Visible Dust Arctic Butterfly






If your photographer has a camera with interchangeable lenses, chances are she deals with dust on her sensor. Imagine a few specs of dust that are in the same place, magnified several times on prints, on every single picture you take. Cleaning a camera’s sensor is simple and quick with the right tools. We’ve used Visible Dust brushes for years, and swear by them. The Arctic Butterfly does the job simply and quickly and will be useable for many, many years, saving a lot of money and time instead of sending the camera out to have it cleaned.

7. A Good Image Editing Program






Your photographer has to be able to do something with his pictures after he shoots them to keep going with his creative vision. It’s like when we made prints back in the film days, spending days in the darkroom to make the perfect print. Only now it’s done in any room, with a computer, and your significant other won’t smell like glacial acetic acid for days afterward.

Give him a proper image editing program (and bragging rights) with either Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 or pop for the full-featured Adobe Photoshop CS5, the industry standard for the past two decades.

8. A Microfiber Cloth

Yes, this is the least expensive thing on the list, but if she loves her camera and her lenses, she needs the right thing to take care of them. A good microfiber cloth will safely clean lenses and filters without scratching them or just moving dirt around. Works great even on point-and-shoot lenses, takes smudges right off the front of the lens or that nose print or fingerprints she keeps putting on the LCD.

9. A Spare Battery






There’s nothing worse than running out of batteries just when the shooting gets good. Make sure your photographer has a spare battery (most all are camera-specific) to keep the shoot going. They run from $20-120 depending on make and model. Err on the side of the manufacturer’s own batteries, some of the cheap third-party ones don’t last very long and aren’t well made.

10. A Gift Card






If you don’t know nearly as much about cameras and photography as your photographer, don’t worry. If you check out and hear static the second he starts talking about f-stops and specular highlights, a gift card will allow him to get what he’s really been wanting.

Have a very happy holiday and enjoy shopping, you’ll get a happy photographer and photographic memories to last a long time in return.

Filed under: Business •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Mac Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •ProAudio Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Market Served •Corporate •Events •Fashion / Glamour •

The Easiest Way To Be Able To Accept Credit Card Payments

Filed under: GentryMedia •Apps4Phones •CreativePro Coalition •Products •Software •

How To Get Way Better Images From Your Smartphone’s Camera

Filed under: Business •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •Market Served •Stock •

Microstock CEO Calls For Photographers’ Union

Filed under: DSLR •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •ProAudio Coalition •Products •

One of the best reasons to have an eReader

Filed under: GentryMedia •Pro3D Coalition •Market Served •Nature •Sports •Travel •Products •Cameras •

A Camera I Can Forget Is In My Pocket, Even Swimming At The Pool

Filed under: GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •Market Served •Sports •Technique •

Playing around with high speed sync

Filed under: Business •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •Market Served •Corporate •Sports •Stock •Travel •

Getty Really Makes Me Mad

Filed under: GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Mac Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •Products •Hardware •Storage •

Field review: Wiebetech ToughTech Duo QR

Filed under: Business •DSLR •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Mac Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •ProAudio Coalition •ProVideo Coalition •

Should I work for free?

Filed under: Business •GentryMedia •CreativePro Coalition •HDSLR Coalition •Pro3D Coalition •

What to do when you discover your images used without permission.

Filed under: Interviews •Market Served •Fine Art •People, Personalities, Interviews •

Interview: Wayne Belger’s “Untouchable” camera with HIV positive blood coursing through it’s veins

Filed under: Market Served •Fashion / Glamour •People, Personalities, Interviews •

Sexy Shoot With a Playboy Playmate

Filed under: Products •Cameras •Hardware •Lenses •Photoshop •

Observations from CES 2011

Filed under: Market Served •Corporate •Events •Extreme •Fashion / Glamour •People, Personalities, Interviews •Sports •News •Products •Hardware •Lighting •

PocketWizard Announces Nikon Versions of Their Mini TT1 And Flex TT5 iTTL PocketWizard units

Filed under: Business •

Didn’t Get What You Want For The Holidays? Keep Shooting Anyway!

Filed under:

Beta Testing New Gear In The Field

Filed under: Business •

Why I Love Being A Photographer

Filed under:

Happy Anniversary, Photoshop

Filed under:

If you think hiring a professional photographer is expensive, wait until you hire an amateur

Filed under:

New Podcast interview up

Filed under:

What the…

Filed under:

Podcast interview on ESPN Action Sports

Filed under:

Heroes

Filed under:

Want to be able to read websites without all the clutter?

Filed under:

Product Review: Think Tank Urban Disguise 70

Filed under:

Working on the set of a television show

Filed under:

Retro Behind-the-Scenes Video

Filed under:

Nudity, ESPN and prudes

Filed under:

Behind The Scenes: Courtenay Semel Shoot

Filed under:

ContourHD Helmet Cam

Filed under:

How To: DIY Sound Blimp For Under $150

Filed under:

The Importance of Attending Trade Shows

Filed under:

My X Games Podcast Interview

Filed under:

Covering the X Games: The good, the bad and the ugly

Filed under:

New Nikon Rumor Causes a Stir

Filed under:

Behind the Scenes: Clementine Ford Shoot

Filed under:

Photo Editors, Art Directors, and balls.

Filed under:

Wiebetech RTX 400-QR

Filed under:

I almost lost my head. Literally!

Filed under:

Wedging my head between a rock and a hard place

Filed under:

Podcasts

Filed under:

A Bunch of Fun Stuff I Found At PMA

Filed under:

Photography - How Hard Can It Be?

Filed under:

What the heck is wrong with the social networks?

Filed under:

Two new plugins from Image Trends that make life easier

Filed under:

How to shoot winter sports and not die in the process

Filed under:

My Favorite Cart

Filed under:

Photoshop CS4 has some amazing new features!

Filed under:

Shutter Sync Speed Hack

Filed under:

DIY Location Lighting Power

Filed under:

Where it all began

I decided if I was going to shoot anything, I wanted to try my hand at shooting some of the sport I loved, BMX. I picked a national event in Memphis, about an 8-hour drive away. I contacted the magazines I had read for years to tell them I’d be there and would love to meet any of the editors there. John Ker, editor of BMX Plus! Magazine called me at home. He explained that he wouldn’t be there, that they wanted to see if I could cover it for them. When I picked up my jaw from the floor I said “Yes!”.

I shot it, they loved what I shot and asked me to come out to Los Angeles to hang out for a week and shoot some more. I came out at the finish of the semester. What a week. I got to meet a lot of my heroes, both on the publishing side and riders, and ride at famous places. It was crazy and exciting!

I returned home and freelanced for them for a couple of months, covering mostly freestyle team tours, even meeting Mat Hoffman when he was only 16 and blasting bigger air than anyone I’d ever seen.

Nine months after I first picked up a camera, I got a call from John asking if I could move out to L.A. to take a staff position at their sister magazine, American Freestyler. On 3 days notice, I moved out and took the job. John became my second mentor, a really great one, and I worked for that publishing company for a year-and-a-half.

What a time, traveling all over the country and a few places outside every weekend, becoming friends with my heroes, even working with a quirky kid from a rival magazine by the name of Spike Jonze. I was immortalized by him once on the pages of his magazine partly because the publishing company I worked for wanted it’s editors to remain pretty anonymous.

It was a great time, and I used to help kids with any photography question I could answer back then. One of the most respected names in BMX photography told me last summer that I had let him look through my camera at a race once, and that inspired him to get into photography. I was honored, and blown away. A lot of people have helped me in my career, and I am always happy to give back in whatever way I can. I try never to be too busy to answer questions from others, I’ve been known to coach people via mail or email, and more recently I’ve been giving seminars like the ones I’ve done at the DV Expo.

I love shooting BMX, skateboarding, all kinds of alternative sports. I think participating in those sports myself, even on an amateur level, helps me understand them better and portray them properly in images. I like my images to help the viewer feel what it’s like to actually be doing the sport. I’m lucky enough to work on projects with the best riders in the world, and I take advantage of their expertise to learn to be better at those sports. I was working on a wakeboarding book for a kids’ book publisher and the pro I was working with taught me how to wakeboard. Who gets chances like that?

On an ad shoot I was shooting one rider at a skatepark. After a while, he was tired and needed a break. I borrowed his bike and helmet (it was sweaty, but I wanted to ride!) and found myself sharing the halfpipe with legendary Eddie Fiola. Does it get any better? This is the kind of stuff that we all got into this for, not because of the vast amount of financial resources the industry has to offer. We’re all lucky these sports excite the outside world enough to bring in new people and opportunities. I’ve often found myself as a liason between an outside entity and the industry.

Since I left my first magazine, I’ve worked staff for other magazines and been lucky enough to now work for myself for quite a few years. Freelance photography is tough, even tougher nowadays with all the people who want to do it and all the lowballing companies trying to make life harder for us. I help educate younger photographers and companies as much as I can.

But I wouldn’t trade my job for anyone else’s on the planet. I get to make a living being around the sports and people I love.

(Page 2 of 2 pages for this article  <  1 2)

 

---

---