A walk along the canal

Railings and water drops card

by martinspaperstore

Last Sunday I went for a walk along one of the canals that I live near. Usually if I have nothing planned for the day I will switch off my alarm and sleep till my body says it has had enough but with the days starting to get longer sunrise is getting earlier. So this time I let my alarm get me up and off I set too the starting point of my walk, being a Sunday and just after dawn there was not many people about.

Bridge in morning sun and mist card

by martinspaperstore

I walked along the Bridgewater Canal, starting at Barton Bridge and followed the canal through Trafford Park Industrial estate. Not the most promising of landscapes for photography but as with most places the character changes with the time of day and the weather.

Working Barge Poster
by martinspixs

Like many photographers I would love to travel the world to photograph great vistas that I see on the internet or in magazines but there are good images to be had much closer to home, you just need to look at them anew and maybe at different times of the day.

Door and Barrows Wood Print

by martinspixs

Forgotten Crane Card

by martinspaperstore

Iron Bridge

and reflection Card" style="border:0;" />

Iron Bridge and reflection Card

by martinspaperstore

Five Reasons Photographers should embrace Autumn

Five Reasons Photographers should embrace Autumn                

Web and Water in Sepia Postcard
by martinspaperstore

As winter approaches you may be tempted to store away your camera gear till the weather warms up again but before you do let me try and convince you other wise. I know that the days will be getting shorter and that on some days it seams that even the sun has not bothered to get out of bed, which is where you feel you belong.

Twig covered with autumn leaves photo print
by DanitaDelimont

There will be days when your efforts of capturing a great image will be completely washed out but with a bit of planning and an eye on the weather forecast let me give you five reasons to embrace the winter season.

1)      As the weather changes and the trees lose their leaves the mood of a landscape will completely change, sometime from day to day and defiantly from week to week. Pick a location or two within easy reach for you then go and photograph them each and every day even if it is raining or foggy, catch the frost and the first snow fall, then the snow again when everyone has walked in it. Before long you will have a collection of images that will show the changing mood of the location, you could extend this project to make it “A year in the life of” you could keep coming back to this location and make it “X down the years”, it is up to you how far you take it.

2)      Sunrise and sunsets. Sun rises have never been my thing, I mean in summer why would I want to get out of bed at that time of day when it is still dark to get to a location to photograph the sun rise? When in winter the sun rises at a more respectable hour. Believe it or not but the earth is at its closes point to the sun in its orbit in January but because of the tilt on the earths axis we have winter in the northern hemisphere and longer shadows. Dependent on your location on the planet the sunlight will have to pass through more atmosphere which will affect the colour of the light you and your camera will see. Another advantage of taking sunrise photos in winter is that you do not have to wait to long for the sunset. You travel to a location one time, photograph the sunrise, have your packed lunch the photograph the sunset.

3)      Car Lights. You know the ones that I am thinking about, the ones with the solid lines or red or white light cutting through the image. In summer for it to be dark enough you would have to take the image in the middle of the night when almost everyone including the traffic were in bed, then you would have to explain to the police why you are here at this time photographing their car. In winter you can take these image at a more reasonable hour of the day with lots of people (so safer) and traffic about you can have the images in your camera and be back home before your feet get cold.

4)      Holiday lights and store windows. Many towns and cities will put up Christmas or holiday lights which can be very photogenic in them self as well as adding character to the streets. In addition to this many stores will put up illuminated decorations and window displays which can be the subject of you photography on their own or with their surroundings. The lighting displays do not have to be the subject them selves, you could use the thousands of coloured lights to illuminate your subject, the people in the street or you could combine them to tell a story with people looking into the store window.

5)      Reflections. The wet weather that comes with winter means that you will have standing water all over the place so you will no longer tied to lakes, rivers and canals to get your fill of photographing reflections. It is not just standing water ether, wet roads and sidewalks will reflect the coloured lights from store displays and street lights. Familiar buildings can look fresh when photographed through reflections and you do not need mirror perfect puddles, try taking an image when it is still raining so that the puddle has ripples in it which will distort your subject giving it an abstract feel.

And Dream of Sheep Photo Enlargement
by JUSTART

A few things to keep in mind before you start. You need to stay safe, dry and warm, so wear appropriate clothing and shoes / boots, now that it is dark out you need to be able to see and be seen so wear reflective clothing and have a light so that you can see where you are going and find things in your camera bag. Try it out before you go out, them gloves may keep your hands warm but can you change the setting on your camera with them on, the will not be much good if you have to keep taking them off. It is not just you that will feel the cold but your camera equipment as well, give your camera time to adjust to the temperature change both warm to cold and cold to warm. Batteries hate the cold so give them a good charge before you set off and keep your spare ones in an inside pocket so that your body heat will keep them warm.

Window in the Ground Postcard
by martinspixs

Hope that you found this post useful, if so why not share it or leave a comment. If you have any tips your self for winter photography add them in the comments to let other know.

Snow bench and trees postcard
by martinspaperstore

 

Print on demand sites POD

Bridge and canal by martinspixs
See more Water Cards

 

Print on demand sites or POD sites come in a verity of styles from free to paid sites and non customizable stores / galleries to fully customizable stores and galleries. In short they all do the same thing which is that they let you display your images which people can buy; they deal with the printing, shipping and payments (and refunds) and give you a percentage of the sale.

Visit a few POD sites to get the feel of them but keep in mind that the home page of the site can be very different to the individual photographer’s stores / galleries. First find images that are similar to yours, if there are a lot of images from lots of different photographers this is a good thing, it means that other photographers like the site and that people that buy images will be attracted to the site.

Candy Buttons by martinspixs
Shop nowfor puzzles

 

When you want to show people your images you can give them a link to your store / gallery, subsection or even an individual image and not the home page of the print on demand site. Because the print on demand sites are all about selling they give you lots of info and tools to help you market your images. Many of the print on demand sties have buttons next to your image that allow you or anyone else to post your image too social media sites like Facebook, twitter or Pinterest (this is a good thing). They also give you the script / code that will enable you to post your image into your blog or website which adds another level of security to your images. Most of the images on this blog are created this way and if you click on an image it will take you to the print on demand site that have additional levels of security.

Print on demand sites also differ in the products that they print upon, going from sites like Greeting Card Universe as the name suggests only produce greeting cards (in one size) to sites like Zazzle and Café press who produce a wide range of products. If your style of images seam popular on phone cases and mugs then why not let your customers buy your image in that format, after all not everyone has room in their home for a 50” x 40” framed print on the wall. It can also help improve your photography, you take a great image and think that it would make a nice Birthday greeting card but where would you put the Birthday massage on the image, so you take another image of the vista but this time you frame it so that you leave space for the massage. Now you have two images, one for a framed print and one for a greeting card. Developing this habit of shooting the same image in landscape and portrait as well as tight crop and with space to one side or all around will also help you with stock libraries.

Caernarfon castle at dusk. by martinspixs
See more Caernarfon Puzzles

 

Below are some print on demand sites that I will be taking a closer look at over the coming months, I hope that you find one you like.

Zazzle

GCU

Redbubble

Smugmug

Café press

Fine Arts America

Society6

The above list is by no means complete and many more can be found by searching for the phrase “print on demand”. Most of the sites have forums where many of your questions will have been answered in the past and can be found by a quick search of the forum, most forums on print on demand sites do not like you talking down about their site and do not like you talking about other print on demand sites one exception in Redbubble.

If you want to find out what people think about a print on demand site away from its mediators to can go to Facebook groups like Great gear or too forum sites like POD4you or warrior, all of which have tons of information. 

Flickr

I said that I would tell you about where you could show your photography on the internet and the first place that comes to mind is flickr. After all it is most likely known as the original photo sharing website and as such you would think is your first port of call for getting your images noticed on the internet, well yes and no.

Should you have a flickr account, the answer is yes, it is a no brainier. Flickr is no longer the simple photo sharing site that it started out as but has evolved like any site has to stay in the public mind and photographers also have to evolve, no longer can you just post your images to flickr and expect recognition, no matter how good your images are. The fact is that you are more likely to be found by someone wanting to steel your images that you are to be found by someone wanting to buy your images but do not let that put you off this is the internet and there is a lot of scum about after all.

If you do not have a flickr account yet then get one, using the name that you want to be known as across all your other internet accounts, if you already have a flickr account then use that one, especially if you already have a number of followers or have had the account for some time and have a number of images uploaded.

It is had to draw attraction to your account unless you have images to look at but before you add any images, add them to a site where people can buy the image, whether that be as a wall print or a greeting card. When you have a place where people can go and buy your images then flickr is not just a place where you can show your images but it is a shop window that will help to bring in people too your store to buy your images. Where ever you have your images for sale, that site will have information on creating links too the sales page for that image, so that when you add a photo to flickr, in the description you put the link to where people can buy your image.

On flickr you can create different portfolios or sections, so that when someone arrives at your main page they can see that you have images on: landscape, close up, Wedding, flowers, B&W, urban and so on. Even T shirts, greeting cards and Christmas gifts. Putting your images into different sections helps people find what they are looking for and it will also help you market your different images. So on your social media account instead of just posting too your flickr account you can post too your landscape images or your flower images giving you a better response to your social media posts.

When adding images to flicker reduce the size and quality of the image, this will reduce the chances that someone will steel the image only upload the smallest images after all a lot of people looking at your photos will be doing son on mobile devices like a smart phone and if some likes the image they will follow the link to see it in a larger protected format. Putting your image on flickr with a link to where you can buy it also creates a back link that helps the search engines find your work, which in turn helps a wider buying audience find your work.

Flickr is kinder of a social media site, which means that you follow people for people to follow you. Which makes flickr an enigma, because flickr is mostly photographers and on every other social media site photographers have a very bad reputation in that they will follow you and then stop following you after you have started to follow them. They may think that will give them some air of importance but is not very social. So who should you follow? Well people whose images you like, for a start but rather than just following accounts that have the same type of images that you have why not expand your self and have a look at styles and subjects that are unknown to you.

Another way to grow your following is to interact with other accounts / photographers, when you find an image that you like why not leave a comment. The photographer may then visit your page and leave a comment on one or more of your images, at the very lest you will now have a link for search engines to follow from their account too yours on Flickr. If they do not have a lot of followers then the person is more likely to leave a comment on your images but if they have lots of followers then it is better for the search engines.

You can take this a step further if they have a link to where they sell their images. Follow the link and you may find a new place to sell your images and if you are already a member then log in and leave another comment, this has the same effect as above but this time on a site where you both sell your work weather that be Zazzle, Smug mug or Redbubble. Another dimension to this is that every time they promote their work there will be promoting that link back to your work.

Next time I will be looking at one of the places that you can sell your work. 

Where to show your images on the internet

forgotten bench postcard by martinspaperstore
Create a postcard at Zazzle

Forgotten Bench

You spent weeks finding access to the perfect location, you’ve researched it and you got up in the middle of the night to get there and set up ready for the perfect time of day, yes the weather was not right the first two time but this time everything was right. Then you spent too many hours to count in postproduction, making sure the image was just right, till your vision was realised in the image before you. After all this effort don’t you think that the world should see your image?

Web and Water in Sepia Postcard by martinspaperstore
Make postcards from photos online at zazzle.com

Web and Water inSepia

There are many ways to put your images on the internet for other people to see them, both paid and free. Over the coming months I will look at some of them in more detail but for now it will just be a brief over view of some of them. As a rule of thumb the more control you want the more it will cost you ether in time, skills or money.

Snowdonia Postcard by martinspaperstore
Learn about postcard printing using Zazzle

Snowdonia

Website:

Having your own website may seam like the obvious option and indeed they can be a great asset. Though they can be a little static and search engines like new content all the time. How much control over the look of your website will depend on your programming skills and how much money you want to pay?

Blogs:

This may be the first place that you think of placing your images and I would recommend that you have your own blog even if you have your images elsewhere, so that you can have a central point on the internet that links to all your other internet galleries. If you are short on time this will give you one place for you to market that will link to all your images on the internet. Wordpress.com or Bloger.com or Tumblr.com are a good place to start.

Photo Galleries:

Photo galleries have the advantage of being known for their images which means that people looking for photos will know what to expect when they go to the site. They range from Flickr that is free and popular to paid for hosting at sites like 500px. 

POD Print on Demand:

POD sites are sites that let you sell your images on products and you get a percentage of the sale. Some sites let you add your images for free while others will charge you every month even if you do not you make any sales. Some sites like Zazzle will let you add sections / galleries while others like Redbubble will put all your images in one store / gallery.

trees and snow postcard by martinspaperstore
Create a postcard at Zazzle

Trees and Snow

Of course as in everything there are advantages and disadvantages to each of the above methods, indeed even within each method above there are advantages and disadvantages between each company involved in each method. First off you need to decided what you want from your exposure on the internet and of course this may change over time but what do you need now? This will help you know if a particular method / sites advantage is an advantage for you, even to pay for and if the disadvantages of a particular method / site is in deed a disadvantage for you.

Understanding Exposure.

Set the shutter speed to the ASA film rating (100 ASA = 1/100^th second) and the aperture to f8 for bright sunny days. This was the rule of thumb exposure settings that you use to get with rolls of film back when many cameras did not have an internal light exposure meter built in.

This might seam like a bit archaic by todays standards but let me explain, many people take images in RAW format thinking that you can recover and correct any mistakes made in camera when processing the RAW file. Sure you can recover some detail while processing the RAW file just like you could with film by changing the developing times but the key word here is SOME.

Of all the aspects of photography, exposure is the one you need to understand and get right, it is the foundation of the rest of your photography. Yes you could leave you camera set on auto but you would be missing out on some great tools to influence your photography. A great book to help you get started is Bryan Peterson’s Understanding Exposure.

Understanding Exposure, Fourth Edition: How to Shoot Great Photographs with Any Camera

This newly revised edition of Bryan Peterson's most popular book demystifies the complex concepts of exposure in photography, allowing readers to capture the images they want. 

Understanding Exposure has taught generations of photographers how to shoot the images they want by demystifying the complex concepts of exposure in photography. In this newly updated edition, veteran photographer Bryan Peterson explains the fundamentals of light, aperture, and shutter speed and how they interact with and influence one another. With an emphasis on finding the right exposure even in tricky situations, Understanding Exposureshows you how to get (or lose) sharpness and contrast in images, freeze action, and take the best meter readings, while also exploring filters, flash, and light. With all new images, as well as an expanded section on flash, tips for using colored gels, and advice on shooting star trails, this revised edition will clarify exposure for photographers of all levels.

I am back again

 For what seams like forever my home has been in the upheaval of renovation and I have been living out of boxes but now I am back. I do not normally talk about what kit I use as a lot of people that I have encountered tend to be equipment and brand junkies rather than photographers.

I am not rich so when it comes to choosing equipment the over riding factor is my wallet and what I can afford at the time as well as the subject matter that I will take photos of. Over the years I have used many different cameras from compacts to medium format, I have even sold images taken on my smart phone, each camera has its pros and cons but it comes down to personal choice but more importantly are you happy enough to take the camera out with you at every opportunity so that you are ready to take that all important photo.

Well my latest kit is a Nikon D3200 with an 18-55 and a 55-200 kit lenses. It feels quite a bit smaller than my Cannon 5D and 6D and I am hoping that this will make it easer to carry around. Now that I have got that out of the way lets get on with the subject of photography.

I try to carry my camera as often as I can so that I do not miss out on a photo opportunity, other time I am out and about just hoping that inspiration comes too me, both methods are not very productive and I am just lucky if I get any photos to keep. I do have a back up plan that is growing my catalogue of close up of interesting textures that I can use in other projects but some times this is all that I come back with.

Having had such a long spell from photography I intend to make the most of this camera and my time, looking at other images for inspiration is great but if I wanted to take images of the Northern Lights then I would have to book a flight and wait around for about seven months, not very good for productivity.

Projects: Is the way to go from short one day projects for when the weather is not that good and open ended projects that I can pick up on when I do not have anything else filling my photography time.

One Day Projects

Still life:

These are great for when the weather is overcast; in fact this helps as the clouds act as one big diffuser when lighting your subject with natural light. Stuck for subjects why not raid the kitchen or garden shed for utensils and tools arranging them together or on their own. Be sure to work all the angles and as well as taking images that show the whole subject move in and isolate parts of the subject giving you an almost abstract image.

Food Photography:

Planning a special meal or just papering your self, then why not document your progress as well as the finished result. This could be part of a bigger project by getting the images for that cook book you have always been meaning to write.

Back catalogue:

It is a great feeling creating the image but what are you going to do with it now, just leave it on your computers hard drive. Why not post it on the internet on sites like Flicker or 500PX you could even offer it for sale on sites line Zazzle or Redbubble.

Open Ended Projects:

Taking the Same Photo:

Some places character changes dramatically as the seasons change, why not revisit them through the year and capture that change. Other places change over a much longer period with new buildings and renovations, so if you hear of such a project in your local area big or small get out get some images before it all changes. Do not forget to go back when the work has finished and who knows over the years you could build up a body of work that is of important social documentary, there might even be a book in it.

Post Cards:

Many places have post cards of their surroundings be it cities, towns, villages and even individual buildings. Why not have a go at recreating some of them but with a twist. Some times it is impossible to find the vantage point that the original post card was taken from and the weather is sure to be different so use a different vantage point and go for inclement weather to give a totally different mood to the post card. When you have your collection on new postcards why not publish them.

A year in the life of your pet:

Some pets will play for the camera more than others giving greater photo opportunities, you know your pet better than anyone else so you will be better able to capture their personality. You can take the images every day or every couple of weeks, it is up to you. Have a product in mind for the end of the project, like a photo album or photo book to help keeping the project going.