How To's

As summer is upon us and little league sports are gearing up, here are some things to keep in mind that can make the difference between a good shot and a great shot. 1) Perspective. You have to get on the same level or lower than the players, especially if you want to see under their helmets. Avoid shooting down on the tops of their heads. 2) Shoot tight. Zoom in to the action as far as you can. Try to give your audience something they can’t see from the sidelines. 3) Post-production.... 

It happens to almost every one that has taken a camera to an athletic event. You’re there, following the action through the viewfinder, and you start imagining that you’re there, shooting for Sports Illustrated! Next thing you know, you’ve spent a couple thousand dollars on gear. You’re hooked. And, whether by accident or effort, you start... 

If you want to make next year a great year, you have to plan for it…and that requires setting realistic, realizable goals. I keep mine very, very simple. At the end of the year, all I want is a calendar – 13 images – that represent the best work I was able to produce through the course of the year. Towards that, I want to try... 

When I started college nearly thirty years ago, I went thinking I could write well. Thanks to one amazing professor, I left college knowing I could. Although I took a number of English courses and had writing requirements in nearly every course, he was the one that kicked the stool out from under me, then gave me the tools to learn how to pull myself... 

Here’s a little tip for making some extra money in the stock market: be your own agency. While it’s really not as difficult as you might imagine, it does take a little more work than simply uploading images to be approved by someone else. If you’ve got images, all you need is a gallery with a flexible shopping cart system. I use... 

If you’ve spent any time in the digital darkroom, you’ve probably developed different workflows for the different images uses. You might have one workflow for preparing an image for the web, a different one for regular prints, and maybe a different one for online competitions. This tutorial covers a workflow for preparing an image for... 

If you’re trying to drive people to your site, don’t spam. It’s a waste of your time and everyone else’s. Maybe try this instead: Find a relevant forum for your product Identify the most active participants Privately offer them a chance to check out and review your stuff Get them to post up a review That way you get... 

So, someone has asked you to shoot a high school graduation. If they are paying you little or nothing, maybe you can sell photos to parents. This article goes over what you’ll need to do to make it work. As nothing matters except the end result (a nice, clean shot of the graduate receiving their diploma), this is a serious case of “the... 

Awhile back, I had a harddrive die on me, and I really wanted to get the data back without having to resort to rebuilding the drive from backup CDs. I used an outfit in Florida named dtidata and they did a pretty good job. A couple things to consider. dti doesn’t charge an upfront diagnostic fee; some charge as much as $200, just to take a... 

Unfortunately, that is probably the sound of your harddrive going south… And you really need to turn off, immediately! That is the sound the metal carving nearly irreparable gashes in your data. Each successive spin further compromises the drive. Basically, there are two types of failures: software and hardware. If it’s making a...