Single-Serving Photo

Stock photography has officially achieved critical mass in the absurdity department. I grant you, stock photographers are as much instruments of the marketplace as any other professional service provider and are therefore subject to the whims of the focus groups, the advertising big wigs, the ebb and flow of the dollars that keep them knee-deep in lenses and strobes. But when was the last time you saw a product advertised by a stock photograph and thought to yourself, That could totally be me in that picture?

There you are, holding a slice of kiwi in front of each eye, like any normal Tuesday, right? You look so happy about this kiwi you could make a coke addict jealous. The look on your face is one of such unbridled joy, such boundless euphoria, it would be hard for any bystander not to want your life at that moment.

Dear stock photographers… Quit it! (more…)

The goal of photography is to capture a moment, an idea, a thought, or an event and suspend it in time. Whether it is journalistic, editorial, representational, abstract, or artistic is not important in reaching that goal. Occasionally, as a photographer is striving toward their singular goal, they unwittingly meet another one.

Such is the case with these amazing depression-era color photographs published by the International Business Times; though they were taken at the time as recordings of events (though demonstrating the aesthetic sense of the accomplished photographer), the social and cultural distance between the depression and today has vaulted these images into pure artistry. They are truly breathtaking; scenes from a past world, a past America.

View the entire set of photographs on International Business Times: Rare Color Photos from Depression Era.

I have a lot of new readers come through here, sometimes through Google, sometimes Stumble Upon, and it occurs to me that it could be hard to wade through the few years of content to find all the really good stuff. Not that all of my posts aren’t totally fantastic—because they are—but there are a select few that I recommend everyone read.

On the occasions that I have people ask me for casual help getting started with their new DSLR, I send them to these same articles as a “primer,” and to save me from repeating myself a lot.

So, without further ado, the most popular and essential articles in three years of Single-Serving Photo:

• Neutral Density Filters
• Mastering the Only Five Camera Settings
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 1: Texture
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 2: Composition
• Art Concepts in Photography, Part 3: Positive/Negative Space
• Histograms, Huh?
• Resolution is a Myth: Calculating DPI

I also decided to put this list on its own page. You can always get to it from the “Essential Reading” link along the right side, or share that page with your friends who are getting started.

How many times have you held up one of your photographic prints in the light of day—actual, real day—and thought That’s not at all what I bargained for? Never? Well that’s good. You must be one of the lucky ones, or one of the blind ones.

Even with the best equipment that money can buy, ICC profiles, spectrophotometers, an iron-clad color management workflow, and a high-end monitor, your eyes are the ultimate judges of your work. But eyes, they don’t work alone; you can’t see anything without light, and the quality of the light will have as much an effect on what you see as the color of the print itself.

I got onto this topic after reading Michael Johnston’s overview of his Viewing Station. All these years I’ve been experimenting with lights in my studio space, let’s call it Single-Serving Photo HQ—or, as my friends call it, my bedroom—and I never once thought to write about it.

After the jump I’ll tell you how to dramatically increase your viewing conditions for about $15. (more…)