In his latest blog post, Chase Jarvis mentions Wired editor Chris Anderson’s new book, FREE, which is more or less about the effects that digital media has had on the cost of distribution of creative works.

I haven’t read the book so I don’t claim to know what Anderson’s conclusions might be, though I have spent a lot of time ruminating on this whole free content movement that is slowly developing and I think it deserves some discussion. More of my ramblings after the jump.

Anderson mentions something he calls zero marginal cost, which refers to the fact that the cost of distributing digital assets nowadays is approaching zero. By comparison to pre-digital, pre-Internet distribution models, the cost is effectively zero. This means that the words I’m typing right now and the images that surround them are reaching you at virtually no cost (to me or to you).

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So what happens if we make the presumption that photography is a zero marginal cost business for the distributors? Photographs as salable assets have been slinking closer and closer to commodification with each passing day, meaning that much photographic content is bought and sold on the basis of price alone. For stock and travel photography, this seems to be even more true.

This theory dovetails with something rather surprising that Dan Heller said last night. He said (I’m paraphrasing) that his photographs really have no intrinsic value. Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but his point was that even though he has tens of thousands of photographs, they can pretty much be replaced or reproduced, so even the entire collection is of little inherent value; it’s the business model and organization that surrounds them that makes them into a product and a profitable enterprise. In short, it’s Dan himself that people pay for.

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Chase Jarvis said almost the same thing in his entry when he concluded that photographers of the future “will make their money getting hired to deliver their commissioned, artistic vision for the newest product, trend, or photo of the moment, NOT to deliver the ones and zeros from yesterday’s digital file.”

I won’t go as far as to say that photographs themselves are worthless, because I truly don’t believe that. Nevertheless, if you want to be successful in the photography business, or to make money through photography in any way, you have to be intimately aware of what you’re selling and who wants to buy it from you.

Though paintings, sculptures, prints, and other works of fine art have been spotlighted on the auction block for many years and for tremendous money (works by Jackson Pollock and Gustav Klimt—to name only two—have sold at auction for more than $100 million apiece), the world of fine art collectors has seldom been penetrated by even the most renowned photographers.

This, however, is changing.

Some of the most valuable photographs hold their rank by virtue of historic value, such as Edward Steichen’s The Pond-Moonlight, which sold for nearly $3 million at auction and was created using primitive gum-based color photography techniques. Though sold as a photograph, it was more likely to have been purchased as an artifact.

Diane Arbus, arguably an iconic 20th century photographer, has seen her photographs sell at auction for only as much as $478,000; not a small sum to be sure, but merely a drop in the ocean by comparison to paintings that regularly sell for between $70 and $140 million.

Where’s the Demand?

So why aren’t collectors snapping up photographic prints at the same rate they snap up paintings, sculptures, assemblages, mobiles, and everything else? Why does photography carry this stigma within the confines of the fine art world? Surely there have lived amazing artists working within the photographic medium, so why aren’t their creations appreciating at the same rate as paintings and sculptures?

I can’t answer those questions, but I can say that the tide may be turning. Collectors are now starting to realize the investment potential of fine art photography, especially at the current time when collectible photography is still largely a bear market. As confidence is reinforced by annual photography fairs in New York, Paris, and now London, the value of fine art photographs will begin to climb.

Prices Are Actually Meaningless

Before I get too deeply mired in the collectible photography discussion and betray my true feelings toward selling art, let me take a step backwards and point out that selling photography (or any art) at auction, is vastly different from selling art to consumers.

From the standpoint of an artist, the final selling price of one of your works at auction should not be interpreted as an editorial on your abilities or the popularity of your work. Unfortunately for some, the fine art collectors’ marketplace is driven by people who want to make money. These people have an interest in art, to be sure, but they are looking for reliable investments, not the prettiest pictures for their palatial libraries (though the two can occasionally coincide).

Widely acclaimed Indian photographer Raghu Rai put it very plainly, “Most people are buying photographs because they consider it a trend to cash in on. For them, it is just another investment, like shares or property. It’s not because they love the art.”

Hooray for Fine Art!

Nevertheless, this is an exciting trend for fine art photography. Photographer Anay Mann says that “fine art photography has a longer shelf life and is worth collecting, since it is the work of these photographers that will appreciate in value over the years.” A true statement of promise for those of us toiling toward our own ends in the world of photographic fine art.

Whether your work winds up at auction some day (perhaps even after your death) or not is of little importance. The simple concession from collectors and the “upper crust” of art buyers that photography is a valid, collectible, and yes, valuable medium is a great boon to our artistic legitimacy and to our profitability.

Read More?

Here are the articles I referred to in writing this synopsis:

• Flash: Photos make great investments, The Times of India
• Photography looks good for long-term investment, The Scotsman
• Photography loses its negative image, The Independent
• Photographs click as great investments, moneycontrol.com

Many of these stories were triggered by the announcement of the opening of photo-london, a photography fair in London opening for the first time this year.

I suppose it’s because I feel cheap passing someone else’s content along without at least some sort of substantive editorial. Nevertheless, I do read a lot of blogs, not all of them photography-related, and I often run across things that I think you guys and gals would be interested in. It would be a shame for that to go to waste.

So today I bring you my very first ever I Hate Link Wrap-Ups post.

Don’t Get Scammed

Because I hate link wrap-ups, I will not simply list the links and say Have a nice day!, but rather I will give you some reason(s) why I think this is important information and some of my insights, which I hope you’ll find useful.

If you’d rather not listen to my chatter, just click the link and be on your way.

Of Zen and Computing: How to Avoid Getting Scammed When Buying a Digital Camera

Of Zen and Computing is a blog concerned with lifestyle and workflow issues unique to computer users and website authors, but now and then (especially with digital photography taking a front-row seat) our interests align. In this article, part of the site’s Answers section, the author describes some of the classic, sleazy tactics used by less reputable retailers to get more money out of people who buy photography equipment.

Without a doubt, good photography equipment can cost a bundle, but make sure the cost is legitimate before you get caught in one of these sinister plots.

Storage Solutions

Digital photography has really begun to mix the worlds of art and technology in fascinating new ways. One of the biggest issues that new digital photographers face is data storage. Whether you’re a long-time photographer who just switched to digital, or a new photographer who has chosen digital to begin with, the world of data storage might be altogether new to you.

In additional to purely storing your massive piles of RAW files, Photoshop documents, and exported JPEGs, the issue of computational power and equipment necessary to smoothly post-process those images also comes into play. One very important characteristic of a photo editing workstation is the scratch disk.

Both scratch disk space as well as storage systems (either for continuous access or static backups) are very important to a photographer with a large library of creative work. There have been great leaps in storage technology lately, so I will share some of these links with you.

Western Digital’s Raptor

Western Digital 150 GB SATA Raptor

Scratch disk space is what your operating system (or Photoshop) will use when you’ve filled your RAM, or for certain types of data that don’t need to be accessed as quickly or repeatedly as what is placed in RAM. Nevertheless, having a very fast scratch disk can improve performance noticeably when editing photos.

The least expensive and least glamorous way to get some really fast scratch disk space is to grab a Western Digital Raptor. With platters spinning at a breakneck 10,000 RPM, it is the fastest internal hard drive you can buy that will work with your modern PC or Mac tower (the interface is Serial ATA—SATA for short).

One word of warning: these drives are pretty loud.

SSD (Solid-State Disks)

This new SSD technology has no moving parts and instead uses something they call NAND memory, which is something similar to CompactFlash or any of those other memory technologies out there. I’m not an engineer, so don’t quote me on this, but what I know for sure is that these drives have no moving parts, run entirely without noise, and are faster than all get-out.

Engadget’s Coverage of SSD Drives

My favorite gadget geek site, Engadget, has covered many manufacturers’ releases of SSD products and all of them are listed at that link. The latest one, where they explore a RAID setup of SSDs, reaches disk read/write speeds equivalent to gigabit ethernet. That’s pretty darn fast.

Is Photography Art, What Is Art, Etc.

I love to wax philosophical about art and photography more than most people, but over the past few days I have been literally blown away by some of the insightful and well-articulated cogitation taking place on The Online Photographer. I will eventually put together one or two “reaction articles” of my own about this stuff, but if you want to read some pretty daring ideas and reflections about photography, start here:

Qualifying Photography As Art, or Is Photography All It Can Be?

The articles chronologically surrounding that one give even more depth to the discussion.

That’s a wrap.

This month the debate over Creative Commons licenses in photography flared up once more, with Jim Goldstein declaring that he would never use CC licenses, and Brian Auer retorting that he had before and would most certainly continue to in the future. Underscoring the points made by both of these fine fellows was an interview I read with author Cory Doctorow about giving away free electronic versions of books that brought many relevant points into play.

I’m revisiting the topic here today, not simply to agree or disagree with anything Goldstein, Auer, or Doctorow said, but rather to paint a picture of why I think the Creative Commons plays a very valuable role in photography in today’s copy-and-paste culture and why you should be thinking very seriously about how it can help you.

Creative Commons?

If you haven’t heard of them, the Creative Commons is a group focused on developing new “rights management” tools for creators. Whether you’re an author, painter, musician, or photographer, Creative Commons has developed “licenses” to allow you to more easily define the prohibitions and concessions you desire to make regarding the use of your work by others.

Fundamentally, Creative Commons licenses were developed for creators who wish to allow uses of their work that typical “all rights reserved” declarations prohibit. If you never want anyone to use your work for anything without asking you, you probably don’t need the Creative Commons. You should probably also turn around and walk straight back through the last few decades because you would be ignoring everything that has changed since about 1980.

Read more about the Creative Commons and their goals on their website.

Copy-and-Paste Culture

Cory Doctorow put this so elegantly that I will use his words:

It’s the 21st century, there’s not going to be a year in which it’s harder to copy than this year; there’s not going to be a day in which it’s harder to copy than this day; from now on.¹

Before I go further, I want to make it clear that I’m writing this opinion from the perspective of a fine art photographer. If your particular photographic enterprise is closer to stock or retail portraiture or industrial/commercial/product work, much of what I’m about to say will simply not apply to you. I want to give more than one perspective, but my opinion is very much formed from an artistic point of view.

Doctorow continues,

… if your business model and your aesthetic effect in your literature and your work is intended not to be copied, you’re fundamentally not making art for the 21st century.

Whatever industry you’re in, his statements are true. Consumers of our creations have historically fought for the ability (if not the right) to copy and redistribute everything we make. The legal entanglements of Sony’s Betamax format greatly publicized the push and pull between creators and consumers in 1984 when Sony was taken to court by Universal City Studios. Only the technologies have changed since then; people will always be excited about multimedia creations and desire to share them, remix them, and pass them around.

If you accept the proposition that it’s culturally and socially beneficial for creative works to be made (and as photographers, I could not imagine a world or a situation in which you wouldn’t), then you must also recognize some of the hurdles faced by creators wishing to build upon the works of their forebears.

I won’t go deep into detail; for those interested in reading a truly revealing look at the state of copyright law and how it affects culture and creativity, I highly recommend reading attorney and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig’s book, Free Culture.

So, if you accept all of that, and if you further accept Doctorow’s idea that people are going to make copies (no matter what you do) and that remixes and mash-ups are fundamentally good for culture (and even for you, personally), your only concern is how to maximize your recognition and profits gained from a creative work without strangling the life out of this copy-and-paste culture we live in.

Some Rights Reserved

What Creative Commons does, in essence, is formalize the concession of certain usage rights to creative works such that the rights yielded and the rights retained are drawn up in defensible legal mumbo-jumbo.

This allows a creator to say, for example, “You may use my work to create new, derived works, and you may distribute those as you see fit, provided that you credit me and that your work remains under the same usage rights as this one.” Some rights are reserved.

I made the image to the right within the “Mansfield Training Center,” an abandoned hospital for mentally retarded children located in Mansfield, Connecticut. It came to my attention almost a year ago that someone had linked to my gallery of images from that hospital within the Wikipedia article about Mansfield’s “sites of interest.” It turns out that I have one of the most “definitive” collections of photographs from that site from recent years.

I came to the decision that I would release one of my images from the collection under a Creative Commons license, which is required for all multimedia content on Wikipedia, so that it could be displayed alongside the article and increase my exposure as a local artist. I chose the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license (I overlayed the logo and byline on this image for effect). This license permits derivative works so long as I am credited and the resulting work is released under the same license.

Has this gained me a landslide of website traffic from Wikipedia? Not really. I am of the mind that any amount of exposure is good for business and for your reputation. I believe that being cited in this article (the original citation was added by someone else during their research) increases my overall credibility. Yes, I do think it was worth it.

Giving It All Away

One of the popular arguments against the Creative Commons paraded about online is that these licenses may expressly permit uses you, as the creator, don’t agree with. One recent news item involves young Alison Chang whose picture was taken by a young man in her church group and placed on Flickr under a CC attribution license. The image was snagged and used in a billboard campaign by Virgin Mobile in Australia, which then sparked a legal claim and discussion about licensing of images on Flickr.

Here are some things you need to know:

• It’s always, always your responsibility as a creator to understand the full extent of the concessions granted by a license you release your work under. If you decide you want to use a Creative Commons license, you should actually read it. Not just the “human deed,” but the full text.
• If you don’t understand the license… Don’t use it!
• As Dan Heller has frequently advised in discussions about model releases (this relates specifically to the Alison Chang situation), it is the responsibility of the person or persons putting your work into use (e.g. the publisher) to secure model releases. If you did not get a release when you made the image and the publisher doesn’t ask, it is not your problem.
• If you place your work under a license that permits commercial use and the image is used commercially, you have no recourse. If you did not secure a model release for individuals pictured therein and they decide to sue the publisher… That’s none of your business!

It is always surprising to me how many people post their images on various sites and in online communities without understanding the terms and conditions. As an artist, it is your responsibility to protect your work from misappropriation and misuse, and that means reading the terms and conditions of any sites you post your work on.

When Flickr asks you what type of licensing structure you want to use for your photographs, choose wisely. If in doubt, select “all rights reserved.”

It is not the responsibility of the Creative Commons to make abundantly clear to you what each of their licenses will do. It is your responsibility to read and understand them before you put them to use. It is the same with any contract or agreement; ignorance is no excuse.

Conclusions?

I still believe that the judicious use of Creative Commons licenses can allow you to give back to the artistic community and to our global culture in a way that nothing else can. By selecting licenses carefully and releasing certain works through certain avenues, you can be assured promotional benefits as well as the satisfaction of having contributed to the world.

Using Creative Commons doesn’t mean you stop making money or stop getting credit.

1. Cory Doctorow on kottke.org

Despite plentiful arguments to the contrary, I do believe that photography can be a viable full-time job. Making it work for you requires flexibility and understanding of the marketplace.

Paul Indigo over at Beyond the Obvious writes that the “quality of photography in corporate brochures and magazines is often appalling and the trade press is not much better” and the “reputation for superb photography once held by the UK broadsheets is more than a little tarnished” due to what he calls “a new level of democratisation” wherein everyone is a photographer and putting your entry-level SLR on automatic or program mode gets you salable results most of the time.

Paul’s major evidence for the rise in marketability of what he would describe as sub-par photography is the thriving “microstock” agencies such as iStockPhoto, SmugMug, and so on who sell grandma’s point-and-shoot exposures for $1.00 apiece. In order to understand how microstocks affect your business, however, you have to get into the economics of free trade.

Enter Dan Heller, outspoken stock photographer and armchair industry analyst. Back in March, Dan wrote a thorough op-ed on the effect microstock agencies have on the industry of stock photography (his main source of income) with the conclusion that a myriad of factors outside of price affect the marketability of stock images and that stock agencies are hurting nobody but themselves by offering such inexpensive alternatives to high quality, professional stock photographs.

I’m not going to quote or paraphrase Dan’s lengthy analysis, but I encourage you to take a skim through it for the juicy bits. Though Paul Indigo and Dan Heller operate in slightly different industries and on different sides of the Atlantic Ocean, both make compelling arguments from within their own experience.

At the beginning of this article I said that photographers have to be “flexible.” What I meant by that is not that a photographer should have the ability to cross their legs behind their head, but rather that a photographer should stay open-minded to available revenue sources within the industry as a whole. Within the photography industry there are at least this many distinct specialties that offer opportunities to profit:

• Stock/travel
• Studio/portraiture/fashion/glamour
• How-to/writing/teaching/blogging
• Photojournalism
• Commercial/product/food/commissioned
• Fine art

There are probably more that didn’t come to mind. My point is that the business of photography is like any other business out there: you have to be willing to change with the demands of the marketplace and find new avenues to reach potential customers. If your stock sales falter, you might consider mining your library for fine art prints and showing in local galleries, putting together a book of your best work, and so on.

Although fine art prints has been my primary source of income, sales are variable and it’s hard to predict what any month’s sales are going to be like, especially in the fine art world. Diversification is a great tool to supplement the income of a business and so I have started to do in-the-field workshops to share my experience with others who want to get more serious making photographs.

In addition to actual “shooting workshops,” which consist almost entirely of in-the-field, hands-on photography, I’ll also be teaching an introduction to the digital workflow course at Calypso Imaging in Santa Cruz, one of the top photo labs in the country. Students will have access to their million-dollar lightjet printer, large-format Epson plotters, and will be given three-days of intensive guidance through Adobe Bridge, Lightroom, Photoshop, and more.

I see workshops not only as a way to make money, but also an opportunity to give back to the photographic community in what small way I can. I know that photography can be a hard business to get into, but it does offer a great deal of satisfaction and, yes, profit as well. So don’t give up!

I come from more of a fine art background; my parents both work in the arts and photography for me is an extension of my involvement in art as a whole. By talking about the fundamental concepts of art as they apply to photography I hope to help you improve your work and also understand the works of others.

Because this is only the second part in my Art Concepts series, I want to study the more general and fundamental stuff first. In the last episode, we looked at texture. Texture is a fairly specific element, so today I thought I would take a big step back and talk about composition.

When we say “composition,” we refer not only to the relative locations of the points of interest in a piece (which is the most discussed aspect), but also to their sizes, shapes, colors, and other variables that contribute to the balance (or imbalance) of the work. That’s what we’re going to look at today.

The Rule of Thirds

Photographers who are starting out and who begin exploring the generally available advice for creating interesting images will swiftly come across the rule of thirds. Most everyone who has spent any amount of time reading about photography, or art in general, is sure to have heard about the rule of thirds.

The rule of thirds says that the points of interest in a composition are most effectively placed at the intersections of a grid made up of two horizontal and two vertical lines, each equidistant from one another and from the edges of the piece.

More simply stated, the points of interest in the image ought to be roughly one third the total height or width of the image from any of its edges. This rule was created to help beginners shake the desire to place their subject smack in the center of the frame, which, generally speaking, is a boring thing to do.

As with all things in art, this rule can be broken. With experience, an artist will find situations where a centered subject is very pleasing to the eye, but not until he or she is aware of this rule can it be thoughtfully applied or violated.

Coincidentally, this was also mentioned recently on the Digital Photography School blog in a post entitled Break the Rule of Thirds. You may want to go read that to get an idea of why the rule of thirds can and should be broken on occasion.

More Advanced Principles

The rule of thirds is a simplistic rule, and a useful one for teaching composition fundamentals, but what I want to talk about are lesser-known principles of design that will help you bring even greater control and understanding to your compositions. These principles are:

1. Balance (or weight)
2. Scale
3. Isolation
4. Convergence

These principles are independent, though also related. You can think of them as a visual design toolbox with each tool having a specific use but each specific use being a necessary contributor to the final project. In this case, scale, isolation, and convergence are helpful in managing the emphasis in a piece, which is another principle of design. Of course, your goal as an artist is to communicate an idea or transmit an emotional response of some kind to your audience. Art that fails to do this is of limited value; even stock and documentary photography make use of these design concepts to communicate their messages effectively.

Balance

Compositional balance means maintaining a consistent “visual gravity” across the expanse of a piece so that the eye is not drawn to one side more than the other (for example). More often than not, exciting compositions are intentionally imbalanced, and you may already be creating compositions like that without knowing what fundamental principles you’re invoking.

By means of demonstration, I will use some simple graphics to illustrate the concept of balance. The reason I’m not using photographs to illustrate these design concepts is because I want to be sure your understanding of them is as “pure” as possible, and simple graphics allow me to single out these concepts. In this first example, the image is very clearly imbalanced.

Because the large, black dot is the only thing in the image, you are forced to look at it. Your eye does not want to hang around in that empty white space because it just isn’t interested in it. The feeling of having your eye drawn more toward one thing than another is what we mean by weight. Balance is achieved by placing elements of the same weight in roughly symmetrical areas of the composition. Let’s balance this composition out in the simplest way:

By placing an identical dot on the opposite side, we have achieved balance. Yes, it’s rather boring overall, but your eye happily moves back and forth between the two dots, exploring the expanse of the image without undue distraction. Try to get a feeling for what your eye gravitates toward. Try squinting, too (I’m serious).

It can help to squint or tilt your head when evaluating more complex images to get a feeling for the dynamics at play. Let’s make things more interesting by adding a different visual element to try to balance the first dot.

Here, the dot is countered by a line. If you are already used to looking at compositions and evaluating balance, or if you are very relaxed, you will notice immediately that the dot is still pulling all the weight of this image. Even though a visual element was placed on the opposite side of the piece, the dot still has more weight because it’s larger and because it extends toward the edges of the frame, asserting its dominance in a way.

To balance this composition, we’ll have to add more.

In this final example, you can see how much more visual weight the array of lines carries. Your eye is drawn back and forth naturally and balance is restored. The complexity of the lines overlapping one another makes them more interesting to look at than the dot, which increases their weight. There are several variables that contribute to visual weight in a composition and I want to talk about three specific ones right now: scale, isolation, and convergence.

Scale

Scale was really the star of the balance discussion above. As I said, there are many ways of changing the balance of a piece. Scale is the simplest to understand and control. Scale refers to the size of visual elements in relation to one another and to the composition as a whole.

In a photograph, scale is modified through perspective—by moving closer to or farther from an object. Keeping scale in mind when you compose your frame is just another way to manipulate the balance and therefore the visceral effect your image will have on its audience.

Isolation

When elements stand out from their surroundings, it’s called isolation. We can manipulate isolation in a composition in a couple of ways. First, we can alter the surroundings of an object, and second, we can change the relative scales of the object and its surroundings. Both will have an effect on how isolated an element in the composition will appear to be.

The first example is exploring contrast between visual elements and their surroundings.

Notice how the first element is easily recognizable, though the second element stands out much more strongly from its surroundings. We would say that the second element is more isolated than the first, which makes it a stronger focal point in the composition.

The second example shown below explores the effect of scale.

You will notice that both elements in this example draw your eye. The first is quite large and occupies a significant area of the frame, which gives it weight. The second is much smaller, yet your eye is drawn to it because of the space around it¹; because of its isolation.

Our minds process visual information spatially². When we view an image, we are subconsciously comparing its parts to what we know of the world, trying to recognize objects and relationships between them. When presented with a shape surrounded by a field of color, our mind creates a three-dimensional understanding of the space, visualizing the shape as sitting on a field of color. If two shapes are presented adjacent to one another and they are of different sizes, our subconscious reaction is that the larger shape is closer to us. Isolation works because our minds are so adept at interpreting shapes and the space around them.

You could say that photography, and even art itself, is based on shapes and the space around them.

Convergence

Convergence could be called the most obvious way to affect the emphasis of a composition. Essentially, convergence describes elements that come together at a point, though they don’t have to touch in order to be convergent. Taking advantage of the eye’s fondness for following lines, convergence can cause the viewer to trace a certain path through a composition.

Convergence can be executed very subtly in a photograph, but for the sake of illustration I will use it boldly here.

Notice how your eye catches one of those lines at the left side and “rides” it right up to the dot on the right. It’s very natural to follow lines within a composition and learning to recognize when and how that happens will help you to strengthen yours. The dots are the same size, but the one on the right draws more weight and attention because of the lines leading into it.

The Final Project

We’ve really talked about a lot here today and I commend you if you’ve actually read all the way through! After working on this post for nearly three weeks, I finally had to come to terms with the fact that I could never make it as complete as I’d like. I will try to include the parts I skimmed over or left out in future additions to this series. Suffice it to say, art is a very big subject to try to cover in a simple blog post.

Rather than post a bunch of photos here and try to describe what’s happening in them compositionally, I challenge you, my readers, to do so as you browse through photos in the next few days. I imagine most of you look at photographs daily, either yours or others’, and I would be ecstatic to hear about how you’ve applied these concepts to the creation of your own images or the critique of others’.

If you leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail with your thoughts and reactions, I will put together a “wrap-up” post sharing those ideas with everyone. If you’re looking for stuff to critique, feel free to hammer away at my gallery!

Other great sources include the amazing PhotoSIG, obviously Flickr, and all of the amazing galleries on photo.net. I frequent these sites when I’m in need of inspiration.

1. The space around it is called negative space, which I’ll be talking about in much more depth later
2. Though some people process what they see more spatially than others; we call those people “right-brained” because the right hemisphere of the brain is responsible for spatial recognition

I hope you read the subject of this article and gasped. I hope that your first reaction was indignance or perhaps anger. I share your feelings, but we photographers continuously deal with a level of public distrust and scrutiny that should worry us all. It’s important, whether you’re an amateur or a professional, to know what your rights are and to stand up for them so they don’t erode into nothingness, leaving us all standing there with our cameras and nothing to point them at.

Today I’m going to talk about photographers’ rights, a topic discussed in many other forums and at great length. My focus will be on United States laws: what you are legally permitted to photograph; what, if any, argument you should be willing to put up with from certain officials; and some of my own experiences.

Please come in, photography is allowed.

What Are Your Rights?

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The first thing I’m going to do is point you in the direction of Andrew Kantor’s wonderful Legal Rights of Photographers (pdf)¹ guide. Andrew breaks our work down into its major (legal) components and explains what rights we have to photograph, to publish the work, to withstand accusations, etc., all with clear examples. It’s really the best overview of photographers’ rights I’ve seen yet.

One of the biggest legal revelations I took away from Andrew’s guide is that it is OK to photograph while trespassing, even if the trespass itself is illegal. Many of us have trespassed here and there to get certain shots, and although I am not going to come out and publicly condone it, it’s reassuring to know that the work stands on its own and won’t come back to bite me.

Problems I’ve Had

When I first became serious about art photography (which is what I’d say I do), my friend Chris Blake and I would travel to various public state parks and reservoirs and shoot for entire afternoons. It’s good exercise and being outside is always pleasant in the summer months, so we did it a lot. I wouldn’t say I came away with many timeless masterpieces, but it was excellent practice. Once, while we were photographing some type of a drainage pipe at Reservoir #6 (its name stands in triumphant evidence of the municipal government’s creativity) in West Hartford on a beautiful spring afternoon, a pickup truck came rumbling up toward us, stopped, a man got out, walked over to where we were standing, and informed us that “they” didn’t like people photographing around the water source. He mentioned something about “terrorists;” I don’t completely recall. He didn’t make any overt threats and he seemed personally disinterested, but he said he was asked to tell us this and that we should really stop if we didn’t want to make trouble for ourselves.

Having read Andrew Kantor’s Legal Rights of Photographers, I understand now that it is legal to take photographs within the reservoir grounds because they are open to the public and that it’s legal to publish them as well. Even when asked to leave (which we weren’t), at which time you are officially trespassing, you can still take photographs and use them however you like.

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Another, more serious incident occurred along Route 10 near Bradley International Airport. Chris and I went out for a photographic adventure and wound up in a public parking lot at the head of an arrival runway at dusk. The plan: to photograph planes landing over the chain link fence. Photographing aircraft, even from a public vantage point, is one of those “gray areas” in photography; even though it’s legal, you’re probably asking for trouble. (The image to the right was made that night.)

I believe (though IANAL) there are clauses that prohibit the photography of things like submarines, military helicopters, etc., even in public. It’s one of those “national security” issues; the same reason why dry docked submarines always have their propellers covered (the design of the propellers is top secret, even to most submarine engineers and crew members). Privately owned and operated aircraft, however, fall into no such category and there are no laws that expressly prohibit photographing them. Still, you’re going to get hassled. And we were.

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To the credit of our local law enforcement agencies, it was only a matter of perhaps fifteen minutes before a state police trooper rolled into the parking lot and asked us what we thought we were doing. We explained that we both have photography websites and that we were taking some artsy photos, etc., etc. Signs posted around the parking lot clearly denote that it is public and not the property of the airport, so we weren’t trespassing. He said he was certain we meant no harm but that we would have to stop.

We did stop, by the way, because neither of us wanted to spend the rest of the night in the local police station explaining ourselves and missing out on other opportunities. Perhaps today our reactions might differ. The image to the left was also made that night.

Some people are more persistent in the face of authority figures, and that’s probably a good thing if they’re asserting their rights. Still, you must always weigh the benefits of defending your rights against the perils of doing so.

Conclusions

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At the end of the day, you are the risk-taker. It’s up to you whether you want to press your luck within the law or stray from strict legality to achieve your creative ends. Whatever the case may be, the most important tool at your disposal is full knowledge of your rights.

As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, some of my most popular and most searched photographs are from within the Knight building of the Mansfield Training School, a location I was most certainly trespassing upon when I made them (my favorite one from there is to the right). I think it was worth the risk.

1. Linked with permission. If that copy isn’t working, download it from me.

Thanks to Aaron Johnson of What the Duck for this eloquent visual synopsis of what I’ve been thinking about lately. Too often we get so deeply embroiled in our craft that we forget why we do it.

A debate has been raging for days on Usenet over the question of whether photography is art and, if so, when it becomes art. Although the very discussion is futile and has no practical outcome, I do think it’s important to take a step back from what you’re doing and think about what it is you’re gaining from it. This is going to be a heady philosophical post so if that’s not your particular brand of vodka, read some photo news instead.

While reading related material in preparation for this post, I came across this quote by famed director and cinematographer Michelangelo Antonioni that seemed relevant:

We know that behind every image revealed there is another image more faithful to reality, and in the back of that image there is another, and yet another behind the last one, and so on, up to the true image of that absolute, mysterious reality that no one will ever see.

If something more philosophical could be said about the visual arts, I would like to hear it. An essential characteristic of photography, and one that distinguishes it from other arts, is that you are forced to start with an image from superficial reality, whether that be candid, posed, documentary, still life, or something else; it must be placed before the lens and lit. A painter or a sculptor works within the limits of his or her materials, but the resulting form is summoned completely from their imagination, from their vision of the materials being configured in a certain way.

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Because of this “limitation”¹ of photography, many people are drawn to it—as an art form—with the intention of reproducing a scene for its beauty, emotion, or both (particularly in landscape work) that is perceived by their eyes and minds. The key word there is “reproducing.” Only secondarily do photographers seek to create aesthetic contrivances of texture, form, and color, due to their preoccupation with staying faithful to their experience of the scenes as they experienced them in Antonioni’s mysterious reality. In such realism, the value of the work as art certainly does not decline; Ansel Adams’ entire career was spent realizing such scenic experiences on paper and to suggest that his legacy of printmaking is not art would be like telling Leonardo DaVinci that he can’t draw. Still, Adams’ work is a prime example of what a concern for pure compositional characteristics can bring to “observational” or “representational” photography (I use those words to differentiate Adams’ work from “abstract,” “documentary,” and other types of photography, not as editorial terms).

As a photographer, I am almost completely unconcerned with subject matter for what it is, but rather for what it looks like, and almost never in the classic sense of observance as is typically the case with landscapes (“Oooh, pretty mountains!”). The idea that photographs, or works of art in general, must be imbued with some palpable theme or emotional message is a preposterous concept made popular by professors and scholars whose time is spent analyzing art rather than creating it. Visual art is a powerful method of communicating themes and ideas, but such ability is not one that need be wielded just for the sake of it. My work is not abstract, as it does communicate the presence of objects and places that are recognizable, but I find my interest piqued most by the geometry, contrast, and texture of my subjects.

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Part of my development as a photographer has involved moving slowly away from the urge to create images with some clear meaning simply for the emotional reaction they ilicit, and toward the creation of images for their pure compositional strengths. I went to school for graphic design and my love for it was never tied to the message but rather to its visual impact, pure and simple.

Each photographer I come in contact with has their own passion and their own preferred subject matter. Looking back through my own work I can see how my tastes have developed over time and, I like to think, my skills as well. Do you look back at your older work and see a change in preference toward your subject matter? Have you drastically changed directions as time went on? What are your favorite subjects to photograph, and what is it about them that makes photographing them exciting? What would you like to do more of in your work, or is there a genre you really want to break into?

These are great questions to ask yourself, but if you have a second, leave your answers in the comments as well so we all can have a chat about it.

1. Limiting only to the extent that a painter might be limited with paint.

There was a time, long ago, when photographs were conceived at the moment the shutter button was depressed. Darkroom techniques were limited at best (the idea that a photographic image could even be created was a modern miracle) and the photographer was required to make near-perfect exposures every time.

Things have changed a lot since then; it’s now possible to do amazing things long after the light has been captured by the camera. Today I’m going to explore some competing points of view and take a philosophical walk through the annals of photographic history to clear up some improper perceptions of digital post-processing.

First, Some History

The first commercially viable photographic technology was the Daguerrotype, a positive-only process (no negative is created and each image can only be made once) resulting in extremely fragile prints on copper plates.

Not only was the development and printing process inflexible and time consuming, but it also exposed photographers to chemicals such as mercury and iodine; not the kinds of things you want to be boiling and possibly inhaling!

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Over time, photographic technology evolved. The system of using silver halide-based negatives emerged, allowing photographers to make more than one print from each of their images; prints that could be handled without fear of destroying them. The printing process itself was transformed from a cumbersome operation using metal substrates and boiling chemicals to the more refined and less hazardous procedure we use today.

It was the invention of the glass negative (circa 1839, possibly by John Herschel, an astronomer by trade¹) that precipitated the institution of photographic post-processing. The negative expanded the photographic process into three steps, which should look very familiar:

1. Exposure
2. Development
3. Printing

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Post-processing, by definition, is altering the image after the light has been captured (hence, post-). Traditionally, these alterations were achieved by modifying the way the exposed film was developed into a negative and the way the negative was printed. For the first time, photographers had the ability to enhance their images beyond the capacity of the film materials of the day; dodging and burning, for example, can create images with a tonal range beyond what can be captured by the film at exposure time.

As photographic technology and techniques surge forward, the photographer is given a progressively more expansive collection of post-processing tools and abilities. Digital photography has completed the transformation of post-processing into an art form unto itself, based concretely on captured-light imagery but possessing all of the characteristics and nuances of a full-fledged medium. Regardless of its flexibility and capabilities, is it not still bound to photography?

“While I have always worked with fairly conventional means and techniques, I anticipate new departures which, if I cannot examine them in my lifetime, will assure the power of future vision and accomplishment.” —Ansel Adams, Carmel, 1976

Artistic Integrity

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Any debate over whether post-processing invalidates the artistic integrity of a photographic work is fundamentally academic. Even before chemical photography existed, artists used camera-like devices such as the camera obscura or optical contraptions like the camera lucida to trace a three-dimensional scene onto paper. Chemical photography and highly sensitive film materials simply permitted artists to capture their subjects faster and with greater accuracy, but never excused an artist from laying hands upon the entire process to reach their artistic goals. Never in the evolution of darkroom techniques was the final product’s status as a photograph questioned.

A perception exists that the medium of captured-light images is pure, not to be spoiled by the meddling of non-optical tools. It may be that the last few decades of photography, during which no paradigm shifts in traditional process have occurred², are responsible for this notion. Or, it may be that the digital world is so vastly different—not in essence, but in physicality—from the world of the darkroom that this discussion has arisen.

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Still, there are those who perceive an imaginary line in post-processing across which a photograph passes into a different state of being and loses its status as a photograph. To me, this distinction is purely semantic. We could debate the definition of “photograph” ad infinitum and never reach a consensus. What does this discussion do for any of us as artists?

Far be it from me to make sweeping generalizations about a field as personal and subjective as art, but I feel as though the detractors of post-processing are the antithesis of its very spirit. Let me explain.

The Question of Intent

You could say that a watercolor splattered with acrylic ceases to be a watercolor. Semantically, that’s true enough; I think that the world of art would classify such a painting as “mixed media.” Perhaps the stumbling block in digital photography is the inextricable relationship between its traditional light-capture methods and the digital “development” tools that make even its most modest creations possible.

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Because traditional darkroom development tools have always been part and parcel to the process we call “photography,” even since the earliest days of its existence, it’s hard to suggest that they are separate mediums or separate forms of art. I contend that digital photography is no different. A digital photographer may not use chemical developers or optical enlargers, but the process is fundamentally the same. Those who claim otherwise tend to draw the line at a subjective point in the editing process, one which marks no meaningful boundary.

Rather than introducing entirely new mechanics or technology, digital post-processing of any degree makes use of the same fundamental operations that produce simple and austere works. Because the tools are the same, it is the methods themselves, the intricacies of the artist’s process, that are called into question; something that has never happened in photography before, certainly not to this degree.

What do you think? Are there Photoshop filters or third-party software tools or certain editing techniques that transform a photograph into a photographically-derived work, not deserving of the name “photograph?” Where do you draw the line?

I think that it’s an artist’s duty to carefully examine each viewpoint in this discussion and then promptly ignore them all.

1. Edit: It was brought to my attention that Herschel wasn’t responsible for the “invention” of the negative, although he probably coined the term. For more information about this stage in photography’s early development, read about William Fox Talbot, John Herschel, and the wet plate collodion process
2. Digital photography is unquestionably a paradigm shift, but the idea of collecting light through a lens, capturing the resulting image, and reproducing that image on paper is exactly the same as it was when the term “photography” was first conceived in 1832.

The debate rages on concerning the best place to put “image stabilization” features. Is it within the lens housing, as Canon prefers; or is it within the camera body itself as Pentax, Panasonic, Sony, and others have adopted?

The big names in photography have evidently made their decisions, but photographers have their own opinions. As with most things in photography, if not in life, this decision is one with many trade-offs; if there was one completely correct answer, it would already be known.

Today I will dive into the briar patch and outline the pros and cons of both sides of the debate so that you can make a more fully informed decision about what equipment to buy.

What Is It?

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First, let me explain briefly what “image stabilization” technology actually is. When you hold your camera in your hands, it moves around a little bit (unless you’re a robot, in which case I would like to meet you, please e-mail me). If your shutter speed is not fast enough (and you can use the focal length reciprocal rule to get an estimate of that), your photos can come out blurry due to this movement¹. In order to help curtail the effects of “camera shake,” image stabilization technology was developed.

Canon and Nikon both use image stabilization systems that reside within the lens housing of particular lenses. In the Canon line, those lenses are marked “IS” (for Image Stabilization), and in the Nikon world they are marked “VR” (for Vibration Reduction). Both systems are based on the same fundamental mechanics; there is a small gyroscope or “accelerometer” inside of the lens that senses the direction and velocity of motion, and that sensor reports to a computer chip of some kind. The chip then tells a series of very small motors to move one or more optical elements around inside the barrel of the lens such that the image moves in the opposite direction of the motion. This is all explained pretty nicely on Nikon’s VR page.

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The net effect is that the image seen through the lens moves considerably less, and when it does move it moves with an odd but strangely satisfying fluidity². Canon and Nikon claim that using this stabilization technology will allow you to use a shutter speed one, two, or even three stops slower than usual to get a clear photograph. Numerous articles exist that test those claims, but I won’t get into that here.

Why Argue About This?

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While Canon and Nikon have opted to place the image stabilization components in some of their (often higher-end) lenses, other makers such as Pentax, Panasonic, Sony, and others, have made systems that operate from inside the camera body. Rather than moving lens elements around, these systems actually move the image sensor itself. Canon explains this briefly in the Digital Rebel XTi Whitepaper,

Short focal length lenses require smaller sensor deflections; 24 or 28 mm lenses might need only 1 mm or so. Longer lenses necessitate much greater movement; 300 mm lenses would have to move the sensor about 5.5 mm (nearly 1/4”) to achieve the correction Canon gets with its IS system at the same focal length. This degree of sensor movement is beyond the range of current technology.

A bit preachy, but nonetheless true, is Canon’s statement that there is no technology available now that can move the sensor itself as much as 5.5 millimeters with the speed and accuracy necessary to make image stabilization for a 300 millimeter telephoto lens effective. That is one argument against the in-body IS systems out today.

Alright, so what are the benefits to having your IS system located inside the camera body?

1. You get some level of stabilization with any lens you use.
2. Lenses, in general, cost a bit less because you are not paying for IS mechanisms.
3. Stabilization becomes available with lenses that manufacturers might not deem worthy to have IS in them, such as short focal length and/or wide aperture lenses. These lenses may still benefit from some IS in extremely dark conditions.

I can think of times when even f/1.4 at ISO 3200 seemed like a mere pittance (such as in the aquarium), and IS sure would have come in handy then! On the other hand, there are downsides to in-camera IS, too:

1. Not as effective as in-lens IS because it isn’t tailored to any specific focal length or optics.
2. Ineffective after a certain focal length due to limitations in how much the sensor can be deflected mechanically.
3. The effects are not visible through the viewfinder. Because only the sensor moves, you can’t tell how well it’s working until you snap a picture.

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An argument that I have often tried to make when this subject comes up is that in-camera IS puts you in greater jeopardy if it fails. While most serious amateurs carry at least a couple of different lenses, many can’t afford to carry more than one camera body, or simply find it inconvenient for most outings. Now, I don’t know what happens when in-camera IS fails, but the fact remains that you no longer have IS. However, if your in-lens IS fails, you can always grab the next IS lens in your bag (even if it isn’t ideal for your shooting situation³.)

It has been said that Canon (in particular, but this applies equally to Nikon) hasn’t implemented in-camera IS on its mid- to high-end models simply because they are already pulling in a lot of money from selling IS lenses. That may be true; Canon is certainly in business to make money, and they’re good at it, too. However, it is my opinion that in-lens IS, while potentially more expensive because you buy many of the same parts multiple times, and while potentially limiting because you only have IS in the lenses the manufacturer chooses, is superior simply because each mechanism is suited to the focal length and optics to which it is bound. This is confirmed by Canon in the same Rebel XTi Whitepaper,

With the optical IS used by Canon, each lens with IS has a stabilizer unit designed for that lens’s needs. The unit in a lens such as the EF 28-135 f/3.5-5.6 IS USM or the EF-S 17-85 f/4-5.6 IS USM is vastly different from the powerful, broad movement stabilizers in lenses such as the EF 400mm f/2.8L IS USM or the EF 600mm f/4L IS USM.

If you’re swinging an 18-inch-long 600mm lens around, in-camera IS just isn’t going to cut it.

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Another viewpoint is that more IS cannot possibly be bad, so we should encourage manufacturers to place IS systems in their cameras and their lenses. I read this argument in The Online Photographer, and the writer, a Mr. Mike Johnston, makes a number of good points. I shudder to think what might happen with both in-camera as well as in-lens stabilization systems running simultaneously, but more seemingly insurmountable engineering feats have certainly been demonstrated in photography in only the past couple of years.

If anyone wants to comment on the other manufacturers’ use of image stabilization or weigh in on which style of IS works best, just leave a comment.

As a wise man once said, “You shoot what you shoot.“

1. Robots take very clear photographs
2. Note that this effect is only visible through the viewfinder when using in-lens IS, which is one of the arguments in this debate
3. Ideal would be having two identical cameras and two identical lenses, but few can afford that luxury