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photography

some bragging / the real value

Mar 6th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
4 comments

Sometimes it’s good to see nice things. So I’m gonna brag a little.

I’m the 57th “best photoblog” according to VFXY. I’m not sure how many members they have, but, 57th is pretty good, I’d say. My Photoblog has a 9/10 rating. VFXY, btw, is a great way to get Flickr style community on a non-Flickr photoblog. Or, alternately, it’s a great way to see some incredible photos, even if all you do is favorite mine.

I now have over 1,000,000 combined views on my Flickr account according to their stats. Special thanks to Liz, Gloria, Jennifer, and Danielle for their part in that. If you’d like to volunteer to be next, please, contact me.

36 of my photos have been recognized as one of the top 500 photos on Flickr for a particular day. A lot of people eager for this recognition post in groups, submit at certain times of day, and all other tricks in order to get noticed. I don’t have the time or energy for any of that most of the time. So 36 makes me feel pretty good. Special thanks goes to Mike, Gloria, Jess (for her help with my self portraits project, and various other self portraits), Erica, Adrienne, and all of West Texas for their part in those images.

I’ve had my work published in government papers about ecology and water supply conservation. I’ve had images used as illustrations in various college research papers. I’ve had one of my images blown up and printed on many smaller prints which were then recombined to cover an entire wall. I’ve had an image published in a book that I didn’t create myself. I’ve sold images to people I don’t know. I’ve even had repeat customers.

I’ve made so many new friends and have learned so many new things through photography. Sometimes I get down on myself because I don’t have time to do everything I want to do, or provide the attention to detail that I want to on various projects. But, when I look back, it really has been a huge success.

I’m incredibly thankful to each and every one of you who have played a part in this — either by posing for me, commenting on my images, offering advice, keeping me company while taking photographs, or taking incredible photographs yourself which inspire me to create even more. I love you all.

Zenfolio vs ExposureManager

Feb 26th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
10 comments

A big part of what makes a website designed to sell a product successful is whether that website stirs up a feeling of trust for the merchant and respect for the product. While ExposureManager is indeed completely customizable , making these custom changes requires heavy knowledge of HTML, CSS, and access to ExposureManager template documentation that isn’t available. So, while the potential is certainly there, the average visitor to an ExposureManager hosted gallery will find mediocre style and a web 1.0 feel. Zenfolio, on the other hand, offers a stunning visual experience, and a large selection of themes and customizations to let each user choose what best suits the work being presented. As Ian pointed out, this makes the service more valuable to the photographer right out of the box. But looks aren’t everything.

So which service is better suited to me? The short version: Zenfolio. Read on for the full report.

(If you decide to use Zenfolio, drop in Referral Code CVY-6UZ-T5M and you’ll save $5 and I will too)

Out of the box look. Zenfolio. As mentioned above.

Ease of use for Customers. Zenfolio.

Ease of use for Photographers. Zenfolio.

Suitable as more than just a print gallery. Zenfolio. With all of it’s advanced features, Zenfolio can quite easily be the ONLY service you’ll need for hosting your portfolio, your fine art images, custom work, portrature, and event photography. It’s feature set puts it up there with Flickr yet it still remains professional and utterly customizable to suit the photographer.

Templating. ExposureManager. The above mentioned templating feature. This allows for the ultimate in customization. Zenfolio claims this is coming soon to their service offering.

Monthly Cost. ExposureManager – kinda. Exposure manager runs $99.95/yr for their unlimited account. This is a mere $0.05 cheaper than Zenfolio and is essentially equal. However, ExposureManager does offer a $64.95/yr account with a 1GB storage limit. While Zenfolio has other product offering too, they do not allow for profits to be made on print sales and are therefore outside of the scope of this review. So, if you’re willing to deal with a 1GB storage limit, ExposureManager is cheaper. Otherwise, the cost is the same.

Commission. Zenfolio w/ Exceptions. ExposureManager charges 10% commission on the purchase price. Zenfolio charges 12% on profits only. For self-fulfillment orders, ExposureManager still charges 10% commission, however, ZenFolio drops the rate to 6% and still only charges commission on profit. If you do a lot of self-fulfillment, or if your profits are fairly low, ZenFolio will probably be significantly less expensive (but see the downside below on self-fulfillment). [Thanks to Phototouille for pointing out ExposureManager's change in policy and therefore tipping this item in Zenfolio's favor.]

Self-Fulfillment. ExposureManager. Both services operate in roughly the same fashion. While ZenFolio is a bit easier to use, the end result is the same. Custom Products and Custom Shipping methods are created and presented for purchase by the customer. ZenFolio gets an extra point for ease of use and for allowing product photos to accompany the items. Another extra point is awarded to ZenFolio for letting their cropping feature (see below) be used during self-fulfillment as well. But ExposureManager gets the gold star on this one for one reason alone. ZenFolio requires the Photographer to bill the customer outside of ZenFolio for Custom Products. ExposureManager handles these aspects as well.

Cropping. ZenFolio. Cropping is not an easy concept for a lot of print purchasers. They think “I want an 8×10″ so they buy an 8×10. They have no idea what that might do to the end result of the image being purchased didn’t happen to already be in 8×10 format. ExposureManager leaves you on your own to sort this out. I’ve opted for printing white borders on every image and requesting an email from the customer before placing an order if something else is needed. Not idea. ZenFolio has an interesting cropping module. It has a decent default and allows the customer to further specify exactly how they would like to see the image cropped. This feature is selectable on an image-to-image basis so the photographer can even turn it off on those images where he feels cropping should not be altered.

Image Quality. Zenfolio. ExposureManager used to use EZPrints. EZPrints isn’t bad, by any means, but, they also aren’t the first choice of photographers in the know who have a choice. ExposureManager doesn’t use EZPrints any longer, but I’m not sure who they are using now. But it isn’t MPix. MPix, is one of the leading online printing houses for photographers. Their quality and service is well known and quite dependable. This is a huge plus in the eyes of photographers still trying to get over the worry of NOT seeing the final product before it ships to their customers. You want someone you can trust. And lots of photographers trust MPix.

Zenfolio offers a free 14 day trial, so you’ve got nothing to lose. Use referral code CVY-6UZ-T5M and we’ll both save $5.

What are your thoughts? Do you use a hosted solution to sell your artwork online? If so, who do you recommend?

A new Gallery Host?

Feb 25th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
2 comments

As some of you may know, I’ve been using ExposureManager for quite some time now. I’m not 100%  happy with them and never have been, but, they seemed to be the best option for me at the time. Things may have changed.

I’ve recently been introduced to Zenfolio and I feel they offer a very compelling service.  I know what my thoughts and opinions are but, quite honestly, when it comes to purchasing prints, making my potential customers happy is the top priority.

So, if you have a few seconds, I’d appreciate you taking a look at these two offerings and letting me know which one you like more. Looks are one thing, but, the feel and operation of the site should be examined as well. You can go as far as the screen where a credit card number is being asked for without actually buying anything for testing purposes. And, even if you do buy something, I can cancel the order if you email me right away.

Visit: Arranging Light on ExposureManager

Visit: Arranging Light on Zenfolio

I’m very appreciative for your assistance. After I hear back from you, I’ll give a full write up for those of you making the same or similar choice.

guess what?

Feb 22nd, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
7 comments

Take a look at the four images below. What do they have in common? Look hard. It may take you a while.

rained outrushing tomorrow

pretending it's perfecthidden in your shadows

PRINT GALLERY

Give up?

Already?

You didn’t even TRY!

Fine! Okay, I’ll tell you.

They were all taken with my brand new Nikon D300.

Yes, folks, you read that right. The man who would probably STILL be using his first digital camera ever if it hadn’t been stolen has actually upgraded.

I’m a firm believer in the idea that, except in specialized cases, having the latest and best equipment isn’t going to make a bad photographer into a good one. However, just like buying a new car isn’t going to get you to work any faster, in most cases, sometimes, it sure can make the ride more enjoyable.

So, after a huge chunk of change for the body, and a nice pile of additional equipment, I’m a very happy owner of Nikon’s newest model, the D300. Of course my wallet’s a lot happier too since its pants from 4 years ago seem to fit. And the bank’s happy too since they know I’ll pay them back… eventually.

This stuff isn’t free. It isn’t even cheap. If there’s anything you can do to help cover these costs, I’d really appreciate it.

Buy a Print. You get something nice for the wall and I make $11.69. That’s right — I make a whopping $11.69 from every print bought from my Print Gallery.

Buy my Book. If you don’t have wall space to spare, Order a copy of my book, Finding Place. I think I make somewhere around $25.00 for each copy purchased.

Donate. Maybe you don’t have any space on the bookshelf either? I’ll happily, mercifully, gratefully accept Donations.  And, while I don’t promise anything, I often reward those that donate and I often do so in a recurring fashion. I’m just saying.

Link. Maybe you just don’t have any money to spare. Hey, I understand. But making a point to tell your friends about my work and share an image with them via email, on your blogs, or in your journals makes a huge difference. Sometimes, it’s the friend of a friend of a friend that can make the biggest difference. Or, if that’s not really your thing, feel free to use any image of mine along with one of your regular posts. You benefit with an great image to go with your words, and I get a potential visitor to my site. Every photo posted in Arranging Light has a “BLOG THIS” link at the bottom of it. And, if you can’t figure that out, send me an email and I’ll happily give you a hand.

Thank you for your support. It means so much to me.

DITL from 2008-01-19

Feb 13th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

Yeah yeah yeah, I know I’m late. Like REALLY like. And that makes me a dickhead. I get it. But, I’m done… kinda.

I edited all the photos I took for DITL 2008-01-19… EXCEPT for the two photo sessions I had that day: sunrise photos in a cemetery in the morning, and a family photo session that afternoon with my mom manning the camera.

So, those’ll come… later-ish.

I found a Beach!

Feb 12th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet
Beach at Sunrise

Beaches are few and far between in this part of Texas. Given that, this is probably one of my favorites.

Several of you — Monica, in particular — have approached me wanting to do an outdoor photo session on a beach. This could possibly be a great location for that. I’m looking for a test model (read: free) to photograph here one weekend. I’d prefer not to do the typical swimsuit thing. A nice, light, dress, or some form of flowing clothing seems more appropriate. I know it’ll work at sunrise. I need to go check it out at sunset to see if it’ll work then too.

(And since I know you’ll ask: as far as nudity goes, this probably isn’t the best place for it. See-through clothing, very little clothing, and implied nudity will work just fine. But, there is a very heavily traveled bridge just behind this shot that would make us quite noticeable. The area under the bridge would be private, but is also angled in the wrong direction and covered in large rocks.)

this past week

Feb 5th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In the past week I’ve done so much. But it feels like I haven’t done anything at all. Here’s what I managed to get done:

My father-in-law has been in town since last Tuesday. He leaves tomorrow. It’s been great having him around. However, with that comes a sense of obligation regarding how my time is spent. I know it isn’t required of me, but I do so anyway.

A friend/co-worker from NJ was in town for the week. We spent an evening at dinner with him.

There was also a Super-Bowl party at my Dad’s house on Sunday.

Made an impromptu trip to Oklahoma for some sunrise photography.

We bought a new car! This took 5 hours of one night, a few hours of phone calls one day, and another 3 hours on another day. But, it’s done. We got a 2007 Mitsubishi Outlander. Jess and I were using my pickup truck for 90% of our travel as a family and with Celeste we were just running out of room in it. This vehicle has a lot more room, gets much better gas mileage, and the little thises and thats that I needed out of a truck are mostly still there. But, for those of you in need of a free moving vehicle, I am no longer your friend with the truck.

We found some time to visit with our good friends, their three girls, and their brand new baby boy! Very exciting.

At work I facilitated the development of a new ticketing system and rolled out a trial of that system in one of our centers. I also completed my self-appraisal for 2007 (you’ll be happy to know, I did wonderfully. Especially since it was a self-appraisal) and completed my objectives for 2008. Of course there were lots of other smaller work stuffs too, but those are the ones that managed to cut into my non-work time.

Jess and I also partially planned a trip to the Texas Bayou for this weekend. Will finish planning today and tomorrow. We leave Friday morning.

Of course, there were lots of things I didn’t get done too.

My mom’s birthday present is still late. But it’s 99% done and Jess is saying it’ll be in the mail today. That’s a relief.

The following photographs are in some state of “not edited” from “almost finished” to “I haven’t even looked at them”: DITL photos from Jan 19th, DITL photos from Jan 23th, photos taken at Zion Cemetery, January family photoshoot, photos taken at sunrise on Lake Ray Roberts, sunset photos from Bear Creek park, hiking photos from Isle Du Bois state park, and the above mentioned photos from Oklahoma. Not to mention all the random photos taken here and there.

I need to do my taxes. My records from last year are in bad shape, so this will be quite time consuming. I’ve got a thick stack of papers in an envelope on my desk, and a giant virtual stack of bank statements to comb through. Not fun.

I missed the Super-Bowl party at Mike’s place, a friend’s birthday party on Friday, and a business meeting last Thursday. I would have loved to have attended all three, but I just ran out of time.

I didn’t manage to find time to set up an SVN server or work with some sample code for the business either. Thankfully, we’re still working on the foundation so actual code is less important than architecture and design decisions at this point.

My father-in-law cleaned the garage, washed Jess’ car, and hung shelves in Celeste’s room. These are things that I should have done but also didn’t have time to do. I’m very grateful for the help.

I’ve found myself utterly exhausted lately. Yesterday I woke up at 4:30am and went to bed at 9:15pm. While that’s only 7 hours of sleep and perfectly acceptable in most people’s worlds, that’s unlike me. I’m fairly used to making it on 5 or 6 hours at most. Despite the fact that it feels impossible to squeeze any more time or energy out of me, I need to find the time to get a short walk/run in after dinner each day. It’ll help a lot with my energy levels.

Despite the fact that I make a point to hold her and spend some quality time with her several times each day, I feel like I haven’t really had a chance to just relax and enjoy Celeste. Most of the time I do spend with her is spent changing diapers, trying to keep her from crying, or trying to put her to sleep.

So, if you haven’t heard from me in a while and you’ve been wondering why, this should serve as a small glimpse at that answer. More later… ha ha.

this and that

Jan 23rd, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

In the three minutes that I have before I need to start getting ready for work, I offer the following gibberish.

My Group DITL photos are almost ready. I’ve got them narrowed down to 109 so far, plus a couple from each of two photo events. It either needs to be closer to 50 or really exciting to keep interest. So… I’m getting there. It was a huge success and tons of you did it which makes me very happy. On Saturday-ish I’ll have a nice post with all the participants and awards and such.

I’ve decided I need to limit what I plan to get done each day. As it stands now, I find myself looking back at each day and seeing that I either worked myself to exhaustion with little to no time for anything personal (the baby, my wife, e-mail, photos, etc), or, that I was so overwhelmed with what I had to do that I did nearly nothing at all — watched TV, did a few chores in the most mediocre of fashions, etc. So, in the effort of trying something new, I’m just going to pick a handful of things for each of several categories to do each day and completely push everything else out of my mind. If I find myself less frantic this way, then I’ll start making a list of all the things I didn’t get done so that I can choose a bit more wisely on future days.

Celeste will be a month old this Saturday. A MONTH OLD! Time flies.

My sister-in-law was in a pretty bad accident this past weekend. She is at home and doing better now but it has happened at a very difficult time for her and my brother which certainly doesn’t help. If you believe in such things, please send your good thoughts, prayers, and energy their way. It’d mean a lot to me.

A good friend of ours had their first boy of four children last Saturday. He was a VBAC and born happy and healthy at 1:02pm on Saturday. We are very happy for them and are filled with hope for our next child.

Today (1/23/08) is a DITL Day in the DITL LiveJournal Community. Since I won last week’s (woo hoo!) I can’t win this week, but I wasn’t doing it to win anyway. I just find it fun to do and fascinating to look at.

The 3 minutes I had has turned into 18. I really need to shower and get to work. More later…

Group DITL: Tomorrow, Jan 19th, 2008

Jan 18th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
1 comment

Ok, folks. Tomorrow is the big day. January 19th, 2008, as many people as possible will join forces in making photographic documentation of the mundane and no-so-mundane events of every day life.

We have 17 confirmed participants. Check out The Facebook Event for more details and RSVP either there or here or some how if you intend to play along.

Group DITL?

Jan 14th, 2008
by Jim Reverend.
No comments yet

After posting the photos from the “Day in the Life” project I did last Friday, a few people have expressed interest in doing so as well as a group effort.

The idea is that all participants would document the same day in their lives through photography. Then, over the following week or so, everyone will share the results of this effort. There are several groups on the Internet doing this already — in particular, the DITL LiveJournal Group (their next DITL day is tomorrow, BTW) and several groups on Flickr (most of which don’t seem incredibly active). However, there’s always room for improvement and localization.

In this case, at least at first, I’d like to try to arrange some sort of group event to occur on the same day. That way we’d all be photographing our lives and then, at some point, those lives would come together and then, later, separate again. I’m aiming for either this Saturday (the 19th) or the next (the 26th). I’m thinking I should either try to arrange something to do (picnic, movie outing, dinner, walk around the lake, party, etc). Or, perhaps I should just encourage you all to get together with one another that day by having some silly awards for the person who has the most photographs of other people taking photographs from that same day. Something like that.

So, what do you think? Any ideas? Would you like to participate? Let me know.

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