lucas_griego

Hilarious.

Yes - too much gear with no second body. LOL. And your not even on assignment. You still will need to carry film. Sheesh - are you on holiday or becoming a sherpa!

Skip the Safepac idea if on the street with it. Oh you won't get robbed - you'll get laughed out of most places! LOL! Not to mention you will stand out like a uber-tourist.

Your going to Europe - not Nigeria!!

You need to put your Dad in his place. This is not a pro question so much as it's one of you needing to deal with your relationship with your father. He acted like an ass so you need to gently but firmly let him know it's your gig not his and the people that get photo priority are the bride and groom... not him.

If he gets his feelings hurt then maybe it's time for him to do a bit of growing up.

Scott,

You'll want your lights at an angel to the wood obviously - it'll take some playing with to get it right. Sometimes though - no matter what you do there is a glare/reflection.

You can stick a polarizer on and that should knock the glare down as well. Just be careful that your colors don't go bezerk. You can also try to use polarizing gel and polarize your light source.

Generally polarizers won't kill a true reflection but it will knock out most glare. I've had the same problem when shooting executive portraits up against the chinese scrolls that were behind glass.

Last but not least - shoot a long exposure shot of the wood panel/wall with no subject in the shot and you can easily use it to replace the glare. It'll take some practice but depending on your situation it might work better to do it on the desktop.

Good luck.

Get professionally printed cards. Cards off the color laser or the Epson just look and feel cheap.

First impressions count. You don't get a second chance. Cards are not only visual but tactile as well...

What is the tactile sensation a client gets when he picks up your homemade card on very light stock (even the heaviest home laser printable card stock is lame) V.S. the competitions card that is 4/C offset printed with a spot varnish on a high-calendar stock or a letterpress printed card on a 100% cotton quality laid stock?

No one is ever impressed by homeprinted business cards.

Homemade cards sends the wrong kinds of message to a potential client.

Get professional and get professionally printed cards.

Jeff well put. My comment about 'wise up' stems from my attitude that if I know that I haven't done anything wrong (no intent to commit a crime/no outstanding warrants etc.) I am not too fussed about showing an I.D. when asked or verbally identifying who I am to a police officer.

In the case that one refuses to produce an I.D. document or give a verbal I.D. one escalates a situation in a way that can hardly be favorable. Get a cop on a bad day and very fast you'd find yourself hauled in on a loitering charge or some such nonsense with no real recourse. Ranting about 4th ammendmant rights does diddley squat while your sitting in a holding tank in county jail. At the end of it'd result in a huge waste of my time, waste of the cops time and a huge waste of taxpayers money.

I guess I would rather get on with it and get back to taking pictures than I would want to deal with the hassle of being hauled down to the station and sitting in the tank.

"A person so approached is under no obligation to answer, and in most cases, the person?s refusal to answer is not, per se, a basis for detention. "

Maybe yes and maybe no. There is no blanket policy for this in the U.S. It varies from state to state. In many states you are in an establishment that serves alcohol or you are pulled over for a moving violation then you are required to produce an I.D. document.

The question of whether or not you have to even answer questions posed by a police officer let alone produce an I.D. has been argued many times all the way to the supreme court. A precedent making case was the Supreme Court's 1968 decision in Terry v. Ohio. The most recent was Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, No. 03-5554.

Many times 'reasonable suspicion' is all an officer needs to ask for an I.D. document or a verbal I.D. to run a background check. 'reasonable suspicion' is quantitatively and qualitatively a lower standard than is 'probable cause'.

In reality in many states, the cop will run you in on a loitering charge (a catch-all charge in many states that requires the suspect to produce an I.D. and one that is vague enough to be able to use in almost any situation)

The ACLU suggests that it's probably wisest to comply with the request for an I.D. document and or a verbal I.D. - then if you feel that your rights have been violated (anywhere from nominal to gross infringement on 4th amendmant rights) to file a formal complaint. There are a fair number of people with outstanding warrants picked up by a simple request for I.D. and background check. Often if a suspect refuses to I.D. himself he will be booked as a John Doe and dumped in a holding tank till he gets his lawyer on the line or wises up.

(This was also gone over extensively in a similar post last month in the Street and Documentary forum)

There are dozens of differing ways of doing this with all slightly different results.

Select the magic wand tool and hit your caps lock button to change the magic wand cursor to a cross hairs (for accuracy) and then hold down your shift button, go through and click on all the areas of writing (i.e. the letters) - holding the shift button allows you to select multiple selections. If you don't hold the shift button down while doing this it'll deslect the current selection when you click the next letter with the magic wand tool (crosshairs).

Once you have all the handwriting selected (you'll know by being able to see the 'marching ants' around all of what you want) then hit the command (control on a PC) and the letter I at the same time. This will invervse the selection (hence the letter I) - This inverts your selection. Now all the paper is selected and the writing is not. Delete it, do whatever you want with it. You can always hit command I again and now the writing will be selected. You can copy it to a new channel, or copy and paste it in a new layer.

Play with it you'll get it. If it seems hard - try it with some simple shapes first. Example... several white squares on a black background. Remebmber to hold the shift button down to be able to select multiple items.

There are hundreds of other ways of doing this. But this is a very very basic skill in Photoshop. It can also be done with channels, quick masking, the pen tool etc. etc.

good luck.

Ethiopia Super 160 is the slide film of choice for Ethiopia.

Beware though - it is hard to find and you will not be allowed to shoot with it if you pass through Etria.

LOL.

What Frank said.

Dumb sh*t for camera polishers to waste money on.

LOL.

As for the shipbreakers. Don't expect a friendly welcome. There was some adverse publicity for the country via evironmentalist after the original shots ran. The government (not PJ friendly) cracked down on foreigner access. There were several other PJ's who went up there to shoot similar stories and almost got lynched.

If you're working and get your shots run - then I'd say by all means head up and try to capture some of the misery of the floods. Perhaps it can help to build/add to and awareness of the problems associated with flooding and the reasons why it's flooding and who get's hit the hardest when it does. But otherwise your just stroking your own adventure ego about going up to a place where it is so dire.

Miguel,

Freelancing for local wages in India. LOL. Get real. You would starve. That's IF you could even get in - economies function very differently there than many other places - nepotism is rampant, unemployment is high, etc. etc. ad ifinitum. Oh wait - did I mention that there are lot of very very talented photographers in India already? While many speak English to get into/close to some situations you will want to have a very good understanding of Hindi - and there are probably a dozen dialects in Rajasthan alone.

Think about selling your shots to companies outside of India. You will make better money for starters. Even that will require a huge amount of leg work.

I suggest you start looking at who buys/runs shots of places like Rajasthan. Many magazines will want words with the shots (captions at the very least) - generally more than captions. But be forewarned - you won't get even close to rich shooting like that. It's a business not a gold mine. It takes time to build up and for travel work their is a f*ckload of competition.

Put your business head on. Do you have business cards? A professional portfolio? A web site? A leave behind sample of your work? Knowledge of going rates for that kind of work and all the copyright issues associated with it?? The ability to BS your way into situations that can turn into paying gigs?

Do you have back up gear? A good selection of lenses? A second body? Digital would be a huge help? How about a laptop? Plenty of CF cards? Health insurance? Gear insurance?

The list can go on and on - but learn about the business before you jump in expecting to make big money. You will save yourself some gross dissapointment.

This is NOT meant to be discouraging. Merely realistic. It takes a can do attitude and a good amount of knowledge to get started. The rest is talent, luck and nerve.

Good luck.

I doubt there are many places renting strobes in Cancun. More likely there would be a pro/semi-pro with his own studio set up - even that would a hard gig to rent out the strobes from.

I would suggest you take your own down with you. Rent them and take them down if you have to. It's probably not allowed under the rental contract but I rent many bigger pieces of gear here in Hong Kong that I don't own and I bring them with me on location to Indonesia/China. So far so good.

Make sure you're insured.

"Nancy Regan is a wonderful person"

Before this political praise makes me too nauseous - just a tip... If your so enamorate it'd help if you spelled her name correctly.

Nancy Reagan.

Steven, 2 rolls? Your probably not going to get many keepers out of two rolls. What the heck is the client thinking?!?!

The EL 500 is a real pain to change the tube. Maybe they recommend that you take it to the shop or agent and change it. Anyhow I've done it myself and it's a nightmare. Not the least of which is that you can ZAP yourself silly if you slip and discharge a cappacitor. It's easy to do. If I remember right the tube is held in place and to release it you have to unscrew about 8 different screws and open the housing - then you have to use a very tiny allen wrench to to undo two bolds that hold the contacts in place. All just to change a friggin' tube!

The 600 on the other hand (at least the newer Style series it's a piece of cake. No screws etc. Obviously don't touch the tube or anything but it's easy. And some (all?) of the Style 600's have cooling fans. Good for long shoots.

Go with the Style series.

"It is also the 'investment' factor. A used Hasselblad (undamaged, but used) will generally be worth more than the Mamiya RZII."

All of which means diddley-squat unless you are a camera polisher or a camera trader. Don't buy a camera on the thoughts that you may be able to get a good resale value later.

Buy it for what it will do for you while your using it.

The shots are very good 'holiday' shots. But they are probably not going to move to fast off the shelves so to speak.

What Jeff says is correct. You really do need some serious interaction going on to be able to spark human interest. The chances of getting picked up as 'stock' are practically nill. Why? Becuase stock agencies want to see hundreds if not thousands of images. And for a place like Israel there are a ton of great shots with a lot of interaction coming out of the place. Remember there are a ton of PJ's roaming around there at any given time and they don't kill all their time in the Gaza strip.

Don't be disheartened though. Keep shooting and keep reading up. Your headed in the right direction. Let many critique your shots. And not friends/boyfriends. People who know their shiznizzidy and/or pro's. Maybe start working on a theme (the travelogue like Jeff mentioned is a good idea... it will give you good practice in working towards a goal photographically.) There is a mindset that comes with working with a preconceived theme that changes things. It will help to improve you ability to tell a story visually. Which is essentually what it sounds like you want to do.

As photographer you want to retain the copyright. There are however many ways to sell usage rights to your images and retain the copyright. You can even donate the usage rights to them. It at least gets you in print. Many photographers when they start out do some work for tear sheets. It's a good way to add work to your book. But the key is you retain the copyright and limit the usage of your images.

Working professionally is in many cases really about 'liscencing' the rights to print your image for a said amount of time and in a given area and a given medium.

So while the posts on this thread seem somewhat like a downer they're really not. They are a good info on how to go about developing your work to a point where you can sell it.

Read through some of the articles on this site. There is a ton of info here. Pretty much any question has been asked dozens of times and answered millions of times.

Why not search the archives? I personally have typed in the names, addresses and phone numbers of several places on many occasions. Others have as well.

Use the search function and save others the work you should be doing.

Ah if only it were this simple. lol.

You haven't really provided enough information for a detailed answer.

Try answering some of these questions and you will have a better idea and so will those trying to help you:

1) What genre do they fit in?

(architecture, travel, fashion etc.)

2) Is there some kind of coherence or series action or theme going on. And I mean over an above just the 'Israel' theme. There are tons of people shooting there. Quite a few professionals and a gazillion photo journalists.

3) Are you familiar with copyright issues and what usage rights you want to sell? How much are these rights worth to you? To an editor?

4) Can you post some samples for an honest critique? What if an editor wants to see them? Have you got dupes? Multiple copies. Are they consumer grade neg-print film or are they pro-grade transparency film?

5) Do you have model releases for anyone appearing in the shots? Do you need model releases?

this list could go on for quite some time. But you get the picture. Basically you need to do your homework. I don't want to rain on your parade but I wouldn't hold my breath for new gear with a few keeper shots from a holiday in Israel. To sell you need shots that have a coherrent theme or some kind of story behind them. You need to sort out your business end first. Register your copyrights to them etc. etc.

Good luck.

Add Boxing/Wrestling/Muay Thai/Martial Arts/Combat Sports

: )

<i>"You appear to be overly indoctrinated. Billions of people are using cameras in those countries every day. No problems."</i>

<p>

lol. And you appear to be severly misinformed. Your statement <i>"Billions of people are using cameras in those countries every day. No problems."</i> would be funny if it wasn't so sadly ignorant of the facts.

<p>

<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,200701,00.html">read about it here</a>

<p>

Let's take a look at Indonesia here. This is simply East Timor alone - this barely scratches the surface. It doesn't even cover election time for the rest of the country nor does it cover Irian Jaya.

<p>

February 24<br>

Jose Alberto Carvalho, SIC Television ATTACKED

Jose Maria Cyrni, SIC Television ATTACKED

<p>

February 25 <br>

Australian journalists THREATENED<br>

Suara Timor Timur THREATENED<br>

John Aglionby, The Guardian THREATENED, HARASSED<br>

Jenny Grant, South China Morning Post THREATENED, HARASSED<br>

<p>

April 11<br>

John Aglionby, The Guardian ATTACKED<br>

Jenny Grant, South China Morning Post ATTACKED<br>

Ric Kurnow, CNBC ATTACKED<br>

Jorge Pinto, Jornal de Noticias ATTACKED<br>

Leonel Castro, Jornal de Noticias ATTACKED<br>

Emmanuel Dunand, Agence France-Presse ATTACKED<br>

<p>

Bernard Estrade, Agence France-Presse THREATENED, ATTACKED, HARASSED<br>

Marie-Pierre Verot, free-lancer THREATENED, ATTACKED, HARASSED<br>

Gerrit de Boer, Volkskrant THREATENED, HARASSED<br>

Dermott O'Sullivan, The Banker THREATENED, HARASSED<br>

<p>

August 23<br>

Amy Goodman, Pacifica Radio EXPELLED<br>

<p>

August 25<br>

John Stanmeyer, Time THREATENED<br>

Heriyanto, Time THREATENED<br>

<p>

August 26<br>

David Longstreath, Associated Press ATTACKED<br>

David Copeland, Associated Press Television News ATTACKED<br>

Bea Wiharta, Reuters ATTACKED<br>

Kornelius Kewa Ama Khayam, Kompas ATTACKED<br>

Jaka, Antara news agency ATTACKED<br>

Marianne Kearney, The Canberra Times ATTACKED<br>

Tjitske Lingsma, The Irish Times ATTACKED<br>

<p>

August 30<br>

Panca, Lorosae Radio ATTACKED<br>

<p>

September 1<br>

Jonathan Head, BBC ATTACKED<br>

<p>

September 21<br>

Jon Swain, The Sunday Times ATTACKED<br>

Chip Hires, Gamma ATTACKED<br>

<p>

September 21<br>

Sander Thoenes, free-lancer KILLED<br>

<p>

September 25<br>

Agus Muliawan, Asia Press International KILLED<br>

<p>

This is just for Timor and only for '99. It'd be the same for the Aceh province only the gov. got smart and imposed a media blackout to cover up attrocities commmitted by (yet again) the military and state funded militias.

<p>

If you wanted to start listing all the abuses of photographers (not to mention journalists) in China - you may run out of room to scroll if it all the incidents were posted. Stephen Schaeffer (AFP Beijing) was beaten up in Tiannemen Square by undercover cops - this is why he was he transferred to AFP Bangkok. The list could go on and on.

<p>

Again your ignorance show in regards to the state of affairs in Russia.

<p>

<a href="http://www.cpj.org/enemies/worst_places_04/worst_places_04.html">lose the hype and learn the facts here</a>

<p>

<i>"..should I have made the second PR company "B" pay for the pleasure of using my photographs. "</i>

<p>

The answer is a resounding YES! You are not going into business to make friends. You're there to make money. If they want an image then they should pay for it. Why give away images for free? It sets a bad example. It devalues your services and devalues the services of other photographers in your area.

<p>

If PR co. B was sending a ton of work your way and you could justify giving usage rights for an image based on the fact that they were bringing you a continuous voulume of work then - maybe.

<p>

My experience has been that PR companies are very cheap when it comes to photographers. And usually what kills me is that they usually mark up your services to the client. It hacks me off as I have had their clients come up to me and ask why I am 'so damn' expensive' - when I found out how much the PR company was charging I was gobsmacked! Especially in this particular case I'd gone round and round on pricing with them. They used every trick in the book to leverage my pricing down - in the end they sheepishly agreed to pay my original fee's.

<p>

Sigh. Now I just generally avoid them. The amount of hassle is not worth it. Most event stuff never looks that great in a book anyhow unless your gunning for more event work.

<p>

Make them pay if they want the images. Do not screw yourself and do not screw it up for other photographers.

<i>"Does a soft drink vendor have the right to take a photograph of you in a public place consuming their product and use it in a marketing blitz? ..."</i>

<p>

You are confusing the issue here. Sarah Johnson was not shooting an ad campaign for Coke. She was 'street' shooting. She made no mention of commercial intent here. Shooting in public with recognizable people and then attempting to use those shots for advertising purposes is a completely different issue. So when we speak of rights here we are not speaking of 'opinions' but 'rights' under the law. So NO, it is not illegal to photograph someone in public therefore there is NO need to ask permission. Again whether you consider it bad manners or a social taboo of some kind - that again is a completely different issue for you and your conscience to wrestle with - it has zippity-doo-da with my ability to take pictures of people, places and things in a public space.

<p>

<i>"Show me the pictures on your digital camera and delete the ones of me that I don't want you to have. Take out the film in your camera and give it to me."</i>

<p>

Again surely you must be joking. If anyone came up and requested/demanded my film or tried to make me erase digital images they'd be kindly informed of my right to take pictures in public of anything/anyone I bloody well please! If they wanted to escalate the situation they are free to do so but on many different levels they'd end up losing - first at the end of my fist if they try to get touchy feely and second at the end of a judges gavel in court when they get run up on assault charges.

"Just don't get trapped in a Maoist controlled village when the Nepalese govt decide to attack it."

I think you have it backwards there. The rebels have basically had free run of the country. They have outgunned and outsmarted the government troops in almost every skirmish they've had. They have not dealt lightly with the police either - wiping out entire police battalions.

Tom, I would think you need to do quite a bit more research than just asking here on Photo.net. They basically have a civil war on their hands - not something to take lightly.

Someone above posted that they don't have any record in taking hostages - not westerners but there have been plenty of Nepalese hostages that have been executed - a reason to worry. Though I don't think it's becoming a hostage you have to worry about it's getting caught up in a firefight between gov. troops and rebels or a bomb blast. Shrapnel and stray bullet don't distinguish between Nepalese and non-Nepalese. If their gov. soldiers have the same lax standards as when I was there this an all too real possibility. The soldiers that stay in Nepal are not the famed Gurhka Rifles - far from it. Most seem to be hustling for the black market at every turn. In a fire fight they would not hesitate to cut you down and then blame it on the rebels. I am sure of it. They certainly are very heavy handed in the western districts. Many districts had a 9p.m. curfew that truck loads of soldiers savagely enforced. Something most tourists never see in Tamel.

The rebels killed no less than 3 mayors in Dhangadi this year alone. The last by an exploding booby trap. These kinds of explosives do not discriminate between westerner and Nepali either.

As for their (the current Gov.) running of the country.. they can't possibly do any worse than the inept and corrupt leaders they have now. There is no 'military solution' for the current gov. The Maosim twist can't be any good though either. Nepal is one of those countries that is some kind of Shrangi-La for Westerners but the average Nepali lives in grinding poverty. If you could have a dime for every western hippy dipshit running around with a rasta tam and higher than a kite on local dope in Nepal I could support the entire country and then some. To truly see westerners make asses out of themselves stroll through Thamel.

In the last 3 years I have spent quite a bit of time in NPA (New Peoples Army) and Abu Sayef territory in the southern Phillipines. Maragusan, Zamboanga and General Santos City. I found that clear from being a cohesive rebel group - there were many different factions with much infighting and I spent a huge amount of time waiting around to get through NPA areas under the control of a different group than the one I had arrived with. After one or two very scarey encounters with MINLF (Morro Islamic Liberation Front) - 16 year old kids with automatic weapons and doped up on 'shabu' I ditched the idea of a story on them all together. No one gave a fuck about whether you were Western in the sense that they would be worried of international intervention - many are very fatalistic and don't figure they are going to come out on top anyhow - I don't think the Maoist rebels are terribly different in that respect. I was there when when the US sent in troops to the south and the rebels simply blended back into the population no sweat.

If you were to even get in with Maoist backed rebel group in Nepal (which I imagine will be extremely difficult) it will take you a real ton of time to earn their trust and come away with any decent footage. A major problem will be language. The other major problem will be avoiding food poisoning. If your squirtin' your insides out you can't be shooting. In Nepal the sanitation standards are some of the lowest in the world - and I am not talking Kathmandu and the trekking towns. I live in Asia so I know the score and we're not exactly the most hygenic here in China - but Nepal is really bad. As for language there are so many different ethincities in Nepal - and more friggin dialects than you can shake a stick at.

You will definitely want a man on the ground there. A local who can act as a fixer. I was there before the Maoist starting making the international news - and there were some regions heading into western Nepal where we kept getting yanked off buses by soldiers. They were not very keen to see me running around with so much camera gear. They gave my fixer a very hard way to go and we ended up paying out every now and then to avoid further hassle. There were two instances where we simply were not allowed to proceed any further. We got turned back and not a taxi or vehicle for miles around - it was a long !@#!! walk I can tell you.

If you do meet up with rebels expect to pay 'tax' they ask it of the locals and you will be expected to contribute. You will hardly be in the position to refuse. Also be forewarned if you end up in village with rebels in it and the government shows that village will very quickly become a battle ground.

While the rebels operate to some degree in all of Nepals 75 districts there stronghold is in the west. The roads are a nightmare. Medical attention is on a local level only and in most villages there is no electricity.

I would really do a lot more in depth research before you head out there to do a story on that. Good luck.

Quinn,

Send it in. For a single reason alone. If you are shooting another wedding and your flash decides to f*ck up for whatever reason - then you are going to be out quite a bit of greenbacks.

As things do - it will screw up at the most inconvenient, catastrophic and costly time. The kiss after the vows, the cake cutting - heck even way before - the father presenting the bride. You will end up looking like a putz and will be doing dishes that is if you're not drawn and quartered by the bride and groom's family.

LOL.

Bro send that thing in.