Stock Photgraphy – Fine Print

Okay, this is part two following on from yesterday’s article about the potential for shooting Stock Photography, which is one more post than I planned, but I am on a roll. As Gordon had reminded me off-line, beware of the fine print with a potential stock agency.

And the fine print includes, who takes on the copyright of your photography, do you keep it or do they get to “assign” it? (hint: you want to keep the copyright, unless they offer you a ton of money). There are all kinds of financial and legal aspects that you should keep in mind and read at least once before you sign up.

Also, make sure you understand the photographic technical requirments for you images.  As an example, hereare the digital photography requirements at alamy.com Thus, the Bavarian castle picture above is nicely composed, it does not meet the technical requirements for a submission. I was leading a small group from my day-job on a sight-seeing week-end day and was only carrying my Canon G-2 for “snap” shots. The G-2 is a 4 Megapixel compact. Alamy needs Pro-level camera platforms with a minimum of 6 Mp. Now a difference of 2Mp may not seem like much, but when you compare the sensor sizes, lens quality & resolution, pixel density (12 bit RAW vs 14 bit) and the list goes on, I have a very nice memento, not a stock photograph.

So there are some minimum equipment requirements for Stock that you need to be aware of. Even my Canon XTi at 10.2 Mp shooting RAW at 12 bits is very borderline, although I use the top end Canon L lens. I do not have any image capture issues when I use my Hasselblad and 120 film, but it does take an investment in time to spot those digital files after I scan the negative or transparency.

So read carefully, but if you think that this might be an opportunity, jump in. Just as I might.

Best regards, Doug

Shamelessly Self-promoting myself

One of the things you are suppose to do, if you want to be noticed and eventually sell a print or book or get a gallery representation, is to promote yourself. And in a round about way, I have been. And then again, I have not been really diligent in this area. sigh

As I read other blogs & web-sites by photographers and painters, I realize that I could do a little bit more shameless self-promo stuff. Such as keeping an update on the side bar where I am providing a workshop, I’m in an exhibition or keep track of when someone has something nice to say about me. Okay, only when something nice  is said, eh, so we will try to ignore the occasional flaming.

So I have added some new sidebars to this blog  to help take care of that. And so on my to-do list is to add these same items to my information page to my web site. I have a couple of these items on my web site, but not all of them.

Best regards, Doug

Friday at photo l.a.

At the moment, I am making plans for a day in Santa Monica and at photo l.a.  Laura Russell and I are meeting for morning coffee to put finishing touches on the workshop at her gallery in March.

Then I want to head over to Bergamont Station in Santa Monica for the rest of the morning to do some gallery walking and potentially collect some material and information to write a gallery exhibition reivew. And the momentum is building for the collaborative blog Photo Exhibit. We have someone covering London, Tokyo, SF, San Diego, Denver, Austin/Centeral Texas and now a reviewer pending for the Netherlands. Very nice.

Then over to photo l.a. for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. It will be a busy day, as I have a couple of books to read and prepare my reviews on site, as the Bruce Davison limited edition book by Verso Limited Editions is $12,500, so no review copies available for that one! And there are a bunch of folks that I have been in email contact that I now hope to put a face with the name.

I had really hoped to attend this local event last year, but as some of you might recall, I had a paying gig in Shanghia, so you just gotta follow the money trail, eh? And the personal photographic series that I had a chance to develop in China is pretty impressive (well, at least to me).

Anyhow, it will be a full day and hopefully I will see some of you there as I walk about. So give a shout if you spot me, eh?

Best regards, Doug

Okay, what to look for; blue jeans, tennies, Hawiian shirt, glasses, grayish hair & looking cool.

Update: Photo l.a. was photographic exhibitions on overload! What a great time. I met with Laura in the morning and did some brainstorming on why certain things occured in the second edition of the Sharpening book, such as some wierd typographic things. Overall, she really liked the use of the Blurb ICC color management when we compared images in the book to the actual print.

Then I did a quick tour of Bergamont Station and saw the tail end of the Michael Kenna exhibit at the Craig Krull Gallery, the ongoing Lilian Bassman at the Peter Fetterman Gallery, the pre-opening of John Divola’s Dark Star exhibition at the Gallery Luisotti Gallery  (leverging my writing for Photo Exhibit) and then helping with the unwraping of the Malone Mills photographs for her Orb exhibit at Frank Pictures (also leveraging my writing for Photo Exhibit). So I have some exhibition reviews to write and publish on Photo Exhibit.

Then over to photo l.a. for at noon for the rest of the day. I ran into a bunch of friends from the Photo Exchange and we had a wonderful & teasing lunch together, but I ended up walking most of the show with my buddy Paul Mounce. Who seemed to be very patient (and wondered off to continue looking at photographs) when I stopped to review a book or interview a photographer for The Photo Book. Photo l.a. is a teaser show, with most galleries bringing and exhibiting only a couple of photographs for most photographers they represent. So a lot of photographs, but limited in number.

The rumor was that certain galleries were laying claim to specific photographers and letting other galleries that also represented the same photogrpher know that they were going to be the only ones who should exhibit that photographer at the show. Interesting back room stuff that I just did not want to get into.

Overall, a great experience, but the take away was that with some exceptions, most of the photographs that were exhibited were the classics, not a lot of which were pushing the contemporary edge, such as Chris McGaw at the Duncan Miller Gallery booth.

Most interesting experience for me was to meet,  interview and discuss the exhibited photographs with the Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko. His metaphoric photographs utilize longer exposures of people and places to provide a sense of time and experience. A shared concept and one that I have connection with, but a process that Alexey has been consitently using since 1992. I will be expounding more on this later this month when I review his book Alexey Titarenko: Photographs, published by Nailya Alexander Gallery, on The Photo Book.

Best regards, Doug

UnCritical Mass acceptance

Urban Redevelopment #10, 2008, copyright of Douglas Stockdale

Well from the ashes of defeat, a really nice post-submission group exhibit.

I was “juried In” to the group exhibit, UnCritical Mass, by Liz Kuball, who also had an UnCritical Mass submission. And from a review of those of us that did not get pass the first cut, the judging must have been a really tough assignment, because just look at the awesome work by those who did not make it. You know what, I am equally honored to be in Liz’s group exhibit.

My blog intent – still evolving

I wrote the following as an updated note to an earlier entry, but it probably needs a seperate published manisfesto:

I have been trying to reconcile the writing I do for this blog versus The Photo Exchange, were I am the current Managing Editor, so for this subject (The Business of Fine Art Phtograph) and similar topics regarding the business of (Fine Art) photography, I will be posting those on The Photo Exchange. Thus, this journal will be more about my development of my photographic projects, series, singular images, photographs and the like.

Unless I have some technical glitch I want to crab about or want to extrol the benefits of some equipment, I defer to the ton of other blogs who think that this is more important than I do.

I realize that this declariation will probably reduce my readership to a mere pitance, but in am writing  to fete my thoughts and feelings about the work I do, so be it.

But I will probably change my mind about this again tomorrow;- )

Best regarsds, Doug

Limited Editions – Current Reality

I continue to contemplate the use of Limited Editions for my photographs after my lengthly discussion with Hal Gould while in Denver last week. There really is a lengthly list of pros and cons on this issue, but I guess it does come down to individual philosphy and creative intent.

In reality, there is no limit to the amount of photographic prints that can be made from a negative or electronic file, especially if you allow others to make your prints for you. If you complete your own printing, it is limited to your own life span, eh?

Photolucida – Photo Reviews

I recently received an update from Photolucida (Portland, OR) that they are hosting a Nortwest Summer Portfolio Review. My article about the phtoto review that I participated at in Palms Springs received a lot of attention, thus I want to provide another opportunity, but regretfully it is already sold out! Bummer and I was giving this some intense consideration.

They accepted only 80 photograhers for the reviews, which will take place over two days, July 25 and 26 in Portland, OR at the Blue Sky Gallery. Of note, on their web site they do have a PDF regarding their How-to Guidebook for a Photo review, worth reading.

Also while gettng caught up on my reading back-log, I came across an article about Karen Irvine, the Curator of the Museum of Contemporary Photography (Columbia College, Chicago, IL) (aka MoCP) and she made the following comment as being a portfolio reviewer:

Well, successful in terms of it a productive exchange and twenty mintues well spent I thingk would mean that either the photographer or myself, or ideally both of us, walk away having learned something. Of course the obvious answer from my side would be to day that success means finding an artist I would like to work with. But to be honest, it rarely happens. Not to be too vague or trite, but to discuss art ina limited, closed context is often a learning experience. There have been times when the art is absolutely not interested in, but the artist is smart or insightful and we have had a good discussion.

Best regards, Doug

Portfolio Reviews – my experience

Having completed a day of portfolio reviews the day before at the Palm Springs Photo Festival, I would like to share my thoughts about the entire process, especially for those who have not been through one, but are considering it.

Palm Springs Photo Festival

Just a quick note that Miguel Garcia-Guzman (Exposure Compensation) and I are looking at our options for attending Connect 08, aka the Palm Springs Photo Festival, at the end of this Month. Were both thinking that we can squeeze in one day, but which? Monday is starting to look good to me at the moment.

Anyone else heading out there and want to meet up?? Let us know….

Best regards, Doug

Foundations – Retrospective Folio

I recently published and started distributing my first Edition Folio, Foundations, as a retrospective collection of my landscape photographs from 1975 to 1985. I want to reflect on what I have learned during the development of this Editioned Folio.

First was my intent for what I wanted to accomplish by completing the Edition Folio of prints. I have a body of natural landscape photographic work that I had completed between 1975 to 1985 that were singular images. At that time that I made these, I did not work on any specific themes or subjects per se other than my strong interest in making natural landscape images and working with the black & white photographic medium. After my interview with Brooks Jensen last November, I realized that a Folio, also called a portfolio, would be an ideal way to assemble and create a unfied body of work that would represent my photographs from this period of time.

Much like the portfolios of Adams, Caponigro and other photographers. I have not felt like this earlier body of work needed to go into print as a book, as my landscape photographs did not bring anything really new to the world. They were my collection of wonderful landscape photographs and they represented my early developmental period for me, both technically and creatively. So that was my intent, to create a collection of Singular Images from a specific period of time, which I have explained in more detail in the Folio Introduction, which you can find here.