Archive for the ‘Photo Tips’ CategoryFirst Video BlogTuesday, August 24th, 2010Here’s my first video blog entry, an introduction to the XF300. Still need to improve on the video blogging, primarily an issue of learning to take the right amount of footage to begin with. The XF300 is awesome though. Easy to work with and beautiful looking files.
Blog 8-23-10 from Rick Brown on Vimeo. Video InfoThursday, February 11th, 2010If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I am currently very much involved in expanding my business into hd video. The current focus is deciding on a camcorder as I am currently using the 5dII and with the work I do, I think a combination of the two would be the best solution. Use a dedicated camcorder for the bulk of the work and the 5dII for sequences where depth of field control is important, or perhaps shooting in very low light, etc. Having been a still photographer most of my life though, I had no idea where to look for info. With Canon’s recent announcement that their next camcorder is going to use a 50Mbps 4:2:2 codec, I went wild trying to find more info. Well, recently I came across two very useful sites. DVInfo and MacVideo. Ok, I’m a PC guy, editing on Premiere Pro, but MacVideo is still incredibly useful for information about the cameras. There’s this guy there, Rick Young, who breaks it down exactly the way I think of it; proof is in the pudding and when you’re talking expanding your business into hd video, pudding=picture quality and can you market the footage. So, if you too are looking to do these sorts of things, I suggest you check out these sites. Expect a big post within a week or so about NANPA. The summit is next week, I’m very excited. Now to think up what my next conservation oriented documentary will be. Photograph PeopleSunday, January 31st, 2010Here I’m going to give a tip that is a painful one for many of us conservation photographers; if you want to maximize your impact, photograph people. Yes that’s right, Rick, the guy many think can only photograph ducks, is telling you to photograph people. Magazines are often looking to engage the reader in the article through the photographs and apparently many think humans can’t feel connected to a member of the species Anas acuta. Personally, I find this both sad and shocking. However, the fact remains that if you want to maximize the impact of your photography for conservation, you should probably also be photographing people doing the conservation work and enjoying the fruits of their labors. The latter are called “lifestyle” or “outdoor lifestyle” images, a genre that I myself am now pushing myself to get into deeper. Another tip with lifestyle images, if you want to maximize the versatility of the images, make sure your models are wearing modern and stylish clothes. This increases the odds of them being useful for advertising as well as editorial. You can see some of my work in this field in these galleries; lifestyle and conservation. |