Category Archives: Products
Video Blog: A Christmas (Card) Story
For a change of pace I decided to do a video blog. Please let me know what you think.
It has a certain “homemade” feel to it. I think “homemade” sounds better than some of the other synonyms I can think of …
The Print
The digital age has brought us the web, iPad, 27″ monitors. One thing that it hasn’t replaced is the photographic print.
This isn’t an either/or discourse.
Each display medium has its own look and feel, and its own place. But the technology differences between the print and the LCD lead to 2 different experiences. One isn’t “better” than the other – they both have their place – but there is something about holding a print that makes it a compelling experience. We can touch it. It has texture and dimension. It breathes.
Rather than emitting light it reflects it. It has subtlety and a presence about it. It is what we think of when we hear the word “photograph.”
I’m not talking about the one done at the drug store or the super store. I am talking quality – the oversight and execution by the photographer to ensure that his vision is realized. A properly printed image has depth and dimension the mass-produced ones don’t.
When we think of a portrait, we always think of the print. Yes we have facebook images, but we don’t really see these as proper portraits, do we? They seem something less. But the print, it is regal. Properly mounted and framed and on display it becomes a finished art piece. A masterpiece.
Indulge yourself. Have a high quality print made. You deserve it.
Headshots Fit for a Queen
In this case, Miss Seminole County, Morgan Alexis Byers.
I prefer to keep these conservative, and there are guidelines for submission. Simple gradient background and beauty lighting, which is flattering yet flat (in the sense that there are no defining facial shadows; the falloff from the beauty dish sculpts the face beautifully, though).
So these are for submission to the pageant, and for the ad in the program.
This doesn’t mean, however, that while we’re at it we can’t create art as well. This is a contemporary headshot done in landscape rather than the traditional portrait orientation, with posing and post-processing that have become a signature style of mine.
Art vs. Tool
Most of the pictures I publish are what I consider “art.” You know – the stuff you hang on your wall. If it’s a portrait, it should still be art. Ditto for the dance pic. Meaning there should be some skill in their execution – you know what I mean.
Sometimes, however, you need photographs to do more for you than be art. They gotta earn. Perform work for you. They need to be a tool.
Like Wikipedia says:
A tool is any item that is used to achieve a goal, especially one that is not consumed in the process.
Maybe the ultimate photographic tool for the dancer is the comp card. Again I turn to Wikipedia (hey, it beats typing):
A comp card (also called composite card, z card or sed card) is a marketing tool for actors and especially models. They serve as the latest and best of a model’s portfolio and are used as a business card.
Hey Wiki – they’re for dancers too. Because like the model, a dancer needs to market herself. In as concise a manner as possible they need to highlight – both with pictures and words – what they look like, what they have done, and what they can do. Business cards don’t tell enough of a story. Books tell too much of one. Comp cards are a single sheet and thus are convenient, yet are large enough to say what ya gotta say.
And a picture, you know, says a thousand words. But sometimes you need those words, too. Just not a whole lot of them.
Front Side
Back Side
Traditionally they are 8 ½ x 5 ½ and two sided. This allows for a large enough size to convey enough information while being able to fit in a folder. They can also be economically printed (although one shouldn’t skimp on the printing – go for the best).
